Houston often doesn't receive funder attention until major climate change-fueled disasters: Hurricane Harvey in 2017, the Deer Park Chemical Fires in 2019, the 2020 Texas deep freeze, even the persistent COVID-19 crises in a quickly-reopened state. Hopes, though, turn to Houston every few years when national elections roll around. Many progressive and liberal forces see the region as emblematic of the state’s majority-minority future which helps inch statewide numbers from red to blue. On the flip side, business elites peddle a story of a “miracle” economy that has attracted big technology and energy companies, and where billionaires build new homes and developers push through massive residential projects – mostly to openly spite “regulated” states.

Though coming from different value systems, both sets of narratives erase a critical element of Houston’s rapidly-changing national and global role: How do regional economies expand and national elections shift? Who cleans up neighborhood streets after a hurricane, clears out toxic waste, or bails out flood waters? How do whole new subdivisions or global tech headquarters really sprout up?

Our latest NFG/FJE Building Power Place Report, Houston: Breaking the Cycles of Disaster, Displacement and Disenfranchisement, flips the view to working people and neighbors on the ground in Houston, where a different story emerges. Historically-rooted Black, Indigenous, and Latinx, as well as more recent Asian and Pacific Islander migrants and other workers whose labor and energy is being exploited to sustain a global-scale energy economy, build thousands of homes, clean up disaster where the state has failed, and rally voters for national parties, are making their voice heard in new ways.

Read the full article about community organizing in Houston at Neighborhood Funders Group.