Reporting Texas
News and features from UT-Austin's School of Journalism
byMikhelia Williams
Long before tech bros and $8 matchas, the South Austin neighborhood of Bouldin Creek had wandering peacocks in its front yards. Nearly six decades later, the colorful birds are still strutting through driveways, shrieking at sunrise and sunning themselves on porch railings.
And in true old-Austin, keep-it-weird fashion, most residents like it that way.
Neighbors slow to a stop on Oltorf and Fifth streets to let the peahens saunter across the street. Some even leave birdseed on their steps just in case one decides to drop by. But not everyone who moved to 78704 understood the culture when they arrived.
byNoemi Castanon
Govalle Elementary School opened its doors to East Austin families in 1931. Now, after 94 years of educating generations of East Austin families and serving as the center of their neighborhood, the school could be closed if its accountability rating does not change by the next academic school year.
The families that have called Govalle home for generations have weathered two threats of closure or major changes in the past decade. This fall, the Austin Independent School District proposed transforming Govalle from a neighborhood school into a Montessori-styled elementary that could draw students from throughout the school district. But community opposition to the plan helped to persuade officials to remove Govalle from a plan to close 10 schools and alter others.
byDestiny Lewis
More than 3.4 million Texas residents, including over 1.3 million children, rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, according to federal data. In Travis County, the loss of SNAP benefits will affect approximately 44,895 households, which represent over 87,000 people, according to the city of Austin.
bySarah Gonzales
When four longtime friends maxed out their credit cards and depleted their savings accounts nine years ago to open a bar, they had no idea who would turn out to see their vision become a reality.
“The goal, the whole time as we were getting things going, is just making a place where we would want to hang out, and I mean that’s still kind of our MO,” Mike Sanchez said.
Those four friends named the place The Little Darlin’, a South Austin staple off William Cannon Drive — one of a handful of beloved dive bars that define their neighborhoods and manage to hang on as other bars and restaurants come and go.