The Core Blog

Broadband internet is essential for economic development, education, health care, and staying connected in today’s digital world. For many rural and underserved communities in Texas, access to high-speed internet remains a challenge, despite increasing efforts to bridge the digital divide. With billions in federal funding dedicated to broadband expansion, Texans are hopeful that these funds will finally pave the way for comprehensive coverage across the state. However, significant barriers still hinder the effective deployment of

On August 26, 2024, Harris County and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that they had entered into a Voluntary Compliance Agreement/Conciliation Agreement that has the potential to make mandatory buyout programs, designed to move families away from environmental risk, more fair for Harris County homeowners. You can read the full agreement here. Since 2022, Texas Appleseed has been conducting a study to understand the impacts of home buyout programs on

So much of what we do on our mobile phones, online, and through apps is being tracked, captured, and even packaged and sold. These data collection practices can be invasive, compromise personal privacy, and enable scammers. In promising news, Texans were afforded new rights on July 1, 2024, to control their personal data through the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, which covers most businesses that collect our personal information. Under this new law, Texans

If you’ve ever done anything online – from creating a social media account to looking up a new recipe – there’s a strong chance your information has been collected and sold by data brokers. That’s because every time we use our cell phones or computers, a wide range of data is collected about us – often without our knowledge or active consent – and used in ways outside of our control. Data brokers are businesses

This is the second and final blog in our two-part series on seeking record relief in Texas. You can access the first one here . Thanks for reading along! In Texas, every single adult must apply to seal or expunge their record, whether they are innocent, their charges were dropped, or they have been crime-free for years. With a record relief process as complicated as ours, most rely on some form of assistance. This can

This is the first of a two-part blog series on seeking record relief in Texas. Stay tuned for the second part next week! In Texas, a criminal record has far-reaching implications. It can prevent system-impacted people from securing housing and employment, necessary cornerstones for re-entry and a crime-free life. Nearly 75% of formerly incarcerated people remain unemployed after being released, partially due to barriers to job opportunities. Often, a record is not a measure of

It isn't news to most of us that rehabilitation services are lacking in the carceral system in Texas. We know that our system focuses almost exclusively on punishment, as opposed to treatment, with many believing that incarcerated individuals are a menace to society and cannot or will not recover. Texas is unique in that we have state jail felonies, the majority ( 45%) of which are low-level drug offenses, with many suffering from substance use

My most recent experience with overdraft fees happened a few years ago. One of my kids — a young adult — inadvertently made a handful of Venmo payments of less than $20 while on a trip with friends that exceeded the balance in the connected checking account. By the time we realized there was an issue, the overdraft and non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees, at $35 per payment, had ballooned to nearly $400 on payments that

May 29, 2023, marked the end of the regular 88th Texas Legislative Session. Texas Appleseed’s Fair Financial Services Project, grounded in building and supporting financial wellbeing for Texans, had a robust legislative agenda. Among our priority items, we worked to promote data privacy protections, enhance debt collection rights for victims of financial abuse, and address predatory lending. We faced some setbacks but had many successes and made important progress across all of our policy priorities

After the devastating storms of the 2022 hurricane season, many disaster survivors in Puerto Rico and Florida were unable to access much-needed assistance through FEMA. During our ongoing analysis of FEMA’s Individual and Households Program (IHP) assistance data 1 on Hurricanes Fiona and Ian, only a small proportion of Puerto Rican applicants received Housing Assistance, and thousands of applications in both Florida and Puerto Rico were rejected for failure to verify homeownership. Housing Assistance is

HB 3827 deals with tech-enabled wage advance products that are marketed as “earned wage access.” Though these new wage-advance products are presented as “earned wage access,” only some are actually based on earned wages. Some models are structured to operate in partnership with employers and collect advances through payroll deduction. But, a large part of the market is based on a “direct-to-consumer” model, offered directly to individuals without involving the employer. These companies give advances

This is the first of a three-part blog series on higher education in Texas prisons. Stay tuned for the second and third parts in the next few weeks! The state of higher education in prisons in Texas and across the nation will enter a new phase in July. For the first time in nearly three decades, incarcerated people will be eligible to receive Pell Grants to finance their pursuit of a postsecondary degree or workforce