A Little Louder

Favianna and Michael are back for the second and final entry in our 2027 Texas Housers' legislative preview! On this episode, we're tackling housing affordability, making sure tax credits and state programs work for the people, and more in anticipation of the 90th session of the Texas Legislature.Follow along at home, listen to Part 1 here and read our top housing priorities, including our simple one pager, on ⁠TexasHousers.org⁠.

As the end of the year draws closer, Texas Housers is already hard at work developing our plans for the 90th session of the Texas Legislature. With affordability, availability, stability, and safety at top of mind, our Advocacy Director Favianna Orriols joins A Little Louder for our first in a two part episode on our top priorities at the Capitol this coming January and what bills we have our eyes on.Follow along at home and read our top priorities one pager on TexasHousers.org.

We are back with Part 2 of our deep dive into evictions and ownership in Bexar and Harris Counties. After more than half a year of investigation, our research team of Sidney Beaty and Erin Hahn, have completed and shared their final report on the major issues that ultimately cause displacement.Beaty and Hahn join A Little Louder to talk about their conclusions after months of work, how a lack of data transparency hurts tenants, and what can be done to fix the crisis we're in.

The research team at Texas Housers has spent the first half of 2026 focused on analyzing the top evictors in Harris and Bexar counties. What they have found over a series of blogs – soon to be compiled into a report – is that through secrecy and a "profit is king" like culture, businesses are not just able to utilize eviction as a business tactic, but are often rewarded for it.Housers' Sidney Beaty and Erin Hahn joined the podcast to talk through what they have found on eviction in two of the largest cities in the nation and what the data tells us can and should change.

HUD's Continuum of Care program or CoCs are critical support systems for those who are either experiencing or nearing homelessness. These essential lifelines have been in jeopardy in the past few months due to funding reprioritization from the federal government. On this episode of A Little Louder, Hope Rodgers and Billy Streu from Texas Homeless Network join the show to talk through what CoCs actually do and what ground they cover, the issues with their Notice of Funding Opportunities, and where they all stand now.

As we enter 2026, our state leaders will begin laying the tracks for legislative reforms that they will pursue in the next legislative session in early 2027. That means that it is important for us to take stock of the big picture of low-income housing in Texas right now.Texas Housers' research director Ben Martin joins the show to talk about his recent write-up on our website that asks the 7 most critical questions needed to improve low-income housing in our state.

Texas Housers has a new leader in Quiana Fisher, and we sit down with her to go into detail about why she chose this work, what she identifies as our biggest challenges in fighting for low-income households, and what is inspiring her to see that we have the power right now to achieve housing justice.

Texas Housers' top researchers Erin Hahn and Sidney Beaty join A Little Louder to talk about their new interactive projects. The San Antonio Renter Profiles track the costs of renting, who lives where, and challenges that tenants in San Antonio face. The Harris County Eviction Mapping Tool investigates and maps where and how evictions happen, who is affected by them and who is most frequently ordering them. Both Hahn and Beaty break down what they are seeing in large metros like San Antonio and Houston, and explore what it will take to create real change for low-income tenants.

We've come to the end of the 89th Session of the Texas Legislature and we're joined by Texas Housers' research director Ben Martin to take a tally on what happened. In this long and winding session, there was much that was discovered, including some new champions for housing! It's time to review the housing-related bills that passed, failed, and those that should have had a chance.

Hurricane Beryl and the May 2024 derecho showed the powerful and long lasting effects that a wide range of weather events can have. The federal government assessed $229 million in unmet need for home repair and personal property loss. Yet the City of Houston released its Action Plan in May, and there are $0 allocated to housing of any kind. On this episode of A Little Louder, we're joined by Maddie Sloan, Director of the Disaster Recovery and Fair Housing Project at Texas Appleseed. We discuss what is missing from this plan, and we hear directly from tenants who gave their feedback on the plan and what they want to see.If you'd like to particpate or offer comments, the City of Houston will have two virtual meetings on June 10th and June 12th. Written comments can be submitted to the city until Sunday, June 22nd. And all of this information can be found on the City of Houston’s Housing Department website houstontx.gov/housing