The farm worker housing development in Floydada, TX and in the Texas Panhandle’s Floyd County is closed. Farm workers are…
Category: State issues
Plight of renters unaddressed in foreclosure crisis
While the country focuses on the plight of homeowners facing foreclosure, the plight of renters forced to move due to…
It is time to abolish the ineffective Texas Residential Construction Commission
The hopelessly flawed Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC) has been recommended for abolition by the Texas Sunset Commission staff. The…
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…
Who says home equity loans are a good idea?
Who says home equity loans (second mortgages) are a good idea? Primarily the banks who pushed home equity loans into…
Texas Senate committee hears strong support for Texas Housing Trust Fund
A chorus of voices spoke up for an increase in the Texas Housing Trust Fund in testimony this week before…
A critical moment in the housing tax credit program looms
On August 14 the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) hosted a “work group” to gather input on…
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…
The persistence of Texas ghettos is a problem for us all
Ghetto: a portion of a city in which members of a minority group live especially because of social, legal, or…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 8/6/2008
My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly…
When cities do not act, let’s give communities the power to take over abandoned properties
The problem posed by abandoned, derelict housing where cities have failed to follow through on code violations extends beyond multifamily…
Texas Housercast: Talking energy saving and green building in low income housing
This week’s Texas housercast is an interview with Walter Moreau, executive director of Austin’s Foundation Communities the state’s largest nonprofit…
New housing bill presents TDHCA a test of its public purpose
When President Bush signed the big housing bill Wednesday he ushered in a number of changes to the Low Income…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 7/30/2008
My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver shares with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories from his weekly…
Lt. Governor Dewhurst pledges to “double or triple” Texas Housing Trust Fund
Speaking before the annual Texas Housing Conference Monday, Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst pledged that the Texas Legislature would double…
Questions, answers, concerns about the new $4 billion foreclosed homes program in Texas
One of the subprograms of greatest controversy within the major housing legislation passed by Congress on Saturday (HR 3221) is…
The toll from Hurricane Dolly is not in and we’re not prepared for a low income housing disaster
At this hour we still don’t have a full account of damage from Hurricane Dolly which hit Brownsville and the…
Bo McCarver’s weekly housing news compilation – 7/23/2008
My friend and fellow houser Bo McCarver has agreed to share with the Texas housers blog the housing related stories…
Low Income Housing Tax Credit program in Dallas frozen and challanged in lawsuit
The Low Income Housing Tax Credit program in Dallas has been effectively shut down for several years and is now…
VISTAs make good things happen in housing
We have a new VISTA volunteer at the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service and I am once again reminded…
Top 10 reasons to be a Texas low income housing optimist
I have put on my rose colored glasses and come up with the top ten reasons to be an optimist…
The present day saga on one Texas non-border colonia
First Texas had colonias along the border with Mexico. Now “non-border colonias” are an emerging issue. A colonia, in Texas terms,…
New designs for low income post-disaster housing in Texas
Here is a little background on the Texas Grow Home project to bring you up-to-date. The Genesis of this project…
The Texas mortgage industry needs to take a hard look in the mirror
After reading Richard Bitner’s new book, Confessions of a Subprime Lender: An Insider’s Tale of Geed, Fraud and Ignorance I…
The voice of consumers is missing in judging subsidized housing
Low income tenants are seldom consulted about the quality of housing that the government builds for them. I have long…
The best (and worst) performing Texas public housing authorities according to HUD
In the course of updating our databases of all the multifamily subsidized housing in Texas this week I manually extracted…
Sunset Commission votes to reauthorize TSAHC for six years
As I noted in a posting earlier this week the Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation (TSAHC) is up for review…
Everything is bigger in Texas – except our housing trust fund
Looking over the latest report from Mary Brook’s Housing Trust Fund Project at the Center for Community Change makes me…
Lingering concerns about Texas Hurricane Rita home rebuilding
I am supporting the the Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs Round 2 plan for CDBG housing assistance for…
Texas Teachers Retirement Fund speculates in subprime mortgage backed securities
Demonstrating poor judgment the Texas Teacher’s Retirement Fund announced it is planning to invest $250 million of retirement funds of…