Kashmere Gardens’ Resiliency Hub to receive long-awaited permanent generator

Kashmere Garden’s multi-service center will receive a permanent generator, priced at $899,000, which will be installed and operable within a year. Councilwoman Letitia Plummer had proposed a generator for extreme weather conditions in June as part of the FY2025 budget meeting when she put forth an amendment for a permanent generator for the neighborhood’s “resiliency hub”—the city’s only such center. The amendment passed with support from other members of the council.

“What became so glaring during our storms was the resiliency of some of our locations that people were actually referred to,” Mayor John Whitmire said during a press conference. “Today is an exciting time for the citizens of Houston because this is gonna be our new model.”

Plummer said the community has struggled continually due to extreme weather conditions over the years and shared their plight before the council. She said families in the area have faced repeated power outages and temperature fluctuations without resources for heat and cooling, which is “unacceptable.”

“Their [residents] determination has brought us to this moment, and I think it’s important to state that the Kashmere Gardens community has a 20% lower life expectancy rate than any other community in Harris County,” Plummer said. “But today, [we’re] one step closer to Kashmere Gardens as being a true resiliency hub with the new generator that we are providing the infrastructure needed to ensure that residents, especially seniors, and the most vulnerable populations, have a safe place to go during disaster.”

The contract with Enchanted Rock Solutions was awarded with an 11% goal for M/WBE participation and will be monitored by the Office of Business Opportunity.

Angela Blanchard, the city’s Chief Recovery and Resilience Officer, announced that the existing solar panels at Kashmere were repaired. Shell, an oil industry company, provided the additional funds for the generator site, she added.

A much-needed reprieve

Kashmere Gardens residents hailed this announcement as a win. Joetta Stevenson, the president of the Greater Fifth Ward Super Neighborhood #55, came to the last meeting to plead her case yet again for the generator.

“We would like that [resiliency] hub completed, and to complete it, it needs to have the generator that can generate power to that entire facility,” Stevenson said. “I’m tired, frankly, of going somewhere outside of my community far away to charge a phone or to stay warm. So I’m going to beg and plead with everyone on this council to please approve the amount of money that is necessary so that we can move forward.”

District K Councilmember Martha Castex-Tatum said the council was in agreement about this agenda item and had been planning on approving it the next day.

After the generator’s approval, Stevenson said it would also serve surrounding neighborhoods before this model is implemented in other areas.

“We are grassroots people. We’re used to hearing, ‘Ms. Stevenson, I don’t know where to charge my phone’ or ‘All of my food is gone.’”

Plummer also read out a statement from Keith Wyndel Downey, the “father of Kashmere Gardens” in his absence. 

“Storms are a part of our lives for the remainder of our lives, and we must be prepared for those storms when they take place in underserved areas, under-invested communities,” Downey wrote. “These storms happen on a daily basis in the lives of the people that are most vulnerable… If the weather is too cold or the weather is too hot, the community needs reassurance that they have somewhere to go in the City of Houston, and they need an address, and they do now.”

While the news of the generator placates residents’ demands for long-term solutions in the neighborhood, it will take a year for its benefits to reach Kashmere residents, which includes another winter and a hurricane season. Whitmire said his administration will provide reprieve through services and plans aimed at fixing these issues. Blanchard clarified that these include scouring the city for available assets to serve as warming or cooling centers.

“We will face other disruptions before we have generators installed in the two dozen or more places,” Blanchard said. “We know we need them. We’ve already been living without those and we’ve been doing workarounds.” 

Whitmire added that his administration will focus on underserved communities in Sunnyside and the Heights, implementing plans to develop infrastructure.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us today as Kashmere has been neglected for my entire childhood,” he said. “Ultimately, the goal is to fix the entire city, as been said repeatedly.”

Kashmere Gardens: A Neighborhood Forgotten During Climate Disasters

For years, Houston’s predominantly Black neighborhood Kashmere Gardens has braved climate disasters. Hurricane Harvey in 2017 caused intense flooding in nearly 3,700 homes (44%). More recently, Hurricane Beryl knocked out power in the neighborhood for weeks.

Every time the neighborhood tries to recover, it becomes the epicenter of a new storm. In 2021, an ice storm impacted houses in Kashmere, leaving its residents—most without health insurance—to fend for themselves while looking out for their neighbors.

Here, 29% of households live below the poverty line, and more than half of the population is unemployed. Thus, climate shocks disproportionately affect the neighborhood, highlighting the importance of solutions while considering its vulnerable populations.

Under former Mayor Sylvester Turner’s leadership, the city he City worked alongside Resilient Cities Catalyst (RCC) to develop a two-year program to help Kashmere’s residents. In December last year, city officials designated Kashmere’s multiservice center as Houston’s first-ever “resilience hub” for residents to access food assistance, community education, and Wi-Fi and serve as a resource connecter during climate emergencies.
Despite its inauguration, the resilience hub was nonfunctional during Beryl, and the multiservice center also lost power.