Texas bans homeowners’ associations from discriminating against renters who receive federal housing aid

L4sBot@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 182 points –
Texas bans homeowners’ associations from discriminating against renters who receive federal housing aid
texastribune.org
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This is a victory against which essentially appears to be Redlining 2.0.

Very surprising coming out of Texas.

Having acknowledged the positive in this, the cynic in me can't help but read in between the lines of how this maybe reveals what revenue streams in Texas wield power versus what doesn't.

Ban water breaks for construction workers = lucrative contracts for my industry cronies.

Ban Section 8 discrimination by HOAs = not an industry that can make me money as a politician, so screw them.

not an industry that can make me money as a politician

But home rentals are. I know here in Canada, many federal politicians are landlords. It seems to be the thing that either supports them in running for office in the first place, or what they do spend their MP's salary on once elected.

Yes, which is why I think this law passed because home renting (being a landlord) is one iteration of a small business and the pursuit of capital. Hence HOA isn't the money-making industry.

I think because of how HOAs operate in the U.S., there is rarely ever any collaboration between them as a lobbying force versus how landlords could potentially band together to influence policy. Even in this story, it's realtors as a collective showing support for banning this kind of discrimination, not other HOAs defending the practice.

Usually the people who are involved in HOAs aren't paid, or they're paid something nominal. The only people who get rich from HOAs are the treasurers and they get rich because they embezzle the HOA funds. Also, although all the officers of HOAs own homes, they're not all landlords. So the HOA as an organization may countermand what an homeowner within the HOA wants to do with their home, such as rent it out to Section 8 recipients.

Most HOAs in the U.S. are characterized as being controlling and troublesome to deal with by homeowners within the HOA, and are overwhelming staffed (voted in) by the most bored busybodies who want to tell you how to live your life.

Companies need cheap government sunbsidized labor to be able to live somewhat near