Harris County Commissioner for Precinct One Rodney Ellis’ office promised a $200 million housing investment that will be disbursed in the next few years in remembrance of the late U.S. Rep. Mickey Leland (Nov. 27, 1944 – Aug. 7, 1989), a mentor and friend to Ellis.
The funds, according to Ellis’ office, will be used to:
- Improve upon the health, safety, and resilience of existing homes,
- Address the scarcity of affordable, stable housing, and
- Reduce evictions, foreclosures, and housing instability.
What has been done so far: Housing
Commissioners Court committed $80 million in affordable rental housing projects to help add more than 1,400 long-term affordable housing units and allocated $10 million toward home repair through new single-family reconstruction and repair programs, the statement says.
Harris County also invested more than $7.2 million in Precinct One toward the Knowles-Rowland House Project, which created 31 new permanent supportive housing units for unhoused people, and $9 million toward the New Hope Housing Ennis for affordable homes for seniors.
What has been done so far: Hunger
According to Ellis’ office, Precinct One used resources from the Biden-Harris Administration and the Harris County Healthy Food Financing Initiative to make available fresh food in underserved communities. It collected funding through community partners.
The office also served over 15,000 households by partnering with Common Market, Urban Harvest, Small Places, and the Houston Food Bank.
“Typically, Mickey spent this time of year challenging his friends and all who would listen to be as charitable as possible and reminding them that food availability is a luxury not to be taken for granted in a world where poverty overwhelms prosperity,” Ellis said.
Miles to go
According to Feeding Texas, a hunger-relief organization with 21 member food banks, one in eight Texans experiences food insecurity. Additionally, 1.8 million Texas children live in households with limited access to food. Around 15% of Texas households do not have consistent access to enough nutritious food to support a healthy life, according to the advocacy organization Every Texan. Moreover, more than 3.4 million Texans receive SNAP benefits.
Half the families in Harris County allocate around a third of their income toward housing due to a lack of affordable housing.
When it comes to homeownership, 36% of the county’s Black households, 51% of Latinos, and 62% of Asians owned a home in 2020, compared to 68% of white homeownership, according to Rice University Kinder Institute for Urban Research.
The legacy of Mickey Leland
Leland, during his time in public service, was known as an anti-poverty activist who became a congressman from the Texas 18th District and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. He brought awareness to issues like health care and hunger and fought to address affordable housing, universal access to health care, and civil and human rights.
“I do not doubt that, if he were alive today, Mickey would be participating in some program to feed the less fortunate in Houston or some remote corner of the world,” Ellis said in a statement.
He grew up in one of Houston’s African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods and attended Wheatley High School, a Black-majority school in the Houston Independent School District.
He then attended Texas Southern University and rose as a leader of the Houston-area civil rights movement.
In the 1970s, he served in the Texas House of Representatives and continued his advocacy for health care for economically disadvantaged Texans.
His advocacy reached Cuba and Africa as well, where he assembled eminent personalities, religious leaders, and agencies to garner support for the Africa Famine Relief and Recovery Act of 1985, which provided $800 million in food and humanitarian relief supplies.
Leland’s efforts created the National Commission on infant mortality, easier access to fresh food for women, children, and at-risk infants, and services for people with home insecurity.
He lost his life in 1989 in a plane crash in Gambela, Ethiopia, during a mission to Fugnido, Ethiopia.
