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 […]
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Tag Archives: Fair housing
TX House gives each state representative power to choose or veto housing tax credit developments
April 26, 2013 
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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 Westchester NY county executive agrees to source of income protection under fair housing settlement – ProPublica
April 25, 2013 0 Comments
Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino submitted legislation today to ban discrimination against people who pay their rent with government assistance, a day after the U.S. Department of Justice threatened to haul the county into court over the issue. In a letter to the county’s Board of Legislators, Astorino wrote, “In light of all of the […]
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 Fair Housing Act is 45 years old today. LBJ: “We have come some of the way, not near all of it. There is much yet to do.”
April 11, 2013 1 Comment
The words in the headline are President Johnson’s on April 11, 1968 as he signed the Fair Housing Act. They remain true today, 45 years later, with regard to the state of fair housing in the United States. President Lyndon Johnson made the following remarks as he signed the Fair Housing Act, less than one […]
Read more Franklin the Fair Housing Fox… seriously?
April 7, 2013 2 Comments
April is Fair Housing Month, the time of year for cities to pass resolutions that no one reads solemnly proclaiming their support for fair housing, the time for elementary school art classes to conduct fair housing drawing contests for children, and the month that Franklin the Fair Housing Fox comes out of his closet at […]
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 Notice at apartment complex targets young blacks – Houston Chronicle
November 21, 2012 Comments Off
The Houston Chronicle is reporting on a notice found posted at a southwest Houston apartment complex warning residents to report black youths on the property. According to the Chronicle story, there is some indication that the notice may have been posted by the apartment management. The Chronicle reports however that the apartment manager denies knowledge […]
Read more HUD Secretary Donovan discusses fair housing with state housing coalitions
November 16, 2012 Comments Off
At a meeting this week HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan discussed HUD’s approach to fair housing with leaders of state low-income housing coalitions. Secretary Donovan told the state housing coalition leaders, including Chrishelle Palay of TxLIHIS, that HUD will be moving to a regional approach to fair housing. The Secretary said the HUD Sustainable Communities program is […]
Read more 2nd installment of ProPublica Fair Housing investigation details Westchester, NY problems
November 5, 2012 Comments Off
The second article in a major investigative series titled “Living Apart: Fair Housing in America” about HUD’s enforcement of fair housing laws ran today in ProPublica. The subject of this second story is the stalemate in resolving a court ordered fair housing settlement agreement in the Westchester County, NY case that attracted national attention in 2009. The […]
Read more HUD Secretary Donovan discusses tension between place-based and mobility in housing
June 14, 2012 Comments Off
Secretary Donovan provides a thoughtful discussion of HUD’s direction in the tension between place based housing and mobility in the following video of his address before the Poverty and Race Action Council.
Read more Texas LIHTC housing program rocked by second earthquake in two months
April 22, 2012 Comments Off
Reporter Karisa King’s full Texas housing story is out in the San Antonio Express News. It is a devastating expose of the Texas Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. $9.7 billion in federal funds have been spent by the State of Texas that has on balance enhanced racial and ethnic segregation through the State’s administration […]
Read moreCourt rules Texas Housing Tax Credit program violates Fair Housing Act
March 20, 2012 Comments Off
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 HUD rejects City of Houston fair housing effort
February 8, 2012 1 Comment
HUD has rejected the City of Houston’s fair housing plan known as the Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing (AI). The City is required to produce and carry out a plan to “affirmatively further fair housing” as a condition for receiving federal funds for housing and community development. In a letter we obtained under the […]
Read more Department of Justice sues local government for multifamily housing ban
February 1, 2012 1 Comment
The Department of Justice today filed a lawsuit against St. Bernard Parish, La., alleging that the parish violated the Fair Housing Act by limiting rental housing opportunities for African-Americans in the parish. This is the latest in a series of enforcement actions taken against local governments that sought to block the construction of affordable housing […]
Read more When the overwhelming majority of good people don’t confront prejudice, an entire community suffers
August 2, 2011 1 Comment
I received a phone call yesterday from Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski about my June 25 blog post, ”The racism of New Berlin is growing in Galveston.” The mayor told me someone contacted him who thought I was accusing everyone in Galveston of being racist. All I could say to the mayor was, “Did the person who called you […]
Read more HUD withholds county’s federal funds over fair housing plan
July 25, 2011 1 Comment
The National Low Income Housing Coalition is reporting that HUD has rejected Westchester County, NY‘s certification that it is affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH). In doing so, HUD disapproved the County’s FY11 Annual Action Plan to the Consolidated Plan, resulting in a halt to the receipt of more than $7 million in Community Development Block […]
Read more What kind of city do we want Austin to be? | Paup in Austin American-Statesman
July 18, 2011 Comments Off
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 HUD pointedly directs Galveston to rebuild its public housing
July 15, 2011 1 Comment
In an unusual joint letter to Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski, three top HUD leaders told Galveston to move forward to rebuild public housing destroyed by Hurricane Ike or face the loss of federal funding. The July 13, 2011 letter was signed by Mercedes Marquez, HUD Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development, John Trasvina, HUD Assistant Secretary for […]
Read more Effect of Elected Official Letters on the 2011 LIHTC Round
July 1, 2011 3 Comments
Abstract: Letters written by Texas State Representatives and Senators regarding the development of low income housing in the state had the effect of moving development to lower income, higher poverty areas of the state.
Read more Conference committee strikes anti-NIMBY provisions from TDHCA legislation, continues agency 2 years
June 27, 2011 1 Comment
The Texas House/Senate Conference Committee on SB 1 has reached agreement to extend the life of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs two years. The committee also voted to strike provisions in the Sunset Bill requiring disaster planning as well as Texas Sunset Advisory Commission recommendations designed to reduce Fair Housing violations that plague the […]
Read more The racism of New Berlin is growing in Galveston
June 25, 2011 9 Comments
We noted yesterday the United States Department of Justice brought suit alleging the City of New Berlin, Wisconsin had violated the Fair Housing Act by denying a developer permission to build a mixed senior, family development financed with Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). I just read the Justice Department’s compliant in the case. The same […]
Read more Feds Sue Wisconsin town for NIMBY Opposition to LIHTC Development
June 24, 2011 1 Comment
Its been a busy week at the Justice Department on the fair housing front. After yesterday’s legal action petitioning to join Disability Rights Texas’s lawsuit against the state for segregating developmentally disabled Texans in nursing homes, the today the DOJ filed suit against a Wisconsin town for opposing a Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) […]
Read more State Rep Riddle says she wants no low-income housing in her district
June 14, 2011 1 Comment
To appreciate the fair housing problem in Texas just watch this video. Back in February, at a hearing on the budget for the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA), Texas State Representative Debbie Riddle, House District 150, which comprises much of northwest Harris County (51% Anglo. per capita income $25,272, 28% renters), asked Mike […]
Read moreHUD Approves Phase I of Texas Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing
May 13, 2011 1 Comment
One of the conditions of the TxLIHIS – Texas Appleseed – State of Texas Fair Housing settlement on hurricane recovery is that the state would update its Analysis of Impediments (AI) to Fair Housing. (See our post Introduction to an “Analysis of Impediments” for discussion of what an AI is). Today, HUD approved the first phase […]
Read moreJohn Henneberger Testimony at Urban Affairs on TDHCA Sunset
April 11, 2011 Comments Off
TxLIHIS co-director John Henneberger testified last week at the Texas House Urban Affairs Hearing on TDHCA’s Sunset process. His testimony, as well as the introduction of the TDHCA Sunset Bill by Rep. Harper Brown, is available below via Youtube. (John Henneberger’s testimony starts at 7.24 of the clip, following Rep. Harper Brown’s statements.)
Read moreIncreasing Minimum Entry Door Width in Manufactured Housing
April 11, 2011 1 Comment
TxLIHIS recently submitted Comments to the Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee (MHCC), a federal advisory committee to HUD on the regulation of manufactured housing, regarding its review of the minimum exterior door and interior hallway widths allowed in the building code for such homes. These comments follow: ************************ April 8, 2011 Mark J. Mazz, AIA General […]
Read moreNYT: Time Runs Out for St. Bernard Parish
March 30, 2011 Comments Off
This morning’s New York Times has an Op-Ed about HUD’s proposed action regarding housing discrimination by the government of St. Bernard Parish, LA. Time Runs Out for St. Bernard Parish It has taken far too long, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development has finally intervened in an outrageous case of housing discrimination by […]
Read moreReasonable Accommodation Enforcement Action in the News
January 13, 2011 Comments Off
This blog post is by Elizabeth Nowrouz. According to the Justice Department, a $1.2 million agreement has been reached in a case against an Alabama property management company accused of violating the Fair Housing Act. The lawsuit alleged that the defendants did not allow a tenant with a mobility impairment to move into a ground […]
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