The bleary-eyed activists passed around jugs of coffee and picked through a smattering of pastries laid out on a row of seats. One person began rummaging through boxes of light blue Dallas Housing Coalition T-shirts, occasionally calling out “Who needs a medium?” before lobbing the balled-up shirts across the aisles.
Braving the rain, Bryan Tony, executive director of the Dallas Housing Coalition, waited outside to ensure everyone joining the trip was accounted for. As he finally boarded, he smiled and said, “I see you all already got into the shirts.”
“Thanks for looking out for each other,” he added. “That’s what we’re all about.”
When the bus pulled onto Interstate 35, almost everyone aboard was lulled back to sleep. Tony, though, settled in to finalize the details of an ambitious plan: Throughout the afternoon, 10 teams of volunteers would visit the offices of every single North Texas representative in the Texas House and Senate, 50 offices total, to talk about the need for affordable housing legislation. Similar coalitions from Austin and San Antonio would be meeting the group at the Capitol to put similar pressure on their own representatives ahead of the legislative session’s end.
The Dallas Housing Coalition was formed in 2023 as a way for the hundreds of affordable housing organizations to get behind one mouthpiece ahead of the 2024 city bond. Of the $1.25 billion allocated, $26.4 million was approved for affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization initiatives. It wasn’t the amount the group hoped for, but it wasn’t a bad showing for a newly formed coalition.
With the bond behind them and the legislative session approaching, Tony asked the coalition’s members if they felt it was the right time to enter the statewide conversation on affordable housing access. They did, and since January, he’s been in Austin at least once a month to hound North Texas’ representatives on eight housing bills deemed a priority by the coalition.
By now, he knows most of the staffers in those representatives’ offices by name, and the staffers know his name, too.
“Everyone our age we talked to today, whether they live in Dallas or not, when we said the words ‘unaffordable housing’ we weren’t met with blank faces." - Rebekah Kornblum, Dallas Neighbors for Housing
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Tony began to rouse the troops an hour out from Austin on Tuesday morning. Fighting to be heard over the downpour, he started by asking who in the group had never been to the Capitol before. A few hands went up. Then he asked who was lobbying for the first time. More hands raised.
He handed out folders full of talking points, breakdowns of bills, meeting outlines and agendas, and began a crash course on the bills the group would be tasked with promoting throughout the day. Some, like a bill that would lower the minimum lot size required for home building in new neighborhoods, or one that would allow housing to be built on unused commercially-zoned land by right, are expected to make it onto the House floor by the end of the legislative session.
Others, like a Republican proposal to allow faith institutions to build housing on their land, seem dead in the water. The bill got caught up in the “quagmire” of Plano’s EPIC City — a proposed Muslim community in Collin County that has been met with vitriol and investigation from state leaders — and likely won’t have time to garner the needed support by June 2, the Legislative session’s final day.
“We’re kind of in the fourth quarter of the Legislative session,” Tony said. “This is where bills will either die or live. Maybe they’ll live a few years from now [in the next legislative session].”
Within the legislature, everyone seems to agree that access to affordable housing is a problem in Texas, but getting everyone to agree on a solution is a much harder task. Current estimates show that Texas is missing around 320,000 homes, and Tony believes that cities aren’t working fast enough to counter the housing crunch on their own, so statewide intervention is required.
📸 what a tremendous first #HousingDayattheDome! Yesterday, more than 30 advocates from the Dallas Housing Coalition, representing pro-housing organizations from across North Texas, traveled to the Texas State Capitol and braved the rain to rally for attainable housing… pic.twitter.com/slhwf1CsIw
— Dallas Housing Coalition (@dallashousingco) May 7, 2025
Dallas Rep. Rafael Anchía seems to agree.
After making it through the rain and into the Capitol building, the gaggle of poncho-clad advocates filed into the House Chamber’s upper gallery to hear Anchía introduce a resolution officially marking the day as “Housing Day at the Dome.” Later, he told the Observer he felt the group’s far-reaching push for more housing legislation was an “incredible” effort that is deeply personal to him.
As a child, Anchía’s family lost their home after his father lost his job. They were able to move in with extended family, which Anchía credits as being the lucky opportunity that let his family "tread water” until they stabilized. But he recognizes that for some Texas families, that sort of safety net isn’t an option.
“The fact that we were able to land in a home with family was both our salvation in the short term, and it gave us hope that we could get back on our feet,” Anchía said. “A lot of times it's just one bad break. Bad things happen to good people all the time, and we have it within our power here in the legislature to change the laws to catch more of those families that have had a bad break. To allow them to be stabilized, and then allow them to get back on their feet.”
A Promising First Step
Perhaps one of the greatest opponents to the affordable housing conversation is NIMBYism, the “Not In My Backyard” ideology that has a way of stopping developments before they can start. In many cases, “NIMBY’s” are property owners who do not want to be exposed to denser housing and the “transient” types who typically prefer to rent a place to live instead of buy. NIMBY’s also tend to be overwhelmingly organized, which makes them powerful.House Bill 24 could strip some of that power away from neighborhood protesters. The bill is an attempt to fix the “landowner veto” — the rule requiring a city council to achieve a super majority to approve a rezoning case that is “vetoed” by 20% of surrounding landowners. It’s an issue that hasn’t bubbled up too badly in Dallas yet, Tony said. Still, the bill could serve as a “bellwether” for how the legislature will approach other similar bills that attempt to override instances where local control stands in the way of development.
“People often think that with housing, the sky is going to fall if we change a few things, but that’s not what we’re seeing,” Tony said. “Housing is very tangible … If cities aren’t growing, then they’re dying.”
The House passed HB 24 on Tuesday afternoon. In the moments leading up to the vote, Dallas Housing Coalition advocates were inviting themselves into representatives’ offices to ask staffers if that representative needed any additional information on the bill to move forward with a vote of support. A companion bill in the Senate has also passed, although it carves out an exception that maintains the low supermajority trigger if a casino wants to move into town. That difference between the bills must be rectified before it can go to Governor Greg Abbott’s desk to be signed into law.
Representative Rafael Anchía introduced a resolution welcoming the coalition to the Capitol.
State of Texas screenshot
The coalition celebrated the passage of HB 24 as a serendipitously timed success. In an address to the group, though, Sen. Nathan Johnson told the group he believes the Legislature should be going even further.
“For the first time in quite a while, we do see a very serious interest in housing. There are a lot of good bills in housing, and some of them are going to pass,” Johnson said. “My own feeling is that we're not doing enough and that the efforts, while good in quality, they're not especially ambitious. We're not seeing multi-billion dollar commitments to housing the way we are seeing [commitments] to property tax deductions for wealthy people who already have homes.”
Johnson took a swing at housing with Senate Bill 2835, an effort that would allow municipalities to allow multi-family housing units to be built with a single staircase. This design standard has been popular across Europe and adopted in Seattle and New York City. The code regulation allows developers to cut costs and build within a smaller footprint, often resulting in additional units being built.
The bill would limit single-stair developments to six stories with no more than four dwelling units per floor. As of this week, it was placed on the Senate’s local and uncontested calendar, which allows for the consideration of “local and noncontroversial" bills. SB 2835 is one of the eight prioritized by the Dallas Housing Coalition.
Johnson also addressed the generational divide that permeates the affordable housing conversation.
“There is right now a generation of people working in [the Capitol] building who see [issues] happening, and who are developing the knowledge, the expertise and the skills to rebuild when the smoke clears,” Johnson said. “And that may not sound like much solace to people, but I take some solace in that.”
“People often think that with housing, the sky is going to fall if we change a few things, but that’s not what we’re seeing. Housing is very tangible … If cities aren’t growing, then they’re dying.” - Bryan Tony, Dallas Housing Coalition Executive Director
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Later in the day, Rebekah Kornblum told the Observer she’d noticed something similar while visiting representatives’ offices during the lobbying day. A Dallas resident for seven years, she joined the coalition’s advocacy day as a Dallas Neighbors for Housing representative.
“Everyone our age we talked to today, whether they live in Dallas or not, when we said the words ‘unaffordable housing’ we weren’t met with blank faces,” Kornblum, who is in her early 30s, said.
According to the National Association of Realtors, the median homebuyer age in Texas last year was 56, up from 49 the previous year. Fewer and fewer young people are purchasing homes; last year, Kornblum saw firsthand why that is.
Hoping to purchase a condo in Dallas, Kornblum set up a meeting with a realtor. She outlined her budget and her wants — two bedrooms, near transit, surrounded by streets safe to bike on — and was met with the reaction of amusement one would give a child asking for a unicorn for Christmas. A year later, she’s still renting.
“I knew it wouldn’t be easy,” she said. “But it was so frustrating.”
The Long Arc
Walking through the Capitol with a confidence rarely seen in 9-year-olds was Bean Cuenca, a third-grader from East Dallas whose mother, Nelly Cuenca, said that the smile permanently plastered on her son’s face was likely because Capitol staffers couldn’t stop giving the kid candy.“I think he thinks we’re trick-or-treating,” she told Tony while standing in a long hall of offices, holding a half-eaten, melting Blue Bell ice cream cup.
Bean, at first nowhere to be found, suddenly emerged from an office and triumphantly declared, “I got a Ferrero Rocher!” before taking the ice cream for himself.
Nelly Cuenca is a lifelong East Dallas resident who started a nonprofit organization called MaaPaa, which works with single mothers raising boys without a father figure present. She told the Observer that she finds herself in the housing conversation out of necessity after realizing that homeownership, a basic tenet of the American Dream, is out of reach for many of the single mothers she mentors.
“With every single focus group I held, [housing] was the number one topic. It comes down to having to take on two jobs just to pay rent,” Cuenca said. “You're basically choosing two jobs over raising your child. And that's obviously very unfair.”
She passionately supports Senate Bill 673, which would legalize accessory dwelling units across the state. These small backyard apartments are sometimes called granny flats, mother-in-law suites, or casitas. In Dallas, the structures have largely been involved in the ongoing lawsuit that will determine whether or not Airbnb rentals are allowed in Dallas neighborhoods. Those against ADU rentals worry about the impact of overflow parking on their streets and the way transient visitors will disrupt the neighborhood fabric.
For Cuenca, though, accessory dwelling units offer “freedom” to families looking for extra income, or intergenerational families who want to live together while still maintaining personal space. SB 673, which is sponsored by state Sen. Royce West, is another Dallas Housing Coalition priority bill and is being considered in committee.
"Bad things happen to good people all the time, and we have it within our power here in the Legislature to change the laws to catch more of those families that have had a bad break. To allow them to be stabilized, and then allow them to get back on their feet.” - Dallas Representative Rafael Anchía
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In many cases, the bills currently most likely to pass this legislative session will do little to offer relief to the single mothers Cuenca works with. These regulatory bills could take five or ten years to truly impact Texas’ home supply. She hopes that by the time Bean is old enough to consider home ownership, the seeds laid down during this legislative session will have sprouted.
“You need to see it firsthand that you have a voice, even at age nine,” Cuenca said. “Your advocacy starts when you open your mouth to speak, and it's really important, as a community, to give that type of power to our children. Because in the future they're going to inherit what we're currently planting.”
Dallas Housing Coalition plans to host “Housing Day at the Dome” again in future legislative sessions, and even discussed the possibility of someday holding a rally dedicated to affordable housing access on the Capitol’s steps. If Dallasites walk away with one thing, Tony said, it’s that “there’s always room on the affordable housing bus.”
For Tony, the advocacy work is a balance between convincing anyone who will listen that the critical moment to address the state’s housing crisis is now and looking towards the next legislative session, two years from now. In a culture seemingly built on instant gratification, he understands that it could be that long or longer before what he believes to be truly good policy can even be considered.
When he gets discouraged, he thinks about Martin Luther King Jr.'s description of “the arc” of morality, of humanity, as “long” and “bending towards justice.”
“I just try to remind myself of that,” he said. “Because if not us, then who?”
