Galveston County Daily News
Rhiannon Meyers // December 25, 2009
The new public housing philosophy of dispersing public housing residents across a region instead of segregating the poor in one city may not work in Galveston County, experts said.The federal government in recent years has pushed public housing agencies to spread housing over entire regions in an attempt to provide better opportunities for families lumped together in poor, crime-ridden cities with low-performing schools, John Powell, executive director of Ohio State University’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, said.
However, regional public housing isn’t successful without solid public transportation, an abundance of low-skilled, entry-level jobs and places where the uninsured can get health care, experts said.
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Monday, December 28, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Altering public housing laws
AL.com
John S. Peck // December 24, 2009
The battle over public housing's spread into south Huntsville will shift to the Big House next year - the Alabama Statehouse.
Two Madison County legislators plan to re-introduce legislation that would curb the power of municipal housing authorities.
The measure by state Rep. Mike Ball, R-Madison, and state Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, would end eminent domain authority of public housing authorities and require local government consent before authorities can purchase property for affordable housing.
Eminent domain, the practice of government seizing property against the will of property owners, hasn't been used in any Huntsville Housing Authority acquisitions. All of its purchases have been on the open market.
Houses of late, including one on Gallatin Street in the medical district and another on Drummond Road in southeast Huntsville, were bought to renovate and resell to income-qualified buyers.
Orr and Ball say their main intent is to add "transparency" so neighborhoods don't get blindsided by government housing.
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John S. Peck // December 24, 2009
The battle over public housing's spread into south Huntsville will shift to the Big House next year - the Alabama Statehouse.
Two Madison County legislators plan to re-introduce legislation that would curb the power of municipal housing authorities.
The measure by state Rep. Mike Ball, R-Madison, and state Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, would end eminent domain authority of public housing authorities and require local government consent before authorities can purchase property for affordable housing.
Eminent domain, the practice of government seizing property against the will of property owners, hasn't been used in any Huntsville Housing Authority acquisitions. All of its purchases have been on the open market.
Houses of late, including one on Gallatin Street in the medical district and another on Drummond Road in southeast Huntsville, were bought to renovate and resell to income-qualified buyers.
Orr and Ball say their main intent is to add "transparency" so neighborhoods don't get blindsided by government housing.
MORE
Alternative site sought for senior housing in Orchard Park
The Buffalo News
Barbara O'Brien // December 17, 2009
The attorney for People Inc. is exploring an alternative site for subsidized senior citizen housing in Orchard Park or West Seneca.
Meanwhile, a Town Board member lashed out at the not-for-profit agency for accusing Orchard Park of discrimination in a proposed senior citizen complex.
“This entire community is disappointed in People Inc. They insulted our community,” Councilman David R. Kaczor said during a work session before Wednesday’s board meeting. “I would like to see an apology by People Inc.”
Attorney Ralph C. Lorigo told Orchard Park Town Board members that there are locations at Houghton College in West Seneca and on California Drive in Orchard Park that may be suitable for senior citizen housing.
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Barbara O'Brien // December 17, 2009
The attorney for People Inc. is exploring an alternative site for subsidized senior citizen housing in Orchard Park or West Seneca.
Meanwhile, a Town Board member lashed out at the not-for-profit agency for accusing Orchard Park of discrimination in a proposed senior citizen complex.
“This entire community is disappointed in People Inc. They insulted our community,” Councilman David R. Kaczor said during a work session before Wednesday’s board meeting. “I would like to see an apology by People Inc.”
Attorney Ralph C. Lorigo told Orchard Park Town Board members that there are locations at Houghton College in West Seneca and on California Drive in Orchard Park that may be suitable for senior citizen housing.
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Unwelcome mat out for project to house chronically homeless
Dallas Morning News
Kim Horner // December 13, 2009
Kim Horner // December 13, 2009
Developer Larry Hamilton has been working for months to turn the empty Plaza Hotel south of downtown Dallas into homes for the homeless. But it's been much tougher than he imagined.
Hamilton and other developers complain of roadblocks even as they try to carry out the city's goal of opening 700 apartments for the homeless by 2014. The housing, which would come with mental health and addiction services, is considered the most effective way to clear the streets of the hard-core homeless.
But Dallas has lagged behind other major cities in creating the units. Public financing, neighborhood cooperation and political will are all in short supply in a city that has been able to raise millions for arts projects, a convention center hotel and Calatrava bridges over the Trinity River. "They have this aspiration to do 700 units, but I think it's going to be hard to do any," Hamilton said. "I don't see how it's going to get done."
LA -- Race is factor in affordable-housing outcry, lawyer says
DailyComet.com
Naomi King // December 13, 2009
HOUMA — In a letter to Terrebonne Parish officials, a lawyer representing an affordable-rent development in Gray says opposition by local residents is racially motivated.
Naomi King // December 13, 2009
HOUMA — In a letter to Terrebonne Parish officials, a lawyer representing an affordable-rent development in Gray says opposition by local residents is racially motivated.
But some residents and parish officials said race doesn't have anything to do with the ongoing debate about Three Oaks. Neighbors — mostly from Southern Estates — have said decreased property values, neighborhood aesthetics, drainage, crime, traffic and overcrowded schools are among their concerns.
The Parish Council will discuss the development at its Community Development and Planning Committee meeting, which starts at 5:45 p.m. Monday. The meeting, which is open to the public, will be in the Government Tower's second-floor meeting room, 8026 Main St.
MOREStatement from NLIHC President Sheila Crowley on HUD’S Rejection of Texas’s Disaster Plan
CommonDreams.org
November 20, 2009
November 20, 2009
he National Low Income Housing Coalition joins housing advocates from Texas in applauding the decision by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to reject the plan submitted by the state of Texas on how the state would use Hurricane Ike disaster recovery funds.
Housing advocates in Texas objected to the state plan primarily because it failed to assure that low and moderate income Texans who lost their homes or whose homes were damaged in Hurricane Ike would be assisted. After conducting their review of what the state proposed, HUD officials agreed with the advocates that the plan did not meet federal CDBG requirements.
In a letter to Texas Governor Rick Perry, HUD Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development Mercedes Marquez notified him that these requirements had not been met and more than $1.7 billion in Community Development Block Grants would be withheld until they were. The state now has 45 days to resubmit its plan.
HUD based its denial on Texas's failure to provide an adequate method of distribution of the funds that would allow the public to exercise its right to comment on where the funds would be spent and who would benefit. Federal law requires that states who receive CDBG funding for disaster recovery detail how the funds will be allocated to local units of government and that the state notify the public of the state action plan and give the public an opportunity to comment.
MORELA Parish Neighbors Voice Opposition to Development
Houma Today
Naomi King // November 20, 2009
HOUMA — More than 40 residents voiced strong opposition Thursday to a planned residential and commercial development in Gray that Terrebonne Parish government is helping finance with $10 million in hurricane-recovery grants doled out after the 2008 storms.
Naomi King // November 20, 2009
HOUMA — More than 40 residents voiced strong opposition Thursday to a planned residential and commercial development in Gray that Terrebonne Parish government is helping finance with $10 million in hurricane-recovery grants doled out after the 2008 storms.
The 144-acre subdivision, which would include a golf course, grocery store, day care center, two hotels, 335 low-rent apartments and roughly 100 single-home lots, would be built off La. 24 south of U.S. 90, between Evergreen Drive and Marietta Place. The grant money will be used to build the multi-family units as part of the state's requirement that the $10 million be spent on affordable rental housing.
Residents, overwhelming from the Southern Estates subdivision, feared the homes and apartments would alter the character of their neighborhood, drive down their property values or bring crime onto their streets.
MOREWhat does law on housing require?
Galveston County Daily News
Heber Taylor // December 9, 2009
It doesn’t matter what public officials think of the Galveston Open Government Project. Members of the self-styled watchdog group have asked some good questions. People in government should be able to answer them.
The folks in this political group, who have described public housing as a failed social experiment, have asked whether a lawsuit in Baltimore has implications for public housing in Galveston County. Ironically, the lawsuit in Baltimore was championed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. Politics can make for strange allies.
The lawsuit, Thompson v. the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, claimed that the plans to continue the decades-old pattern of public housing in Baltimore discriminated against African-Americans living in public housing.
In 2005, U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis said: “Geographic considerations, economic limitations, population shifts, etc., have rendered it impossible to effect a meaningful degree of desegregation of public housing by redistributing the public housing population of Baltimore City within the city limits. Baltimore City should not be viewed as an island reservation for use as a container for all of the poor of a contiguous region.”
The judge said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would have to take a regional approach to promoting fair housing opportunities.
MORE
Heber Taylor // December 9, 2009
It doesn’t matter what public officials think of the Galveston Open Government Project. Members of the self-styled watchdog group have asked some good questions. People in government should be able to answer them.
The folks in this political group, who have described public housing as a failed social experiment, have asked whether a lawsuit in Baltimore has implications for public housing in Galveston County. Ironically, the lawsuit in Baltimore was championed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund. Politics can make for strange allies.
The lawsuit, Thompson v. the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, claimed that the plans to continue the decades-old pattern of public housing in Baltimore discriminated against African-Americans living in public housing.
In 2005, U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis said: “Geographic considerations, economic limitations, population shifts, etc., have rendered it impossible to effect a meaningful degree of desegregation of public housing by redistributing the public housing population of Baltimore City within the city limits. Baltimore City should not be viewed as an island reservation for use as a container for all of the poor of a contiguous region.”
The judge said the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would have to take a regional approach to promoting fair housing opportunities.
MORE
Bush administration blew off civil rights enforcement
Valley Morning Star
Mary Sanchez // December 17, 2009
This one is for those who naively believe that an entity called the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice should be in the business of enforcing the nation’s civil rights laws. Under the late Bush administration, one had reason to doubt. For years, critics blasted the Bush Justice Department for ideologically inspired hiring and firing decisions, unfair treatment of career (read: ideologically unreliable) staff members, and a selective approach to its enforcement responsibilities.
Now a 180-page report prepared for Congress by the Government Accountability Office bears out many of those contentions.
The report, which assessed civil rights enforcement between 2001 and 2007, found big declines from the Clinton years in cases having to do with housing and job discrimination, and with disability rights. Thomas Perez, the new Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, summarized the findings to Congress in testimony this month.
MORE
Mary Sanchez // December 17, 2009
This one is for those who naively believe that an entity called the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice should be in the business of enforcing the nation’s civil rights laws. Under the late Bush administration, one had reason to doubt. For years, critics blasted the Bush Justice Department for ideologically inspired hiring and firing decisions, unfair treatment of career (read: ideologically unreliable) staff members, and a selective approach to its enforcement responsibilities.
Now a 180-page report prepared for Congress by the Government Accountability Office bears out many of those contentions.
The report, which assessed civil rights enforcement between 2001 and 2007, found big declines from the Clinton years in cases having to do with housing and job discrimination, and with disability rights. Thomas Perez, the new Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, summarized the findings to Congress in testimony this month.
MORE
Barriers to Affordable Housing
National Center for Policy Analysis
James Franko // December 1, 2009
James Franko // December 1, 2009
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) considers housing affordable if it costs less than 30 percent of a family's income. Yet, according to HUD, 12 million renters and homeowners spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing. Many of these are low-income individuals or families. But in some areas even middle-income families find the supply of affordable housing limited.
For instance, assuming a family spends no more than 28 percent of its gross income on housing [see Figure I]:
- In the San Francisco metropolitan area, only 26.9 percent of houses sold are affordable to a family with an annual median income of $96,800.
- In greater Chicago, more than two-thirds (67.8 percent) of houses are in the price range of a median income family ($74,600).
- In Indianapolis, almost all homes (94.5 percent) are affordable to the typical family ($68,100).
Since rental prices closely track home prices, these numbers also indicate the general availability of affordable housing.
MOREThe Fight After the Storm - Why hasn’t Galveston rebuilt public housing?
The Texas Observer
Forrest Wilder // November 27, 2009
Forrest Wilder // November 27, 2009
After Hurricane Ike battered Galveston in September 2008, city leaders promised that the island’s poor would be welcomed home. Public housing, they pledged, would be rebuilt within a year or so. But a number of bureaucratic setbacks, as well as a spasm of anti-public housing activism—some of it racially charged—has hindered the rebuilding effort.
More than a year after the storm, local officials confess that residences for displaced families may not be ready for another two to three years, and that’s if everything goes as planned.
The Galveston Housing Authority had planned to not only replace the public housing units lost to the storm, but build additional homes to meet increased need.
MORERevived La. Parish Faces Fight Over Race
National Public Radio
Debbie Elliott // November 19, 2009
Debbie Elliott // November 19, 2009
Slowly, about half the population of St. Bernard Parish has returned to the area since Hurricane Katrina. But with a twist — it's not as white as it used to be, which has sparked a battle over low-income housing and race.
After Katrina, local attorney David Jarrell decided he could help his native St. Bernard Parish rebuild by buying and renovating damaged houses. In a bound notebook with pictures of the dozen or so properties he has refurbished, he singles out one that was "trashed" by the hurricane before he restored it.
"This was the inside — it was wood floors, 10-foot ceilings," he says. "Everything was meticulously designed. But it was still affordable for people, so if anybody was looking to rent, it was just a great little house."
Saturday, December 26, 2009
St. Bernard Parish Council backs off on vote on apartments
The Times-Picayune
Chris Kirkham // November 3, 2009
After pressure from federal housing officials and a pending lawsuit in federal court, the St. Bernard Parish Council on Tuesday officially rescinded an item on this month's special election ballot that would have given voters the chance to permanently ban large apartment complexes in the parish.
The move came on advice from the parish's lawyers, who last month told the council that they believed the potential apartment ban would jeopardize federal financing for recovery projects and hurt the parish's appeals of its ongoing fair housing lawsuit.
The council proposed the voter referendum on future apartment complexes after three defeats in federal court this year over its attempt to block construction of four 72-unit mixed-income apartment buildings in Chalmette. U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan sided with a local fair housing group and a Dallas real estate company on the four apartment complexes, and the parish eventually granted the building permits necessary for the developers, Provident Realty Advisors, to begin construction.
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Chris Kirkham // November 3, 2009
After pressure from federal housing officials and a pending lawsuit in federal court, the St. Bernard Parish Council on Tuesday officially rescinded an item on this month's special election ballot that would have given voters the chance to permanently ban large apartment complexes in the parish.
The move came on advice from the parish's lawyers, who last month told the council that they believed the potential apartment ban would jeopardize federal financing for recovery projects and hurt the parish's appeals of its ongoing fair housing lawsuit.
The council proposed the voter referendum on future apartment complexes after three defeats in federal court this year over its attempt to block construction of four 72-unit mixed-income apartment buildings in Chalmette. U.S. District Judge Ginger Berrigan sided with a local fair housing group and a Dallas real estate company on the four apartment complexes, and the parish eventually granted the building permits necessary for the developers, Provident Realty Advisors, to begin construction.
MORE
Friday, December 25, 2009
How to Solve Homelessness? Try Providing Housing
NextAmericanCity
Akua Nyame-Mensah // October 26, 2009
As the amount of housing foreclosures has jumped, the number of individuals who have found them themselves without appropriate, permanent shelter has increased. In addition to the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) The U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) decided this summer to tract homelessness in specific regions quarterly. The new report, The Homelessness Pulse Project is meant to help HUD “gain a better understanding of the impact of the current economic crisis on homelessness.” In their 2008 Report to Congress HUD found that “[o]n a single night in January 2008, there were 664,414 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide. Nearly 6 in 10 people who were homeless at a single point-in-time were in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs, while 42 percent were unsheltered on the “street” or in other places not meant for human habitation.” The Homeless Cost Study, recently released by The United Way of Great Los Angeles, is another report that finds placing chronically homeless people into permanent supportive housing will not only give those without shelter a safe place to live but save metropolitan areas and taxpayers thousands of dollars.
Other recent reports and studies done by organizations share this view. In a 2009 Policy Guide of the National Alliance to End Homelessness found that providing “[a]ffordable housing is the primary solution to ending episodic homelessness” and created a guide about adopting a ‘Housing First approach.’ Other current studies have focused on the cost of homeless individuals on hospitals. An article about studies conducted in Chicago and Seattle “found that hospitals saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by helping to provide… services together with local advocacy groups.”
Akua Nyame-Mensah // October 26, 2009
As the amount of housing foreclosures has jumped, the number of individuals who have found them themselves without appropriate, permanent shelter has increased. In addition to the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) The U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) decided this summer to tract homelessness in specific regions quarterly. The new report, The Homelessness Pulse Project is meant to help HUD “gain a better understanding of the impact of the current economic crisis on homelessness.” In their 2008 Report to Congress HUD found that “[o]n a single night in January 2008, there were 664,414 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide. Nearly 6 in 10 people who were homeless at a single point-in-time were in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs, while 42 percent were unsheltered on the “street” or in other places not meant for human habitation.” The Homeless Cost Study, recently released by The United Way of Great Los Angeles, is another report that finds placing chronically homeless people into permanent supportive housing will not only give those without shelter a safe place to live but save metropolitan areas and taxpayers thousands of dollars.
Other recent reports and studies done by organizations share this view. In a 2009 Policy Guide of the National Alliance to End Homelessness found that providing “[a]ffordable housing is the primary solution to ending episodic homelessness” and created a guide about adopting a ‘Housing First approach.’ Other current studies have focused on the cost of homeless individuals on hospitals. An article about studies conducted in Chicago and Seattle “found that hospitals saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by helping to provide… services together with local advocacy groups.”
Housing group alleges bias by town of Sunnyvale
Dallas Morning News
Ray Leszcynski // October 27, 2009
The Inclusive Communities Project, a Dallas fair housing agency, filed court documents against the town of Sunnyvale on Monday, citing a failure to live up to a 2005 agreement and discriminatory practices the plaintiffs say date to the town's incorporation.
The action marks the latest salvo by plaintiffs in a legal battle that has dragged on for more than 20 years over the right to develop affordable housing in Sunnyvale, a rural enclave of mostly upper-end homes in eastern Dallas County.
Monday's filing was triggered after the town denied a multifamily development on ICP property, the third low-income housing development attempted unsuccessfully in Sunnyvale since 2008.
There are no apartments and no Section 8 residents in Sunnyvale, where the average home has a market value of $274,081.
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Ray Leszcynski // October 27, 2009
The Inclusive Communities Project, a Dallas fair housing agency, filed court documents against the town of Sunnyvale on Monday, citing a failure to live up to a 2005 agreement and discriminatory practices the plaintiffs say date to the town's incorporation.
The action marks the latest salvo by plaintiffs in a legal battle that has dragged on for more than 20 years over the right to develop affordable housing in Sunnyvale, a rural enclave of mostly upper-end homes in eastern Dallas County.
Monday's filing was triggered after the town denied a multifamily development on ICP property, the third low-income housing development attempted unsuccessfully in Sunnyvale since 2008.
There are no apartments and no Section 8 residents in Sunnyvale, where the average home has a market value of $274,081.
MORE
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