Almost two months after Texas Southern College halted a long-standing state-funded cost to the Acres Dwelling Chamber for Enterprise and Financial Growth, chamber leaders say they’re nonetheless working in limbo.
The chamber has relied on a $44,857 annual allocation from the State of Texas via TSU for greater than twenty years.
What occurred?
In December 2025, TSU abruptly stopped funding within the backdrop of an audit ordered by the state into the college. The investigation was ordered by Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick when a state audit discovered proof of poor bookkeeping and monetary mismanagement on the college.
As of February, the funding has not been restored.
“We’re nonetheless alive. We bought the doorways open. We’re nonetheless working exhausting,” Warren Fitzgerald Muhammad, the chamber’s CEO and board chairman, instructed the Defender. “But it surely’s going to have some impact.”
Muhammad confirmed that the chamber has not secured an alternate supply to exchange the shortfall.
With out the funds, the chamber continues to lean on occasion leases, memberships, and fundraising to maintain working.
Muhammad stated the group continues to be reserving its occasion area and planning fundraisers, however acknowledged the loss will finally have an effect on staffing and programming.
“Finally, it’s going to have some impact staff-wise and our skill to do the applications that we seemed ahead to doing,” he stated.
Correspondence between the chamber and TSU
In response to the funding halt, Muhammad reached out on to state leaders and TSU officers.
The chamber forwarded a string of correspondence with TSU directors to the Defender, the place Muhammad requested for help.
“We’ve got been knowledgeable that the College [TSU] is not going to difficulty the examine within the quantity of $44857.00 to us as has been executed yearly up to now,” Muhammad wrote. “We look ahead to any help obtainable.”
In earlier exchanges with TSU, college officers questioned the statutory foundation for the cost.
James White, TSU’s vice chairman of presidency affairs and civic engagement, wrote that he didn’t see the Acres Dwelling Chamber explicitly named within the laws and requested for line-item documentation from the state funds.
“I see your place, however I have to learn the plain studying of the laws,” White wrote in a November e mail. “I don’t even see the title Acres Houses Chamber of Commerce.”
Muhammad responded that the chamber had acquired the pass-through funding “for over a decade” and described it as important to the group’s operations.
Regardless of the documentation and appeals, Muhammad stated he’s ready for a proper response restoring the funding.
What’s subsequent for the chamber?
In keeping with Sheba Roy, who was just lately elevated to government director on the chamber and now manages day-to-day operations, she has not heard something farther from both the state or the college.
To make up for the chamber’s funding shortfall, Roy is exploring new avenues, akin to a membership drive.
She stated no less than six or seven new members have joined just lately. Enterprise memberships value $250, and the chamber is selling elevated advertising and marketing visibility as an incentive.
“I’m how you can elevate principally $3,000 a month,” she stated,
Nonetheless, the maths stays troublesome.
When requested whether or not a alternative funding supply has been recognized, Roy stated, “Not but.”
For now, leaders say the main target is on conserving providers going so long as attainable.
“We’re not lifeless on arrival but,” Muhammad stated. “We’re fighters. We’re not giving up.”
The Houston Defender has once more reached out to TSU for touch upon the chamber’s funding standing.
