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. [...]
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Tag Archives: Public housing authorities
Dallas pregnant woman reportedly trampled, others injured in rush for housing vouchers
July 21, 2011
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HUD Secretary Donovan’s letter to PHAs about accepting ex-offenders
July 20, 2011
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I commented earlier on HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan‘s letter to public housing authorities asking them to reconsider their policies on admission to public housing by ex-offenders. In my opinion, the letter is carefully constructed to send the proper message. It does not order PHAs to change their policies but reminds local PHAs that they have [...]
Read more Galveston housing authority director resigns
June 13, 2011
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The Galveston County Daily News is reporting Galveston Housing Authority Executive Director Harish Krishnarao resigned effective immediately during an executive session of the housing authority’s board of directors. Krishnarao has come under criticism for the slow process of the planning process for rebuilding 569 public housing units demolished by the housing authority after Hurricane Ike. [...]
Read moreDallas Housing Authority misfires in war on crime
August 18, 2009
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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 moreGovernment housing programs can and do help the poorest families in Texas
July 20, 2009
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I blogged last week about the need for housing programs to recognize the housing needs of families well below 30 percent of the area median income and suggested a new category of housing need called “below poverty income.” In response I received a question this morning that I thought deserved to be answered here. The [...]
Read moreGalveston public housing conditions illustrate results of HUD’s failure to give a damn
December 5, 2008
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I toured the three devastated public housing developments in Galveston this week and what I saw sickened, depressed and angered me. The condition of the public housing developments in Galveston, almost three months after the flooding is a classic example of government incompetency. In a community that is struggling to rebuild, the condition of these [...]
Read moreHouston Chronicle urges prioritizing rebuilding Galveston public housing
November 11, 2008
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Amen! House poor Make restoring Galveston’s public housing a priority Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Nov. 10, 2008 More than three years after Hurricane Katrina, some 4,000 low-income apartments languish unrepaired, vacant and shuttered in New Orleans. It’s a lesson in how not to deal with a city’s poor that Galveston would do well to learn. [...]
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 moreA public housing advocate senses tide turning against Galvestion public housing rebuilding
October 23, 2008
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Lenwood Johnson, Texas’ foremost public housing advocate, sent me an email this afternoon about the prospects for rebuilding public housing in Galveston. Lenwood fought a long fight to save Allen Parkway Village public housing development in Houston and he can sense the political considerations mounting for not rebuilding the public housing in Galveston. Here is [...]
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 moreReporter alleges Section 8 tenant crime wave, but where is the evidence?
August 10, 2008
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The elite media has decided to focus on whether Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher holders are bringing crime to suburban neighborhoods. Instead of bringing to light the millions of poor families living in deplorable conditions because they cannot afford decent housing, instead of exposing slumlord exploitation of the poor, instead of chronicling the lives of [...]
Read moreDallas Housing Authority director resigns under pressure – this is one tough job
August 1, 2008
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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 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 moreRecalling the prehistory of public housing in Texas
July 16, 2008
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Watch our interview with Professor Fox on the origins of public housing in Texas. A number of years ago Karen Paup and I set out to document the development of public housing in Texas. This material and more that I will present in future entries are from that project. Few people can explain why public [...]
Read moreUnraveling the mystery of 500 unused Dallas Section 8 vouchers
July 4, 2008
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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 [...]
Read moreThe best (and worst) performing Texas public housing authorities according to HUD
July 2, 2008
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In the course of updating our databases of all the multifamily subsidized housing in Texas this week I manually extracted the public housing agency management scores from the HUD website for each Texas PHA. I thought some folks might be interested in the scores that HUD has assigned. [A note of caution: you have to [...]
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