Today marks the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The images of the suffering poor left behind in New Orleans caused many people to rediscover that poverty still exists in our country. There was hope that this discovery would lead to a renewed commitment to wipe out poverty. Three years later there is little evidence of [...]
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Archive | August, 2008
New Census study documents stunning levels of income inequality in Texas
August 28, 2008
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This week the US Bureau of the Census released a report titled. Income, Earnings, and Poverty Data From the 2007 American Community Survey. The report presents data on income, earnings, and poverty by detailed socioeconomic characteristics for the United States, states, and lower levels of geography based on information collected in the 2006 and 2007 [...]
Read moreBo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 8/27/2008
August 27, 2008
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My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly compilation of print media stories he calls “The Tuesday Report”. Bo’s report is posted here each Wednesday. If you want a pdf file of the articles that includes social, environmental and other contextual news stories, [...]
Read moreWeighing political convention speehes on government’s obligation to lift up the poor
August 26, 2008
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The presidential nominating conventions are here and both parties will tell us about their vision for the country. I will be anxiously listening for both presidential candidates to articulate a commitment to end poverty. I’m hoping to hear something approaching the succinct and direct statement of President Franklin Roosevelt in his speech before the 1936 [...]
Read moreAs the pumpkin season approaches there is not housing for farm workers in the Texas pumpkin capital
August 25, 2008
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The farm worker housing development in Floydada, TX and in the Texas Panhandle’s Floyd County is closed. Farm workers are present in fairly large numbers to tend and harvest pumpkins in a county that styles itself as “Pumpkin Capital, USA.” Housing is difficult to find. It used to be that thirty families or so would [...]
Read moreTxLIHIS 20th Anniversary: the Blackland Neighborhood, the Street People’s Advisory Committee and Homer the Goose
August 24, 2008
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2008 is the 20th anniversary of the Texas low Income Housing Information Service (TxLIHIS). In 2000 the board of directors of TxLIHIS asked the staff to begin collecting the recollections of people who founded TxLIHIS and who have been involved with the organization over the years. The purpose was to provide some understanding of the [...]
Read morePlight of renters unaddressed in foreclosure crisis
August 23, 2008
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While the country focuses on the plight of homeowners facing foreclosure, the plight of renters forced to move due to foreclosure has received too little attention. Under Texas law a tenant can be forced to move out of a foreclosed property after the foreclosure agent provides them a mere 30 days notice. If a family [...]
Read moreIt is time to abolish the ineffective Texas Residential Construction Commission
August 22, 2008
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The hopelessly flawed Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC) has been recommended for abolition by the Texas Sunset Commission staff. The Sunset staff report on the TRCC concludes, “Current regulation of the residential construction industry is fundamentally flawed and does more harm than good.” I reluctantly concur. The TRCC was pushed into being in 2003 by [...]
Read moreDallas considers major permanent housing committment for the homeless
August 21, 2008
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Mike Rawlings, Dallas’ homeless czar, has proposed that the city build 700 homes for chronically homeless people throughout the city within five years. In my opinion, this is the right thing to do. HUD defines the chronically homeless as disabled individuals who have been continuously homeless for more than a year or have experienced at [...]
Read moreBo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 8/20/2008
August 20, 2008
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My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly compilation of print media stories he calls “The Tuesday Report”. Bo’s report is posted here each Wednesday. If you want a pdf file of the articles that includes social, environmental and other contextual news stories, [...]
Read moreWho says home equity loans are a good idea?
August 19, 2008
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Who says home equity loans (second mortgages) are a good idea? Primarily the banks who pushed home equity loans into the mainstream with a ferocious advertising campaign over the past 20 years. At least that is the case according to a feature article in the New York Times titled Home Equity Frenzy Was a Bank [...]
Read moreAfter 25 years one Austin community development corporation is a model of success
August 18, 2008
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The Blackland Community Development Corporation (BCDC) in East Austin is a model of what a successful CDC should be. The organization celebrated its 25th anniversary this weekend. In recognition I want to point out some of the things this that I think have made this community organization a national model. I don’t mean to put [...]
Read moreTexas Senate committee hears strong support for Texas Housing Trust Fund
August 17, 2008
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A chorus of voices spoke up for an increase in the Texas Housing Trust Fund in testimony this week before the Texas Senate International Relations and Trade Committee in Austin. The committee is charged with reporting on solutions to the state’s unmet rural housing needs. The hearing can be viewed by clicking the image below. [...]
Read moreNew report says Dallas, Houston show increases in concentrated working poverty rates
August 16, 2008
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According to a Brookings Institution study released this week, trends suggest that the decline in concentrated poverty that occurred during the 1990s may be reversing over the course of this decade. The report is titled, Reversal of Fortune: A New Look at Concentrated Poverty in the 2000′s and the authors are Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan [...]
Read moreA critical moment in the housing tax credit program looms
August 15, 2008
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On August 14 the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) hosted a “work group” to gather input on the options for implementing the components of the new housing bill. The meeting focused on the changes in the law to the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program and how to implement those changes [...]
Read moreDallas Morning News op-ed makes economic argument against housing segregation
August 14, 2008
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An extensive opinion piece headlined, Poor assumptions: segregating poverty in Dallas is a money-losing proposition authored by Dallas Morning News editorial writer Tod Robberson offers a carefully reasoned economic argument for tackling the racial and economic segregation I was blogging about last week. Robberson focuses on the 12 year combined efforts of fourteen North Dallas [...]
Read moreBo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 8/13/2008
August 13, 2008
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My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly compilation of print media stories he calls “The Tuesday Report”. Bo’s report is posted here each Wednesday. If you want a pdf file of the articles that includes social, environmental and other contextual news stories, [...]
Read morePart 2: 40 years after passage of the Fair Housing Act, still waiting for integrated communities
August 12, 2008
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In the previous post I explored the debate and political process that went into the passage of the Fair Housing Act. Today, I’ll explore the political considerations that restrained the implementation on the Act and crippled our commitment as a nation to achieving the ultimate goal of residential integration. As we have already seen passage [...]
Read morePart 1: 40 years after passage of the Fair Housing Act, still waiting for integrated communities
August 11, 2008
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It is interesting and a little discouraging that on the 40th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, one of the principal goals of the Act, promoting the integration of neighborhoods remains unfulfilled and highly controversial. Today I will explore the debate and political process that went into [...]
Read moreReporter alleges Section 8 tenant crime wave, but where is the evidence?
August 10, 2008
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The elite media has decided to focus on whether Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher holders are bringing crime to suburban neighborhoods. Instead of bringing to light the millions of poor families living in deplorable conditions because they cannot afford decent housing, instead of exposing slumlord exploitation of the poor, instead of chronicling the lives of [...]
Read morePoverty comes to the Texas suburbs
August 9, 2008
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Wednesday’s blog post about the persistence of ghettos in Texas cities led me to do a little more research about the spacial dynamics of poverty in Texas urban areas. It is critical that these dynamics be considered in decisions about where to locate new subsidized housing developments. Fortunately, Texas is home of one of the [...]
Read moreAre we encouraging people to buy homes who shouldn’t?
August 8, 2008
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House Financial Services Committee Chair Barney Frank, commenting on the current foreclosure crisis and the importance of the passage of the National Housing Trust Fund, told the Washington Post that, “One of the reasons we got into this situation is that we were pressing people, urging people, encouraging people to buy homes who shouldn’t buy [...]
Read moreThe persistence of Texas ghettos is a problem for us all
August 7, 2008
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Ghetto: a portion of a city in which members of a minority group live especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure. – Merriam-Webster Dictionary Ghetto. The word makes me wince. It should be anachronistic. Yet, as much as we don’t like to hear the word, it describes the reality of the living conditions for [...]
Read moreBo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 8/6/2008
August 6, 2008
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My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly compilation of print media stories he calls “The Tuesday Report”. Bo’s report is posted here each Wednesday. If you want a pdf file of the articles that includes social, environmental and other contextual news stories, [...]
Read moreSomething went terribly wrong at the Pleasant Village Apartments
August 5, 2008
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“This is a terrible place to live, and I just don’t know how to get out.” – a resident of the Pleasant Village Apartments in Dallas. Something awful happened at Dallas’ Pleasant Village Apartments last Wednesday. Here’s the chronology as reported in the Dallas Morning News. 10:30 p.m. Tuesday: A fight between girls at the [...]
Read moreFocusing on the big picture of housing assistance
August 4, 2008
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Let’s take a step back and focus on the big picture of housing assistance using this chart I have prepared based on data in a recent HUD research report. Since it is 107 degrees outside today I decided to stay in and read the latest HUD report and chart some of the data to get [...]
Read moreWhen cities do not act, let’s give communities the power to take over abandoned properties
August 3, 2008
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The problem posed by abandoned, derelict housing where cities have failed to follow through on code violations extends beyond multifamily housing to include single family homes. The Texas Legislature needs to act to give community organizations the power to clean up neighborhoods when cities fail to act. Back on July 30 I blogged about a [...]
Read moreTexas Housercast: Talking energy saving and green building in low income housing
August 2, 2008
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This week’s Texas housercast is an interview with Walter Moreau, executive director of Austin’s Foundation Communities the state’s largest nonprofit builder/operator of low income housing. Foundation Communities is a state leader in applying green building and energy savings design to multifamily affordable housing. In light of the requirements in the new housing bill mandating green [...]
Read moreDallas Housing Authority director resigns under pressure – this is one tough job
August 1, 2008
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Ann Lott, executive director of the Dallas Housing Authority (DHA) has resigned under pressure from members of the housing authority’s board of directors. I did not know Ms. Lott well but I know she had a reputation for standing up, on some important occasions, for the residents of pubic housing. Folks who know tell me [...]
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- Mitt Romney at private fundraiser: I might eliminate HUD – The Washington Post
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Bo’s housing news clips: Study finds zoning segregates lower-income students in lower-scoring schools.
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Texas LIHTC housing program rocked by second earthquake in two months
- Low-Income Housing Program Compels Building in Poor Texas Areas – NYTimes.com
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Bo’s housing news clips: National home foreclosures and Galveston housing woes are top stories in recent weeks
