Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac begin to make write-downs on troubled mortgages as they post a 2012 profit of $17.2 billion and begin to repay the Treasury Department for their bailouts. Meanwhile, a Dallas council member reacts to an increase in the city’s homeless population and says all programs should be cut to keep the […]
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Tag Archives: Dallas
Court rules Texas Housing Tax Credit program violates Fair Housing Act
March 20, 2012 
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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 […]
Read more The ‘Whitest town in North Texas’ fights to keep it that way
February 27, 2012 Comments Off
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 […]
Read more Dallas fumbles in the absence of a housing policy
January 18, 2012 2 Comments
Housing segregation is a problem most Texas communities struggle with. Crippled by a lack of political courage and leadership no city seems to struggle more than Dallas, often with serious consequences. The Dallas Morning News (DMN) ran a front page story Sunday about a dispute between the backers of two proposed Low Income Housing Tax […]
Read more DMN editorial says paper will push housing in 2012
January 8, 2012 Comments Off
An editorial in today’s Dallas Morning News says the paper will editorially push two housing issues on the editorial pages in 2012. A monitoring of nonprofits to replace dilapidated housing and revitalize neighborhoods. A look into tax-credit housing — how the process goes awry and the impact that such housing concentration has in southern Dallas. […]
Read more Dallas pregnant woman reportedly trampled, others injured in rush for housing vouchers
July 21, 2011 Comments Off
Bo McCarver’s housing news clips posted on this blog this week has a story from the AP headlined, “Early morning stampede for hard-to-get vouchers.” It is a sad commentary about the unmet need for affordable housing on the part of people with low-incomes and the way poor people are treated by some public housing authorities. […]
Read more Its not just what Fannie Mae did, its also about what it didn’t do
June 20, 2011 Comments Off
Let me first admit that I have not yet read the book but I plan to over the next several weeks. The book is Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner. It’s the story of the arrogance that was Fannie Mae before its collapse. David […]
Read moreFormer Dallas Mayor Pro Tem and others guilty in housing tax credit case
October 5, 2009 1 Comment
The Dallas Morning News reports the federal district court jury found all of the defendants in the Dallas Low Income Housing Tax Credit corruption scandal guilty. Hill was found guilty on seven charges, including bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery. D’Angelo Lee, Hill’s appointee to the Dallas Plan Commission, was guilty on seven counts. Sheila Farrington, […]
Read moreDallas Housing Authority misfires in war on crime
August 18, 2009 1 Comment
The Dallas Housing Authority’s board of directors (DHA) adopted a new policy this week to require public housing tenants to register their overnight guests with the apartment manager. According to the DHA the goal is to reduce crime in the housing developments which housing authority officials says is mainly caused by “visitors” to public housing. […]
Read moreWho is to blame in the Dallas tax credit corruption scandal?
August 13, 2009 Comments Off
In response to a recent blog post I received the following comment from an anonymous reader… Offering a bribe to a community group is not nearly as disgusting as a sham community group insisting on a bribe in order to support a tax credit project, then funneling some of the take to the elected officials […]
Read more$55,000 was the price for community support for affordable housing in Dallas
July 29, 2009 1 Comment
A document introduced into evidence today in the Dallas public corruption trial surrounding the Texas Low Income Housing Tax Credit program indicates that the going price for community support required to win approval of a tax credit development application was $55,000. At least that’s the price that was set out an unsigned 2004 agreement between […]
Read moreTax credit apartments for extremely low income families focus in Dallas public corruption trial
July 26, 2009 1 Comment
A request to get the Dallas City Council to waive requirements that a portion of the apartments built by Low Income Housing Tax Credit Developer Brian Potashnik be rented to extremely low income renters surfaced this week at the center of the public corruption trial in Dallas Federal District Court. Dallas Morning News reporter Jason Trahan […]
Read moreFBI recordings show tax credit developer and indicted local officials discussed redirecting housing bonds away from the poor
July 17, 2009 Comments Off
If you want to be discouraged about the way affordable housing has done in Texas all you need to do is closely followed the public corruption trial of Dallas elected officials currently going on in the federal district court. The Low Income Housing Tax Credit program in Texas is too often only about the people […]
Read moreA culture of greed tarnishes the Texas Low Income Housing Tax Credit program
July 16, 2009 4 Comments
The Low Income Housing Tax Credit program in Texas is sometimes more about the developers making money building housing and less about the needs of people who need housing. Evidence of this fact can be found in the ongoing public corruption trial of housing tax credit developers and elected officials in the Dallas federal district court. […]
Read moreLawsuit alleging race discrimination in Texas housing tax credit program clears hurdle
December 13, 2008 1 Comment
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 moreNorth Texas emerges as ground zero in newly energized fight against racial housing segregation
November 22, 2008 Comments Off
North Texas is becoming ground zero in the fight against residential racial segregation. This thanks to the experienced and increasingly aggressive advocacy of civil rights attorney Michael Daniel and Inclusive Communities Project director Betsy Julian. Consider what these two, who share offices in downtown Dallas, have done in recent weeks: Filed a federal lawsuit against […]
Read moreNew Dallas Housing Authority leader needs to focus on the best interest of the tenants
November 15, 2008 Comments Off
Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert has appointed a new chair for the Dallas Housing Authority (DHA) which got me thinking about what it takes to be a good public housing authority leader. The new DHA board chair is Terdema Ussery, whose day job is president and CEO of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team. The Dallas Morning […]
Read moreRevitalizing nuisance properties to be explored at Dallas meeting
September 11, 2008 Comments Off
I have discussed the problem of getting cities to take action on abandoned and derelict properties in low income neighborhoods. Senator Royce West’s Intergovernmental Relations Committee is working on an initiative to address this problem. It is thus timely that a conference of the topic is coming up September 20 in Dallas. Revitalizing Nuisance Properties […]
Read moreDallas considers major permanent housing committment for the homeless
August 21, 2008 Comments Off
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 morePoverty comes to the Texas suburbs
August 9, 2008 5 Comments
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 moreSomething went terribly wrong at the Pleasant Village Apartments
August 5, 2008 2 Comments
“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 moreWhen cities do not act, let’s give communities the power to take over abandoned properties
August 3, 2008 1 Comment
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 moreDallas Housing Authority director resigns under pressure – this is one tough job
August 1, 2008 1 Comment
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 […]
Read moreUnraveling the mystery of 500 unused Dallas Section 8 vouchers
July 4, 2008 15 Comments
The Dallas Morning News ran a story by Kim Horner on June 23 about 500 Section 8 vouchers that have gone unused. Since the Dallas Housing Authority (DHA) has more than 8,000 families on the waiting list and closed the waiting list for new applications four years ago I wondered what on earth was going […]
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