Houston Press: TIPPING POINT: IN HUNTINGTON VILLAGE, THE COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION HAS ALL THE POWER
By Dianna Wray
December 15, 2015
Most of the time Ebony Washington is able to pretend everything is fine. She even waves when Huntington Village Community Association deed restriction inspectors pause near her house to record another infraction. Washington puts up a good front throughout the day. She’s in the middle of a divorce, struggling to pay her bills and keep things on an even keel for her three daughters — Aisa, three, Asia, eight, and Angelica, 13 — so she gets up at 5:30 a.m. on weekdays and does her hair and makeup, checks to see that her daughters have everything they need and then rushes to her job as a dropout prevention counselor at George H. Bush High School in Fort Bend Independent School District. After school she gets the girls to band practices and theater rehearsals.
There’s no time to notice the gutter that was damaged in the Memorial Day Flood, or to consider the faded black address numbers that she needs to replace. She never lets herself think about the money she owes the Huntington Village Community Association — $791 in delinquent association dues plus more than $3,000 in legal fees — or the possibility that any day now, she could find a foreclosure notice on her door. Read more: