Racial Equality: Building a Better Austin for Latinos – Part Two

Affordability issues affect almost everyone living in Central Texas, especially during a pandemic, but housing inequities are amplified for Hispanics and Latinos who live in a boomtown like Austin.  

"I was born and raised in 78702," said Cynthia Vasquez.

It's ZIP code in East Austin where Black and Latino history and culture runs deep through the structures and the people who live there

"Our houses were actually made by my family," said Vasquez. "Remember running around through the framework with flashlights when I was seven or eight years old.”

Vasquez said her family owned five homes in East Austin. The hard work that went into building them was worth it, thanks to the community it created. It was replenished with the love they shared inside and outside of their homes on Robert Martinez Street.

"I could walk to my neighbor's house to borrow anything that I needed," she remembered. "I could play with my friends and my classmates two houses down. But, most importantly, I had family on the same block that I lived on."

As time went on, Vasquez said one by one her family members found themselves forced out. With the blow of gentrification, they were unable to afford the increasing property taxes. One by one, they sold their homes, including the one she lived in with her mother.

RELATED: Austin’s gentrification problem: How we got here

"All of our support networks, our entire lives have been in that maybe five-block radius," she said. "So we were forced to move into the extra bedrooms that my aunt had."

While Vasquez eventually found somewhere else in the city to live, that isn't always the case for others. 

“So from 2016 to '18, the district lost close to 2,000 Latino households, left the district, and approximately half of those were families that left that couldn't afford to stay in Austin anymore and that were pushed out to outlying districts," said University of Texas Law Professor Heather Way.

Way walked us through the Holly neighborhood in East Austin, where we saw the lots where old homes once stood that are now redeveloped into higher-end homes or complexes. As we drove around, we could see how the community has transformed.

"Central East Austin has seen the dramatic changes in housing and who's living here," said Way. "You've seen many, many households move in of a higher income that are buying existing affordable, single-family homes and tearing them down and building million-dollar homes right here in Central East Austin. At the same time, you have families making $15,000 a year that are just really struggling to hang on and to get by."

The quick walking or biking distance from downtown also made the area very vulnerable to gentrification.

According to Zillow, the typical value of a home in the 78702 ZIP code, which is most of East Austin, has increased by almost 10% this year at about $490,000. And they predict it will go up another 8% next year.

So, how did the financial and housing inequities become so disproportional between minorities and white people?

Income and housing inequalities Latinos face today started with discriminatory policies that were put into place in Austin as early as the 1900s.

“So, starting back as early as 1930s, for example, when public housing was first built in this city ... we're standing right now in front of the Santa Rita Court. It was the first public housing complex that was built in the U.S. under the 1937 Federal Housing Act, and that this complex was created solely for Mexican Americans," Way explained.

At the time, parts of East Austin were called the Negro District. 

Santa Rita Courts was one of three public housing complexes that were segregated by race. It was designated for Mexican Americans. 

"In many neighborhoods throughout the city, you had restrictive covenants, deed restrictions that were filed in government records that barred a homeowner from selling their home to an African American or Latino household," said Way.  

There was also a slew of other discriminatory practices against Blacks and Latinos, like redlining, which made it almost impossible for people who lived in parts of East Austin to get a loan to make home improvements. 

"One of the policies that's the most, just shocking, was the City's 1957 industrial planning program, where the City owned all of the land in this area in Central East Austin to industrial, even single-family houses," said Vasquez. "It was environmental racism."

All of these policies and practices fueled decades of deterioration of minority-driven neighborhoods – not just sidewalks and homes, but education wasn't up to par compared to the schools with better housing opportunities.

Vasquez said there is one consequence she has to face every day as she drives to and from work on Fifth Street, and that's emotional anxiety.

"Nobody talks about the emotional impacts of seeing a building there one day and seeing a gaping hole the next, and you used to go there every single day of your life," she said. 

"It's grief, it's actually the feeling of grief. It's disorienting, it's traumatic, it causes health problems, it leads to addiction," added Carmen Llanes Pulido. "There's all kinds of issues in our community that result from this tearing apart of the fabric that's held people together."

This is why these women became community activists, to encourage people who have a hand in city planning, like Mandy De Mayo, to find a way to stitch up the fabric of the community. 

"We're up against market forces, with our hands tied behind our backs trying to figure out strategies that we can implement as a city that our state legislature has allowed us to have the power to do, which sometimes is a challenge and we're working," said De Mayo, the community development administrator for the City of Austin.

She said, recently, they merged with the Housing and Planning Department, creating a division to focus on displacement prevention. So far, she said they are putting into place 15 displacement strategies. 

One of them is the emergency rental assistance program, where Latinos make up 37% of people in the program, which she believes will go beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, and, more recently, Project Connect, a $7.1 billion public transit plan approved by voters. While it does raise the property tax rate, it includes $300 million for anti-displacement housing strategies.

"That may range from acquiring land around Project Connect lines. It may be emergency rental assistance helping people stay in their homes around that. It may be targeted home repair. It could be a variety of different things," said De Mayo.

De Mayo said the City continues to do extensive research and outreach to the lower-income community to make sure the changes made align with their needs.

“We're going to have to have much more government support for public housing and other forms of affordable housing," added Way. "Without that, we're going to continue to see this dramatic outflux of Latino households who just can't afford to live here anymore.”

"We have a chance to interrupt and not repeat the same mistakes, but we're all waiting," added Llanes Pulido. "We're all waiting for the powers that be to wake up to the power of the community."

Housing and income inequality can have a big effect on health.

KVUE's Bryan Mays spoke with Nadia Siddiqui from the Texas Health Institute about health equity in Texas.

Your study found that less than a third of Hispanic adults in Texas say they have a high health status. What obstacles stand between Hispanics and health equity here in Texas?

Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be their healthiest possible life, and a key term here is "opportunity."

Hispanics in Texas are half as likely to live in low-poverty, thriving neighborhoods compared to white Texans.

Hispanics have lower rates of achieving post-secondary education, lower rates of having livable, sustainable incomes that can truly sustain a healthy living.

The confluence of these multiple factors are really standing as important barriers to Hispanics in Texas.

Your study also found that Hispanics in Texas are less likely to have insurance coverage. What are some ways to fix that specifically?

The HOPE Initiative found that nonelderly Hispanic adults have the lowest rate of health insurance coverage in Texas.

With the rising numbers of uninsured amid the pandemic, we know that 2.2 million more Texans are eligible for Medicaid, should it be expanded, and 60% of those are Hispanic Latinos – and so a huge opportunity to really close some of our health insurance coverage gaps by simply expanding Medicaid, that would allow us to draw down billions of dollars from the federal government.

Let's talk about food security. That was a big part of the study as well. Another 1.5 million Hispanics in Texas still need better access to food. What are some ways to address this very important issue?

We have a large number of communities that are food deserts and food swamps within our state, and reversing and really investing in communities so that liquor stores and fast-food restaurants in our communities and neighborhoods are not outnumbering healthy food options and healthy food stores.

Latinos make up the largest non-white voting block in the country, with 32 million eligible to vote nationwide. And census estimates show the Hispanic population could surpass the white population, and become the largest population group in Texas by the middle of next year.

Both Republicans and Democrats said the so-called "Latino" vote would be crucial in this year's election, but campaigns can't take a one-size-fits-all approach to cater to so many voters.

Pundits and political experts will talk a lot about the Latino vote and its importance in Texas. To understand that, it's important to first understand the numbers.

In the U.S., California, Texas, Florida, New York and Arizona are the top five states for Latino eligible voters. Texas ranks second overall with more than 5 million Latino eligible voters.

When we look at the actual number of eligible Hispanic voters who showed up to the polls in the past few elections, you can see it's on the rise – 40.5% in 2016 and 38.8% in 2012.

"The future of really winning power in Texas is going to hinge on winning the Hispanic-Mexican origin – popular vote," said Peter Ward, a professor at the University of Texas.

But the Latino vote varies from state to state, and some say their past or where they came from could shape who they vote for.

"That plays a crucial role. So, for example, Cubans are traditionally more conservative, more likely to vote Republican," said Raul Madrid with UT. "Mexicans are more liberal, more likely to vote Democrat. Same is true of Puerto Ricans. Central Americans, in general, tend to vote more Democrat but, whereas, some people from some South American countries like Venezuela tend to be more conservative. Some of that is part of the experience of growing up or under the regimes that they grew up under."

RELATED: An early glimpse at how Hispanics, Latinos may have voted in the 2020 election

In Texas, when it comes to immigrant eligible voters, 52% are Hispanic – far more than other races or ethnicities.

"I mean, because the Hispanic population is the most rapidly expanding population, that's the population that really is up for grabs," he said.

But how engaged are Latino voters in our area?

Professor Ruth Wasem with UT's LBJ School of Public Affairs worked in Washington, D.C., for more than 25 years, testifying before U.S. Congress on things like asylum policy and immigration. She recently conducted a study, which, in part, looked at civic participation in Texas's four biggest cities – Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin.

"And Austin has the lowest score of civic engagement," said Wasem. "So that's going to be one of the things the City of Austin needs to work on ... It could affect turnout in the extent to which Latinos are engaged here in Austin in the election."

Another potential barrier for Latino voters is access to voter registration.

RELATED: 2020 Election: The impact of the Latino vote in Texas

"It's much easier in Latin America to vote," said Madrid. "People are oftentimes automatically registered to vote. You don't have to sign up. And, in some cases, as I mentioned, voting is compulsory in Latin America. There are barriers to registration. You need to fill out the form. For example, if you change your address, you need to fill out another form, etc. So it's not an automatic, easy process, and that has gotten in the way of the Latino vote. And, of course, some Latinos who live in Austin are not eligible to vote, and so that's also a factor."

Wasem said not being a naturalized citizen makes a difference.

"So, I would say the trend in Austin, I have every reason to think that that trajectory of increased civic engagement is already happening, not that more can't be done to increase civic engagement," she said.

The City of Austin has some resources on its website to help out with civic engagement. When you go to register to vote, it's hard to miss the signs that include Spanish, inviting all to "Vote Texas."

We also caught up with Antonio Arellano, the executive director of Jolt Action, a group focused on increasing voter participation among Latinos in Texas.

He discussed why politicians can't simply lump all Latino voters together when it comes to campaigning:

"The Latino vote is culturally, ideologically and linguistically diverse, and it's important that we recognize the diversity within this constituency. 

"What we saw in this election is the growing power of the Latino electorate – 500,000 first-time Latino voters came out and voted during early voting this election cycle, and you're going to see that trend continue to tick up as the population in the state continues to change. 

"This election cycle proved one thing, and that's that we can no longer say that 'Latinos don't vote.' That's simply factually incorrect. Latinos are voting in Texas and they're voting in record numbers. 

"We've got to recognize that Texas is massive, right? It's the size of three Georgias. So the Latino voter in Dallas is very different from the Latino voter in the Rio Grande Valley. 

"We need to stop looking at the Latino vote as an entity ... and treat it as a constituency that demands recruitment. We can't afford for Latino voters to be an afterthought. We need to be prioritized from the very beginning, and politicians need to start visiting the areas and communities that make Texas so much richer."

Hispanics and Latinos make up more than half of all students in Austin ISD schools, but equal access to education is something districts across Texas have struggled with.

"If you look at education outcomes in general and specifically at equity in education, it is the civil rights issue of our day," said Susan Dawson, president of E3 Alliance. "It is the opportunity for students to have a chance to succeed in life, but only if we as a community are willing to change systems to allow all students to access that opportunity."

Even if all kids get the same access to education, punishments in schools are a big problem for students of color.

"That's an example of a policy that disrupts, something that is harmful to children," said Dr. Stephanie Hawley, chief equity officer for AISD.

AISD students of color are suspended more often than their white counterparts.

KVUE's news partners at the Austin American-Statesman found in the 2018-19 school year, 7.4% of the district's Black students were suspended, compared to 3.6 of Hispanic students and 1.5% of white students.

AISD has stopped suspending pre-K through third-grade kids, and district leaders are also working on an "equity action plan" to figure out how to serve all children equally.

KVUE Reporter and Anchor Pattrik Perez wanted to share a personal note about his struggles with his own Latino identity – and his message for young Latinos.

Hey there, Pattrik Perez here!

For those of you who don't know much of my background, let me give you a quick run-through.

I was born in Caracas, Venezuela, to a Mexican father and the American daughter of Cuban refugees. I lived there for six years before moving to Miami, Florida. My mom and my brother were born there, and my mom wanted me to have better opportunities.

Growing up, all I wanted to do was fit in – to be like the people I saw on TV, in the movies. I wanted to "Americanize" myself as much as possible. I remember I would sometimes refuse to speak Spanish, despite it being my first language.

Fast-forward all these years later. As an adult, I carry a sense of guilt – guilt for not embracing my Latino heritage, guilt for not learning more about the wonderful cultures that make up my family.

So, all that to say, for the young Latinos and Latinas out there, never once feel bad that you may not look like or be like the other kids at school or the ones on the screen. Instead, love every part of you that's different, because that's what makes you special. You may regret it later in life if you don't.

Oh, and one more thing. This is something my mom has always told me, even to this day – practica tu español!

KVUE thanks you for joining us for these past two nights to talk about racial equality, and how we can build a better Austin, specifically for Latinos. 

These conversations are hard to have, but they're not new and they're not going away.