Affordable housing is top of mind
for many Austinites, but especially
for educators working in our local
schools.
Now a former AISD elementary
school campus is being transformed
into housing with some units set
aside specifically for teachers.
We take a closer look at that East
Austin project and brown water
flowing from the taps in one Austin
area suburb, what residents say
they wish they knew before moving
in, and how they're working to warn
others.
All that coming up on today's
show.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Miles Bloxson.
We've had a very warm spring this
year, and we're not even close to
the peak of our summer temperatures.
The heat isn't unusual, but it's
arriving at a time when Austin's
energy utility has quadrupled
shutoffs for non-payment.
Those stories coming up next, right
here on Austin Signal.
Hi and hello and welcome to Austin
Signal. I hope your day is going
amazing so far.
I'm your host, Miles Bloxson.
It's Wednesday, March 25th.
Affordable housing in Austin has
been a growing challenge, and
educators are feeling it too.
Now Austin ISD is taking action,
redeveloping the Anita Ferrellis Coy
site, formerly Allen
Elementary School, into mixed income
housing that will include units for
teachers.
Here to tell us more is Acacia
Coronado, education reporter
with Austin Current.
Great to have you here, Acacia.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, so let's get into it.
It's expensive to live here, and
we're all feeling it.
So how is that impacting educators
in AISD?
Yeah, so AISU recognized
a need, seeing how their educators
were struggling to
buy houses and afford
rent.
And so when they were looking to
repurpose the Anita Ferales Coy
facility, they decided
to work with a developer to
redevelop it into a mixed income
housing, half of which
will have rent
restricted, sorry, income restricted
units that
the teachers can apply for.
And how did this come together?
Yeah, so they put out a call for
developers that were willing to work
with them to kind of help respond
to the housing
situation that teachers
were facing.
And so once they found the
right developer to work with, they
decided to do something
that could give back to educators
and help them find housing.
In case you're like.
Is already underway.
I think y'all started back in
February so this housing
isn't just for teachers though,
right? You mentioned a little bit
earlier about that.
Right. So it's mixed income housing.
Half of the 675 units
that are planned are going to be
income restricted.
And so teachers will be able
to have priority application
through a
internal site through the district.
But the mixed income housing will
be also open to community
members as well.
And when this project is complete,
how many units are we talking?
At 675 units when it's
complete. So they're in phase one
right now and they're set to begin
construction on phase two either
later this year or next year.
Mentioned that teachers will have
priority, how can they apply when
the development is actually
complete?
Yeah, so the district has an
internal site for teachers to
apply. So they'll be able to
work through there to try to
get a priority for one
of the units.
Wow, this is major and you're
from Austin. I'm from Austin as
well. What does something like this
mean to you?
Yeah, I mean, it's expensive
to live in the city and we've all
seen it grow.
So I'm sure teachers will
be happy to have an option
on hand.
And this could possibly be like a
model for the future.
What are you hearing there about
that?
Yeah, so I mean Austin ISD
just voted to close
10 schools and some of
those campuses might be up for
repurposing soon and.
Listed on their many options
for repurposing is the
possibility of using
some of these sites for long-term
ground leases, which is what they
are using for this development,
which allows them to lease land to
a developer.
They own the land, they get an
income from that, and the developer
owns the construction.
So it's a benefit for both.
That's a Kasi.
I'm Andrea Coronado with Austin
Current, KUT's collaborator on
the Austin Signal, and a partner
with KUT Newsroom
in covering Austin.
Thank you so much.
Thanks.
People in the Austin's Colony
neighborhood have been dealing with
very hard water for over
a decade.
As KUT's Katie McAfee reports,
some residents are taking a new
approach to getting better water.
Out on Webberville Road, there's a
sign as you head into the Austin's
Colony neighborhood.
You can't miss it.
In big letters, all caps,
it reads, ask about the water
before you buy here.
The sign appeared only a few months
ago, but what the sign is about,
water issues in the neighborhood,
those have been going on for years.
Tyler Croft says he started having
problems right away after he and his
wife moved to Austin's colony two
years ago.
Started out we noticed
with our dishwasher our dishes
would come out very caked
in and like white like
residue on everything on all the
glass.
He didn't think too much of it at
first, but they kept having issues.
Their dishwasher stopped working.
The water tasted funny.
Once, while getting a glass of
water, Croft says he turned on the
tap and it came out brown.
His hair was getting dry and
brittle.
And then when our daughter was born,
we noticed like eczema right away,
which could be a lot of different
factors, but soon after we
put a filter
on her bathtub
and started to see those symptoms
kind of start to subside a little
bit.
Something needed to change.
Croft installed a water softener
under his sink, filters on the
shower heads, then a bigger water
softner system in the garage.
All told, Croft says he spent about
$5,000 on water filtration
systems and softeners.
And it's not just the Crofts.
Down the street, Richard Helleman
says he can't use his dishwasher
either.
It's just a drying rack for him.
And he's got other issues with his
appliances.
My hot water heater like
gurgles every time I take a hot
shower. I can't even flush it
because there's so much sediment in
the hot water heater.
My landlord has said he's had to
replace like at least three
other tenants hot water heaters.
Hellman says the nozzle on his
shower head routinely gets clogged
with white mineral deposits.
The same thing happens to his garden
hose.
See how it barely works and it's
like shooting out in like these
really like tight streams
like it shouldn't be doing that it
should just be like a nice like
stream of water like a like a,
like your shower you know.
A few houses down, big, blue,
plastic jugs of water line the
walkway to Lin Ling's front door.
Through a translation app, he
tells me this isn't tap water.
He buys these jugs.
He's noticed yellowish substances
in the tap water
It's a hit, it's a, uh,
it, uh...
So what's going on here?
People in this neighborhood have
Austin addresses,
but Austin's colony is out of the
service area for Austin water.
Instead, the neighborhood is served
by a for-profit company called Texas
Water Utilities.
The company uses groundwater from a
local well, plus water pumped
from the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer.
The local well water is considered
very hard, which means it has
high concentrations of minerals like
calcium and magnesium.
In its most recent report in 2024,
Texas water utilities reported three
water samples averaged out to a
hardness level of 260
milligrams per liter.
For reference, more than 60
milligrams per leader is considered
moderately hard by the US Geological
Survey.
Hard water can cause plumbing issues
and appliance failures.
But since there are no known adverse
health risks, it's not regulated by
the EPA or by the Texas Commission
on Environmental Quality.
Even so, the company says it's
taken steps recently to make it
softer.
In an email, Vice President of
Operations Tim Williford said four
water samples from February had an
average hardness of 50 milligrams
per liter, which is considered
soft water.
I explained all of this to Austin's
colony resident Richard Franklin at
a coffee shop.
I don't know where they got that
from
He was skeptical.
Or even, who even told you that lie?
Franklin's lived in Austin's colony
for over 20 years.
He says he's lost track of how many
times he's had to replace his
dishwasher, maybe three or four
times.
He's replaced both of his toilets.
He says a few years ago, he went to
fix his sink and...
The pipes were so corroded
that as I tried
to grab the nut,
the pipes fell off and just corroded
in my hand.
He says the cost of having to
routinely replace appliances has
added up, and that's on top of
paying for the water itself.
Before even turning on the tap,
Texas Water Utilities customers in
Austin's colony pay a base fee
of $59.
That's more than seven times the
cost of Austin Water's base fee.
There's also a $79 base
fee for sewer services, plus
a few other small charges.
Franklin showed me a copy of his
water bill from February.
His total bill was 161
bucks.
The cost of the water he actually
used, less than $14.
We don't use that much water.
I literally have gotten to the point
where I said, if we pee, we don't
flush.
In the land of fun and sun, we dont
flush for number one.
Franklin says those base fees have
gone up in recent years as Texas
water utilities tax on what it calls
system improvement charges.
Those fees pay for big
infrastructure upgrades.
In an email, the company says it
spent $6.3 million on
the Austin's colony area in 2025.
That money went into replacing aging
pipes and buying more water from the
Carrizo Wilcox aquifer, which makes
the water softer.
But Franklin says he hasn't
noticed any improvements at his
house.
This was last Saturday, last
Saturday. My wife was gonna take a
bath.
He shows me a photo of a bathtub
filled with dirty looking water.
I don't know what they think that
is, I
don't know if brown water is not
hard, but that
was her bathtub.
She couldn't take a bath.
Franklin and Croft have both
formally protested some of these
charges with the Public Utility
Commission of Texas, which regulates
water rates in the state.
It's been a long process.
Croft's effort to protest the latest
$16 increase has taken months
of back and forth with Texas Water
Utilities and the Public utility
Commission.
Franklin went through the same back
and fourth a few years ago.
He ultimately lost.
So a few months ago, he thought of a
different strategy.
He put up that big sign on
Weberville Road.
The one that says ask about the
water before you buy here.
The thought process is,
why don't we have the developers not
be able to sell their homes in this
area, and
have them go to the legislature and
force private water
companies to do
what's affordable
and livable.
That's what that sign was for,
was to pit the
people with the money against the
people with money.
Franklin says he's caught some flak
from neighbors over the sign.
They told him it's making the
neighborhood look bad.
But he says the sign is his way of
being a good neighbor, warning
newcomers about the fees they'll
have to pay.
I asked Franklin if he thought the
sign has actually done anything
other than peeve some of his
neighbors.
And he told me it must have because
the county is making him take it
down.
Somebody complained about it, so we
know it made noise.
Although I think it's funny because
we've had a sign up there about our
community meeting every month.
That sign's been there for two years
now and it's never been touched, no
one said a word about it.
But the sign that's directly above
it, they're asking me to take that
sign down.
He's not giving up, though.
He found a new place to put up a
sign on private property.
He says his next one is going to be
almost twice as big.
I'm Katie McAfee in Austin.
Well, it's still March, so we aren't
in the high summer temperatures just
yet, but when it comes to the
balance of keeping cool and keeping
the energy bill down, it can be a
struggle. And for those behind on
their bill with Austin Energy, they
are more likely to see their
electricity shut off as Austin
Energy ramps up shut-offs
for non-payment.
To tell us more, we are speaking
with KUT's Government and
Accountability reporter.
Andrew Weber.
Andrew, thanks for talking with us
today. Yes, ma'am.
Thank you for having me, Miles.
Of course. Now, I think for some
people, they might think, duh, you
don't pay your electricity.
It gets turned off.
That's just how the story goes.
But Austin Energy has been working
with customers to avoid shutoffs
previously and especially after
the pandemic, right?
Yeah, you mentioned the pandemic.
I mean, I think we all remember that
the utility paused, you know,
any shutoffs whatsoever because
folks were struggling at that time.
And then you had, you know back
when this whole state froze and,
you know in 2022 when the city
froze, they've had these sort of,
if I can use a nerdy word, moratoria
on shutoffs before,
previously.
The last couple of years there have
been fewer and fewer of those.
The weather hasn't been as extreme
to sort of trigger those.
Uh, so the city hasn't
paused its shutoff or the city
utility, I should say, hasn't
positive shutoffs, uh, but it also
has a program called the customer
assistance program that helps
pay down some, some of your bill
if you qualify.
Um, but the, the problem previously
was, you know, about four years ago,
the city wasn't really enrolling
as many people as it could.
It was only 38% of the people who
were eligible, who were enrolled in
the program. So The
utility has over the last couple of
years done a really good job of
getting more folks enrolled and
just letting folks know this exists
if you need help to pay your bills.
And they've seen a lot of success
in that. Now it's up to 85,000
people who are enrolled in that
program.
Yeah, because as your headline
states, the shutoffs have
quadrupled recently.
So why has this number increased so
much?
Yeah, there's a lot of reasons for
that.
I mean, for one, it's just more
expensive.
Austin Energy would argue our
bills are the lowest on the ERCOT
market. That's the state's energy
marketplace.
And they would also argue that, by
and large, bills are
down compared to a couple years ago.
But residential customers, people
who live in apartments and houses,
are still struggling to pay their
bills.
And a lot of that is because what
the utility charges has
gone up. Over the last couple of
years because they have bills to pay
as well, you know, it's a utility
that doesn't operate, you
now, it operates at a loss.
It's currently got a $44 million
deficit that it
has to make up because if they
don't then, you know there's no
other game in town that's the only
utility that Austin has to get
electricity.
Right, and you mentioned bills have
gone up, but how does Austin Energy
decide how much it charges
customers?
It's an arduous process.
There's lawyers involved, it's
usually in a courtroom setting, or
at least some sort of legal setting.
Basically, the utility says,
this is what we have to pay back for
our debt, and this is what
we want to charge folks.
We have to raise rates, and we're
going to do X, Y, Z.
And in that setting, they
call it a rate review.
There is also somebody who's
advocating for all the residential
customers, all the people in houses
and apartments who are paying Austin
energy bills, they usually
have a counterproposal.
And so a
judge basically decides which
proposal to go with or what
compromises
are made where, and then
the bill becomes, it becomes
a new rate.
That sounds like a lot.
Yeah, it's a lot, it' s a lot but
the last couple of years, the city's
been, the city utility has been
slowly raising rates.
And last year it folded that whole
process into the city budget,
which is already a very fraught
process.
And the folks I spoke with say that
that process needs to be more
transparent and just
transparent and out in the public
square going forward.
Another key point is that
temperatures are increasing year
after year, right? We're seeing that
with our weather.
So how does that get factored into
all of this?
Austin is is famously
not super affordable right now, and
it's not getting any colder
in the summers.
And that demand for electricity
is driving these
shutoffs.
And it's also not likely going
to go away.
Climate researchers at UT in
the city predict that these,
you know, these sort of like heat
dome events, these crazy, crazy
hot summers aren't going
away. If anything, they're
increasing over the next couple of
over the next believe century.
So this has obviously always
been an issue, Austin being hot,
but you know, as it relates to
the demand for electricity, that's
that's also going to keep
Well, we've been speaking with KET's
government and accountability
reporter, Andrew Weber.
Andrew, thanks so much for talking
with us.
Thank you.
Appreciate you.
When the Austin signal comes back,
we'll be talking about RiseFest,
a festival that is happening at
Pease Park right here in Austin.
This is the Austin Signal, welcome
back.
Back in 1928, a city plan excluded
black residents from certain parts
of Austin, including the city's
first public park, Pease Park.
One group is working to reclaim that
history and reshape the narrative
through the Rise Project.
They're hosting Rise Fest, an event
honoring the history and cultural
legacy of Austin's black freedom
communities.
It takes place this Sunday, March
29th, from two to five p.m.
At Kingsbury Commons in Pease Parks.
Joining me in the studio are the
co-founders of Rise, Stephanie Lang
and Funmi Ogunro.
Great to have y'all here.
So happy to be here.
Yes. Hello, hello.
Can y'all first start by telling me
how did Rise come about?
Yes, of course.
So before the name RISE
came about, we were just known
as the Austin Black Freedom
Communities documentary.
I grew up in Austin and I
spent a lot of time in East Austin
as a child, but I never
knew what freedom communities were
or heard the name.
And so she told me freedom
communities came about after
emancipation.
Black people built these communities
all around Austin and lived in
South Austin, East Austin, North
Austin, all throughout Travis
County.
And we had our own
homes and schools.
And so that's how we
started off with the documentary.
Years later now, we're still working
on the documentary and it's almost
done and the name is now
Rise.
So Stephanie, you're a 7th
generation Austinite.
How important is it for you to make
sure our stories are told?
So important, Miles, one
of the things
that was always so,
I would say, troubling for me
as an adult
was feeling like there's
this void of recognition
of all the contributions that
black people have made to
this city.
There's so much that has been done.
There's so much that
I wish I knew when I was a younger
child.
Sitting in certain parts of Austin,
not feeling welcome at
all, and then realizing
that my folks were from these
communities, my folks made these
communities into homes,
which subsequently is part of why
they were probably pushed out of
there in the first place.
So it's so important, before you can
fully learn the history of any
community, you know, any
city, whatever it is,
to, you now,
Marginalize or pull out large sex
of that who that contributed so
much is you're not learning the full
story So it's something we all need
to learn and history repeats
itself, right?
So learning about
This history really speaks to where
we are right now in this moment
because there's nothing new under
the sun
and we're all sitting here, three
black women from Austin,
from different parts of Austin.
Funmi, how important is storytelling
in this work for you, especially
when it comes to shifting hearts
and shifting minds, because for me,
that's what storytelling does.
I spent a lot of time on East 11th
Street as a child.
My mom had a nonprofit
arts program and
I participated in a lot
of the programming and poetry.
In that art background
and working with the black
community, my elders has
really influenced me as
a artist.
I didn't know storytelling was the
the medium I would be choosing,
but I believe spending so much
time as a child on 11th street
is the reason why I'm
now storytelling,
because I'm telling stories of
people that grew up in East Austin
and all over Austin.
For me, what can people
expect when they show up to
Rise Fest, because I know it's going
to be a lot of good times there.
Rice Fest is gonna be a beautiful
day of fun at Peace
Park.
It's free.
First of all, I gotta say that.
I wanna let you know this is a
family-friendly event.
So bring your kids.
There's gonna be kids' corner so
your kids can come and be engaged.
We're gonna have the Sweet Home
Baptist Missionary Choir
from a Freedom Community,
Clarksville, which is just right
around the corner from Peace Park,
so they're a beautiful choir.
They're gonna open up the
festival.
We're also gonna have Austin's poet
laureate, Zell Miller.
We're gonna have one of the best DJs
in town, DJ Asia Monet.
We're going to have different
activations from some of our
community partners like Austin
History Center, Bethany
Cemetery, Norris Explorers,
Third Spaces, Black Austin Tours.
There's going to be a gardening
activity for families.
You can plant a seed and take it
home with you.
So this is really a beautiful
community event and it's gonna be
a great time. We'd love to see you
out there.
And another one of like the special
intimate parts of
the fest is we're
gonna have a conversation with
two really
iconic in our lives and now
viral TikTok stars,
elders, part of descendants
of freedom community,
Ms.
Vesita and Ms.
Flores Sorrells, also known as Ms.
Flo. So special time
and like a little section off to
their cells.
To have that conversation with
interested festival
goers.
I've been speaking to Stephanie Lang
and Funmi Ogunro of
the Rise Project about their
upcoming event Rise Fest taking
place this Sunday on March
29th from 2-5 p.m.
At Kingsbury Commons in Pease Park.
Thanks so much for joining me today.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you. This was great.
You can hear more about the Rise
Fest in the show notes page for
the podcast for Austin Signal.
And that's it for us today on Austin
Signal.
Rayna Sevilla is our technical
director, Kristen Cabrera is our
managing producer, and I am your
host, Miles Bloxson, and we'll talk
again tomorrow.
Thanks for joining us.