HOUSTON – For Shanka Baldwin, her home isn’t just a house. It’s her childhood. It’s her history. It’s where family gathered for Thanksgiving dinners and Halloween dress-ups. It’s the home her aunt left her, the same aunt who raised her in Houston’s Fifth Ward.
“I’ve been here all my life,” Baldwin said. “This is all I know.”
But since Hurricane Harvey tore through her neighborhood in 2017, Baldwin’s world has been upended. The storm ripped the roof off both ends of her home, leaving behind years of damage.
“I’m steady patching. I’m steady building,” she said, reflecting on how much she’s invested in keeping the house standing.
She applied for help through the Texas General Land Office (GLO) and was approved for a new build through the state’s Homeowner Assistance Program, a federally funded initiative meant to help families rebuild after disasters.
The GLO says it has helped more than 10,000 Texas families and built more than 1,500 single-family homes statewide.
For Baldwin, it felt like the light at the end of a long tunnel. But that hope was short-lived.
“I was really excited,” she said. “But then… everything changed.”
After two years of waiting, Baldwin received a call from GLO. If she didn’t obtain a building permit from the City of Houston, she’d be removed from the list. That call was in June.
So, she called the city.
Their answer shocked her: the city wasn’t issuing permits in her neighborhood because parts of her neighborhood are deemed a cancer cluster.
“I said, ‘How? Y’all are building all around me,’” Baldwin said. “They just built three houses across the street.”
The Contradiction Across the Street
While Baldwin’s request for a building permit was denied, construction was happening just steps away from her window. Three new homes had broken ground and were quickly rising from the same soil.
“I open my window and look at it every day,” Baldwin said. “I can’t tell you what goes through my head. The only thing I can say is that I’m mad.”
Her best friend, Cassandra Humphrey, decided to investigate.
“My family’s been in this area since 1929. I’m invested in this neighborhood,” Humphrey said. “When I found out Shanka wasn’t allowed to build, but houses across the street were going up, I had to find out what was going on.”
Humphrey pulled public records from the City of Houston Permitting Center and discovered that the new homes across the street received permits in January 2025 during the same time Baldwin was told the city had paused permits.
“They submitted their initial permit application in December of 2024,” Humphrey explained. “That was after the supposed permit deadline. So why were those allowed?”
KPRC 2’s Rilwan Balogun double checked her work.
He requested all paperwork filed for the three Oats homes. Since several items in the request are copyrighted, Balogun wasn’t able to get a copy. Instead, he had to visit Houston’s Permitting Center and look at each document. While doing so, he found out the developers submitted permit plans and requests in December of 2024. This is the same time the city had paused permits.
KPRC 2 reached out to the City of Houston for comment but hasn’t yet received a response.
GLO: “Our Hands Are Tied”
The Texas General Land Office says it can’t build Baldwin’s new home without an approved city permit even though Baldwin’s property has already passed a soil test funded by GLO.
In a statement to KPRC 2, Brittany Eck, Director of Communications for Disaster Recovery at the GLO, wrote:
“This is an unfortunate situation in which our hands are tied by federal and local regulations and the potential contamination case,” Eck said in a July statement. “The program is unfortunately unable to assist Shanka Baldwin with the repair of her property unless we can get clearance to proceed through a residential building permit.”
Eck emphasized that the GLO did conduct an environmental site assessment of Baldwin’s property, which did not find unacceptable levels of contamination.
“We will continue to help Shanka Baldwin find a resolution - if possible, but unfortunately at this time, we are unable to proceed further,” Eck said.
A Lifted Hold — But No Clear Answers
In July 2025, the City of Houston quietly lifted the administrative hold on issuing permits in parts of Fifth Ward and Kashmere Gardens.
But no one told Baldwin.
“I had no idea until you told me,” she told Balogun. “I’ve called and emailed everyone I could, city offices, GLO. No one’s gotten back to me.”
While others move into brand-new homes down the block, Baldwin sits in limbo. She’s already bought furniture, appliances, and household items for the rebuild she thought was coming.
“Yes, I was excited,” she said. “Now I can’t even use it. I don’t have a new home.”
And her final message?
“You told me you were going to build me a home. I waited for two years. Two years. And when June came… that’s when I got the devastating news.”