Jeff Reichman
On March 18, 2020, the Texas Supreme Court put a temporary stay on eviction proceedings across the state. That temporary stay expires today, and there are no indictions that it will be extended. While this stay prevented nearly all evictions during this two month period, it allowed landlords to continue filing eviction cases. This means…
Read More
Earlier in March, as the COVID-19 public health crisis was starting to unfold in the United States, we released our study of twenty years of evictions in Houston in Harris County. This study examined some of the basic metrics in eviction court records, such as the number of cases filed, the number of judgments in…
Read More In 2016, Harris County had more evictions than anywhere else – surpassing New York City by almost 4,000 evictions.
Read More
It’s a tough time of year for homeowners in Houston. In November, a letter arrives from the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector with next year’s property tax bill. Some people pay their taxes every month with their mortgage. Others, like me, end up writing a big check in January. But there’s some relief. The Harris County…
Read More
Last year, the City of Houston passed an ordinance that regulated certain types of housing for people on parole. This ordinance includes regulations to promote safety, but it also includes a distance requirement that effectively prohibits new housing. Houston already lacks enough housing for people on parole, and this distance requirement only compounds the problem.…
Read More
In 48 states, a felony conviction means that you lose the right to vote. This can be temporary or permanent, depending on your state. During the 2018 election, Florida pushed this issue into the national spotlight with a state constitutional amendment to restore voting rights to felons. It passed with two-thirds of the vote. Texas,…
Read More
Around the country, there are calls to reform our election process. Activists want to ensure that the outcomes of elections properly reflect the will of the people. Because elections are administered at the local level, this results in experiments in radical democracy in likely and unlikely places. Ranked choice voting is one of those experiments…
Read More
The elections are over, but things are just getting started in Texas. The 86th Texas Legislature convenes in the beginning of 2019, and newly-elected House and Senate members are already filing legislation. Two years ago, we built a map of bills filed for the 85th session. This year, you’ll notice the maps got an upgrade.…
Read More
A few months ago, Councilmember Ed Gonzalez asked a great question: what if we could bring the people working on the Ellington Spaceport together with the Houston startup community? I was honored to help organize a happy hour to do just that. Mario Diaz, the Director of the Houston Airport System, gave a short presentation of the…
Read More
Here are some interesting recent stories about maps and data in the Houston area. I hope to make this a monthly roundup post covering areas of public interest, like crime, transportation, real estate, and population health. If you have a good project to share, please let me know! Houston Bike Share Crowdsourcing New Locations The Houston…
Read More