Community Benefits-Relocated Resident Video Text 

Cynthia Winborn is proud to tell anyone and everyone about her new apartment in west Houston. One she was concerned about finding, especially because she also takes care of her 80-year-old mother. :18 

“I was really worried, I was really really scared.”  

Winborn used to live in an apartment complex near downtown Houston where she says violence was a constant threat. 

That property was needed for the I-45 roadway project expansion. She says a relocation company hired by the Texas Department of Transportation, or TxDOT, made her life easier by walking her through every step.  

The rent is higher, but TxDOT is paying her and others 42 months of the difference. In Winborn’s case, that comes out to 13-thousand dollars 

 “I didn’t know that the company you guys have was gonna come in and just lift everything up and take care of everything that needed to be taken care of. Everything was smooth.”  

Near downtown Houston, the Houston Housing Authority, or H-H-A, asked TxDOT for an early buyout of Clayton Homes after massive Hurricane Harvey flooding in 2017.  

The H-H-A also asked for an early buyout of some of its Kelly Village units since both locations are impacted by the I-45 Project. 

The number of Clayton Homes units bought out is 296, including 112 destroyed by Harvey. The number of Kelly Village units is 50, making the total between the two 346. 

That’s a little more than 30 percent of all homes impacted by the I-45 project. 

Former Clayton Homes and Kelly Village residents will have first priority for new public housing relocations, including new construction nearby which promotes community cohesion. 

The H-H-A plans on building a new project at 800 Middle Street and another at Jensen and Clinton streets. Both locations are just minutes away from Clayton and Kelly. 

“And the false narrative is you need to move now before they come and take your property. You need to move now or you’ll be without anything.”  

And with regard to private property, Everette worries about predatory investors she says are coming in, buying impacted properties and then selling them. She also worries the federal project pause is lessening TxDOT’s ability to provide benefits to the residents it intended to help 

 “This project is revolutionary in that while it does affect a certain segment of the population it remedies the relocation of that population and increases their standard of living and their access to home ownership in a way that has never been done before in the history of this country.”  

 “What we wanted to do with the TxDOT project was to make sure they understand that gentrification was happening.” 2:44 

Tanya Debose is descendant of the founders of Independence Heights the neighborhood where her family grew up and the first incorporated African-American municipality in the State of Texas.  

She and others here have worked with TxDOT for years to make sure the I-45 project can be a win-win for the agency and the community. And the 27-million dollars that TxDOT is making available for affordable housing in impacted communities is a huge step.  

”And that money would be made available so that residents, (Begin soundbite here)”We can build on a lot, purchase lots, build on that lot and bring residents back to this community which is something that hadn’t been done before.”  

Debose says the project would bring flood improvements too. Multiple floods over the years have led to buyouts in Independence Heights, on some streets the empty lots stand out. Little White Oak Bayou has overflowed its banks too often. But TxDOT proposes mitigation that would actually take this community out of the floodplain.  

“What we wanted to do was not displace and not erase but bring people and keep people back into these community, and so if we can fix that flooding this will help these people in this community.”  

From an economic viewpoint, TxDOT officials say for every dollar spent on the I-45 Project, the Houston area realizes seven dollars in return. That includes 29 billion dollars in reduced travel times, and 10 billion dollars in economic benefits including tens of thousands of new jobs.  

Back in west Houston, Cynthia Winborn says there’s another benefit. The project does not discriminate. 

 “In my mind’s eye I can’t clearly see where they say that it hurts people of color. I’m of color.”