One afternoon in August 2016, an everyday suburban mom, her hair pulled back, wearing a conservative sweater, approached the microphone at a Pearland ISD school-board meeting. Her voice quavered a bit as she read from her prepared statement. “I am an ordained minister, and I am the parent of a transgender child at PISD,” began […]
Author Archive | Roxanna Asgarian
Meet the Harris County Judge Who Wants to Abolish Our Cash-Bail System
“All rise,” the bailiff calls, and the people packing the rows of Court 16 at the Harris County Criminal Court shuffle to their feet. Judge Darrell Jordan strides in, a 41-year-old man in black-framed glasses, his robes fluttering behind him before he stops abruptly in front of an American flag and begins to recite the […]
Sarah Davis: At Odds with Both the Left and the Right, Depending on the Day
During the legislative session that just wrapped up, the Texas House of Representatives passed a controversial bill known as SB4. The bill bans so-called sanctuary cities in Texas and allows police officers to ask about the immigration status of anyone they detain for any reason, while granting the state the authority to criminally charge sheriffs […]
What the City of Houston Will Do, Post-Harvey
IN THE WAKE OF HARVEY’S DESTRUCTION, we have heard so much from the national media about the ways Houston has screwed up—how our lack of zoning resulted in over-eager developers building in flood plains, how the Katy prairie, which once acted as a huge sponge, is now almost entirely paved over. How our city, state, […]
Freedom Place: Once a Summer Camp, Now a Home for Healing
THE RANCH SITS JUST OUTSIDE HOUSTON, down a farm-to-market road and off a winding path. Like most ranches, the entrance is guarded by an unmarked gate. You press a button, explain your business, and the gate opens onto a narrow road flanked by horses munching on grass. Birds chirp as they wind among the loblolly […]
In the City with the World’s Largest Medical Center, There’s Still No Biotech—Yet
REYNOLDS DELGADO DOESN’T REMEMBER EXACTLY when the idea came to him. There was no eureka moment. But after working with thousands of heart-failure patients, watching most of them die, he knew there had to be a better way to treat more patients, earlier, to alleviate their suffering. When your heart begins to fail, you might […]
The Way Home: What Happens After a Life Spent in the Texas Foster Care System?
It was early July 2001, and Trish Virgil was going to make a lemon meringue pie. “In our family, 12 years old meant that you get to finally learn how to make homemade pies,” she says now, smiling. But, Virgil says, when she got home from the store with her mother, police had surrounded their […]
In the Fight for Abortion Access, a Houston Nonprofit Offers a Helping Hand—and a Passenger Seat
The rain comes down in sheets as Angie Hayes sits in her idling two-door Honda Civic, waiting. A man in a rain slicker and galoshes approaches her driver’s side window, and she rolls it down a crack to receive instructions. “Who are you here for ?” he asks, leaning his umbrella into the gap between […]
Through the Losing Glass: What the Recycling Conundrum Says About Houston
FOR THE CITY, it was certainly a step back— although things could have been worse. In March, after a brief standoff, the Houston City Council struck a new two-year deal with Waste Management, one the financially strapped city was able to afford. Our curbside recycling program, Houstonians were relieved to hear, wouldn’t be nixed entirely. […]
Judge Katrina Griffith Helps Kids Aging Out of Texas Foster Care Find a Path Forward
It’s an early afternoon in September, and five teenagers trickle into the CPS Project Court downtown, their court-appointed attorneys, caseworkers and special advocates trailing behind them. The youths leave the adults in the courtroom, retreating through a restricted-access door, into a room full of toys and books, with a Japanese anime cartoon on TV. They’re […]