Affordable Housing Watchlist

[mrfootball]

The parasitical government preying on our beloved area's lack of government has sent me the following alerts about proposed new subsidized apartment developments in our part of town. There may be more for areas in Klein, Spring etc so you may want to check the Texas Dept. of Housing website for information about your area.

Hopefully we can get organized as a community to fight this, please contact your neighborhood association, school district demographer, local leaders, congressman, etc and let them know you do not want this in your community:

The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs has received a pre-application for Housing Tax Credits for the Cypress North Development proposed to be located at 10.688 acres NEC Huffmeister Rd. & Birdcall Ln., Houston.

The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs has received a pre-application for Housing Tax Credits for the Ashton Park Development proposed to be located at Approx. 12 acres at 14560 Wunderlich Rd., Houston.

The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs has received a pre-application for Housing Tax Credits for the Ridge at Willow Brook Development proposed to be located at 8330 Willow Pl. S., Houston, TX

The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs has received a pre-application for Housing Tax Credits for the Tuscany Villas Development proposed to be located at 10 acres at approx. 10000 Blk FM 1960 W., Houston

For additional information, visit the Housing Tax Credits Web page at http://www.tdhca.state.tx.us/multifamily/htc/ or you may reply to this email.

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[Houston Agent]

The parasitical government preying on our beloved area's lack of government has sent me the following alerts about proposed new subsidized apartment developments in our part of town. There may be more for areas in Klein, Spring etc so you may want to check the Texas Dept. of Housing website for information about your area.

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Where in the website would we find the Spring/Klein info? I looked, but I can't find the link that contains the info you quoted, much less any additional info.

[pineda]

Houston Agent-

You need to subscribe to their e-mail list (it's free) to be notified by e-mail when projects in the zip codes you request pop up. Thanks for the heads-up, Mr. Football.

[editor]

It's nice that you're taking an interest in your community and organizing action and all. But I'd like to point out that subsidized housing isn't necessarily a bad thing. The entire Houston area has a need for low-income housing.

As a point of interest, I lived in subsidized Section 8 housing for a couple of years. Broadly speaking, journalism doesn't pay much.

Just because people are poor doesn't mean they're criminals. Or dirty. Or whatever it is that you fear.

[crunchtastic]

It's nice that you're taking an interest in your community and organizing action and all. But I'd like to point out that subsidized housing isn't necessarily a bad thing. The entire Houston area has a need for low-income housing.

As a point of interest, I lived in subsidized Section 8 housing for a couple of years. Broadly speaking, journalism doesn't pay much.

Just because people are poor doesn't mean they're criminals. Or dirty. Or whatever it is that you fear.

There seem to be a couple of predominant themes in the Katy and NW Greater Houston threads: what new store/restaurant/ is opening, and fear of apartments.

Those dishwashers at Lupe Tortilla and Panera Bread have to live somewhere. Where, exactly, should all the people who can't afford a $1,200/month place go? Carve out their own little po' county? Fly 'em to the moon? Between demographic and economic trends, there are going to be whole lot more low income people everywhere. When will the middle class realize they can't keep running from them? One can cite crime and property value statistics until one is blue in the face. But at the end of the day, low, midddle, and upper middle class people will have to find a way to co-exist. Only the very wealthy can truly remove themselves from the fray.

It's the 21st century. White flight (and its variants) is a 40-50 year old solution that doesn't work anymore.

[pineda]

One can cite crime and property value statistics until one is blue in the face.

Are you sure about that? Cuz it sounds like you don't want anyone to mention those things.

[crunchtastic]

Are you sure about that? Cuz it sounds like you don't want anyone to mention those things.

On the contrary, I invite it. My point is that ultimately it doesn't matter. There will always be a criminal element where poverty exists, yet the suburban/exurban masses cannot keep outrunning poverty. You have no choice but to share unincorporated Harris County with people who make $7 an hour.

So, rather than spend time and resources trying to keep all low income people out, which is impossible, what is Plan B? Shouldn't Plan B look to mitigate the circumstances that breed crime, while supporting an infrastructure that lets the dishwashers and yard crews and school cafeteria workers be part of the community as well?

[ricco67]

You fail to mention that the criminal element isn't exclusive to the poor. There has been more than a couple of cases in which your neighbors also commit crime. A simple sex offenders database check of the burbs can give you a glimpse of that.

Now mind you, thatis only SEX offenses, you can imagine what other crimes your prestigious neighbors might have done that isn't rwquired to be made public.

[pineda]

I'm sure you're right and you make some valid points, however, I own a home and have children.

If I lived in an apartment and had no children, I don't think I would be so concerned about crime statistics, academic standards or whether another apartment or low-income housing project was built next door.

When my kids are finally out of high school, I'd like to sell my house and move into something smaller.

And, unfortunately, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, potential buyers in this area also care about crime statistics, academic standards and whether apartments or low-income housing projects are built next door.

I'm not out to change the world, I accept it the way it is, and I'll leave all the big CHANGE and HOPE to Obama.

[travelguy_73]

There but for the grace of God go any of us.

I used to be very NIMBY about low income housing, but having had firsthand experience with it, I have softened. My partner's mom spent two years in this type of housing near downtown due to a disability. Years before we met, she suffered a fall, and through no fault of her own, has serious mobility problems. Before the fall, she had a good civil service job, but like many people, didn't make a lot and didn't have a good nest egg (divorce, yet another societal ill). It didn't take much time being out of work, and dependent on "the system" before she started to fall through the cracks. This isn't some Reagan-era welfare queen, this is an upstanding member of the community, who worked for the state for many years. This is a woman who has mothered two terrific sons, who at the time weren't able to help her financially. There was no choice involved, just like with many of the people who live in these housing complexes.

We (represented by our government) have made the decision that we will give people some basic standard of living, but just enough so that they don't enjoy it and have an incentive to get out, and while we are at it, let's put them all clustered in another part of town so that they aren't close to meaningful employment. Yet how do people pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they don't have boots? "Take a longer bus ride." And what about the kids they are leaving at home or on the streets because they are spending hours a day in transport? Then these kids have absentee parents, which breeds yet another societal issue. It all begins at home in those apartments. It's all related.

I'm not trying to be all liberal holier-than-thou about this (because I still have a lot of NIMBY in me), and I'm not some volunteer do-gooder policy wonk by any means, but we are only as good as how we treat our least fortunate. I literally cried after the first time I met her and saw the place, and after a couple of years of good career advancement we are able to fully support her so she can have her own nice place to live. But unless we provide the rest a decent place to live in the parts of town where they get jobs to get on with their lives, we really cannot complain about the other crap in society.

[pineda]

Here's an interesting take on the whole public interest vs. individual interest dilemma.

speech given by former English Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1991

Three Illusions

The practical advantages of freedom and free enterprise over socialism and the command economy are almost indisputable. And certainly in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe few have any wish to pursue some kind of "third way" between the two. They know full well that the "third way" leads only to the Third World.

But freedom and free enterprise are attacked as well on other grounds. Our system is said to be only interested in individuals, as opposed to society; it is said to promote selfishness; and it is said

[mrfootball]

It is my understanding that tax credit housing (i.e. subsidized apartments) cannot be located within several (I think 3) miles of each other. In this case, there is another subsidized apartment complex on Huffmeister @ 290 next to the new hospital. That is approximately 1 mile from the location of one of the proposed developments which is located directly across from an Elementary school. I'll be posting the contact numbers and email addresses of county and state officials that people need to contact.

Residents of Ravensway and other neighborhoods zoned to Exemplary rated Millsap Elementary need to raise holy hell against this. They've had a tough enough time digesting the other new apartments in that area to get back to having an Exemplary rating. I hope the other areas fight like hell to stall these lucrative gov't subsidy projects.

[editor]

Part of the problem is that in the suburbs subsidized housing tends to get segregated into apartment complexes. Cities learned decades ago that simply doesn't work -- it breeds crime, more poverty, and more social problems.

What the suburbs need to do is figure out a way to sprinkle affordable rental housing (as in houses or townhouses) in among the mid-range housing. Cities that have torn down their crack stacks and disbursed low-income people in this manner have had great success.

If you round up all the poor people and keep them in one or two apartment complexes, you're only creating the situation you're trying to avoid.

[TheNiche]

It is my understanding that tax credit housing (i.e. subsidized apartments) cannot be located within several (I think 3) miles of each other.

The Villas at Shaver and Windshire Apartments are both currently under construction within about a mile of one another at 3271 and 4515 S. Shaver Street, respectively.

There are 207 tax credit apartment complexes in the Houston area. If a three-mile rule were enacted, it'd basically eliminate all opportunities for developing tax credit apartment complexes EXCEPT for some suburban and exurban areas.

[TexasVines]

Part of the problem is that in the suburbs subsidized housing tends to get segregated into apartment complexes. Cities learned decades ago that simply doesn't work -- it breeds crime, more poverty, and more social problems.

What the suburbs need to do is figure out a way to sprinkle affordable rental housing (as in houses or townhouses) in among the mid-range housing. Cities that have torn down their crack stacks and disbursed low-income people in this manner have had great success.

If you round up all the poor people and keep them in one or two apartment complexes, you're only creating the situation you're trying to avoid.

actually poorly designed and conducted studies show your results

more realistic modern well designed studies show exactly the opposite results

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/memphis-crime

just one example of how breaking up the ghetto and spreading it around not only hurts a city it hurts the lower and low middle income areas the most

some people will just never want to admit that there are many many many people on welfare that have no intention of ever getting off of it and no intention of ever doing anything but abusing it and no intention of taking any responsibility for themselves or their children

until mandatory community service is required for welfare and until mandatory random drug and alcohol testing is reqired for welfare and until welfare participants are penilized DOUBLE or TRIPLE for serious crimes done while on welfare we will never get control of the situation

paying people to exist while being a drain and a menace to society and giving birth to more future drains and menaces on society is not the answer

[editor]

actually poorly designed and conducted studies show your results

more realistic modern well designed studies show exactly the opposite results

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/memphis-crime

just one example of how breaking up the ghetto and spreading it around not only hurts a city it hurts the lower and low middle income areas the most

Memphis is one data point. One point of data does not represent everything happening in the world. One magazine article does not refute anything I wrote above (although, I'm a big fan of the magazine you cited).

Chicago has had great success with its program of tearing down ghetto apartment buildings are relocating the people throughout the community.

Cabrini Green was notorious worldwide as being a gang-infested ghetto in the worst sense of the term (it was also the setting of the TV series Good Times). Just a couple of weeks ago I walked through what's left of Cabrini Green on the way to Radio Shack. It's now townhouses and single family homes and shipping centers with grocery stores and restaurants. The CHA has had similar success with disbursing and demolishing other ghettos created by the misguided policies of the 50's and 60's. Ditto (though on a lesser scale) in New York and Boston.

some people will just never want to admit that there are many many many people on welfare that have no intention of ever getting off of it and no intention of ever doing anything but abusing it and no intention of taking any responsibility for themselves or their children

Which people are you speaking of? I don't see anywhere in this thread that anyone suggested what you're talking about. There are all kinds of people in subsidized housing, both good and bad. Just like there are all kinds of people who live in gated master planned communities, both good and bad. What's your point?

until mandatory community service is required for welfare and until mandatory random drug and alcohol testing is reqired for welfare and until welfare participants are penilized DOUBLE or TRIPLE for serious crimes done while on welfare we will never get control of the situation

Unconstitutional. You cannot penalize people through the legal system just because they're poor. It's called the 14th Amendment.

paying people to exist while being a drain and a menace to society and giving birth to more future drains and menaces on society is not the answer

So, what is your answer? To date all you've come up with is name calling and telling people to take long bus rides. You'll have to do better than that.

You seem unable to wrap your brain around the fact that not everyone on government assistance is a leach or a criminal or a grifter. Until you figure that out all of your arguments are specious at best, and ignorant at worst.

[memebag]

Here's an interesting take on the whole public interest vs. individual interest dilemma...

Ooh, you didn't get the memo. One of the conditions on the bailout of the banking system was that we all had to stop defending capitalism. It simply never existed. No market has ever been free, and the faire was never laissez.

If you have a home, it's subsidized in some way.

[TheNiche]

Unconstitutional. You cannot penalize people through the legal system just because they're poor. It's called the 14th Amendment.

What if it is because welfare or subsidized housing was made available to them only provided that they agreed not to break any major laws? It isn't singling out poor people as a whole. It is making government subsidy conditional, a concept that isn't new. Look at unemployment insurance. If you don't look for a job, you don't get a check.

[editor]

If you have a home, it's subsidized in some way.

Excellent point.

What if it is because welfare or subsidized housing was made available to them only provided that they agreed not to break any major laws? It isn't singling out poor people as a whole. It is making government subsidy conditional, a concept that isn't new. Look at unemployment insurance. If you don't look for a job, you don't get a check.

You are correct. In your example, people have a choice not to accept the government handout. Vines' view seems to be that all poor people, regardless of whether they get government money or not, should have to live in segregated housing and be subject to special treatment.

[TheNiche]

You are correct. In your example, people have a choice not to accept the government handout. Vines' view seems to be that all poor people, regardless of whether they get government money or not, should have to live in segregated housing and be subject to special treatment.

He was very specific. In fact, he used the word "welfare" four times in the sentence to which you objected on the basis of constitutionality. There's a lot of stuff I don't agree with him about, but this is an area where he and I agree. Transfer payments should not be unconditional.

Incidentally, I also do not much like the idea of forcibly integrating poor and wealthy. The line of argument that low-wage employees like janitors and food servers need to live close to where they work is bunk. If the proprietor of the business needs them and they aren't close by, the proprietor is going to have to entice them with decent enough compensation that they can afford transportation; otherwise the poor people will work somewhere else. They may be poor but they aren't stupid.

Beyond that, and aside from setting up school vouchers, I just don't see much value in allocating society's resources to desegregate poor and wealthy people. What's the point?

[editor]

He was very specific. In fact, he used the word "welfare" four times in the sentence to which you objected on the basis of constitutionality. There's a lot of stuff I don't agree with him about, but this is an area where he and I agree. Transfer payments should not be unconditional.

We agree on this point. I misunderstood what he wrote earlier.

Incidentally, I also do not much like the idea of forcibly integrating poor and wealthy.

Are we talking poor and wealthy here, or we talking about poor and the lower-middle and middle-class? I don't think of Katy as a wealthy area. I believe the reason this topic was started was because of the prospect of low-income housing being introduced to Katy.

Beyond that, and aside from setting up school vouchers, I just don't see much value in allocating society's resources to desegregate poor and wealthy people. What's the point?

It helps the poor aspire to something better. When a child grows up surrounded by poverty and sees nothing else, then he wants for nothing greater. If a poor child is exposed to life in a middle class neighborhood, there's a chance he'll aspire to those things. It's like how living in another country will help you learn a language faster than if you just watch shows about it on TV.

[TheNiche]

We agree on this point. I misunderstood what he wrote earlier.

Are we talking poor and wealthy here, or we talking about poor and the lower-middle and middle-class? I don't think of Katy as a wealthy area. I believe the reason this topic was started was because of the prospect of low-income housing being introduced to Katy.

It depends. Measuring what is poor or what is wealthy is tricky business. For simplicity we can think of it along a spectrum, but there's a lot more to determining wealth, of course than household income.

Even North Katy is wealthier than areas where most of our metro population lives. I can easily see that it will become a slummy area and not in too many years, but for the time being it at least looks basically nice. It isn't a slum. People generally would not be ashamed to live there.

It helps the poor aspire to something better. When a child grows up surrounded by poverty and sees nothing else, then he wants for nothing greater. If a poor child is exposed to life in a middle class neighborhood, there's a chance he'll aspire to those things. It's like how living in another country will help you learn a language faster than if you just watch shows about it on TV.

That's why I pointed out specifically that I like the idea of school vouchers. It seems like a more efficient way of solving an issue that we both agree exists. Plus, because the only parents that would be willing to participate in a voucher program must be willing to provide transportation to what is presumably a school outside of their neighborhood, they demonstrate that they are motivated to ensure the life success of their child. A motivated parent (regardless of income) is probably not going to be introducing a lowest common denominator student to a new school.

Education aside, I think that people ought to be willing to live where they want and that the price of that housing should be unaffected by efforts to socially engineer the geographic distribution of wealth.

[ricco67]

Thinking back at growing dirt poor in the near east end, I take incredible exception to T-Vine's comments to the point he doesn't deserve to have "Texas" spelled out in his name.

To give you a bit of a background, I grew up near the streets of Sherman and Lockwood, and later at Delmar and Canal. These what were then considered a REALLY rough part of town in the late 70's and 80's.

How rough? I've seen 2 men shot down in front of me and I consider myself lucky to be a survivor of that area.

Most of my neighbors, while poor, worked incredibly hard to support their families.

As it has been said before, sometimes the situation dictated how one lived and how you dealt with it.

Not every child that has grown up in a poverty stricken area isn't going to grow up into a some thieving scumbag.

Just like with every family in America, it is the quality of the upbringing that the child has.

Am I a thief? Hardly.

A con Artist? No.

Do I use drugs? Never.

Am I rich? No.

But I believe I am, as well as those you certainly wish to distance yourself away from, are more human than you give people credit for.

Seeing my dad slave away for 12-16 hour days gave me a strong work ethic to do what I could to survive and work was the most honorable way to do it while maintaining pride.

While my neighbors were the stereotype that T-Vines has a fear of, it merely showed to me how not to live.

As much as I hate to bring Quanell into this argument, the article that was written about him has a very good example of what Ed was saying; Sometimes all it takes is the proper example to make people strive for better. Link.

T-Vines, what little respect and credibility you had with me has been thrown into a furnace. It would behoove you to learn what you're talking about before you paint entire demographics with a stroke of a clearly faulty brush.

"There But For the Grace of God Go I," are words you should remember when talking with such obvious malice about people.

Just remember, Karma is a delicate flower.

[editor]

Just remember, Karma is a delicate flower.

You had me until that last part. It took me a minute to realize you got nailed by the HAIF software's language filter. I think everyone else can figure out what you were trying to say.

[hbcu]

I had a friend who moved out of a tax credit/mixed-use apartment in the heights.......they were a cash payer and paid alot of money in monthly rent....

the section 8 folks are taken care by the government, a rent increase doesn't bother them but my friend had to suffer from the rent increases...........they didn't mind an increase if they were held to the same standards the section 8 folks were but they weren't....the unit never enforced the section 8 folk's kids who ran around the apartment all night long, the trash they threw everywhere, etc.

If I'm going to pay that much, might as well move down the street and pay $20 more to deal with less problems...

these "tax credits" are all over the burbs and look real nice...however, these developments only encourage more folks to ride the system and all it does it put a poorer person who might've had trouble getting around in the city further out...

[RedScare]

He was very specific. In fact, he used the word "welfare" four times in the sentence to which you objected on the basis of constitutionality. There's a lot of stuff I don't agree with him about, but this is an area where he and I agree. Transfer payments should not be unconditional.

Actually, "welfare" is not unconditional. Depending on the program (there is no such thing as "welfare"), participants are required to go to school, get job training, or stop receiving benefits after a set period of time. Those who live in Section 8 housing are routinely required to abide by a contract that, among other things, allows them to be evicted if they commit major crimes or deal drugs.

What IS unconstitutional is Vines' suggestion that criminals on welfare should be punished twice or three times as severe as, say, your average run-of-the-mill bigoted, white suburban resident. The US Constitution does not allow unequal punishment for different classes of persons. So, welfare criminals and bigots gets punished the same for the same crime.

[TheNiche]

these "tax credits" are all over the burbs and look real nice...however, these developments only encourage more folks to ride the system and all it does it put a poorer person who might've had trouble getting around in the city further out...

Most new tax credit apartment complexes are actually already built in areas that most people would consider medium-to-low income or "urban" in character. It only seems like they only ever encroach in high-end neighborhoods because that's the only time that you hear people talking about them. But there are hundreds in the Houston area and most are completely off the radar of opinion leaders.

There's a fundamental flaw in the way that tax credit incentives are administered, undermining the very spirit of the program. Tax credits are awarded to developers based on a competitive system, where the highest scores typically occur in areas where there is already plenty of affordable market-rate housing. It's just that that housing isn't new. If I am to read anything from the results of tax credit policy as it is, it is that society places value upon the ability of poor and lower-middle class households to live in new housing in the neighborhoods where they already exist.

[TheNiche]

Actually, "welfare" is not unconditional. Depending on the program (there is no such thing as "welfare"), participants are required to go to school, get job training, or stop receiving benefits after a set period of time. Those who live in Section 8 housing are routinely required to abide by a contract that, among other things, allows them to be evicted if they commit major crimes or deal drugs.

What IS unconstitutional is Vines' suggestion that criminals on welfare should be punished twice or three times as severe as, say, your average run-of-the-mill bigoted, white suburban resident. The US Constitution does not allow unequal punishment for different classes of persons. So, welfare criminals and bigots gets punished the same for the same crime.

There are government-sponsored programs which provide subsidized for-sale housing, but where if the subsidized buyer turns around and sells the home too quickly, all the money given to them (plus fees) has to be paid back to the government. Clearly the government is free to craft mechanisms specific to such persons by way of which to guide and enforce actions that have been deemed socially desirable. It is as simple as forging an agreement, and if it is broken then you are not punishing people unequally for different classes of persons, just that you are punishing people equally for different classes of wrongdoing.

Using bigots as an example probably doesn't further your cause. Hate crime laws actually provide a kind of case in point.

[RedScare]

There are government-sponsored programs which provide subsidized for-sale housing, but where if the subsidized buyer turns around and sells the home too quickly, all the money given to them (plus fees) has to be paid back to the government. Clearly the government is free to craft mechanisms specific to such persons by way of which to guide and enforce actions that have been deemed socially desirable. It is as simple as forging an agreement, and if it is broken then you are not punishing people unequally for different classes of persons, just that you are punishing people equally for different classes of wrongdoing.

You just said the exact same thing that I did. Congratulations.

[memebag]

Just remember, Karma is a delicate flower.

That's the first time I've ever seen the profanity filter improve a statement.