Hello, it's me, your @HoustonChron housing reporter. This has exactly nothing to do with the lack of public housing space in Houston. So let's talk about what does.

https://twitter.com/SecretaryCarson/status/1130895084461985794

First, some numbers. When @Housing4Houston opened the waitlist briefly back in 2016, almost 69,000 signed up. Not 100,000. We all like facts. That was the first time it opened in *four years.*

There was room for only 30,000

kinder.rice.edu/2016/09/27/app…

Harris County opened its list in 2016 for the first time in EIGHT years, adding just 5,000 slots. houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

In August 2018, the Houston Housing Authority again closed its waitlist - which was EXCEEDING 15 months. housingforhouston.com/news/public-ho…

"But wait - what about the undocumented immigrants?" you may ask.

That's not the problem. The problem is that Houston in no way has enough affordable housing stock - publicly owned or what's called "naturally occurring affordable housing" (aka what low-income people can pay for)

This was a problem before Hurricane Harvey. Then, #Harvey happened. And affordable housing - government owned, government subsidized and privately owned - got severely damaged. So, fewer people with housing.

The @floodconsortium recently released a study showing how badly Harvey impacted affordable housing and, even worse, what kind of shape we're in for the next storm in terms of housing houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

So TL;DR: Yes, Houston has an affordable housing crisis

But no, @SecretaryCarson, it has nothing to do with undocumented immigrants.

Oh and how could I forget - building new affordable housing in this city is a perennial struggle. One infamous effort to build affordable houses in an affluent area got so bad that @HUDgov stepped in: houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

(Still nothing to do with undocumented immigrants. Carry on.)

Since @SecretaryCarson threw some numbers, I'll reply with these:

Families with an undocumented immigrant account for 42 of the 22,500 who receive vouchers or live in Houston public housing.

So: Fewer than 1 percent.

More #facts via @HoustonChron houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…

I think this is when I'm supposed to tweet a link to my playlists (a mix of Sibelius, *NSYNC, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Santana and a lot of other things that will subject me to ridicule), but instead here's a link to subscribe to @HoustonChron

myaccount.houstonchronicle.com