HTX-LHK: Impact 9/30/2025

Businesses along Northpark Drive have been struggling to maintain in-store traffic as a major construction project along the roadway continues.

To help raise awareness and drive business toward the area, local chambers of commerce Partnership Lake Houston and the Greater East Montgomery County Chamber banded together to launch the “Northpark Needs You” campaign in late July, which local business owners have said is already having a positive impact.

The impact: While conceding the roadway improvements and the addition of the overpass are needed, several business owners on Northpark Drive have reported declining revenue in the two years since the project began.

Daron Skero, owner of Skero’s Furniture & Mattress, said the business was required to borrow $750,000 to stay operational after losing more than $1 million in sales since construction began.

Quote of note: "Business is starting to pick up a little bit, for sure, and I know the work the chambers are doing is absolutely helping," Skero said.

William P. Hobby and George Bush Intercontinental airports, as of September, are offering an on-demand American Sign Language interpreting service, Aira ASL, to passengers, according to a Sept. 18 news release from Houston Airports.

The service is free to passengers, and is the first of its kind to be offered in Texas, the news release notes. 

The overview: Aira ASL is an app that connects users to professional ASL interpreters from a live video feed.

Diving in deeper: The interpreter, according to the release, can assist travelers with some of the following throughout the airport:

• Check-in counters
• Gates
• Restrooms
• Concessions
• Baggage claim

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office has reduced the number of jail inmates housed outside of the county since June, a Sept. 18 quarterly jail data report shows. However, outsourcing inmates at other facilities was still a top expense in the fiscal year 2025-26 county general fund budget, approved Sept. 24.

What’s changed: HCSO oversees four different facilities in downtown Houston, with two jail facilities outsourced in Louisiana and Mississippi. As of Sept. 9, the Harris County jail was outsourcing about 16%—or 1,388 inmates—of 8,793 total inmates to facilities outside the county or state.

Cost to the county: Outsourcing inmates to jails outside of Harris County’s overcrowded jails is the single most expensive budgeted item taxpayers pay for. The county set aside $48 million in its FY 2025-26 budget for inmate outsourcing, about an 8% drop from the $52 million budgeted in FY 2024-25.
 

Harris County Flood Control District officials are holding public meetings in early October seeking community feedback to assist with the county’s first comprehensive flood resilience plan.

The big picture: Building upon the work completed by the Harris County Community Flood Resilience Task Force that originated after the 2018 $2.5 billion flood bond, the flood resilience plan is being developed by multiple county departments that aim to implement actionable initiatives that consider the well-being of communities facing the physical, social and economic hardships of flooding, according to the HCFCD.

What it means: The county’s first flood resilience plan is expected to be completed in February 2027 and have actions categorized by short, medium and long-term actions designed to strengthen infrastructure systems, natural and ecological resources and community networks.