1/29/26 – An investigation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found the Texas General Land Office (GLO) did not discriminate against minorities or low-to-moderate income Texans in the distribution of Hurricane Harvey Flood Mitigation Funds. The investigation reviewed more than 80,000 pages of documents.

Two Houston groups – the Northeast Action Collective and Texas Housers – claimed the GLO ignored Houston and Harris County in the distribution of the first tranche of Harvey aid. Houston and Harris County got $0 from the first $1 billion. But the Northeast Action Collective and Texas Housers ignored the fact that ALL of the next $750 million went to Harris County.

Moreover, the GLO announced the $750 million a full month BEFORE the two groups filed their discrimination complaint in 2021.

GLO Cleared

The investigation began on June 25, 2021. The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity found that “no reasonable cause exists to believe the GLO has violated the Fair Housing Act, Title VI, or the Housing and Community Development Act through its administration of the 2019 CDBG-MIT funds, including the Hurricane Harvey State Mitigation Competition.”

Complainant Allegations

Complainants alleged discrimination on the basis of race and national origin, and that scoring criteria systematically and deliberately advantaged white communities while disadvantaging low- and moderate income (LMI) African-American and Hispanic communities.

GLO Defense

Looking only at the first billion dollars, GLO presented evidence that roughly 1.2 million of the 1.5 million Texans who benefited from the approved projects were Hispanic, Black, Asian, Pacific Islander, or Native American. The GLO also showed that 100% of the awards went to projects in majority LMI areas.

GLO also argued that complainants could not look only at one portion of the grants. Or look only at the first round of Harvey Grants and ignore 2015 and 2016 grants.

Findings

HUD found that the GLO substantially exceeded HUD’s requirement to direct at least 50% of funds to Most Impacted and Distressed (MID) areas. In 2015, 2016 and the first round of Harvey, GLO directed roughly 60% of all HUD funds to MID areas.

GLO later cancelled the second round of Harvey competition and allocated $750 million exclusively to Harris County. The County’s population is 42.9% Hispanic and 18.6% Black – a total of 61.5%. With other minorities, that brought minority beneficiaries for all phases to more than 66%.

Thus the complainants failed to show a disproportionate impact on minorities. Northeast Action Collective and Housers failed to assess the share of total beneficiaries that were black, white or Hispanic compared to the racial demographics of eligible areas.

Even when looking at just Round One of the Harvey competition, “no reasonable cause exists to believe the GLO’s administration had a disparate racial impact on funding.”

The complainants focused on Houston and Harris County not winning any awards during the Harvey Round One competition. Another section of the 22-page legal brief deals with why. To a large degree, not winning any awards in Round One resulted from the Benefit/Cost Analyses of submitted projects. Smaller jurisdictions just had lower costs per beneficiary. (See page 13.)

For instance, one project submitted by the City would have benefitted fewer than 10,000 people, but cost $94 million. In other words, the City was seeking 18% of Round One funds to benefit less than a half-percent of the City’s population.

HUD determined that “Houston’s poor performance in the Harvey Competition is attributable, at least in part, to its expensive, low-impact project proposals.”

Conclusion

“The facts of this case do not suggest that GLO intentionally discriminated against any racial or ethnic group through its administration of the CDBG-MIT funds,” said the final ruling.

The complainants have 30 days to file an appeal. Click here to read HUD’s complete 22-page finding.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/29/26

3075 Days since Hurricane Harvey

The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.