Writing / A place to live
Trump blamed investors for Houston’s unaffordable housing. The data tells a different story.
Houston Chronicle
16 March 2026 · Opinion
On the life we share
A good societyis builtup close.
I investigate local power and write about the relationships and institutions that shape our lives. How do we make a society worth belonging to?
Writer · Investigator · AuthorHouston, Texas
Photo from Charles’s brand archive
Public life / Private bonds / Shared futures
Writing, conversations & original research
What makes a place
worth belonging to?
A home within reach. People who show up. Institutions that earn our confidence. Follow the question across three works.
Writing / A place for men
Texas boys and men are in trouble. Why aren’t we doing something?
Houston Chronicle
19 November 2025 · Opinion
Listening / A public promise
What Does Government Accountability Look Like When it Actually Works?
Texas Tomorrow
27 August 2026 · Podcast
In the margin / Why this connects
Belonging has a material foundation.
Housing affordability shapes who can put down roots. This essay tests a popular explanation against property and transaction data.
The original work
Read at the ChronicleForthcoming / 16 February 2027
The
Brotherhood
Effect
Why All Men Need Real Friends
A life with people
who count on you.
Friendship takes shared experience, accountability, and the effort to keep showing up. A practical book about rebuilding the connections that sustain men—and the people around them.
Meet the bookJohns Hopkins University Press
Publication date and description: publisher listing.
Editorial typesetting; not the official book cover.
The Civic Loom.
Visit the existing archive siteChronology is only one way through the work. Follow a recurring thread to see how people, institutions, places, and questions cross writing, audio, and video.
Who Pays for Property Tax Fraud?
Investigation finds cheating on Texas homestead exemption is widespread
Trump blamed investors for Houston’s unaffordable housing. The data tells a different story.
Texas boys and men are in trouble. Why aren’t we doing something?
Who’s Responsible When Government AI Gives the Wrong Answer?
Police Could Get Your Location Data Without a Warrant. That Has to End
When technology outpaces the rules.
The 2017 essay argues for limits on access to cell-phone location records.
Read at WIRED ↗A different system. The same question.
Camera networks make everyday movement searchable and errors consequential.
Listen at Texas Tomorrow ↗No works match this search and format.
PeopleInstitutionsPlacesQuestions
About Charles
Close to the ground.
Open to the bigger question.
Charles J. Blain is a Houston-based writer, investigator, and author. His work moves between public records, the decisions that shape our cities, and the relationships that make a shared life possible.
In Blain Sight
Writing on social trust, community, and the institutions around us.
Keep following the question.
In Blain Sight carries the inquiry forward through new writing, evidence, and conversations.