Some local elected officials are downright furious with FEMA because FEMA will not put travel trailers on the property 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 compliation – 10/15/2008
For a pdf version of the full stories and other contextual articles in social, economic and political areas, contact Bo…
City Council to vote (finally) on East Austin Homestead Preservation District
On Thursday October 16th the Austin City Council will take up the issue of creating the Homestead Preservation District. This…
Analysis of HUD report on low scoring subsidized housing in Texas
A total of 107 or 9.4 percent of HUD assisted housing apartment developments in Texas earned a very low score…
Please read this woman’s story and tell me how to address her housing problem
One of the things that frustrates me the most is that I get a dozen or so emails each week…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compliation – 10/7/2008
An autopsy of Fannie Mae is offered this week by the New York Times, which asserts conflicting pressures to back…
LBJ speech recalls struggle to bring low-income housing to Austin
In 1968, at the end of his political career, with barely one month left in his term as president, LBJ…
LBJ’s struggle to get Austin to accept public housing offers lessons for today
Seventy years ago here, in Austin Texas, Lyndon Johnson a young, first-term congressman took up the cause of housing the…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compliation – 9/30/2008
Tent cities continue to sprout across the nation as foreclosures soar and jobs disappear. The financial institutions that might generate…
New Orleans de je vue in Galveston
Forrest Wilder’s Texas Observer Blog about high end housing construction on Galveston Island is well worth reading. There should be…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compliation – 9/23/2008
My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly…
FEMA rejects Mayor White’s request to allow Houston to begin immediate emergency housing repairs
Speaking about the need to take quick action to weatherproof houses damaged by Hurricane Ike, I earlier recommended a concerned…
How to judge the success of Hurricane Ike housing relief? Count the blue roofs in six months.
They are called blue roofs. The roofs are blue because FEMA pays contractors to stretch blue plastic tarps over the…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compliation – 9/16/2008
My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly…
A New Orleans obituary has lessons for Galveston
They have their hands full right now, but someday before the plans for rebuilding are set the city leaders in…
Our ten point plan for rehousing low income Hurricane Ike survivors
There are many critical housing needs facing Hurricane Ike survivors of all incomes. Our focus is on the area of…
Revitalizing nuisance properties to be explored at Dallas meeting
I have discussed the problem of getting cities to take action on abandoned and derelict properties in low income neighborhoods. …
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compliation – 9/10/2008
My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 9/3/2008
My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly…
Houston: The Real Texas? I pray not based on these attitudes
In the late 1990’s the marketing motto of Houston was “Houston: The Real Texas.” Based on what I have been…
Three years after Katrina: from compassion to racist stereotypes
Today marks the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The images of the suffering poor left behind in New Orleans caused…
New Census study documents stunning levels of income inequality in Texas
This week the US Bureau of the Census released a report titled. Income, Earnings, and Poverty Data From the 2007…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 8/27/2008
My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly…
TxLIHIS 20th Anniversary: the Blackland Neighborhood, the Street People’s Advisory Committee and Homer the Goose
2008 is the 20th anniversary of the Texas low Income Housing Information Service (TxLIHIS). In 2000 the board of directors…
Dallas considers major permanent housing committment for the homeless
Mike Rawlings, Dallas’ homeless czar, has proposed that the city build 700 homes for chronically homeless people throughout the city…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 8/20/2008
My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly…
After 25 years one Austin community development corporation is a model of success
The Blackland Community Development Corporation (BCDC) in East Austin is a model of what a successful CDC should be. The…
New report says Dallas, Houston show increases in concentrated working poverty rates
According to a Brookings Institution study released this week, trends suggest that the decline in concentrated poverty that occurred during…
Dallas Morning News op-ed makes economic argument against housing segregation
An extensive opinion piece headlined, Poor assumptions: segregating poverty in Dallas is a money-losing proposition authored by Dallas Morning News…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 8/13/2008
My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly…