Texas City Loses $45 Million After Housing Project Fail

Houston may have to return tens of millions of dollars earmarked for affordable housing development after the city struggled to complete the project.

The city, one of the largest in the country, may give back at least $45 million of federal funds to the state of Texas after it was unable to use the cash to fully execute an affordable housing commitment.

The city had plans to create more than 1,000 affordable properties after Hurricane Harvey hit the area. But, according to the Texas Tribune, as of last year, only 136 homes from that project had been constructed. The city has been growing but as the expansion has taken place, affordable housing has become an urgent concern. An estimated half of residents are forced to dedicate more than a third of their income to housing, the Tribune report pointed out.

"We should be talking about why didn't we build the houses when we were on schedule to do so," said Mayor John Whitmire, who came into office in January, according to a report by a local ABC outlet.

Newsweek contacted Mayor Whitmire's office for comment via email on Friday.

Local authorities in the previous city administration had bought lots, according to the report, using funds secured from a disaster recovery program put together after Hurricane Harvey tore through Texas in 2017, though it had been downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it arrived in the state.

In September, officials from the city informed state officials that they were late on kickstarting the affordable housing, ABC 13 reported. This week, the city began the process.

"We're cooperating with GLO (The Texas General Land Office). We hit the restart button," Whitmire, was quoted as saying by ABC 13.

Houston performs poorly on affordable housing rankings. A report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition found the city second, behind Nevada's Las Vegas in struggling to offer its renters affordable homes. There are only 15 affordable rental homes for every 100 low-income households, according to the report.

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Rice University's Kinder Institute for Urban Research in its study from last summer on the state of housing in Houston found the area can be quite expensive.

"From 2015 to 2021, increases in monthly rent prices outpaced increases in median household income," the report said.

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Meanwhile, Houston, like elsewhere in the country, has seen home prices elevated. In February, the average sale price of a single-family home was 4 percent up from a year ago to about $400,000, according to data from the Houston Association of Realtors. The median sale price was also higher by 3 percent to nearly $330,000.