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 [...]
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Tag Archives: Houston
Couple lives in tent waiting for Ike-damaged home’s repair | khou.com Houston
September 17, 2011
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Just when you think you have seen the worst government can do to Hurricane Ike victims along comes this story. This is funded with the $3.1 billion State administered disaster recovery program. Is no one monitoring how local recipients of the funds treat the people who are being “assisted” under the program? (Watch the video) [...]
Read more On 3rd anniversary 200 tell Houston City Council reforms are needed in Hurricane Ike recovery program
September 14, 2011
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The following testimony was presented before the Houston City Council on the third anniversary of Hurricane Ike, September 13, 2011.
Read more Protesters say city slow to repair Ike-damaged houses – Houston Chronicle
September 13, 2011
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Bearing photos of homes that still have blue tarps on the roofs, more than 100 protesters held a rally at City Hall on the third anniversary of Hurricane Ike on Tuesday and pleaded with the City Council to accelerate its repair program. “I’m tired of the city telling me to be patient,” said Elvis Malveaux at [...]
Read more Senior’s city-built home lacked insulation – Houston Chronicle
September 13, 2011
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After months of delay in getting its housing repair program under way, Houston’s housing department was eager last month to show off the first batch of new homes built to replace those damaged by Hurricane Ike. But one of the homes wasn’t quite finished when it was turned over to the homeowner. The contractor neglected to [...]
Read more September 13, 2011 is the three year anniversary of Hurricane Ike
September 12, 2011
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Please take a few moments to consider the plight of the tens of thousands of elderly and disabled Texans who are still waiting for help to repair their homes. Some tell their stories in this video produced a year ago for TxLIHIS by former staffer Melissa Cha. The people in the video are still waiting [...]
Read more Thousands still recovering from Hurricane Ike | abc13.com
July 31, 2011
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The community organization TOP held an information fair for low-income Houston homeowners Saturday to help them find out when they can expect to see home repairs through the City of Houston’s long-delayed CDBG disaster recovery program. The following is from a TV news report. It’s been almost three years since Hurricane Ike hit, and thousands [...]
Read more It’s finally time to get rid of those post-Ike blue tarps | Houston Chronicle
July 30, 2011
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September 13, 2011, will mark the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Ike making landfall along the upper Texas coast. Residents of the Houston-Galveston area remember all too well the death and destruction Ike left in its path. This community has made remarkable progress over three years recovering from Ike. Yet for too many Houstonians, particularly those [...]
Read more HUD: Ex-inmates need help to stay off streets in Houston | Houston Chronicle
July 20, 2011
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The Houston Chronicle ran a thoughtful story today about the difficult problem facing people coming out of jail trying to find a place to stay. My comments in the story are not intended as excusing the actions of people who break the law, but I believe that it does little good to release people into [...]
Read more Video of Houston Disaster Recovery Town Hall
June 2, 2011
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Last week we highlighted a town hall on Disaster Single Family Home Repair in Houston, hosted by the Texas Organizing Project. Mayor Annise Parker spoke at that event, as did Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. We’ve put video of their comments up at Youtube so you can watch them from the comforts of your own chair: [...]
Read more Hurricane Disaster Spending–an opportunity to repair homes *and* create jobs in affected communities
May 27, 2011
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Texas Low Income Housing Information Service is working with residents in Galveston, Houston and the Valley to make sure that under-employed and unemployed Texans get as much work as possible from the Hurricane Recovery dollars. Section 3 says that when HUD dollars are spent on housing or infrastructure projects and low-income people in the affected [...]
Read more Houston Town Hall on Disaster Single Family Home Repair
May 26, 2011
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On Saturday, May 21, 2011, Texas Organizing Project (TOP) along with other supporting organizations spearheaded a record attendance Town Hall meeting to address the City of Houston’s lack of attention to Single Family Home Repair due to Hurricane Ike. Over 300 attendants packed Jerusalem Baptist Church to receive information about the ongoing slow progress of [...]
Read moreChronicle on Houston Disaster Recovery Repair
May 23, 2011
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Saturday’s Houston Chronicle ran a short story on the status of the single-family housing repair program funded with Hurricane Ike disaster relief. The full story quotes TxLIHIS Co-Director John Henneberger: Houston on track to repair 44 Ike-damaged homes Some owners skeptical the delay is finally over City housing officials say they’re on track to have [...]
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 moreHouston TOP Bus Tour
December 28, 2010
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This blog post is by Elizabeth Nowrouz. In late November, Melissa Cha and I traveled to Houston to gain a little perspective into the issues of disaster relief and home repair as they impact the city’s low-income residents. We met with Jayne Junkin of the Texas Organizing Project (TOP), who graciously offered to introduce us [...]
Read moreCity of Houston weatherization jobs have not been in low-income communities
July 6, 2010
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The 2009 Recovery Act increased the funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) in Texas by 2500%. This program funds local agencies to provide minor home repairs to low-income Texans. The Recovery Act was intended to create jobs in the communities most impacted by the recession. The Federal Office of Management and Budget, in a [...]
Read moreThe “Ike Dike” is no excuse for diverting money from rebuilding homes
June 11, 2009
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The June 4 issue of the Wall Street Journal reports that Houston leaders are pushing a plan to protect against future hurricanes by building a giant dike with movable barriers across Galveston Bay. The dike could easily cost in excess of $4 billion. As the Gulf Coast braces for hurricane season, Houston-area leaders are pushing [...]
Read moreHouston homeownership initiative spurs outrage – but there is a worse dimension to this story
February 25, 2009
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In the wake of a storm of public outrage Houston Mayor Bill White ordered the city’s housing department to shelve a plan to subsidize homebuyers by giving them $3000 grants to pay off debt to improve their FICO scores. Anti-tax organizations became virtually apoplectic in their denunciations. People are right to be concerned with this [...]
Read moreSRO housing organization shows how to earn community support
December 31, 2008
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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 [...]
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 moreHouston uses local housing funds to replace disallowed federal housing funds
November 18, 2008
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Houston Chronicle reporter Mike Snyder has uncovered a move by the City of Houston to repay over $15.5 million of disallowed HUD housing funds with housing funds the city collected from local tax increment refinance zones (TIRZ). I have been digging into the story a little to try to uncover some details. The explanatory documents [...]
Read moreTexas cities should place derelict apartments in receivership
November 14, 2008
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Heather K. Way, director of the Community Development Law Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, read my comments about Mayor White’s recent efforts to stop a Houston landlord from abandoning 1000 low-income renters living in a run down Houston apartment project. Her reaction was that Houston needed to more aggressively use receivership [...]
Read moreSlow expenditures, questionable priorities plague Houston and Harris County administered hurricane relief efforts
November 13, 2008
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We have been critical of the decisions of the City of Houston and of Harris County so far as their uses of federal CDBG funds intended to assist victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.On top of the inappropriate use of the funds it now seems the city has been extremely slow to put the funds [...]
Read moreCorrecting Houston’s extreme shortage of government subsidized housing should be top priority
November 10, 2008
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Traditionally public and Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers play a major role in providing affordable housing within major US cities. This is not the case in Houston however. In excess of 60 percent of the affordable housing stock in Houston is privately owned unsubsidized housing. Only about 10 percent is Section 8 subsidized and less [...]
Read moreMayor White saves 1000 renters from eviction but fundamental low-income housing issues remain
November 9, 2008
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Houston Mayor Bill White acted quickly and responsibly in preventing the owners of the 600 unit Houston La Casita apartment project from abandoning the property after collecting the rent money. (Read story from the Houston Chronicle). But the underlying question remains: what is the city going to do to address the massive affordable rental housing [...]
Read moreHomeowners rebuilding from Hurricane Ike have basically no consumer protection in Texas
October 18, 2008
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Houston Mayor Bill White threw in the towel this week, ending his modest effort to provide rudimentary consumer protections to Houston homeowners who must hire contractors to repair their homes damaged by Hurricane Ike. White proposed an ordnance that would have required all contractors doing work in Houston to register with the city. The proposal [...]
Read moreOur ten point plan for rehousing low income Hurricane Ike survivors
September 14, 2008
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There are many critical housing needs facing Hurricane Ike survivors of all incomes. Our focus is on the area of housing for low-income families. This is our ten point plan to rehouse low income Hurricane Ike survivors. We learned a lot about how low-income families fare in the wake of natural disaster through the Hurricane [...]
Read moreHouston: The Real Texas? I pray not based on these attitudes
September 3, 2008
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In the late 1990′s the marketing motto of Houston was “Houston: The Real Texas.” Based on what I have been reading lately I hope that’s wrong. At the risk of seeming like a voyeur of Texas hate speech I’m going to point out the reader comments on Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg’s column titled Has [...]
Read moreHouston’s fair housing failure segregates Katrina evacuees in SW slum apartments
July 21, 2008
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Today’s dangerous housing problems in the Southwestern part of Houston have been greatly exacerbated by the actions of Houston city government in the settlement of large numbers of Katrina evacuees in the area. But the problem does not lie solely in past actions. The City of Houston, in violation of provisions of the 1968 Fair [...]
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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
