For a years I worked with State Representative Eddie Rodriguez (Austin) to help him devise a way to let lower-income families of color maintain a presence in East Austin in the light of escalating property values and taxes. So far the effort has not succeeded. A key problem has been the opposition of a few African-American [...]
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Tag Archives: Austin
HUD’s Ron Sims discusses something Austin officials will not — homeownership and race
July 21, 2011
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Austin case study: Postdisaster housing policy and low-income survivors
July 19, 2011
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Several very smart people from the University of Texas and myself just had a paper published in the Journal of Planning Education and Research entitled, “Looking for Home after Katrina: Postdisaster Housing Policy and Low-Income Survivors”. The authors are TxLIHIS Board member and UT Community and Regional Planning Department faculty member Dr. Elizabeth J. Mueller, [...]
Read more What kind of city do we want Austin to be? | Paup in Austin American-Statesman
July 18, 2011
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From the Austin American-Statesman, Sunday, July 17, 2011 Now that he’s been told to make way for redevelopment efforts on East Riverside Drive, PTA President Arturo Garcia has one big question: Where will he and the parents of 109 other students at Sanchez Elementary find another affordable apartment complex close to their children’s school? He [...]
Read more Report: Texas Efficiency Rent 90% of SSI Payments
June 21, 2011
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“Priced Out,” a new report by the Technical Assistance Collaborative (TAC) and the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) shows the severe housing affordability problems of people with disabilities. According to the report, a person with a disability receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) would have to pay 90% of their monthly income to rent an [...]
Read moreThe state of Black-White Segregation in Texas
January 17, 2011
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Last month the Brookings Institution released a set of segregation measures about the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the United States. This data was based on the 2005-2009 American Community Survey, the census instrument replacing the “long form” census collection. In Texas, black-white segregation declined from 2000 to 2009, as measured by the index of [...]
Read moreMargaret Shaw removed as Austin housing director
June 3, 2010
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Margaret Shaw has been removed as director of the City of Austin’s housing department by Austin City Manager Marc Ott. SHe served as housing director for two years. Signs of trouble for Shaw have been evident to observers for several months. Her management style clearly rankled employees within the department and some in the Austin [...]
Read moreCity of Austin runs online survey on housing need
January 7, 2010
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The City of Austin is seeking public input to help focus its affordable housing finance programs, including the use of the final allocation of the city’s 2006 General Obligation housing bonds. We encourage public participation in this survey, which is scheduled to wrap up next week. The survey can be accessed here More information about [...]
Read moreThe Federal Reserve presents a tale of two Texas poverty neighborhoods
November 8, 2008
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The Community Affairs Offices of the Federal Reserve System and the Brookings Institution have issued a report, “The Enduring Challenge of Concentrated Poverty in America: Case Studies from Communities Across the U.S.” that profiles 16 high poverty communities in the US, including two in Texas. The two Texas poverty communities profiled are East Austin and [...]
Read moreCity Council to vote (finally) on East Austin Homestead Preservation District
October 14, 2008
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On Thursday October 16th the Austin City Council will take up the issue of creating the Homestead Preservation District. This will create a funding mechanism for the purpose of creating and maintaining affordable housing in East Austin. The Homestead Preservation Districts and Reinvestment Zones Statute provides tools to help ease the ill effects of gentrification, [...]
Read moreLBJ speech recalls struggle to bring low-income housing to Austin
October 5, 2008
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In 1968, at the end of his political career, with barely one month left in his term as president, LBJ came home to Austin. A small affordable housing project was being dedicated and the sponsors asked the president to make a few remarks. In his speech the president looked back and looked forward to the [...]
Read moreLBJ’s struggle to get Austin to accept public housing offers lessons for today
October 4, 2008
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Seventy years ago here, in Austin Texas, Lyndon Johnson a young, first-term congressman took up the cause of housing the poor as one of his first initiatives. His proposal that Austin house its poor sparked then as it does today great controversy. It stirred up issues of class and race and questions about the role [...]
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 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 moreAustin housers win funding victory
July 26, 2008
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Austin housers won a major victory Thursday when the Austin City Council reversed city staff recommendations and rejected deep cuts in the city’s commitment to affordable housing. We began sounding the alarm about the staff proposed funding cuts on June 19 and reported on meetings between housers and top city staff on July 8. Thursday [...]
Read moreUnderstanding public attitudes toward public housing
July 25, 2008
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Amidst a lot of anger and outrage directed at a proposed development in Northeast Austin proposing to provide transitional housing for the homeless there have been the usual comments about the development being like “public housing” and then a recounting of the “failures of public housing”. For example consider this entry on the Austin-American Statesman’s [...]
Read moreAustin housers voice concerns over proposed city housing cuts
July 8, 2008
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Leaders in Austin’s affordable housing community met July 1 the City of Austin’s new Chief of Staff, Anthony Snipes to voice objections to housing budget cuts we reported on earlier that have been proposed by the City’s Neighborhood Housing Department. Frank Fernandez (CPH); Cathy Echols (Livable City); Ruby Roa (CDC); Algie Williams (CDC); Michael Willard [...]
Read morePart 2: Housing segregation in Austin – a community blind to the problem
July 1, 2008
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Watch my video blog or read the text below. Austin is a city of intense racial and economic segregation. Despite a self-image as a laid-back, tolerant contemporary community we have blinded ourselves to problems of race and poverty. Austin’s extreme residential segregation is not the result of a natural process or solely individual choices. As [...]
Read morePart 1: Housing segregation in Austin – a product of government policy
June 30, 2008
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Watch the slide show of racial and economic housing segregation and the current housing policy decisions of the City of Austin. My first job out of college was to direct a study of residential housing segregation in Austin for the City of Austin Human Relations Commission. We documented a web of public policies that officially sought to concentrate racial [...]
Read moreCity of Austin’s affordable housing initiative fizzles out
June 21, 2008
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An Austin City Council affordable housing initiative fizzled out early June 19 as the Council voted to adopt a PUD ordnance supported by the developer lobby and opposed by city boards, city commissions and housing advocates. The ordnance will contribute little to solving Austin’s affordable housing crisis. Ignoring the advice of the Austin Planning Commission [...]
Read moreCity of Austin staff proposes housing cuts of over $6 million
June 19, 2008
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My colleague, Karen Paup stays up to date on all the Austin housing issues and she has pointed out an alarming change of direction at the City of Austin’s Neighborhood Housing Department. The City is cutting direct funding for housing low-income families, youth, elders, tenants and day care vouchers while beefing up consultants, studies and [...]
Read more32 years in low income housing in Texas
May 31, 2008
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I started my involvement with low income housing and community development in 1975. As a junior at the University of Texas at Austin majoring in history I signed up for a course and oral history and was assigned to the Clarksville neighborhood, an historic free black settlement in central Austin. When I showed up at [...]
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