Representative Sylvester Turner’s office says Representative Turner, the leading advocate for the System Benefit Fund, has agreed to an amendment to House Bill 7 to eliminate the Texas System Benefit Fund on September 1, 2016. This eliminates the only source of energy assistance provided by the State of Texas for the poorest Texans, including the […]
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A better solution for energy assistance for Texas poor families is still possible
May 25, 2013 
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The Sierra Club has proposed a far better solution to the Texas Senate’s proposal to spend down and eliminate the $800+ million Texas System Benefit Fund. Here are the key points of the Sierra Club’s plan: On the System Benefit Fund, we prefer the approach taken by the House – create a trust fund going forward, […]
Read more System Benefit Fund deal in the works: better than nothing until it becomes nothing
May 24, 2013 1 Comment
A deal is reportedly in the works over the Texas System Benefit Fund that is better than what was originally proposed by the Texas Senate. In the three years however the deal will leave poor Texas households at the mercy of high cost unregulated electric utilities. I have written about the issue earlier. The original […]
Read moreSenate Passes TDHCA Sunset
May 17, 2013 0 Comments
The Texas Senate passed out the TDHCA Sunset bill this afternoon. The bill voted out adopted the recommendations of the Sunset Commission, removing endorsement letters from legislators from the statutory scoring of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit award process. These letters have previously been discussed at Texas Housers. A floor amendment re-instituting the letters […]
Read more TDHCA Sunset Heads to Senate
May 10, 2013 0 Comments
TXLIHIS Co-Director John Henneberger testified this week at the Intergovernmental Relations Committee hearing on the TDHCA Sunset bill. His testimony appears below, and focuses on the role of legislative letters in the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program: The entire discussion of the bill is available via Senate Real Audio starting at 1:16:42, and goes […]
Read more Rare Floor Fight on Model Subdivision Rules Bill
May 3, 2013 0 Comments
Last Week, HB 611, (Rep Guillen) died on the floor of the Texas house on a record vote. The bill was often characterized as a rollback of the model subdivision rules, development rules designed to prevent the creation of further colonias. Below is a highlight video clip of six minutes of the forty-five minute debate […]
Read more Riddle amendment to TDHCA Sunset bill is ill-conceived and discriminatory
April 29, 2013 0 Comments
I wrote last week about the ill-conceived amendment the Texas House of Representatives tacked onto the TDHCA Sunset bill. The first part of this amendment removed the Sunset Commission recommendations and gave state representatives virtual veto power over Low Income Housing Tax Credit applications. Today I want to focus on the other part of that […]
Read more TX House gives each state representative power to choose or veto housing tax credit developments
April 26, 2013 3 Comments
An eleventh hour amendment to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) Sunset bill by a strong opponent of housing tax credits gives each member of the Texas Legislature unprecedented power to choose the winning tax credit application in their district or to effectively block affordable housing tax credit developments altogether. The amendment removes from […]
Read more House Amends TDHCA Sunset Bill
April 25, 2013 1 Comment
The Texas House yesterday debated HB3361, the bill to continue the functions of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs after its review by the Sunset Commission. The main topic of conversation was scoring legislative support support letters for Low Income Housing Tax Credit developments. For those just joining this conversation, we’ve discussed those letters […]
Read more HUD closing Dallas and Lubbock field offices to cut costs
April 25, 2013 0 Comments
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Wednesday announced a series of restructuring and systemic changes within its Office of Multifamily Housing Programs and the Office of Field Policy and Management (FPM). The changes, which include consolidating Multifamily hubs nationwide and closing 16 smaller offices, affect approximately 900 of the Departments’ 9,000 employees. HUD […]
Read more The facts about Texas weatherization spending contradict Senate Finance chairman’s claim
April 23, 2013 2 Comments
“Check the budget. We already spend a lot of money of weatherization.” This quote came from Senator Williams successfully arguing on the floor of the Texas Senate yesterday to defeat an amendment to use some of the $811 million System Benefit Fund for weathering the homes of poor Texans. We did what the Senator suggested. […]
Read more Texas Senate robs from the poor, gives away the money available for low-income utility assistance
April 22, 2013 1 Comment
Without bothering to put on masks, a majority of Texas Senators voted this afternoon to rob $811 million from a fund collected to help the poor pay their utility bills. There is not any other way to characterize today’s action. The Senate voted to return the funds in the State account collected from Texas utility […]
Read more We’re proud to be a Texas partner of the National Low Income Housing Coalition
April 21, 2013 0 Comments
The National Low Income Housing Coalition is dedicated solely to achieving socially just public policy that assures people with the lowest incomes in the United States have affordable and decent homes. Get involved and join today
Read more Texas can act now to prevent the next industrial disaster in Port Arthur and Texas City
April 21, 2013 0 Comments
Bill Minutaglio, a professor of journalism at the University of Texas, Austin, the author of “City on Fire: The Explosion That Devastated a Texas Town and Ignited a Historic Legal Battle,” has a column in today’s NYT that Texas leaders should read and heed. Minutaglio examines the explosion of the fertilizer plant in West, TX […]
Read more Hurricane Ike survivors testify at House Ways and Means
April 19, 2013 1 Comment
Shelly Batten and Tina Colunga drove up from Galveston yesterday to testify on HB 835. HB 835, by Representative Eiland, (and it’s aptly numbered companion, SB 835, by Senator Lucio,) say that homes provided through a government disaster recovery program are not considered newly valued improvements if they replace or repair a substandard home. This addresses […]
Read more Will Texas learn a lesson from the tragedy at West?
April 18, 2013 1 Comment
Everyone is horrified at the loss of life and destruction last night from the explosion of a fertilizer plant in the town of West. One of the many things we must resolve in light of this disaster is to make sure that steps are taken to prevent a recurrence elsewhere. It was clearly a mistake […]
Read more CFED: Manufactured Homes in South Texas
April 17, 2013 0 Comments
This morning CFED unveiled two sets of materials covering Manufactured Housing in South Texas: a Data Snapshot, which illustrates the role of manufactured homes in the South Texas affordable housing market, who lives in them and how they serve the housing needs of their owners, and a Policy Snapshot, which describes how the Texas and […]
Read more State halts Galveston funding over failure to build public housing: TX Land Commissioner Patterson explains
April 11, 2013 1 Comment
By Jerry Patterson The city of Galveston has a choice to make as we try to move forward with plans to complete the recovery from Hurricane Ike: Either quit dragging its feet and comply with the federal requirements as well as the city of Galveston’s own council resolution to rebuild public housing adopted on Sept. […]
Read more Lawmakers consider refunding money intended to help poor – Houston Chronicle
April 6, 2013 2 Comments
The Houston Chronicle is reporting on the issue we blogged yesterday. Here is an excerpt from the Chronicle’s story (behind the paper’s paywall): A proposal to refund money to electricity customers across the state would enable the Texas Legislature to renege on two promises at once. For 14 years, the Legislature has collected a fee, […]
Read more TX Senate Finance Committee takes back money intended to help poor people pay for electricity
April 5, 2013 1 Comment
The Texas Legislature is debating what to do with the $850 million fund that helps Texans living near the poverty level with their utility bills. This is important because for Texans who are really poor, electric bills compete for their limited money for housing. Here is the background. In 1999 when the Legislature deregulated electric rates […]
Read more The Tale of Two Sequesters
April 3, 2013 1 Comment
You have a private plane and sequester is going to delay your flight plan? Don’t worry, Texas has your back. You live in subsidized housing and sequester is going to put you on the street? Tough luck. Texas has funds from the National Mortgage Settlement that could be used in housing programs to offset the […]
Read more Chrishelle Palay helps Houston’s poor and needy plead their cause
April 2, 2013 0 Comments
Open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. – Proverbs 31:9 . Chrishelle Palay works to help the poor plead their own cause and she lends her voice to their cause as well. Palay is the policy analyst for Texas Low Income Housing Information Service in Houston. Her mission […]
Read more Map of the Day: Housing Units Lacking Complete Plumbing
March 29, 2013 0 Comments
The fine folks at the Housing Assistance Council released a report called “Taking Stock” a few months ago. Taking Stock, uses data from the 2010 Census and American Community Survey (ACS) to describe the social, economic, and housing characteristics of rural Americans, and includes great maps of the data. For example, above is the Texas […]
Read more 545,405 – Texas’ shortage of rental units affordable to the poor
March 17, 2013 0 Comments
Check out the full Texas housing fact seer from the National Low income Housing Coalition: http://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/SHP-TX_0.pdf TxFacts
Read more HUD Texas Sequester Letter
March 6, 2013 1 Comment
Below is a copy of the letter from HUD to Texas Governor Rick Perry regarding the impact of the sequester on Federally-funded housing programs in Texas. The bottom line losses: $ 3.4 Million HOME $50.5 Million Tenant Based Rental Assistance $ 4.5 Million Homeless $ 0.9 Million Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS $59.3 Million […]
Read more NLIHC: Shortage of Affordable Housing for Low Income Renters in Texas
March 1, 2013 0 Comments
The National Low Income Housing Coalition’sn new report, Housing Spotlight: America’s Affordable Housing Shortage, and How To End It, provides an in-depth analysis of the growing gap between the number of low income renters and the number of units that are affordable and available to them. This analysis comes from the 2011 American Community Survey […]
Read more Policy Suggestions from the Park Girl Rip-off
February 14, 2013 0 Comments
If you don’t live in the RioGrande Valley, or don’t follow manufactured housing (MH) scams, you might have missed the “Park Girl” Story. JoLeigh Ares, a manufactured housing retailer operating under the catchy name “Park Girl,” allegedly sold dozens of manufactured homes to consumers, taking cash down payments and then either not delivering homes, or […]
Read more Rep. Anchia Files Bill Removing Legislative Letters from Housing Tax Credit Scoring
February 8, 2013 0 Comments
In a previous blog post here at Texas Housers, we presented an analysis showing that the letters written by Texas State Representatives and Senators in 2011 regarding the development of Low Income Housing Tax Credit Housing in the state had the effect of steering this housing to lower income, higher poverty areas of the state. […]
Read more National Mortgage Settlement–Purpose Yet Unfulfilled
January 31, 2013 3 Comments
Sitting in the Texas General Revenue account is $125 million received as Texas’ cash payment share of the National Mortgage Settlement. This payment is part of agreement settling charges of misconduct by five national banks, misconduct that resulted in the premature and unauthorized foreclosures of single-family residential mortgages in Texas. [...]Placing the money in General Revenue requires the Texas Legislature to act to fulfill the purposes of the settlement. Over fifty organizations in Texas (including TXLHIS) have signed on to the statement “We support using funds from the national mortgage settlement for housing and housing-related activities.” This money came from acts that made housing fail for Texans, and should go to making housing work for Texans.
Read more NYTimes on housing tax credits gets it right on funding, targeting poor, wrong on promoting segregation
December 29, 2012 1 Comment
A Tax Credit Worth Preserving – NYTimes.com. We think the New York Times editorial on housing got it two-thirds right and one-third way wrong. In a December 20 editorial the New York Times called for the Low Income Housing Tax Credit retaining and enlarging as Congress and the Obama Administration considers changes to the tax code. […]
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