Council Member, District D

Carolyn Evans-Shabazz

In office since 2020 · Term ends Jan 2028 (term-limited)

Official council district boundaries · City of Houston GIS. Tap a district to see who represents it.

What this office does

City Council is Houston's legislative body — it has the power to enact and enforce the city's ordinances and resolutions. Your district member is one of 16 council members (11 elected from geographic districts, five citywide). Together the Council adopts and may alter the annual budget, confirms the Mayor's appointments, and votes on bond issues, the awarding of contracts, and city spending over $50,000.

Source: City of Houston — City Government ↗

Educator and former HCC trustee representing south-central Houston, including Third Ward and Sunnyside.

Verified background

Now: Councilwoman, Houston City Council District D (Houston City Council District D — About the Council Member ↗)
Before: First African American woman to chair the Houston Community College System's Board. (Houston City Council District D — About the Council Member ↗)
Work: Retired Houston ISD teacher and Lead Evaluation Specialist (retired 2009); real estate agent with over 30 years of experience in Houston. Graduate of Jack Yates Senior High School; Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Spelman College; Master's degree in Psychology and PhD in Education, both from Texas Southern University. (Houston City Council District D — About the Council Member ↗)

Each line links the record it was verified from. Where we couldn’t verify something, it isn’t here.

In their own words

Quoted and attributed from Carolyn Evans-Shabazz’s own official government page.

“As a native Houstonian from the historic 'Third Ward, Texas,' I am proud to serve our community and am committed to enhancing the quality of life for all our residents.”
Houston City Council District D — About the Council Member ↗

Committees

Arts and Culture · Chair ↗Proposition A · Vice Chair ↗Quality of Life · Member ↗Budget and Fiscal Affairs · Member (whole council) ↗Ethics and Governance · Member (whole council) ↗

From the official council committees page ↗. Each link opens that committee's city page.

Election watch

No filing on record yet for 2027.

Contact & office

Phone: 832.393.3001
Email: districtd@houstontx.gov
Website: Official city page ↗
Mail: 900 Bagby, City Hall Annex, 1st Floor, Houston, TX 77002

Verified from the City of Houston directory. Office hours and town halls aren't published in our records yet.

What the record shows

Present at 30 of 33 council meetings the minutes place them on council (Oct 2025 – Oct 2026).

Recorded absent at roll call 3 times. We have 47 meetings in total; the 33 counted here are the ones where the roll call names this member, so a seat taken mid-period isn't measured against meetings before it.

Recorded on 1263 of 1374 votes taken at those meetings.

The minutes note them absent on 111 individual votes.

What those votes were about

1042 decided items while they held the seat, by topic.

Utilities226

Contracts & spending222

Taxes & budget97

Housing & zoning96

Public safety82

Transportation78

Counted from the City Secretary's minutes. Where the minutes don't record a member either way, we don't guess. These are counts of what happened, not a judgment of it — and we publish no party-agreement figures for city council, which is elected on a nonpartisan ballot and decides most items on a near-unanimous consent agenda.

How this district spends its service fund

Each council district controls a Council District Service Fund — money the member directs to local projects like extra police overtime, sidewalk fixes, ditch cleaning, or park events. These are the actual line items from the city's published dashboards, FY2015 through FY2026. Try searching a word like "sidewalk" or "camera" to see what your fund bought.

FY2026: $580,788 approved · $198,788 spent · 9 projects (part-year)FY2025: $933,947 approved · $459,287 spent · 30 projectsFY2024: $1,075,729 approved · $641,781 spent · 52 projects

FY2026 figures are the city's March 25, 2026 snapshot — spending recorded after that date isn't in this workbook yet, so treat FY2026 as a part-year total.

FY2026 · Operating · D-3-26

Anti-Gang initiative

$220,338 approved · $57,319 spent as of March 25, 2026

FY2026 · Operating · D-2-26

Various initiatives under DON

$150,000 approved · $50,365 spent as of March 25, 2026

FY2026 · Operating · D-5-26

HOT Team (D-5-25)

$90,000 approved · $63,129 spent as of March 25, 2026

FY2026 · Operating · D-4-26

HPL Enhancement

$60,000 approved · $1,500 spent as of March 25, 2026

FY2026 · Operating · D-1-26

(D-47-24) Frazier Elementary SPARK Park

$25,000 approved · $25,000 spent as of March 25, 2026

Straight from the City of Houston's council district budget summaries ↗ (FY2015–FY2026 dashboard workbooks). "Approved" is the maximum the member signed off on; "spent" is expenses recorded as of the date each workbook was published — the city updates them a few times a year, so recent figures lag. 3 projects are carried over from an earlier year and published in both workbooks; year totals above match the city's books, and totals spanning years count each project once.

Download this district's spending as CSV ↓

PASSED2026-10-13

This ordinance sets the property tax rate for the City of Houston for the year 2026, establishing how ad valorem (property-based) taxes will be assessed, levied, and collected.