January 25, 2022 by Clarissa Ayala
Trinity / Houston Gardens Files Title VI Civil Rights Complaint Regarding City of Houston
Houston, TX – The City of Houston’s Super Neighborhood 48 (“SN48”), covering an area known as Trinity Gardens and Houston Gardens (“The Gardens”), through its attorneys at Lone Star Legal Aid, has filed a Title VI Civil Rights Administrative Complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development regarding the City of Houston’s intentional and discriminatory disregard.
The Gardens is a closely knit community located on the outskirts of downtown in Northeast Houston, along Hunting Bayou. The area was established in 1935 under the Suburban Resettlement Program. The Suburban Resettlement Program was designed to provide homeownership opportunities to poor and landless white residents, while also relieving congestion in the inner city. Black and brown residents now predominately occupy the area.
While once a thriving community with established schools and civic institutions, it is in desperate need of infrastructure improvements. It has suffered from a lack of access to municipal services, over concentration of industrial sites, and inadequate code enforcement.
“We are constantly advocating for assistance that other communities receive with little to no effort. Even after over six years of requests, the COH has not come up with a proactive approach to getting the issue of illegal dumping under control. This community is only ten minutes from downtown Houston, and the City government virtually ignores us,” expresses SN48 President Huey Wilson.
Many homes in the Gardens community were built before 1970 and still retain the outdated open or roadside drainage ditch infrastructure. As a result, the Gardens and similar communities are repeatedly at risk during normal storms.
President Wilson shares her frustration, “houses from Hurricanes Ike and Harvey still sit unrepaired as city officials appear to wait out our residents. Are they waiting to see us die out, so that our family wealth goes up for auction, then the City quickly gives developers permits to build new housing that we can’t afford? It still feels so hopeless!”
Gardens residents report that the City responds to their requests for City services, such as trash removal, illegal dumping, and other code enforcement requests made by Gardens residents at a leisurely rate.
Deana Sloan, SN48 Treasurer, commented that “there are promises made annually to the community by the city, state, and federal governmental entities. You can see the paperwork of these promises, but those promises are never kept. Budgeted allocations of funding for the Northeast side are always reallocated to accommodate other projects, not in this neighborhood.”
Houston doesn’t have any zoning laws. This hands-off regulation means that industrial actors, like chemical processing plants, concrete batch plants, and more, can be set up for business in residential areas. The lack of zoning laws has left minority communities, like the Gardens, vulnerable to any type of development that property owners choose to bring into the neighborhood.
Gardens residents experience greater health and environmental risks due to unregulated growth in industrial facilities and ineffective regulation of industrial toxins. Research has proven that living near hazardous waste sites can increase the risk for central nervous system birth defects, congenital heart defects, and low birth weight in pregnant mothers.
“We are not just crying wolf. This is the reality of life daily in the poor neighborhoods of northeast Houston,” says Ken Williams, SN48 Vice President.
Managing Attorney for LSLA’s Environmental Justice Team, Amy Dinn, explains that “the improper siting of industrial facilities in residential neighborhoods weakens the economic and social fabric of the community, impairs property values, and impacts the health and safety of residents. The City needs to adopt a more protective stance when dealing with its most socially vulnerable communities like Trinity / Houston Gardens.”
In its Title VI Complaint, Super Neighborhood 48 seeks park upgrades, an increase in city services and employees, the creation and enforcement of ordinances/regulations/programs, infrastructure improvements, and economic development initiatives.
“The next step in pursuing the administrative complaint is for one or more federal agencies to decide whether they have jurisdiction to accept the complaint and investigate Super Neighborhood 48’s allegations. We hope this administration will continue to demonstrate its commitment to environmental justice and consider this complaint’s merits,” says Amy Dinn.
Super Neighborhood 48 is represented by Lone Star Legal Aid’s Environmental Justice, Fair Housing, and Community Advocacy Teams.
Lone Star Legal Aid is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit law firm focused on advocacy for low-income and underserved populations. Lone Star Legal Aid serves millions of people at 125% of federal poverty guidelines that reside in 72 counties in the eastern and Gulf Coast regions of Texas, and 4 counties of Southwest Arkansas. Lone Star Legal Aid focuses its resources on maintaining, enhancing, and protecting income and economic stability; preserving housing; improving outcomes for children; establishing and sustaining family safety and stability, health and well‐being; and assisting populations with special vulnerabilities, like those with disabilities, or who are elderly, homeless, or have limited English language skills. To learn more about Lone Star Legal Aid, visit our website at https://www.lonestarlegal.org.
Media contact: Media@LoneStarLegal.org
