President-elect Obama’s announcement of his selection of Shaun Donovan, New York City’s commissioner of Housing Preservation and Development, to be…
Author: John Henneberger
I started my commitment to housing justice for people and communities with low incomes in 1975 in Austin's Clarksville community. These years of working side-by-side with dedicated community leaders to find solutions to housing and community development challenges have taught me some things and I’m learning new things every day.Existing statewide housing program should be the vehicle for assisting Hurricane Ike survivors
The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) has received criticism from elected officials over the slow pace of…
Names for next HUD secretary emerge – yawn
Politico is out with a story about potential Obama HUD Secretaries. The story notes that, “In the recent past, the…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 12/9/2008
The axe continues to drop on home buyers who bought more than they could afford. Federal and private bank efforts…
Texas disaster recovery plan is based on bad data and faulty assumptions
Today I continue the analysis begun yesterday of the draft plan developed by the Texas Office of Rural Community Affairs…
Texas disaster plan – an ill conceived pork barrel
Texas’ just released plan for $1.3 billion in federal Community Development Block Grant funds for Hurricanes Dolly and Ike fails…
Galveston public housing conditions illustrate results of HUD’s failure to give a damn
I toured the three devastated public housing developments in Galveston this week and what I saw sickened, depressed and angered…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 12/2/2008
Eight years of mismanagement and corruption have left the nation’s top agencies gutted: the bright and ethical left early as…
Mortgage crisis imperils new affordable housing developments
The mortgage crisis is really beginning to bite into affordable housing production programs. I just learned of a community development…
Is federal disaster assistance an entitlement?
The back-and-forth between the Texas governor and the US Secretary of Homeland Security over who will pay for the removal…
Closer scrutiny will follow Texas expenditure of $1.3 billion in hurricane relief
HUD has allocated Texas $1.3 billion of the $2.1 billion in Community Development Block Grant funds that Congress has recently…
Reforming FEMA alone won’t fix the problem
There are hopes that a structural reform and management reorganization of FEMA under the Obama Administration will solve the problems…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 11/25/2008
Among the many daunting tasks for the Obama Administration is the revamping of HUD that has languished under poor leadership…
Texas must learn from Mississippi CDBG fund misuse
Abdicating its responsibilities and caving to political pressure HUD has allowed the State of Mississippi to redirect $570 million of…
North Texas emerges as ground zero in newly energized fight against racial housing segregation
North Texas is becoming ground zero in the fight against residential racial segregation. This thanks to the experienced and increasingly…
President Bush considers pardoning former Texas housing agency board member
ProPublica, an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest, is reporting that President Bush is considering…
Stories of eleven Texas families document FEMA’s illegal and systemic discrimination against the poor
It has become abundantly clear that FEMA does not treat low-income disaster survivors right. Consider the stories included in a…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 11/19/2008
Foreclosures continue to soar across the nation as housing starts dwindle. Cities are laced with vacant, unaffordable houses as the…
Houston uses local housing funds to replace disallowed federal housing funds
Houston Chronicle reporter Mike Snyder has uncovered a move by the City of Houston to repay over $15.5 million of…
Seeking solutions to providing low-income housing in rural Texas
Hereford, a Texas Panhandle community of about 15,000, will host an important meeting today to consider how to overcome the…
What’s with FEMA’s high denial rate of Galveston area requests for help?
Anger is widespread over the fact that people are still living in tents in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. Data…
New Dallas Housing Authority leader needs to focus on the best interest of the tenants
Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert has appointed a new chair for the Dallas Housing Authority (DHA) which got me thinking about…
Texas cities should place derelict apartments in receivership
Heather K. Way, director of the Community Development Law Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, read my…
Slow expenditures, questionable priorities plague Houston and Harris County administered hurricane relief efforts
We have been critical of the decisions of the City of Houston and of Harris County so far as their…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 11/12/2008
As the general economy sinks, foreclosures continue to soar and new housing starts dwindle. In California, foreclosures devastate whole towns.…
Houston Chronicle urges prioritizing rebuilding Galveston public housing
Amen! House poor Make restoring Galveston’s public housing a priority Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Nov. 10, 2008 More than three…
Rough outlines of Texas $178m Neighborhood Stabilization Program emerge
In an attempt to deal with the foreclosure crisis Congress has allocated substantial funding to cities, counties and states to…
Correcting Houston’s extreme shortage of government subsidized housing should be top priority
Traditionally public and Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers play a major role in providing affordable housing within major US cities. …
Mayor White saves 1000 renters from eviction but fundamental low-income housing issues remain
Houston Mayor Bill White acted quickly and responsibly in preventing the owners of the 600 unit Houston La Casita apartment…
The Federal Reserve presents a tale of two Texas poverty neighborhoods
The Community Affairs Offices of the Federal Reserve System and the Brookings Institution have issued a report, “The Enduring Challenge…