Houston’s New Hope Housing is a leader in providing a solution to homelessness through building and managing Single Room Occupancy (SRO) housing. They were doing this work long before the federal government came to understand that the provision of permanent, affordable housing is the essential basis for ending homelessness. New Hope has built and operated [...]
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Archive | December, 2008
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 12/30/2008
December 30, 2008
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The year ends on a dead beat as the housing industry continues to free-fall with no landing place in sight. Local markets in Texas follow the national trends as defaults soar and mortgage lenders find other uses for their money. Galveston continues to falter as the city’s leadership neglects its workforce and speculates on a [...]
Read moreGovernor Perry must act to let hurricane victims move into apartments
December 29, 2008
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More than half of 5,000 Galveston County families displaced by Hurricane Ike and given federal vouchers to rent homes or apartments are still living in hotels or with relatives, officials have said. The reason: many apartment managers and owners in a tight housing market prefer not to go to the extra effort to handle housing [...]
Read moreWoman, whose fight for housing repair revealed government waste, dies in her home
December 29, 2008
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The woman who blew the whistle on fraud in the City of Houston’s home repair program, featured in a front page Houston Chronicle story Friday, was found dead in her home Sunday. Read the story of her struggle and death. It is very strange and very sad that eight years after her home was damaged [...]
Read moreHouston’s Tropical Storm Allison home repair debacle provides warning regarding Hurricane Ike funds
December 26, 2008
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The State of Texas is considering turning over administrative responsibility for $1.3 billion in Hurricane Ike rebuilding funds to local governments. A story in today’s Houston Chronicle offers an especially important warning of potential problems with the past administration of these type of funds by the local government positioned to receive the largest share of [...]
Read moreBo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 12/23/2008
December 23, 2008
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Unquestioned, over-sold and under-regulated, the American Dream has collapsed and brought down a whole house of cards. Efforts to resurrect the economy have thus far failed and taxpayers are appalled to discover that they will not know which banks took bailout funds or how the funds are used. In Texas we see the Residential Construction [...]
Read moreChanges to TX Residential Construction Commission do not fix the problem
December 21, 2008
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In an earlier posting I applauded the decision of the Texas Sunset Commission staff to recommend the abolition of the Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC). That agency currently accomplishes little more than preventing homeowners from quickly taking home builders to court to compel them to fix problems with the builder’s or remodeler’s work on their [...]
Read moreIt is time to stop pretending the COG disaster housing rebuilding program is the answer
December 20, 2008
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In Wednesday’s blog entry I reported on the performance of the Councils of Governments (COGs) in carrying out Round 1 of the Texas Hurricane Rita housing repair and rebuilding program. The data in my blog was drawn from a report presented by the staff of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs to their [...]
Read moreProposal to include housing in economic stimulus
December 19, 2008
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President-elect Obama has proposed a massive highway construction and public building energy retrofitting effort to serve as the basis of an economic stimulus program. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has proposed that low-income housing initiatives be included as part of the stimulus effort. Specifically the Coalition has recommended the following… Capitalize the new National [...]
Read moreExamining claims of local effectiveness in administration of housing disaster funds
December 18, 2008
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There have been a lot of claims voiced by Councils of Governments (COGs), local officials and the Texas Office of Rural Community Affairs (ORCA) that there will be greater efficiencies and cost savings in allowing disaster recovery funds to be administered locally by COGs. To test the accuracy of these claims we can examine the [...]
Read moreBo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 12/18/2008
December 17, 2008
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The eminent administration change refocuses policies to relief of low and middle income households rather than the financial industry. This week we see Congress balk on bankrolling bad mortgage ventures while Fannie Mae refuses to evict renters in foreclosed properties. The coping tactics, however, do not address the long-term economic issues that continue to worsen. [...]
Read moreTexas official in charge of disaster assistance refuses to state housing needs will be funded
December 16, 2008
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I predicted the process for allocating funds set out in the draft ORCA Hurricane Ike/Dolly Disaster Plan will result in a gross underfunding of the housing needs of hurricane survivors. Now we have proof that this is indeed a real possibility from the testimony of none other than the executive director of the state agency [...]
Read morePut an end to FEMA trailers by moving people quickly into permanent housing
December 15, 2008
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She says it far better than I can. We shot this interview with a woman whose home suffered major damage from Hurricane Rita. She describes the type of problems thousands of low income Texas families have encountered trying to get their homes repaired working with FEMA. [BTW - her house is still not repaired today, [...]
Read moreMy suggestions for a Texas disaster housing program
December 14, 2008
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In developing a plan to help Texas survivors of Hurricanes Ike and Dolly rebuild their homes I believe the starting point should be the existing Hurricane Rita housing program operated by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA). For the reasons I detailed in earlier blog entries, I strongly feel that the basic [...]
Read moreLawsuit alleging race discrimination in Texas housing tax credit program clears hurdle
December 13, 2008
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The Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas has denied a motion by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) to throw out a lawsuit alleging the Department is guilty of racial discrimination in the operation of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program. The case will now move forward to [...]
Read moreNational housing advocates pleased with new HUD Secretary
December 13, 2008
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President-elect Obama’s announcement of his selection of Shaun Donovan, New York City’s commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development, to be the next Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has drawn praise from national housing advocates Sheila Crowley of the National Low Income Housing Coalition and Barbara Sard, the director of housing [...]
Read moreExisting statewide housing program should be the vehicle for assisting Hurricane Ike survivors
December 11, 2008
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The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) has received criticism from elected officials over the slow pace of the Department’s program to repair and rebuild homes damaged by Hurricane Rita. As an advocate for low income families’ housing needs I have been following and commenting on TDHCA’s efforts to set up and operate [...]
Read moreNames for next HUD secretary emerge – yawn
December 10, 2008
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Politico is out with a story about potential Obama HUD Secretaries. The story notes that, “In the recent past, the department has been sort of Cabinet stepchild, with its staff and resources cut and its mission muddled.” That’s an understatement. HUD is an embarrassing backwater federal department. The last time it had any serious prominence [...]
Read moreBo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 12/9/2008
December 9, 2008
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The axe continues to drop on home buyers who bought more than they could afford. Federal and private bank efforts have thus far been unable to stem the tide of foreclosures that have reached record highs across the nation. In Galveston, the poor remain unhoused while the city’s shakers and movers chat at visioning conferences. [...]
Read moreTexas disaster recovery plan is based on bad data and faulty assumptions
December 8, 2008
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Today I continue the analysis begun yesterday of the draft plan developed by the Texas Office of Rural Community Affairs (ORCA) for spending $1.3 billion in federal CDBG funds set aside to help Texans recover from Hurricanes Dolly and Ike. Yesterday I described how the ORCA plan proposed to turn over all the funds to [...]
Read moreTexas disaster plan – an ill conceived pork barrel
December 7, 2008
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Texas’ just released plan for $1.3 billion in federal Community Development Block Grant funds for Hurricanes Dolly and Ike fails to provide the type of plan required by federal law. The plan proposes an arbitrary, pork barrel style allocation of disaster recovery funds that will leave the critical housing needs of Texas families unmet. The [...]
Read moreGalveston public housing conditions illustrate results of HUD’s failure to give a damn
December 5, 2008
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I toured the three devastated public housing developments in Galveston this week and what I saw sickened, depressed and angered me. The condition of the public housing developments in Galveston, almost three months after the flooding is a classic example of government incompetency. In a community that is struggling to rebuild, the condition of these [...]
Read moreBo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 12/2/2008
December 2, 2008
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Eight years of mismanagement and corruption have left the nation’s top agencies gutted: the bright and ethical left early as the Bush-appointed brain-trusts ignored and bent law and policy. The EPA, HUD, FEMA, the SEC and all the major federal organizations will have to be re-oriented and re-staffed, an effort that will take longer than [...]
Read moreMortgage crisis imperils new affordable housing developments
December 1, 2008
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The mortgage crisis is really beginning to bite into affordable housing production programs. I just learned of a community development corporation which has completed an affordable housing development that it has been working on for many years only to find out that mortgage financing cannot be obtained to sell the units in the development. With [...]
Read moreIs federal disaster assistance an entitlement?
December 1, 2008
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The back-and-forth between the Texas governor and the US Secretary of Homeland Security over who will pay for the removal of disaster debris from Hurricane Ike raises the question, “Is federal disaster assistance an entitlement?” Governor Perry has blasted the federal government for paying to bail out Wall Street banks but refusing to bear 100 [...]
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Bo McCarver’s housing news clips for May
- 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
