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Excuse the inconvenience, we are merging our blog and website

June 12, 2011 by John Henneberger Comments Off

Please excuse the the empty pages and strange links on our blog site texashousiners.net. We are merging our several web sites with our blog. The process will (hopefully) be complete in a few weeks and will make information and news about affordable housing and community development in Texas easier to find. We welcome your suggestions [...]

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dispute_resolve

Learn how to resolve a dispute with your landlord

June 11, 2011 by John Henneberger Comments Off

www.texastenant.org The Texas Tenant Advisor developed by Texas Low Income Housing Information Service and Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid attorney Robert Doggett is designed to help tenants know their rights under Texas law so they can resolve disputes with their landlords. The site includes helpful resources such as videos, forms you can use to resolve [...]

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Activities
good_apartments

Find subsidized housing with our custom search tool – Texas Housing Counselor

June 11, 2011 by John Henneberger Comments Off

The Texas Housing Counselor is a website of the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service. It is an interactive search tool which automatically estimates the your rent for subsidized housing programs in Texas and is a resource for exploring housing options in the city you choose. It is important to remember that a property or [...]

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Activities
twitter

TexasHousers on Twitter

June 3, 2009 by John Henneberger Comments Off

For those given to chronically wasting time or suffering from insane levels of boredom, follow the goings-on of Texas Housers via Twitter. No promises that I’m going to keep this up for a long time.  

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Activities
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Mitt Romney at private fundraiser: I might eliminate HUD – The Washington Post

May 1, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

The Washington Post reports on a statement made by Mitt Romney about HUD. “I’m going to take a lot of departments in Washington, and agencies, and combine them. Some eliminate, but I’m probably not going to lay out just exactly which ones are going to go,” Romney told the audience. His words were heard by [...]

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National issues
bo

Bo’s housing news clips: Study finds zoning segregates lower-income students in lower-scoring schools.

April 24, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

A news analysis of Texas’ allocation of federal housing funds shows the process fosters continued segregation. Although the HUD programs are intended to break up concentrations of poverty households, placement of tax-incentive projects and other low-income housing in more affluent neighborhoods is usually blocked by protesting residents. For a pdf version of the full stories, [...]

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News Clips
LIHTC_min_areas

Texas LIHTC housing program rocked by second earthquake in two months

April 22, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Reporter Karisa King’s full Texas housing story is out in the San Antonio Express News. It is a devastating expose of the Texas Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. $9.7 billion in federal funds have been spent by the State of Texas that has on balance enhanced racial and ethnic segregation through the State’s administration [...]

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State issues
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Low-Income Housing Program Compels Building in Poor Texas Areas – NYTimes.com

April 21, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Karisa King of the San Antonio Epress News has an incredibly researched and  very disturbing story in Sunday’s New York Times and Texas Tribune. The interactive maps are stunning at: http://www.texastribune.org/library/data/tax-credit-housing-locations/ Plans to build a low-income apartment complex for seniors in one of San Antonio’s most fashionable neighborhoods had been posted for barely a week in [...]

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State issues
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bo

Bo’s housing news clips: National home foreclosures and Galveston housing woes are top stories in recent weeks

April 17, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Tuesday Report, April 17, 2012 Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service Wrangling between the Galveston Housing Authority and the General Land Office continues after the authority posited a new plan that would potentially fund market-rate units. The land office now threatens to pursue its own options for rebuilding public housing destroyed three [...]

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News Clips
Vilsack

Labor Secretary hosts ceremony honoring Cesar Chavez while slashing funds for housing farmworkers

March 27, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

The recognition offered yesterday to leaders of the farmworker movement by US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was welcome. The event was marred however by the audacity of the Secretary to stand in front of the leaders of the struggle of the farmworkers and proclaim “Si, se puede!” after he approved a proposal to largely end the [...]

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National issues
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bo

Bo’s housing news clips: Cost of living in Austin is ‘Out of Reach’ for most renters

March 27, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service by Bo McCarver A few economists are now saying that the housing market is stabilizing – but recovery from the bust is slow as 23 percent of mortgages are underwater and home prices still exceed what most potential buyers can borrow. A new report shows that [...]

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News Clips

Falkenberg: Learning a lot from the Rankin debacle – Houston Chronicle

March 25, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg wrote her column today on former Harris County Housing Authority executive director Guy Rankin… When I apply for my next big gig – preferably something managerial – I think Ill toss this choice line into my résumé: “Falkenberg is considered to be the best metro columnist in America when it [...]

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News Clips
Texas_House_of_Rep

Coalition of conservative activists’ calls for consolidation of TDHCA and TSAHC

March 21, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

In a reprise of a plan decisively rejected by the Texas Legislature last session, a coalition of conservative public policy advocacy and lobby groups, including the Texas Tea Party is once again calling for consolidation of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs with the nonprofit corporation, the Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation (TSAHC). [...]

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State issues
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Court rules Texas Housing Tax Credit program violates Fair Housing Act

March 20, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

This morning a federal court ruled in a case filed by a Dallas fair housing organization that the way the State of Texas administers the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program has a disparate racial impact, violating §§ 3604(a) and 3605(a) of the Fair Housing Act (Civil Rights Act of 1968). Judge Sidney Fitzwater, chief judge of the Federal [...]

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National issues, State issues
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bo

Bo’s housing clips: Battered by crisis, poor still find paths to home ownership

March 20, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Compiled by Bo McCarver. Special to the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service As default notices and foreclosures continue, the Federal Reserve prepares to fine eight more banks for making sleazy mortgages. But punitive actions do little to help “underwater” homeowners, some of whom have mounted a demonstration in Fort Worth. Meanwhile, the TARP bailout [...]

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News Clips
potasnack

Brian Potashnik to restart work outside TX new court filing says | dallasnews.com Crime Blog

March 19, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Dallas Morning News reporter Jason Trahan has blogged that a Texas low income housing tax credit developer at the center of the FBI sting that sent Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill to federal prison has petitioned the judge that he be allowed to travel to europe to engage in neighborhood redevelopment projects in Israel [...]

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State issues

Austin American-Statesman: State should ask HNTB for a refund

March 15, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

The following editorial is from an editorial in today’s Austin-American Statesman. A state disaster relief contract has itself been declared a disaster by federal auditors who recommend that Texas repay $9 million in overcharges collected by HNTB to administer disaster relief grants. Federal auditors found instances of overbilling by the company and poor oversight by [...]

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State issues
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Out of Reach: The Housing Wage in Context

March 15, 2012 by John Henneberger 1 Comment

Reblogged from On the Home Front: Yesterday, NLIHC released Out of Reach 2012: America’s Forgotten Housing Crisis.  This report highlights the gap between wages renters actually earn, and what they would need to earn to afford the rent and utilities for a modest two-bedroom apartment in their state. As a part of our release, we held [...]

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National issues
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State-plan-cover

State report: 29% of TX first round HUD disaster funds drawn down, 0% 2nd round

March 14, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Recent stories in the Austin American-Statesman, the Texas Tribune and the New York Times have chronicled the slow pace of the Texas Hurricane Ike and Dolly disaster recovery program using federal funds. Let’s step back and look at a snapshot of the state’s entire disaster recovery effort to get some perspective. Here are the numbers [...]

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State issues
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money_house

Latest data shows TX minimum wage earners can’t afford half the rent on a typical apartment

March 13, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

According to a national report released today, the Housing Wage for Texas is $15.88. The Housing Wage is the hourly wage a family must earn – working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year – to be able to afford the rent and utilities for a safe and modest home in the private housing [...]

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Local issues, National issues, State issues
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bo

Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation, 3-13-2012

March 13, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

The Obama Administration promises zero-tolerance for infractions of mortgage rules negotiated in a settlement with big banks last month. Mortgages under the auspice of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which make up 56 percent of the US mortgages, are not subject to the oversight measures. Almost four years after Hurricanes Rita and Ike, not one [...]

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News Clips
clarence

‘Homeless hotspots’ at South X Southwest stir controversy

March 12, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

A company has handed out mobile hotspots to homeless folks to walk around SXSW in Austin and people pay them $2 to get a connection to the internet. This set off a lot of comment with some people saying it is exploration and others (including some of the “homeless hotspots” as the workers are known) [...]

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Local issues
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Candidate for most outrageous quote of 2012: HNTB says Texas disaster recovery program is “on target and on budget”

March 11, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Austin American Statesman reporter Brenda Bell has an amazing quote from HNTB in her story today about the HUD audit of the State of Texas Hurricane Ike and Dolly disaster recovery program. The HUD audit found that Texas improperly contracted with the engineering firm HNTB to manage hundreds of millions of dollars worth of hurricane recovery [...]

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State issues
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Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation, 3-6-2012

March 10, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Another federal program to help beleaguered homeowners has fizzled: after two years, less than 3 percent of a $7.6 billion program to help unemployed homeowners has been spent. In Galveston, another effort has been mounted to stall rebuilding public housing that was destroyed three years ago in Hurricane Ike. U.S. Rep. Ted Poe is calling [...]

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News Clips

Federal Audit Questions $8 Million Paid to HNTB — General Land Office | The Texas Tribune

March 10, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

In the second article in as many days, Texas Tribune reporter Becca Aaronson has disclosed a HUD inspector general’s report that says the State of Texas’ Ike-Dolly disaster recovery program, which is funded by the federal government, is facing a potential $8 million repayment of inflated fees paid to the private contractor hired by the [...]

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State issues
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Amid Finger-Pointing, Hurricane Relief for Texans Lags – NYTimes.com

March 9, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

The NYT ran a story written by Texas Tribune reporter Becca Aaronson on the state of disaster recovery in Texas… Nearly four years after Hurricanes Ike and Dolly wreaked havoc on the Texas coast, thousands of Texans are still waiting for housing assistance. The long-term disaster recovery effort financed by the federal government has made little [...]

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State issues
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Harrington

The Poverty of an Idea – NYTimes.com

March 3, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

An Op-Ed by Maurice Isserman, a professor of history in today’s NYT frames the competing views of poverty in the US quite well. The conclusion is sobering and distressing: lack of continued popular economic analysis of poverty since the passing of Michael Harrington “We are left instead with the insistent, culturally determined arguments of Mr. Murray and [...]

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National issues
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Harris_co_HA

Housing authority shake-up may be under way – Houston Chronicle

February 29, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

The Houston Chronicle reports… Harris County Commissioners Court on Tuesday replaced the board chairman of the Harris County Housing Authority, starting what appears will be an extended shake-up at the agency following revelations of imprudent spending. … Tuesday’s appointment comes as the authority is negotiating with CEO Guy Rankin IV about the terms of his departure [...]

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Local issues
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bo

Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation, 2-28-2012

February 28, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Market analysts, eager to see silver linings after years of dark news, perceive a recovery in the housing industry as inventories decline. The market, however, belongs to those who can pay cash up front; those seeking mortgage loans are still crippled by a general reluctance of bankers to invest. For a pdf version of the [...]

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News Clips
the_real_truth

The Harris County Housing Authority gets motivated to act like the top 1 percent

February 27, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

If the previous blog post was not a sufficient indictment of the outrageous spending by the Harris County Housing Authority check out Mike Morris’ Houston Chronicle blog post. He documents the cost of getting the housing authority staff motivated through… A $5,500 fee for motivation speaker Garrison Wynn to address authority staff at their July 30, [...]

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Local issues
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Harris_co_HA

Harris County Housing Authority’s excesses exposed by Houston Chronicle

February 27, 2012 by John Henneberger 1 Comment

“Appalling. … One of the greater abuses of appointed office that I’ve seen,” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett told the Houston Chronicle. That does not overstate the bizarre expenditures at the Harris County Housing Authority, based on today’s story by Mike Morris in the Houston Chronicle. Yet inexplicably, the Harris County Housing Authority boasts it is HUD’s highest-performing housing authority in the [...]

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Local issues
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film_frieldly

The ‘Whitest town in North Texas’ fights to keep it that way

February 27, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

This might just be the ideal place to film a remake of “Birth Of A Nation,” D.W. Griffith’s silent film extolling the KKK. Proud of its designation as a “film friendly community” by the Texas Film Commission, the Dallas suburb of Sunnyvale is not extending a friendly spirit toward low income people and African American [...]

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Local issues
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kids_walk

More Texas kids live in concentrated poverty than in any other state

February 23, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

What does it mean to a child to grow up in a neighborhood where poverty is concentrated? That is a question that Texas children are uniquely able to answer. More Texas children live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty that any other state – 1,120,000 Texas children according to a report issued today by the Annie [...]

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State issues
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tim_irvine

New Texas state housing agency director discusses reorganization, relying on fewer, larger contractors

February 22, 2012 by John Henneberger 0 Comments

Tim Irvine, named executive director of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs just a couple of months ago, announced at last week’s board meeting a major staff reorganization and a new relationship with housing providers. Irvine announced the department will seek to work with larger, more administratively capable contractors to carry out the [...]

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State issues
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