This is one of mine. I started lobbying for it in 2015 when even all in our group looked at me like I'm crazy. Not so crazy now, am I?

Before anyone asks, Austin is very much so a small town in some ways. Many tech folk moved in for the dot-com boom and never left because we fell in love with the town. We also stayed friends and we communicate often, even as we all moved on to do bigger and better things. Sometimes, all it takes is an e-mail thread to make change.

If there is a pot hole on the street, and the city isn't fixing it, organize a few people. You might find that someone in your community has the tools you need, and someone else has left over materials.

Texas figured this out? Texas? This is a real low point. Yeah, this one hurts.

Was this rental housing or save-for-a-down-payment housing?

Yes, as a homeowner, I am plenty aware $12k will not cover a down payment in a lot of places. Maybe this gave some of these families the boost they need, or tipped them over the threshold they needed.

Thatchers plan would have worked if and only when:

LAND IS PROVIDED FOR NEW PROJECTS (destination plan on national provincial and local level)

ALL INCOME FROM RENT TO BUY (or similar) IS SPEND ON NEW PROJECTS

ALL PROJECTS ARE GUARANTEED BY THE BUILDER (no excess costs for any reason : sign your profitable contract but then you are obliged to deliver exactly what is promised or you'll never get another gov project again)

So the money went straight to the pocket of landlords. Cool.

You can’t give ordinary people money and not increase taxes on the rich. Otherwise it just becomes a wealth transfer from the state to rich people.

$1000 a month wouldn't even begin to help cover the cost of basic housing in Utah, I'm not sure what the situation is in Austin. I made a good salary but still wasn't able to afford a single bedroom apartment in Salt Lake, and now that rent has gone way up here, nobody can. In fact most former renters are now on the street.

Nobody in Utah can afford a house if they didn't already own one. Because of the outrageous prices, all the homebuyers are out of state millionaires who buy up property to rent out to other rich couples.

Maybe we should all move to Austin, if only they'd move Austin out of Texas and into a better state.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt sent a letter to the state's attorney general asking him to declare a new program in Houston as unconstitutional.

Of course they call it unconstitutional. It actually helps people and the constitution says nothing about helping people. /s