Community Benefits Videos-Neighborhood Testimonials Text Dr. Robert Muhammad I’m telling you, based upon my fight against gentrification, and my background in urban planning and environmental policy, this is not your grandaddy’s TxDOT. And this is not 1956 and the Interstate Highway Bill. And so I ask everybody to keep an open mind, ask the questions, don’t listen to the noise and follow the facts. And TxDOT at this particular point, up to this point has been very accommodating in all the things that the committee has asked. And I believe, with input and not rhetoric, with facts and not fiction, that well be able to shape a project that not only will have great economic benefits will take care of those who – not that they would bounce back but they would bounce forward – because if you’re poor and you get knocked back three steps and you bounce back you’re still poor. As in this is real, this is not some made up thing. Because if we don’t want it an were gonna fight over it, they can move that and will move that money to another district. And we will still have the problems of flooding, congestion and all the things that go with it. Pastor Rudy Rasmus Some years ago we started building housing for people who didn’t have a place to live in Houston, the homeless. As a matter of fact, to live in one of our apartments you had to have been homeless for at least a year. And ulitimately we came to an agreement as to what our property would be worth in the marketplace and ultimately how we would really handle the relocation of our residents. And that’s when we really discovered that TxDOT wasn’t in the position to do harm, but to actually help. We’re actually looking forward to the potential of some workforce development efforts in collaboration with TxDOT as we move forward on our new project. Imagine a difficult-to-employ demographic of people having access not only to the jobs, but having access to the skills and the upskilling necessary to prepare these folks for gainful employment. Kathy Payton I want to start by thanking TxDOT for their commitment. For the last two years I’ve spent in dialogue with TxDOT along with my colleagues to talk about the things and potential for our communities. And all too often we sit back and wait and allow things to happen to us, and TxDOT has really extended an opportunity to tell them what we want to see happen for our communities. And I’m excited that TxDOT has invested enough time energy and resources to make sure that the families and businesses impacted by this expansion project are being improved greater than or equal to. Minister Muhammad said it best, this is not our grandfather’s TxDOT. And this is a real opportunity for us to take those families who are vulnerable and largely disadvantaged and put them in better living conditions and better opportunities. We are concerned, don’t get it wrong, about losing density in our community and we are working diligently with TxDOT to make sure that community resources avail themselves so that those people who are interested in staying in our community have the opportunity to stay in areas like Fifth Ward, Independence Heights and the Third Ward. That is critically important for us. We as community leaders are not ignorant to the impact. Because we can firsthand tell you the experience of what I-10 and I-59 did to areas like Fifht Ward and Third Ward, my family was impacted. We don’t want to see that happen again. So were not going to sit here and twiddle our thumbs and be negligent in responding when we have an opportunity to resond – to be a part of the solution and not part of the problem. So TxDOT has been very ingenuous in terms of making sure that we have opportunities to help our families, to help our businesses. And we want to continue that conversation. So my goal tonight is to quiet the noise, that you’re hearing about the injustice that TxDOT is doing on our communities. Because we believe from what we’ve seen and what we are experiencing, from the examples that have been given to you tonight, that our communities are able to recover better and area able to transition to a better quality of life than they have today. The pictures of Clayton Homes and the pictures of Kelly those are sad. And that saddens our heart to see that people are living in those type of conditions and complacent with those type of conditions. This is a real opportunity to move renters from rental to home ownership, and from renters to better rental opportunities. So let me applaud TxDOT and say that we are not letting the pressure off. That we’re holding them to the fire, and we’re holding them accountable and making them responsible to keeping their commitments to our communities ensuring a better quality of life as a result of this North Houston Expanison Project. Thank you for your time. Algenita Davis I am very, very sensitive to TxDOT. TxDOT wrecked my family, my grandmother’s house, her brother’s, wiped out the whole neighborhood I lived in and turned Wheatley High School, reduced it, to whatever it is now. From the b old neighborhood that it was. And that was then. So for me to now see TxDOT responding to oh well, now there’s gonna be a Gregg exit, now there’s gonna be a Cleburne crossing, and now those kinds of things that will create connectivity, it’s redemptive. It’s saying that those things that happened 60 years ago to me and my family are not happening now. Tanya Debose What this TxDOT has done is committed that the footprint that we had, that means the boundaries in the ground, that we had, that we are doing to reinvest and make sure that families have opportunities to come back into our community. We can’t control what people are gonna do, but we can work with organizations like yours be able to make sure that we get what’s best for our community. Tanya Debose Look at who’s talking, and if you don’t see the people who are in those communities out there talking, then that should bring a question mark up in your head. Everyone knows that Independence Heights is the fist black municipality in the state of Texas. And some of those problems included flooindg, also displacement and also cultural erasure. We started talking with TxDOT back in 2016. They came to us, we didn’t go to them. Thye came to us and said here’s what’s gonna happen, how can we make this project better your community. And as the time went on, we were able to come up with some ideas and thoughts behind these are the things that we need, this is what its gonna look like in the future, and this is what we’re gonna need in order to make this to make a better place for the people who want to be here. Our congresswoman got involved in that, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, she made sure that TxDOT does what they say they’re going to do. Our priority is to deal with flooding. We’ll deal with environmental justice issues, we’re gonna deal with air monitoring and sound barriers, and also deal with flooding. We’ve flooded over and over again. This project will take Independence Heights and several other communities out of that flood zone so that we don’t have to have buyouts in our communities. Belinda Everette Our interest in the project has been purely based on how it will affect black and brown communities, and this project is transformative. Next slide please. So what we have been doing is working with identifying best practices that would help meet the needs of the impacted communities. We’ve developed our core strategy for housing education and financial literacy, to help people understand not just the opportunity that it presents for home ownership, but how to manage the financial benefits that this project will present to the consumers, homeowners tenants, who are in this affected community. There was a tenant who elected to remain a tenant, and the decent, safe and sanitary housing – there was a difference in the rent of roughly $600, and the 42-month supplement equated to $19,000. The relocation benefit was $1200, and this tenant was given a lump sum of $20,000. People not only have the opportunity to become homeowners, they have the opportunity to create generations wealth for their families, and we have been extremely pleased with every aspect of the project from TxDOT.