Revised study: Foreclosure ousted no one in E. Austin
Initial report of high number of tax seizures had caused concern
By Marty Toohey
Austin American Statesman
Friday, July 13, 2007
Travis County is not putting East Austin residents out of their homes through tax foreclosures, according to a University of Texas professor heading a study of housing markets in East Austin.
The charge surfaced in a March community forum. A UT graduate student working on the wide-ranging study stated that 72 percent of tax foreclosures in Austin happened east of Interstate 35. Austin City Manager Toby Futrell said that and other statistics presented that night caused her shame.
But the researchers later learned that all 30 of the East Austin foreclosures in question were on vacant lots or houses deemed uninhabitable by the city, according to a May letter to county officials from Robert Wilson, the UT professor heading the study.
After some county officials complained after the March forum, Wilson received the initial findings to reflect that home owners were not being displaced.
The officials were sensitive because a similar allegation-that the county was unfairly targeting East Austin home owners – was leveled last year by a law firm seeking a lucrative and controversial contract to collect delinquent taxes.
The firm, Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP, says that the county still has not given the idea a fair heading and that the county’s tax collection inherently targets poorer homeowners.
Officials deny the charge.
Wilson said he was surprised at the reaction to the small part of the presentation that examines the changing demographics and economic conditions in East Austin.
Wilson said the study concludes the changes in East Austin are a “fairly mixed picture,” from which some people and businesses are benefiting and others are being hurt.
He said renters are among those hardest hit by rising property values, which often translate to higher monthly rents.
Some families also face difficulties, he said, because the titles to inherited properties are not always clear. This can result in taxes accumulating for years in the absence of a clear heir, hindering or precluding the transfer of the property.
Wilson said the full study should be finished by the end of summer.
East Austin faces difficult issues, he said, but tax foreclosures is not among the major ones.
“The evidence contradicts” the county displacing East Austin residents through foreclosures, Wilson said. “It’s not the case as far as I can see.”
