In a packed room at the Fifth Ward Multi-Service Center on a Thursday night, RoShawn Evans stands in front of a sign that reads, “You can’t shoot a flood. Whitmire defunds drainage for HPD raises.”
The crowd of about 100 is diverse: Spanish interpretation is provided. People who don’t want to be filmed or photographed for fear of retaliation or because they’re undocumented are asked to raise their hands so they don’t wind up in a social media feed. Children play on the floor; elderly residents use walkers to get to their seats.
They all want the same thing: consideration in this year’s Houston city budget for the services they believe are important, rather than hundreds of millions of dollars going to law enforcement.
For many, the priority is flood mitigation. For some, it’s timely trash pick-up. For Evans, who co-founded Pure Justice with his wife Sasha Legette 10 years ago, it’s a more thoughtful approach to public safety that includes an end to non-safety traffic stops that he says keep law enforcement from responding swiftly to actual crimes.
They have an uphill battle in their plea to spend less on law enforcement. Public safety remains a top priority among Houstonians and violent crime went down by about 19 percent from 2024 to 2025, according to a year-end report issued by the city. Non-violent crime was reduced by about 8 percent.
Houston has been described as having one of the highest homicide clearance rates among large U.S. cities, with a rate of about 85 percent of cases closed from 2024 to 2025. That happened after the departure of former Police Chief Troy Finner, who retired in 2024, while under investigation for suspending more than 260,000 cases due to a lack of personnel. Missouri City officials announced last week that they appointed Finner as chief of the city in nearby Fort Bend County.
But public safety isn’t about closed cases, more cops and more jails, Evans says. It’s about making sure people can afford a place to live and have access to mental health resources and substance abuse treatment.
“Traditionally, the way people view safety is in prosecution of people they view as less than. We put more money into classism, sexism and racism than we do into liberation of the people who have the hardest and biggest challenges,” he says. “The budget is so important because we’re spending more money on law enforcement, prosecution, jails, probation, parole and carceral systems, and yet we’re lacking money in healthcare. We’re lacking money in mental health and drug treatment.”
Evans is clear that he’s not a “defund the police guy,” although he says he’s never called law enforcement for assistance and never will. “Law enforcement is reactionary,” he says. “If you was to take my jewelry and someone called the police, they’re coming after you’re already gone. In order to prevent you from even having an urge to take my jewelry, you need to look at the reason why. It’s because of what you need. It’s because you need a job, housing or healthcare.”
The group at the Multi-Service Center on April 9 proposed what it’s calling the “Houston People’s Budget,” a plea to Mayor John Whitmire and the city council to fund social services, to tax corporations and to oppose police overspending.
Organizers behind the movement described it as a 2.0 version of last year’s Houston Says No campaign. A $7 billion budget was approved last June, 14-3, with council members Abbie Kamin, Edward Pollard and Tiffany Thomas voting against it. Because last year’s effort wasn’t successful in thwarting the budget as proposed, and ended with some protesters being removed from council chambers, this year’s approach started earlier and is focused more on education, awareness and peaceful dialogue.
Houston is now facing a $174 million general fund deficit, and adoption is scheduled in June. Whitmire has said he will present a proposed budget on May 5, and Budget and Financial Affairs Committee Chair Sallie Alcorn is accepting feedback online via a survey.
Alice Liu, co-director of West Street Recovery, an organization that formed in 2017 to assist northwest Houston residents who were trapped in their homes during Hurricane Harvey, says the People’s Budget campaign aims to engage flood survivors and immigrants by proposing initiatives they believe need funding and areas that can be cut.
“The budget impacts so many different issues that cut to the core of what it means to be living in this city and to continue to live in this city for not just our lifetimes but for generations to come,” she says.
While the April meeting on the People’s Budget primarily included members of Pure Justice, West Street Recovery and its subsidiary Northeast Action Collective, several individuals have also raised concerns about the city’s debt and what appear to be diminishing services.
After last year’s budget was adopted, Houston Democracy Project founder Neil Aquino said, “The budget cut essential services on behalf of over-generous public safety union contracts, did not plan for the inevitable costs of our next disaster and left the city vulnerable to substantial future budget shortfalls.”
Whitmire has maintained that he’s done what he promised on the campaign trail: address long-standing inefficiencies and financial mismanagement. The FY 2026 budget was informed by an efficiency study that “exposed waste, duplication and conflicts of interest that undermined the services Houstonians rely on,” Whitmire says, adding that no services were cut and no taxes were raised last year.
Chris Hollins Pushes Back … Again
City Controller Chris Hollins sparred with Whitmire a year ago over the budget, telling the Houston Press that the mayor wasn’t being honest about the deficit or what had to happen to balance the budget, which is a legal requirement.
He even threatened not to certify, or sign off on, last year’s budget because the city had not yet received a settlement agreement related to drainage funds. The document arrived at the last minute, and Hollins reluctantly blessed the budget, but he warned that the growing deficit would remain a problem for future cycles.
“It’s not my job to say whether I like [the budget] or not,” Hollins said last year. “It is my job to talk about fiscal responsibility and fiscal sustainability. My job is to say whether there is money in the account to be able to pay for this.”
It’s not unusual for a controller to be at odds with the mayor over a budget. Hollins was elected to his position and could run for mayor next year against Whitmire. He filed for the seat in 2023, when Whitmire was elected, but withdrew when Sheila Jackson Lee entered the race and instead ran for controller.
Again, this month, Hollins went before the city council and said the $174 million deficit is deepening the financial hole and the amount that will have to come out of reserves. The budget is “nowhere close” to being balanced, Hollins said in an April council meeting. Whitmire responded that the numbers were “overstated” and the budget can be balanced without raising taxes.
In a press release, Hollins pointed out that his office warned repeatedly that the city’s overtime assumptions were unrealistic, with police, fire and solid waste projected to exceed their overtime budgets by more than a combined $54 million.
“This outcome was foreseeable and avoidable, yet the mayor chose to reduce the overtime budget instead of either controlling costs or budgeting honestly for them,” Hollins said. “The result is another hit to our fund balance at a time when credit rating agencies already have a negative outlook on the city. A budget that ignores predictable costs may pass a vote, but it doesn’t pass reality, and Houstonians are left paying the difference.”
Liu says that last year’s budget raised police pay by $67 million, underfunded drainage by $9.5 million, and cut social services — including public health, libraries and parks — by $122 million. “Unfortunately, this year, the forecast shows us only sinking deeper into this fiscal crisis,” she says.
Whitmire said at the adoption of the 2026 budget last year that he was proud of the document and that there were no cuts to services or tax increases. Hollins, in an extensive report, refuted those claims, saying, for example, that an increased water rate would cause residents’ bills to go up, even if it’s not labeled a new fee.
The mayor has also said he doesn’t want to politicize the budget. Liu claims that everyone at the People’s Budget meeting this month hopes to do just that. “The budget is fundamentally political,” she says. “The budget is a means by which wealth is being further concentrated, by which democracy is being threatened and by which power is being further concentrated for special interests instead of the people. So yes, the budget is political.”
Liu’s research shows 36,000 complaints about Solid Waste were registered in 2025. More than two dozen department employees retired recently and few have been replaced, she says. Additionally, some of the department’s equipment is inoperable and the workers make about 20 percent less than the national average. Public Works lost 249 employees last year, according to Liu, and the department was already understaffed.
“There is no more room to cut,” she says. “It is a lie that the city is overstaffed. The very opposite is true. Workers are being asked to do more with less funding and fewer resources.”
The budget cuts made in recent years — including buyouts or voluntary retirement packages for more than 1,000 employees — didn’t create efficiencies but rather damaged the ability to provide services, Liu says.
“We’re fighting for a budget that actually works for us,” she says, referencing the priorities of protecting social services and opposing police overspending. “With what money? The city of Houston has a $174 million deficit. Are we just dumb? No. First of all, the broke city of Houston found $832 million for the police last year. Not a single city councilor voted against it. It’s the highest-paid police department in Texas.”
The Controversial Police Contract
Last year, the Houston City Council entered an unprecedented five-year $832 million contract with HPD. It’ll cost the city $122 million this year.
What some deem to be overspending on law enforcement has resulted in hiring freezes and cuts in other departments, Liu says, suggesting that HPD accounts for 60 percent of the spending in the general fund.
“We have learned some very important lessons from how people already see the impacts of last year’s budget cuts playing out for residents and city workers,” she says. “In Fiscal Year 2026, we saw drastic cuts across almost every single city department except for police and fire. These reductions are permanently reflected in the budget, so once folks left, their positions were eliminated.”
Evans says he’s fine with putting money toward public safety resources but believes that his definition of public safety differs from that of the mayor’s. “When we look at this budget, one thing we ought to know is that we can never jail or incarcerate our way to safety. The only way we’re going to have a safe household, block, neighborhood or city is by making sure that the most vulnerable have access to resources,” he says.
“They keep finding money for law enforcement and keep squeezing money from stormwater, solid waste, libraries, early childhood development, mental healthcare and drug treatment. They’re setting us up for failure.”
Evans’ Pure Justice has been at the forefront of a fight to eliminate “non-safety traffic stops” such as tinted windows, broken tail lights or expired tags, suggesting that officers can enforce those laws but can’t pull someone over for that sole purpose. Some council members supported the initiative as part of an ordinance to limit how HPD interacts with immigration agents but that piece was temporarily set aside due to a lack of support.
The immigration ordinance that passed on April 8 eliminates a directive that Houston police have to wait 30 minutes for an ICE agent to arrive on the scene when they encounter a person with a non-criminal warrant.
“This new ordinance didn’t even have any teeth,” Evans says. “It only looked good on paper for some people who are running for re-election or running for a new office.”
After the ordinance passed — with no mention of non-safety traffic stops and a provision removed by the city attorney that would have allowed officers to use discretion when contacting ICE — Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to withdraw $110 million in public safety grants. Abbott said the ordinance is illegal and therefore violates an agreement that Houston had with the state.
Whitmire, in an effort to repeal the ordinance, said Houston can’t afford a $110 million hit to public safety. While advocates encouraged the council to keep the ordinance on the books and stand up to Abbott, they acknowledged that Whitmire would argue that the funds used for police operating costs and overtime might have to come from somewhere else, further impacting the general fund.
The Houston City Council is set to discuss amending the immigration ordinance at its April 22 meeting.
Evans says HPD can save money by changing its approach. “I understand that they have to pay the police, but having to pay somebody doesn’t mean you have to keep giving them raises or keep expanding the base.”
He’s heard the pushback from those who say it’s not the job of city government to provide mental health resources and substance abuse treatment. “The responsibility of government is to take care of the people, because the tax dollars come from the people,” Evans says. “It’s the duty of elected officials to prioritize their policy-making and the things they uplift and support to benefit people with the greatest needs.”
For what it’s worth, Alcorn’s budget survey asks Houstonians what city services should receive more funding in the upcoming budget. Public health, mental health, drug treatment, housing, parks and libraries are all on the list.
Flood Mitigation
West Street Recovery was created to help people who suffer the most when a storm hits. That mission hasn’t changed, and its members have repeatedly expressed frustration with how Houston’s general fund dollars are allocated.
“As always, we will be fighting for the city to adequately and equitably invest in flood mitigation infrastructure,” Liu says. “The newly updated FEMA floodplain maps reflect a reality that Houstonians have already lived through. Climate change means we’re getting more rain and more flooding. We are billions of dollars short of drainage infrastructure that can keep up with this increased flood risk.”
Last year, Whitmire took issue with the narrative that he’d robbed the drainage fund to pay for police. In a May 2025 memo, the mayor explained that he inherited a lawsuit brought by two engineers “who alleged — rightly — that Houston had not been allocating the full amount required by our charter for streets and drainage.”
“For eight years, the City diverted hundreds of millions of dollars from our voter-approved dedication to street and drainage work,” the memo states. “My administration has reached a fair and responsible settlement with the plaintiffs. Beginning in FY2026, Houston will honor the will of the voters to fully comply with the city charter. This means allocating hundreds of millions more toward the repairs and replacement of our broken and aging infrastructure.”
But instead of paying out the money in a lump sum of $100 million, the city agreed to spread it out over a three-year period. The West Street Recovery organizers say that, in the meantime, there’s standing water in their front yards and they’re trapped in their neighborhoods anytime there’s a heavy rain.
In January, the council voted to divert $30 million from the city’s stormwater fund to demolish blighted buildings.
“The $30 million was taken from a stormwater maintenance fund made of utility charges and property taxes that are explicitly collected from taxpayers to be set aside, in a protected account, for drainage and stormwater infrastructure,” Liu says. “There is both a legal and moral impetus for the city to use those tax dollars as voters mandated.”
It’s too soon to tell if Whitmire will thoughtfully consider the advocates’ concerns when it comes time to adopt the budget in about six weeks. Many of the same issues were brought up last year when only three council members voted against the budget. The police contract is locked in for four more years.
But Liu says it’s possible to balance the budget without causing Houstonians to suffer.
“Houston is a city of tremendous wealth; we’ve just chosen to invest in police, corporations, and developers instead of infrastructure and essential social services like health, housing, libraries, and parks,” she says. “Once again, it comes down to political will.”
