There have been a lot of claims voiced by Councils of Governments (COGs), local officials and the Texas Office of…
Category: Local issues
Local issues consist of housing topics faced by city and county governments that are of interest to local organizers and community groups.
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 12/18/2008
The eminent administration change refocuses policies to relief of low and middle income households rather than the financial industry. This…
Lawsuit alleging race discrimination in Texas housing tax credit program clears hurdle
The Federal District Court for the Northern District of Texas has denied a motion by the Texas Department of Housing…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 11/5/2008
The consequences of an unregulated housing finance industry continue to hammer the American middle class: soon a quarter of the…
Confusion and delays plague temporary housing programs for Hurricane Ike survivors
I have been spending some time this week trying to understand the way the FEMA temporary housing assistance programs have…
New report profiles loan delinquencies and foreclosures in Texas cities
A collaboration between LISC and the Urban Institute has produced a data set with “foreclosure needs scores” within Community Development…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 10/29/2008
Administration of the $700 billion bailout has already taken new and questionable turns. While the “Main Street versus Wall Street”…
A public housing advocate senses tide turning against Galvestion public housing rebuilding
Lenwood Johnson, Texas’ foremost public housing advocate, sent me an email this afternoon about the prospects for rebuilding public housing…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compliation – 10/22/2008
This week we learned how Freddie Mac administrators thwarted a bill that would have provided the oversight to possibly avoid…
Ike housing damages said to be $8.5 billion in Harris County; more than 1/2 of Houston apartments damaged
Two stories in today’s Houston Chronicle point to the staggering cost of housing damages. We are still waiting for the…
Homeowners rebuilding from Hurricane Ike have basically no consumer protection in Texas
Houston Mayor Bill White threw in the towel this week, ending his modest effort to provide rudimentary consumer protections to…