By Hazel Trice
Edney Forward Times
https://www.forwardtimes.com/
(TriceEdneyWire.com) — In the new year, many African-American families are bracing for the consequences of a housing law that threatens to destabilize communities that have fought for decades to remain intact. Texas’s House Bill 21 (HB21), passed by the Legislature last session, is already reshaping the state’s affordable housing system, and African-American neighborhoods are likely to bear a disproportionate share of the harm.
For generations, African-American Texans have relied on affordable housing to stay rooted in communities built through resilience, faith, and shared history. In cities across the state, income-restricted housing has helped working families remain near jobs, schools, churches, and family networks, even as rents have risen and wages have failed to keep pace. These neighborhoods are not accidental. They are the result of intentional effort to hold ground in a state where displacement has too often been driven by policy decisions.
HB21 threatens to undo that work.
The law changes how affordable housing developments qualify for tax exemptions, targeting partnerships with housing finance corporations (HFCs) that have long helped bring affordable units to working families. While the legislation was presented as a technical correction, its final version goes far beyond that claim. HB21 will be retroactively applied, stripping tax exemptions from hundreds of housing developments that were approved and built years ago under existing law.
Retroactive policy changes carry real consequences. Affordable housing properties that currently serve working-class tenants will now face unexpected tax burdens. Developers have warned that those costs could force rent increases, foreclosures, or evictions. For renters who already experience higher rates of housing instability and have fewer financial buffers, the impact could be severe and long-lasting.
In Texas cities where affordable housing is already limited, including Houston and Dallas, HB21 risks accelerating displacement that many African-American communities know all too well. Families pushed out of their neighborhoods are often forced farther from jobs, increasing commute times and expenses, while weakening ties to schools, churches, and community institutions that have anchored African-American life for generations.
This is not just a housing issue. It is a community survival issue.
Texas depends on a workforce that includes educators, health-care workers, first responders, and service employees, many of whom live in affordable housing developments affected by HB21. When these workers are displaced, the consequences ripple outward. Employers struggle to retain staff, schools lose students, and neighborhoods lose stability. The cost of displacement is shared by everyone, but it falls hardest on those with the least.
These concerns about the law are compounded by ethical questions surrounding its chief sponsor, Gary Gates. Critics have raised alarms about potential conflicts of interest, pointing to how changes in tax incentives and appraisal rules could benefit Gates’s own sprawling real estate portfolio. Gates has since created an entity connected to his properties to intervene in a lawsuit challenging HB21’s constitutionality, further intensifying scrutiny. For communities that have historically suffered from policies shaped without transparency or accountability, these concerns resonate deeply.
Housing advocates have turned to the courts. The Texas Workforce Housing Coalition has filed suit, arguing that HB21 unlawfully retroactively revokes tax exemptions that were legally granted under prior law. While full implementation was not scheduled until 2027, county appraisal districts are already rescinding approvals and exemptions, meaning the law’s effects are being felt now.
As this new year begins, Texas lawmakers should pause the enforcement of HB21 and commit to an independent, data-driven study of its economic and displacement impacts, particularly on African-American communities. Decisions with consequences this sweeping demand evidence, transparency, and accountability.
Texans understand that strong communities do not happen by chance. They are built and preserved through policy choices that value stability, opportunity, and fairness. Affordable housing is one of those choices. It allows families to stay, to invest, and to pass something on to the next generation.
HB21 moves Texas in the opposite direction.
At the start of this year, lawmakers still have a chance to change course. Protecting affordable housing is not about special treatment; it is about preserving the communities that keep Texas alive, working, and whole. African-American neighborhoods have carried this state through generations. They should not be displaced now.
Hazel Trice Edney is editor-in-chief of the Trice Edney News Wire.
