AUSTIN, Texas — Relief for renters living in public housing could come if new legislation passes through the Texas Legislature.

Two years after the deadly February 2021 winter storm, several proposed bills are aiming to protect the most vulnerable Texans during a disaster. 

What You Need To Know

  • Texas legislation seeks to refund medical losses and require generators in public housing

  • HB 1110 would pay renters for medications and medical equipment losses during a storm

  • HB 1109 would require all public housing to have emergency generators in case of outages

  • The Texas Department of Public Health Services estimated 246 people died in the 2021 freeze

Maria Romero needs her medications to live.

“This is my blood pressure medication,” she said as she sprawled out her prescription bottle onto an air mattress in her living room.

When she lost them after her family’s apartment flooded from a burst pipe back in the winter of 2021, it wasn’t just expensive; it was scary.

“That’s why you need these things, because you could die!” Romero exclaimed.

Romero’s CPAP machine, which helps her breathe at night, was also damaged by water and stopped working when the power went out.

“If you don’t have that constant air pumping into your lungs, you do stop breathing,” she said.

The cost of her medications and medical supplies was around $500. That doesn’t include the cost of new prescriptions or replacements she paid for out of pocket. The mother, her kids, and partner Arthur Jimenez lived in low-income housing in Austin, so that money affected their livelihood.

“And that’s expensive,” Romero said. “That is like really expensive equipment.”

Now, two bills in the Texas Legislature could prevent all of that.

HB 1110 and HB 1109 seek to reimburse renters like Romero who live in public housing for any medical losses during a disaster, and require public housing authorities to have emergency generators.

“A lot of low-income places do get forgotten,” Texas State Rep. Elizabeth Campos, D-San Antonio, said.

Campos is the author of the two bills.

“Within the public housing, you’ve got all ages of individuals that are disabled and that are on medication,” she said.

The money would come from federal and state dollars allocated to public housing, which Campos says authorities aren’t spending enough of on renters.

“I’m open to talking to these authorities and figuring out what is the best way that we can get this taken care of,” Campos said.

Romero says these bills would have helped her, but she wishes the situation never happened. Her family didn’t just lose medications, they lost their home and almost everything in it.

“All of that money that they were giving the mangers and what not to keep everything up and running, like it literally never made it to us!” she said.

Some Texans even lost their lives. The Texas Department of Public Health Services estimated 246 people died during the freeze in 2021, but other experts say it was much higher. Some of those deaths were elderly folks in nursing homes who didn’t have generators.