This report from the Texas Tribune tells a scary tale for troubled children and teens in the fast-growing areas of Midland-Odessa. It’s impossible to find housing in the oil-boom areas of West Texas, which means that critical workers, including state Child Protective Services caseworkers, have no place to live.
This has resulted in a necessary transciency for some staffers of the over-taxed CPS offices that oversee Midland and Odessa, which may mean that some cases and some children who are victims of abuse are slipping through the cracks:
Midland had the nation’s highest increase in median home value after the recession, according to a NerdWallet study last month that examined census data from 2009 to 2012 for 510 cities. The median home price in the Midland metro area last month was $283,100 — the highest in Texas, according to the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University.
“It is an overwhelming problem,” said John Specia, the family and protective services commissioner. “The rents have tripled or more. We have a number of people who want to transfer to other areas because it’s like getting an immediate boost in pay.”
The department has tried to fill vacancies by temporarily sending workers from elsewhere in the state to the Midland and Odessa area; offering new caseworkers $5,000 signing bonuses, a practice since discontinued; and giving all 153 workers in the area $500-a-month housing supplements. A typical rate for a one-bedroom apartment in Midland is $1,100 a month, Mayor Jerry Morales said recently.
With the housing supplement, Pacheco’s annual pay is about $49,000.
But Specia said the housing supplements had not “stemmed the tide” of workers leaving. Because of the nature of the work — the agency has 24 hours to investigate urgent reports that a child faces harm — “we don’t have the luxury of teleworking,” he said.
This definitely puts a face on the shortfall of available housing in the oil-rich areas of West Texas, which we hear about often but don’t really see the effects. I don’t really see a short-term fix for this problem, though. Read the whole piece on the Texas Tribune, which paints a very bleak picture.
