Linda Guerrero’s Housing Talk is Wrong and Irresponsible

Austin’s Desperate Need for Housing is Not Controversial

By Nina Hernandez

Featured Image: Cady Lofts, which will have about 100 homes for people who have struggled with homelessness, was opposed by Linda Guerrero.

Recently, KUT Austin published a piece on the District 9 City Council runoff between Zohaib “Zo” Qadri and Linda Guerrero. Specifically, the piece explores the divide between the two candidates on housing. Qadri blames the city’s rising rents and displacement crisis on the city’s land development code, and advocates for making it easier to build missing middle housing like duplexes, fourplexes, and small apartment buildings.

Guerrero, on the other hand, responded to KUT’s questions in a baffling fashion. She calls the idea that Austin has a lack of housing "really controversial" and denies that anyone "that's been displaced [is] saying 'Oh, this is great, there's 5,000 new apartments. I get to come back to Austin.' That's not happening."

KUT did attempt to fact check Guerrero. It cited a 2018 NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy report that found "easing barriers to new construction will moderate price increases and therefore make housing more affordable to low and moderate income families." The reporter also asked Guerrero for evidence to back up her claim, but she did not respond to the request.

Before we get into the details on the city’s well-documented housing shortage, it’s important to call out Guerrero for not responding to KUT’s follow-up. It is unacceptable for a candidate to make poorly researched and downright incorrect claims and then not have the courtesy to produce evidence or simply apologize and say, “I was wrong.”

Because Guerrero is wrong here.

We all know Austin is suffering interrelated affordability and displacement crises. We live that reality every day. Study after study has found that as Austin’s population grew, its stock of affordable rental units, particularly in its Eastern Crescent, shrank. The median income of Austin renters increased over the past decade as those with lower incomes were forced out of town.

But would more housing units help solve the problem? Yes. KUT helpfully cites another study that looked at the effect of housing supply on rents in New York City and found -- unsurprisingly -- that with every 10% increase in new homes, rent on nearby apartments fell by 1%."

No credible person denies these facts. And Linda Guerrero, who has opposed affordable housing developments such as Cady Lofts, which will provide about 100 homes for people who have struggled with homelessness and, as a landlord, has directly benefited from rising rents in the city, clearly isn’t offering up any competing evidence. Her insistence that the question is still up for debate is reminiscent of climate change denialism. No matter what evidence you present, no matter how well-researched and litigated the issue, they’ll simply deflect with empty skepticism.

The truth is that Austin is in the middle of a population boom that started in the 1990s. An influx of people, mainly white, moved into Austin, particularly central and east. That drove out longtime residents, the majority of which were Black and Brown. Over the years, the housing supply that did exist continued to become more and more unaffordable. In 2017, the city adopted a Strategic Housing Blueprint that called for 135,000 new housing units by 2028 to keep up with the demand. By all metrics, the city is continually failing to meet its goals. Meaning that we are absolutely not currently building enough housing for our needs. As a result, housing and rental prices continue their skyward trajectory.

So is our need for housing in Austin controversial? By Linda Guerrero’s standards, a lot of things could be considered controversial. Do greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change? Who’s to say? Isn’t that controversial? No, it’s not controversial. We know it’s not and we can say that. We don’t have to accept this housing denialism as part of our civil discourse. The sea levels are rising. Astronauts did land on the moon. And Austin does need more housing. To say anything less is not only wrong, it’s delusional and irresponsible.

Early voting is happening now and goes through Friday Dec. 9, and election day is Tuesday Dec. 13th. There’s still time to vote to make sure your representative is someone that cares about the struggle for affordable housing, like Celia Israel and Zo Qadri.

Find your early and election day voting locations here:

https://countyclerk.traviscountytx.gov/departments/elections/current-election/#polling-locations

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