BRENHAM JUNCTION RESOLUTION COMING BEFORE CITY COUNCIL
along Highway 290, west of Westwood Lane.
(courtesy Trinity Housing Development)
A resolution to support a mixed income community housing development comes before the Brenham City Council at their next meeting.
Representatives from Brenham Junction LP spoke to the City Council at their meeting on January 19.
Brenham Junction is seeking to build a 48-unit, non-age restricted complex on the north side of Highway 290 West near the Brenham Veterinary Hospital.
14 of the units would be at market rate, while the remaining 34 units would be income-restricted.
Brenham Junction wants to submit an application to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs requesting 2023 Competitive Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program Funds.
Due to Brenham already having more than twice the state average of Tax Credit Housing per capita, Brenham Junction needs a resolution of support from Council Members in order to receive the funds from the state.
The deadline for the developer to receive the resolution is March 1.
The Council is also scheduled to meet in executive session to consult with their attorney regarding the ongoing litigation with Aviators Plus, and legal matters concerning the City of Brenham Lake Somerville Water Intake Structure, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and associated matters.
The Brenham City Council meets on Thursday at 1pm in their Chambers on the second floor of the Brenham City Hall.
Click here to view the agenda packet for Thursday's meeting.
Obviously the young teachers and admin staff just starting off their careers in public service that would be eligible to live in this income-restricted project that requires proof of income, a credit check, and a background check are just being lazy and need a second job. They may seem all high and mighty compared to the rest our service industry but beneath that outward veneer of respectability and upward mobility and commitment to future generations they’re just a bunch of lazy ungrateful welfare queens, too malcontented for a sugar daddy, too unattractive for OnlyFans, and will completely ruin our community if we allow them to live here. Tell your Councilmembers to just say no to young professionals because they are on our lawn and need to get off it if they aren’t mowing it. And you know what, those people mowing our lawns too. Maybe especially those people. Weeds would be preferable to those people, that’s why I don’t hire them except on Wednesdays. My principles run deep!
This is a town for families, by God! But not families with single parents or more than a couple children. And definitely not for people of a child-bearing age or with a child under the age of 21.
The problem does not lie with people moving to Brenham from out of town. It stems from the local employers paying low wages. Take buying a house out of the equation and let’s look at renting a basic one bedroom apartment in Brenham. They run on market value and believe me when I write that the price of housing in Brenham is comparatively low. Let’s do some simple math…
1 bedroom apartment rents for $850 on the low end. A renter needs to earn 3x the monthly rent just to qualify for the rental. 850×3=2,550. A basic monthly income of $2,550 is needed to rent a cheap one bedroom apartment. If we break down that amount to an hourly rate then a person needs to work 40 hours per week and earn $15.94 per hour just to barely meet the most basic requirement to rent an apartment. Why would someone stay in Brenham just to scrounge and scrape by to live in a tiny apartment when they could move right down the road to Houston and make good money? They will move and probably never even think of visiting Brenham again. Again, the problem is with the local employers paying extremely low wages. Even Walmart which is notoriously one of the lowest paying employers in the U.S. has raised their minimum wage to $14.00/hr. A high school kid working their first job pushing carts out in the parking lot at freakin’ Walmart is making more money than a lot of people make at some of the major employers around town. It’s ridiculous.
The problem does not lie with people moving to Brenham from out of town. It stems from the local employers paying low wages. Take buying a house out of the equation and let’s look at renting a basic one bedroom apartment in Brenham. They run on market value and believe me when I write that the price of housing in Brenham is comparatively low. Let’s do some simple math…
1 bedroom apartment rents for $850 on the low end. A renter needs to earn 3x the monthly rent just to qualify for the rental. 850×3=2,550. A basic monthly income of $2,550 is needed to rent a cheap one bedroom apartment. If we break down that amount to an hourly rate then a person needs to work 40 hours per week and earn $15.94 per hour just to barely meet the most basic requirement to rent an apartment. Why would someone stay in Brenham just to scrounge and scrape by to live in a tiny apartment and when they could move right down the road to Houston and make good money. They would flourish and never probably even think of visiting Brenham again. Why would they? The problem is the local businesses paying low wages, plain and simple.
Maybe there’s so many low income housing because Brenham only pays very low income, unless you’re city manager, then you’re paid more than enough for 10 well paid people.
I’m not even able to imagine being a land or home owner with my local Brenham job. It’s not that I’m lazy. I work harder than any of my co-workers who easily make twice as much as me or more.
$20,000 yearly is not enough for me to afford gas or groceries. If I were to live on my own, I’d need the tiniest tiny home or my vehicle and that’s not living.
Yes I am actively trying to apply for jobs in other cities that will pay more for even just making sandwiches, but as I said, it is not easy to buy gas to go to the places to apply so it’s very slow.
The problem does not lie with people moving to Brenham from out of town. It stems from the loca employers paying low wages. Take buying a house out of the equation and let’s look at renting a basic one bedroom apartment in Brenham. They run on market value and believe me when I write that the price of housing in Brenham is comparatively low. Let’s do some simple math…
1 bedroom apartment rents for $850 on the low end. A renter needs to earn 3x the monthly rent just to qualify for the rental. 850×3=2,550. A basic monthly income of $2,550 is needed to rent a cheap one bedroom apartment. If we break down that amount to an hourly rate then a person needs to work 40 hours per week and earn $15.94 per hour just to barely meet the most basic requirement to rent an apartment. Why would someone stay in Brenham just to scrounge and scrape by to live in a tiny apartment and when they could move right down the road to Houston and make good money. They would flourish and never probably even think of visiting Brenham again. Why would they? The problem is the local businesses paying low wages, plain and simple.
I have a local job and cannot even imagine being able to afford to live on my own that isn’t “tiny home” or in my vehicle. $20,000 a year is not enough to afford gas and groceries.. why would I ever imagine having land or house?
Yes, there are plenty of job openings out there. Problem is the local unemployment rate is at a record low, wages haven’t kept pace with inflation, every other semi-livable crackerbox of a house is getting bought by a retiree from a big city for a quarter million and there are wait lists on rentals. No hard feelings of course, outsiders know a good thing when they see it. Just that it leaves us short of housing we badly need. We are losing our hardest working and most ambitious young people, losing our culture, and they’ll put down roots elsewhere. They will not come back for the privilege of scraping by. That’s not realistic. The only way we solve this problem for every generation is with more housing of every kind at every price.
The tax credit is a federal program. If it doesn’t get spent on housing here it’ll get spent on housing somewhere else. There are income requirements. There is a required background check. This is not a meal ticket. The project is at the edge of town, removed from any neighborhood. The rest of town would barely notice it was there. As these kinds of projects go, there’s not a lot of downside and not many NIMBYs near this project like there were around some of the others that have been voted down.
Small business owners: you need labor to stay competitive and this is how you’ll get it. Watch who votes against. This vote is a clear litmus test.
But at the same time, Councilmembers, if the developer asks for local subsidy like they’d been talking about then just say no to that. That’s a bridge too far. Don’t stand in the developer’s way but don’t pave the road before them with gold bricks either.
Well said, if you don’t leave next door to the new location what should it mater to anyone else. We need these and many more spaces for people to live. I encourage every council member to vote for this but agree no need to help by giving subsidy.
Yes indeed…we have plenty…too plenty low income housing…ask where the people come from who fill these units. These companies get all kinds of tax payer funds for these facilities. But…the question is…will the so called leaders do the right thing????
As a young single female who works and lived here in Brenham, I can attest that there is NOT, enough housing. The places that are available will require me to either split my rent with multiple people, spend more than 75-85% of my monthly paycheck on rent, or go back to working multiple jobs. There is not many available apartments or rent houses at a decent price, and when something comes available, you’re competing with 10-20 other applicants who are just trying to find an affordable place to live. What would you like the people in this town who “Make too much for assistance” but also “don’t make enough” to afford some of these “affordable housing” that’s already here? What should we do? Sit back and let the upper class of Brenham tell us we don’t work hard enough? Or that we should just move? Is that what you want to be telling the current and future young working generation? What’s wrong with adding a 48-unit complex on the outskirts of town that won’t cost an arm and a leg for them to rent?
I just hope that City Council and the people in this town care enough about the citizens already here who are just wanting to live in a decent place and continue working in Brenham.
I didn’t realize that we already have twice the state average of tax credit housing here in Brenham. I say that’s enough housing out there already then ., Jobs are out there People have to want to work in order to better themselves. a little hard work makes me feel proud of what I have accomplished and hasn’t seem to hurt me at all.
There is not enough affordable first time buyer houses or affordable leased houses or apartments for people who are not on section 8, let alone enough for those that qualify for section 8 housing.
This type of thinking, that, “there is enough already and people are just lazy” is the MAIN problem.
The “Market” has gone up way too fast for too long now, especially in this part of the country.
Real Estate Agents, greedy for high commissions, are cause number one, as they always have been.
The influx of people moving here from bigger cities, to get small town life, but bring their big city ideals with them, is number two.
Then, as it has been for the past 20 years or more, the biggest get bigger, and the rest of us pay for it, plane and simple.
It is not just here. This is real problem happening all over the country.
The work force and back-bone of every city is getting priced out of that city because of pure and simple greed, most of the time.
Inflation is real, and is going on now, but the middle-to-lower classes get hit the hardest, and then everyone wonders why it is hard to find employees;
That there are longer waits on basic services, and on and on.
Give people more affordable places to live! Simple!
We would have more willing to live and WORK, work here, not just retire here.
That is what is apparent to me.
Of course, some will argue that the wage that is paid is an issue as well, which it very well is, but, it all starts from somewhere.
Any young person, starting out, should be able to afford, and find some type of housing in a town, proportionate to the starting wage in that town or city, without splitting rent 3 or 4 ways, period.
So, let’s just keep saying no to affordable, government assistance, or whatever cheaper housing there is, because “they should work harder!”
Good Greif!
You are spot on in your assessment of this housing issue. Any person who works a forty hour week should be able to have their own housing and living necessities. Next to impossible here. Far too many work in low paying service jobs which the entire community depend on for their needs. They complain because many service businesses are continually short of help, but at the same time they do not support income adjusted housing.
And to all the citizens who can’t understand why we don’t have a large supermarket chain store here, it is because the average blue collar wages are too low.
Your assessment is spot on. The owners of the service businesses here are always short of help, and it effects their ability to serve their customers. How many of these business people are unable to see the link between affordable housing and a labor shortage ? Evidently not many. A person who works forty to 50 hours a week should be able to take care of themselves, but low wages and expensive housing make it impossible. So to the non supporters of subsidized housing, stop complaining when you don’t get the service you expect.
What jobs!
If the government keeps giving people money then they are not going to work why work if you can get money for not doing anything. The lack of pride and self esteam is ruining our country. There are plenty of jobs out there everyone is hiring. Too many people just don’t care about doing better and are content with what they get from the government .