Recently Policy Analyst Amanda Pope with Houston Food Bank and Associate Program Manager Jordan Pacelli Everett with Prevention Institute published an Op-Ed in the Houston Chronicle on the upcoming legislation HB 32 and SB 38. You can read the piece here.
Houston Food Bank strives to address the root causes of food insecurity, we recognize one of the biggest contributing factors is housing instability. As Amanda and Jordan put it, “the bills are Trojan horse policies that would dismantle protections for all renters in Texas. These bills would fast-track evictions, strip tenants of due process, weaken rules for how tenants are notified of an eviction and reduce opportunities for legal representation — leaving families vulnerable to homelessness, hunger and preventable health crises.”
You can learn more about HB 32 here, and SB 38 here.
We work to meet the needs of our neighbors. Increasing housing instability actively hampers those efforts. They continue, “When evictions become an assembly line, instead of a last resort, it’s the government and non-profit sectors — homeless shelters, emergency rooms and food banks — that absorb the cost. But they are not built to carry the weight of a housing crisis. For Houston Food Bank, we are a front line witness to the policies that push people to our lines.”