WAZ

Seattle is a model of urbanism. The City scores high in the walkability rankings, and they pioneered many urban policies that other cities have followed. Houston Tomorrow actually brought a speaker in from Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods, to see what we could learn from them. But last week video surfaced of Aiesha Steward-Baker being brutally attacked in one of Seattle’s bus tunnels.

The relationship between urbanism and crime is not new. Oscar Newman wrote “Creating Defensible Space” in 1974. Jane Jacobs talked about it even earlier. But nobody seems to talk about it any more. I searched for ‘crime’ on two of Houston’s urbanism websites. Houston Tomorrow had just one article that directly addressed crime and urbanism. NeoHouston had an article with a picture of Andrew Burleson climbing a fence. A Google search was a little more fruitful, but not much.

In the absence of educated discourse, people have developed pretty far-fetched ideas on crime and urbanism, and cities have stopped listening to neighborhood crime concerns.

The far-fetched ideas aren’t worth going into. But neighborhood crime concerns are. A perfect example is happening in Northeast Houston. The City is building a bridge to connect the Songwood and Wood Bayou neighborhoods. People in Wood Bayou support the bridge. It will unite the two neighborhoods and make them both more walkable. People from Wood Bayou will have easier access to Brown Park. But people in Songwood are fighting the bridge because they fear it will bring crime to their neighborhood. Nobody is working on ways to help with Songwood’s crime concerns while also giving Wood Bayou the access they need. They’re just building a bridge.

We could change this if we bring crime back to our discussions on urbanism. Aiesha Steward-Baker was attacked in a bus tunnel in one of America’s most forward-thinking urban cities. If that isn’t reason enough, what is?

Thanks for your insight, LT, scintillating as always.

WAZ - The Sharpstown site, particularly the old Gillman plot across Bellaire, would be a very good location for the reasons you mention. But evidently only downtown deserves any development.

When I first saw Midway's proposal, I was intrigued specifically because it wasn't downtown. Downtown seems to be Houston's repository for everything that's good. New park? It goes downtown. New museum? Downtown. New stadium? Downtown of course. But why is that? Is downtown the only neighborhood that deserves these things?

The more I looked at it, the more I questioned Midway's location. Even though it's not downtown, it would leave much to be desired. Using the Dynamo stadium to anchor PlazAmericas would be at least as good an option.

Bellaire Mayor Cindy Siegal is mad. She doesn’t like Midway Development’s alternate plan for a new Dynamo Soccer Stadium. Meanwhile, neighbors in Sharpstown are worried. They fear that the PlazAmericas makeover of the Sharpstown Mall could scare away a lot of non-Hispanic patrons.

I’m always interested in ways to kill two birds with one stone. And these two stories made me wonder – what if the new Dynamo Stadium were built at the PlazAmericas/ Sharpstown Mall?

Traffic would be less worrisome than at the Midway site, because the mall is already designed for it. The Sharpstown Mall always had excellent access to the Southwest Freeway. A few blocks to the south, Boxer Properties runs the Arena Theater, and the concerts do not cause traffic jams on adjacent neighborhood streets. Neighborhood streets are already configured to avoid this.

The costs would be less than either the Downtown and Midway site. The stadium could use much of the existing Sharpstown Mall infrastructure – most notably parking and site drainage. Most of PlazAmerica’s anchors are vacant, so the square footage is there. It would require a reconfiguration of the mall – but that’s still usually less expensive than building everything from the ground up.

Soccer is an international sport, and the Alief-Sharpstown-Gulfton area is Houston’s most international. From a demographic standpoint, it would make sense to put the Dynamo stadium in the middle of it all – at the PlazAmericas mall. And this is to say nothing of the benefits to PlazAmericas. The stadium could buttress the funding that’s already lined up for the makeover of the Sharpstown Mall. Not to mention all the people that will come through the mall on game days.

The PlazAmericas mall would be a better choice for The Dynamo than downtown or Midway’s site in Bellaire. Soccer could be an ace-in-the-hole for the mall. It could be a match made in heaven.

BikeHouston Annual Meeting - Tues 1/26/10, 6:30p CST

Gina Mitteco, pedestrian-bicyclist coordinator of the Houston-Galveston Area Council, will talk on the future of bicycling in the region Tuesday, January 26, 2010, at the Annual Meeting of BikeHouston, Houston’s organization that advocates making the city safe and accessible for cyclists.

The meeting will begin with a reception at 6:30 p.m. followed by the program at 7 p.m. in the first floor conference room at the Houston Environmental Center, 3015 Richmond. Food and refreshments will be provided by El Meson Restaurant.

Mitteco, who joined H-GAC in 2008, will give an overview of H-GAC’s Pedestrian-Bicycle Program, discuss upcoming initiatives and update BikeHouston on the Regional Bikeway plan.

She has a Master of Arts degree in Community and Regional Planning from the University of British Colombia and worked as a transportation consultant before taking her current post. While living in Vancouver, Matteco enjoyed the benefits of car-free living by relying on the city’s extensive network of bicycle boulevards, pedestrian friendly destinations, and transit for all of her transportation needs.

In addition to Mitteco’s talk, Robin Stallings, Executive Director of Bike Texas / Texas Bicycle Coalition from Austin will provide a legislative update on bicycling initiatives pending before the Texas Legislature this year.

BikeHouston is a local Houston organization promoting bike access, safe bicycling, education, and public awareness of the personal and community benefits of cycling. The meeting is open to all cyclists and anyone interested in learning about cycling in Houston.

I went to the meeting to see Mitteco's talk. Very interesting.

A few good points (that struck me):

- The idea of hike&bike trails as 'highways for bikes' (my words; not hers) is very much something they go for.

- As I suspected, H-GAC sees things from 30,000 feet. They cover a huge, 6 county area; so they don't necessarily have a ground-level view of each and every bikeway and hike/bike trail in the City. (It shows in some of the proposed bikeways).

I think it's incredible that H-GAC has as much invested in bikeability.

Maybe I'm failing to see how "walkable" and "bikeable" are mutually exclusive. Both would be good to have. Though outside the loop where things are more spread out, maybe one will lead to the other.

Your assessment is correct. They aren't mutually exclusive. In dense urban cores, walkability is easy to do and desirable. In suburban areas, walkability is hard to do, but bikeability is a lot easier, and brings the same benefits.

I have to ask, how do you think bikeability will lead to walkability, or vice-versa?

The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) recently published a study, “Cities for Cycling,” in which they review emerging best practices for the engineering of roads for bicycles. The goal is to make cities more bicycle friendly, so that people can use bicycles for transit; not just for recreation and exercise.

Urbanists spend a lot of time on walkability, but bikeability is often ignored. That’s a shame for Houston. Walkability is easiest to accomplish in dense urban cores, where travel distances are short. Houston has a handful of those, but most of the city was developed after World War II. Most of our neighborhoods are too spread out for walking. In many Houston neighborhoods, bikeability could be drastically improved with a few small changes – a new path here; a footbridge there; a crosswalk. Compare that to the upheaval of trying to turn suburbs into dense urban cores in order to get walkability.

Houston’s natural features lend themselves to cycling. The City is flat, which makes it easier to cycle. Additionally, Houston is criss-crossed by bayous. Many of those bayous have become greenways – the longest of which goes for eleven miles. These are in addition to the greenways we’ve built on old railroad rights of way – something most cities have done. Greenways can be to cyclists what highways are to drivers; a fast, direct way from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’. They just need to be properly linked to on-street bikeways and transit centers, so that they are more than just recreational parks.

Houston’s handful of dense neighborhoods should keep working on walkability. It’s the right answer for places like Downtown, Montrose, and Midtown. But for all the suburban neighborhoods where most Houstonians live – bikeability is a much more reachable goal.

Judges have to be careful about what they say, due to their requirement to be impartial. However, within the areas that the law gives them jurisdiction, they can and do discuss these issues a lot. However, a judge's power is limited to the cases before them, and only while the case is pending before them. For instance, while a defendant is on probation, a judge has lots of say over him, including where he lives. Once that defendant is off probation, the judge has virtually no say-so over what the defendant does. I can say that judges do not look at how many offenders live in a Zip Code when imposing residency restrictions. It usually involves making sure the specific victim is safe from the defendant, such as making a relative move away from the child's residence.

So why don't judges look at how many offenders live in a zip code when imposing residency restrictions? Other than "they just don't do it." Is there some legal reason why they don't?

The DAs can prosecute, and have some authority to argue for conditions of probation or parole. Again, once out of the system, there is little they can do, unless they re-offend. By the way, the DAs have an advocacy group that advises legislators on proposed laws already. They already do what you claim they better start doing.

Maybe one of those DA advocates should talk to Travis McGee and other neighborhood advocates about these problems.

Parole and probation officers can only do what the judges and parole boards and the law orders them to do. They have no prosecuting, judicial or legislative authority.

There is validity in asking bus drivers how to change a transit system. Why not include parole and probation boards and officers in talking about laws regarding parole and probation?

Since you seem hung up only on how many offenders live in a specific area, I have not gone into any of the other complex issues involved in this debate, nor do I particularly care to. I am only saying that legislating where offenders can live or how many can live there is an exceedingly poor approach to the problem.

The neighborhood standpoint is simple. Rich or poor, we all want safe, vibrant communities in which to live and work. Nobody wants to have a disproportionately high number of sex offenders and dangerous ex-convicts in their neighborhood.

You might not like that I bring it up; but it is a very real concern.

The goal should be how best to limit victimization and recidivism of ANY child, not spreading the victimization around.

Of course the ultimate goal should be how best to limit recidivism and the victimization of any child or adult. On the way, we need to address the problem of offenders accumulating in poor neighborhoods.

OK, I'm not a real-estate expert (not more than an architect can be anyways). But I've got my own little test of whether PlazAmericas will succeed or fail.

They've got the temporary, canvas PlazAmericas signs up over the old Sharpstown Mall monument signs. If they get the permanent signs up quick (in the next month or so) - then maybe they're on the right track. They're investing adequately in the property and they might turn it around yet.

If it takes months and months to get the permanent signs out, and the old ones get tattered and ragged - then I say the mall is doomed to failure once again. They're not investing enough to do it right. They're putting lipstick on a pig; not doing the big changes they need to.

Simplistic I know. But I drive by PlazAmericas every day. I am watching.

So, you advocate that District Attorneys, judges and parole boards violate the law, simply because some in the public may be ignorant? Personally, I hope they follow the law, regardless of public opinion.

Interesting. The one group with the constitutional and statutory authority to even attempt a solution, you give a pass, because it might be tough.

Show me a law that says District Attorneys, judges, and parole boards can't talk about the law. Show me a law that says District Attorneys, judges, and parole boards can't talk to legislators about whether or not to change laws.

And I didn't give legislators a pass on the issue of dangerous ex-cons and sex offenders in poor neighborhoods. If laws have to change to fix the problem, they will have to be written by legislators. Hopefully those laws would be informed by a good, educated debate on the issue among people who really know what's going on (District Attorneys, judges, and parole boards).

I did say that it is a political minefield for a legislator to lessen the sentences of any type of offender. I would guess it's a political minefield to propose stipends for sex offenders, too. (That was your idea; not mine). I wouldn't consider either of those a good answer to the problem.

We've already established that these offenders live in poor neighborhoods because they are themselves poor. They are not prohibited from living in the wealthier neighborhoods. They cannot afford to live there. Do you propose that sex offenders be given stipends, so that they can afford to live in wealthier neighborhoods? It seems to me that the best way to get rid of poor offenders is to improve the value of your neighborhood to the point that the offenders can no longer afford to live there. Everyone wins.

So the only way to get sex offenders and dangerous ex-cons out of a neighborhood is to gentrify it?

That might work here in my neck of the woods - I see it starting already. But what about neighborhoods that can't or don't gentrify? They should remain chock full of sex offenders and dangerous ex-cons?

If there are 1000 offenders, no matter where they end up, there will still be 1000 of them.

The problem is that if you take a sampling of 1,000 offenders in Houston, 250 of them will be in a handful of our poorest neighborhoods. They aren't evenly dispersed around the City.

There is no easy, quick solution to this problem. It would have to involve District attorneys, judges, parole boards, legislators, and others who (presumably) know a lot about the issue. Of course neighborhoods would have to play a big role - but not the ONLY role.

As someone involved in a civic club I made just one suggestion of how neighborhoods could address the problem inside their own borders. This should be a miniscule part of a much bigger debate and solution. Even if it works, it's not a silver bullet to solve the entire issue.

It isn't [district attorneys', judges, and parole boards] job to discuss such matters.

They would be wise to play some role in addressing the problem - if for no other reason than their own public image. When a dangerous ex-con murders or rapes someone, it doesn't bode well for the officials who let them out. Even if the officials followed the letter of the law and did everything they were supposed to do, people will still cry for a pound of flesh.

It would be terrible for a judge to say 'oh it's not my job to discuss how many sex offenders there are in Sunnyside,' - and then have a sex offender whose case he handled, rape kids in Sunnyside.

I'm going to warn you though, my conclusions will not address the possibility of longer prison sentences or systemic denial of parole (because we lack the prison capacity to do so), euthanasia of prisoners due for release, or genital mutilation of sex offenders. Although easy solutions, these are not realistic and I will not entertain them. The report would strictly address issues of equity in the geographic distribution of ex-cons as broken down by cohort according to the offense(s) they were jailed for.

Longer sentences might be possible for sexual predators and other dangerous convicts, but it would have to mean letting other offenders go after shorter sentences. That's a political minefield for a legislator to propose.

I don't have $60k to fund the study that you're talking about. I almost wish I did - but wouldn't it be a re-hashing of the Urban Institute's study? Or are you looking at something else? No offense intended. I am just curious.

For most ex-cons, financial constraints mean that poor neighborhoods are their only option. At least to start out. Obviously it is impractical to distort the market values of housing to ensure their proportionate geographic dispersion. And it would likely be politically unpopular to grant them a housing voucher for some set amount of money per month. And as for Tax Credit or Section 8 housing, those developments are required to run background checks and to deny housing to convicted felons. And if the background checks were abandoned, you can bet that it'd become even more difficult for such housing developments to get past the NIMBYs so that those programs could be carried out in the spirit of the law upon which they were founded...not that it's easy, even as it is.

What real-world solution would you suggest as a possible solution to this real-world problem?

I am not an expert in parole or mandatory releases. I would be happy with an honest, educated discussion on the matter. Experts discuss transit in cities; parks; education - why aren't experts talking about innovative ways to keep poor neighborhoods from being overrun with dangerous ex-cons and sex offenders? I've yet to see any district attorney, judge, or parole board discuss the matter in depth.

I've toyed with adding a requirement in our neighborhood deed restrictions that landlords screen tenants on their rent houses. If reports show that a sex offender lives in our neighborhood, or we have problems at a rent house and we discover the tenant has a criminal history - we could then go after the landlord on a deed restriction violation.

I have no idea if this would work. I haven't vetted it with a lawyer. The City's deed enforcement people would have to be OK with it. Landlords might balk. It wouldn't prevent offenders from living in homes they own - but then you've got the financial barrier to it. Of course, even if it did work, it's just one neighborhood in a giant city.

Surely there are real-world solutions that would address the whole problem - beyond this deed restriction idea - but I unfortunately don't have them.

Although the recidivism rate of sex offenders would suggest that there is some reason to laws that prohibit their living within a given distance of schools, parks, and the like, I don't see much purpose in subjecting all ex-cons to the same rules. Speaking as someone that has actually hired ex-cons from neighborhoods like Sunnyside that are also in close proximity to Sunnyside and that has had zero problems with them as compared to the many problems I've had with non-ex-cons--and also as someone whose employment opportunity has allowed them to get their lives back on track--I don't think that your suggestion that ex-cons should be prohibited from living in any kind of neighborhood has merit. I think that banishing them to the unincorporated hinterlands would limit their access to employment and increase their recidivism rate. Nobody wants that.

You're absolutely right that ex-cons are not all alike. Sex offenders differ from murderers. Thieves are different. Nobody would say that a guy who used drugs and shoplifted as a teenager should be banished for life to the unincorporated hinterlands.

I apologize for painting with a broad brush, when it comes to ex-cons.

Still, in an ideal world, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Dangerous felons wouldn't be on the streets at all. The only ex-cons to be released would be the ones who pose no risk to anyone. Unfortunately that's not the case. Dangerous felons are released; and those dangerous felons too often wind up in poor neighborhoods.

We've fought over it before. I dream of a world in which "poor neighborhood" does not mean "crimeridden neighborhood." Places like Sunnyside have enough problems with gang activity and Illegal drop houses, among other things. Do they need to be overrun with a disproportionate number of dangerous ex-convicts?

Earlier this month, KHOU reported about the proliferation of sex offenders living in Houston’s Sunnyside neighborhood.

Sunnyside residents are right to be worried. Many of these guys have long histories, and recidivism is a very serious concern. On New Years Day, sex offender Larry Allen Rickets allegedly kidnapped and murdered Becky Hamilton. And sex offenders aren’t the whole story. An Urban Institute Study from 2004 found that a quarter of Houston’s ex-convicts are released to the City’s poorest neighborhoods.

There are many reasons poor neighborhoods absorb ex-cons. Ex-convicts are likely to be poor. They can’t afford higher rents in upscale neighborhoods. Landlords in these places don’t always screen tenants, so there is no protection on that front. Meanwhile, Houston has no limits on where sex offenders and ex-convicts can live (something the residents of Sunnyside are asking for). The only protection is from a 1994 state law that creates 1,000 foot “child safety zones” around places where children congregate – and the situation in Sunnyside suggests it may be too weak.

Unfortunately, it may be an uphill battle for Houston to put its own limits on where ex-cons can live. Miami took this approach, with a 2005 ordinance that prevented sex offenders from living within 2500 feet of a school. But they didn’t follow up with a facility or halfway house to accommodate the offenders. Miami’s sex offenders wound up living under a bridge, with no sanitation or running water. The City was sued.

As Houston moves into the 21^st century, this is an issue we must address. We’ve got to move past the “ex-cons have to live somewhere” mentality, and discuss what our options are. Just because a neighborhood is poor doesn’t mean it should be a “dumping field for anything that’s negative.” (as Sunnyside Civic Association President Travis McGee puts it). Surely there’s something we can do.

I got laid off during vacation by way of cell phone on the day before Christmas Eve.

I have two bachelors degrees in Finance and Economics, plus seven years of experience in varied real estate consulting and development roles. I specialize in multifamily but have experience in all other major asset classes as well as in various niche real estate markets.

I'm not desperate. I've got enough current assets and easily-convertible fixed assets to last me several years. Anyone with a decent position: please inquire.

Thanks,

-TheNiche

Yowzas. The day before Christmas Eve, by cell phone. That's cold blooded.

If it's any consolation, these things happen for a reason. I was laid-off in mid October; me and 2 other guys from my previous employer. They weren't really my level, and I was able to land work fairly quickly. Things got worse where I used to be, and last week they let 19 people go. Nancy Sarnoff reported on it in her blog. I was devastated when they let me go, but it'd have been a lot harder for me now.

My advice:

First, the old cliche - NETWORK! It's good to build friendships with people all around. I mean real people; who you work with; who are in your rolodex. Clients are great; previous coworkers can be just as good.

Second, don't be too elaborate; but do be professional with the letters and resumes. I designed my own letterhead; and IMO it was more useful than my portfolio. I also did business cards to match the letterhead. (They're good for other things too, like if you get involved in civic clubs and super neighborhoods.....)

Third, stay productive when you're not looking for work. Stay on the same schedule you were on while employed. Wake up early during the week. Commute to your study or couch or wherever. Work 40 hours a week. Write a book. Take a course. Volunteer somewhere. Even do a blog (comments on other blogs don't count).

I don't want to toot my own horn, but when I was laid off in October, I found work in 3 weeks. In April 2008, when I lost my previous job - it took ten days.

Knock on wood.

Anyway, Niche, we've come to blows on here before, but, best of luck!

The Corb-inspired house that Jeff Greene lives in in Curb Your Enthusiasm comes to mind.

Normally I don’t write about HISD. I’m not a teacher, or an expert in education. I don’t have kids who go to school. But I lived in France as a seventh grader, and that incensed me to think about this Chronicle Article on Fondren Middle School.

Fondren Middle School is almost guaranteed to fail under the Texas education system. In Texas, a school’s success is measured by test scores. The tests are in English, and English is the second language for many Fondren Middle School students.

It behooves schools like Fondren Middle to do a better job teaching English as a Second Language. It should be a language immersion program. They could give foreign students a ‘free year’ when they first arrive. During their ‘free year’, foreign students take normal courses (in English), as well as intensive English as a Second Language courses. Their grade for this ‘free year’ is based on their grade in the ESL courses. Instead of a normal TAKS test, foreign students in their ‘free year’ are given an ESL test.

The next year, foreign students could repeat the normal courses from their ‘free year.’ In this year, they could be graded on all of their courses. The students could take the TAKS test with other students from this repeated year, and thereafter they could be mainstreamed.

This is, more or less, what the French school system did for me. Granted there was no TAKS test. But it worked marvelously. I went from speaking almost no French, to a comfortable level of fluency by the end of the year. If only there were room in Texas schools to do such a thing.

Recently, I read an article about the Heights fires that surprised me.

It was the 22nd arson that has taken place since August in a historic Houston neighborhood called the Heights, known more for its comforting small-town feel in the midst of big city sprawl than for being the center of criminal activity.

Most of you live in the Heights, don't seem to be the criminal types, and, today at least, generally like living there. But it still surprised me. Sure, the Heights is a really diverse neighborhood, but the "center of criminal activity" in Houston seems a bit harsh.

Prior to reading the article and some research afterward I have/had a few candidates for crime centers:

CANDIDATE #1: Greenspoint

AKA Gunspoint, Greenspoint has had 18 homicides in 2008...and that was a major drop. However, Greenspoint is attempting to clean up its act and remodel its dilapidated shopping mall.

CANDIDATE #2: The Fifth Ward

The Fifth Ward is still very poor compared to the rest of Houston and there are no national chains there. Not even Fiesta. Like Greenspoint, it was bad in the 1980s, got a nickname ("The Bloody Fifth", apparently) but is cleaning up.

CANDIDATE #3: Southwest Houston (Sharpstown)

This is another area of Houston that I haven't heard good things about.

I don't know. I think that the SE Houston, inner-loop, has a fair amount of crime...or at least, that's what I think I heard.

What do you think?

Curious, why is "Sharpstown" in parenthesis after "Southwest Houston?" Why not put Gulfton in parenthesis? Alief? Fondren Southwest?

And do you really mean all of Sharpstown? Or is it the commercial area around the Sharpstown Mall?

An aside, did anyone else read the article in Cite Magazine about the Baker Ripley Community Center for Gulfton and Sharpstown?

If anybody cares to look at the most recently available crime data in Excel format from HPD, it will reveal that there are significant concentrations of murders in places that aren't reputed as crime centers. Acres Homes/Independence Heights was a problem area. So was the Near Northside between downtown and Northline Mall. There was one murder in the 'greater Heights' but that was east of Main Street, so nobody really cares. Aside from those neighborhoods, murder very predictably tended to occur at crappy apartment complexes, and since there is such an abundance of such complexes in southwest Houston, southwest Houston did not fare well. However...there were zero (0) murders in Greenspoint, Fifth Ward, or in Sharpstown...none, nada, zip.

Furthermore, I used the crime data and a geocoding program to determine the lat/long geographic centroid of each of the 24 murders that were known by HPD to have occurred in the City of Houston. The "murder center" of Houston was...[brace yourselves]...River Oaks. Specifically, the murder centroid of Houston is on the grounds of Bayou Bend, former residence of Ima Hogg and a component of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Behold Houston's nefarious murder centroid! Fear it!

Excellent point.

Houston is huge. It's tempting to divide it into quadrants, and say "this quadrant is dangerous; that quadrant is safe." But as you've pointed out, that's not how Houston works.

It is infinitely more fruitful to look at the actual crime data and the real-world forces that affect crime. I'm talking neighborhood by neighborhood, street by street; even property by property. Only by doing that can you actually understand anything about crime in Houston.

Apparently the area around Rice University is considered "Southwest Houston" by KHOU.

http://www.khou.com/news/Fire-breaks-out-at-historic-Houston-mansion-80373662.html

"HOUSTON—Investigators were looking into the cause of a fire at a historic mansion in southwest Houston Wednesday....."

The house in question is at 10 Remington Lane - in the same neighborhood as the new Rice University President's House.

Lawyer Harry C. Arthur is suing to shut down The Beacon homeless day center. His timing is unfortunate – people are painting him as a Grinch because the story was released around the Holidays – but Mr. Arthur has a point.

It’s not politically correct to say it, but soup kitchens are horrible for neighborhoods. When the centers are open, they do not accommodate everyone who needs their services; so the homeless congregate outside. When the centers close, the homeless disperse into surrounding streets, to “urinate, defecate and drop trash in the street, sidewalks, doorways and other private property,” (as Mr. Arthur put it).

There is an alternative. The New York Times talked about a homeless shelter in Bergen County New Jersey that “has more of the feel of a Courtyard by Marriott than of a homeless shelter.” It is designed to be a one-stop shop for the homeless; where they can get hot meals, medical care, job-placement, laundry, and all of that. But the priority is housing. Before anything else, Bergen County finds permanent homes for its clients. This is the “Housing First” model.

Finding a place to live is a logical starting point to rebuilding a life. It’s difficult to get healthy, or keep a job when you’re worried about where you’ll sleep every night. Without an address you may as well not exist in America. And how can you go to a job interview if you can’t shower and clean your clothes first?

“Housing First” also solves many of the neighborhood problems caused by day centers for the homeless. Because the clients live there, they don’t congregate outside or disperse into surrounding streets. There are beds, toilets, and trash cans that they can use, instead of sidewalks and doorways.

Houston needs the Beacon, but Harry Arthur has a point, too. Maybe the Beacon could use the “Housing First” model– find homes for its clients instead of taking them in for a few hours, and then putting them back on the streets.

Mold

Nothing a good scrubbing and a can of KillZ won't take care of. Talking from experience here. :-) That house is a great deal for someone. If I weren't happily in a Mod on the other side of the Bintliff Ditch, I'd jump on it myself.

I'd keep an eye on Robindell in the next few years. It's already starting to turn. Homes on the east side of the subdivision are in the $200ks. And why not? It's a hop and a skip from Uptown, close to the Med Center, and backs up to Brays Bayou. The only bad part is it's zoned to Sharpstown High.

Houston is finally going to do periodic inspections of apartments! This is great news for everyone; not just tenants in apartments.

But as great as this is, it should be considered “Apartment Ordinance 1.0.” The biggest area for improvement is that the ordinance requires the inspection of ALL apartments every four years. Brand new apartments are on the same schedule as older complexes - even though older complexes are more likely to have problems.

I hope the City comes back and writes “Apartment Ordinance 2.0,” so older apartments are inspected more frequently. It could be a graduated schedule, based on a “clock” that starts from the apartments’ original certificate of occupancy:

The first inspection could happen 10 years after the original C of O.

The second, after 15 years.

The third, after 18 years.

The fourth, after 21 years.

The fifth, after 24 years.

After the fifth inspection, the property is inspected every 2 years.

“Apartment Ordinance 2.0” could encourage apartment owners to do the right thing. Owners could reset the clock on a property if they temporarily close the property, and do a gut renovation to bring it up to code. They could stop the clock by enrolling the property in HPD’s Blue Star program.

The new inspections are a great thing. Apartments have to meet basic standards of habitability and safety – and now those rules will be enforced. It’s also great that it’s not complaint driven. Apartment owners won’t blame neighbors when their properties are inspected. But as with anything new, there is room for a “Version 2.0”.

What exactly does this protocol call for? My first thoughts are of the public corridor visibility and HPS lights.

There are lots of different things that can go into CPTED. But the GHA hasn't been specific about security efforts in their housing projects. It's one of the questions that Islanders would be smart to ask.

The necessity for public housing

By Michael A. Smith

The Daily News

Published November 8, 2009

Galveston Housing Authority got off to a bad start with its planning to rebuild after Hurricane Ike. The authority’s initial plan for more than 1,000 units of various housing types sent a current of opposition through the city. That was a reasonable reaction to an unreasonable plan.

The opposition that has grown up in the meantime, however, is shortsighted and every bit as dubious as the authority’s initial plan. People in that opposition group argue any public housing would be a universal negative, and, therefore none should be rebuilt...

http://www.galveston...7a96708aab58fd5

Galveston isn't Steamboat Springs Colorado. That's a ski town with 9,000 people. Michael Smith could have made his point by comparing Galveston to Portland, Maine. Both are near the ocean. Both are an easy drive from a major city. Both have about 60,000 people. Portland Maine has 1,024 public housing units.

http://www.porthouse.org/

And opposition to public housing is not short sighted. It's based on 70 years of failed public housing projects. Groups like the Galveston Housing Authority cannot repeat the same mistakes. Schools, transit, and crime prevention have to be an essential part of any plan to rebuild Galveston's public housing.

It is incredibly dangerous to build public housing without also addressing the other problems that come with poverty.

I think I’ve finally decided on who to vote for in the Mayoral race. As an architect I was always supposed to vote for Peter Brown – it’s just expected of us. The more I think about it, the more I think I’ll do my duty.

We architects are creative, and creativity can do great things for a City. Consider how architect-mayor Jamie Lerner revolutionized Curitiba Brazil. The first thing he did as mayor in 1972 was to close a downtown road to cars. Businesses fought him at first, until they saw how many new customers it brought in. Subways are all the rage in Brazil, but Curitiba built the world’s first Bus Rapid Transit system (BRT). The city also created green areas and recycling programs decades before they came into vogue. In the 1980s, Curitiba was the “ecological capital of Brazil.”

Houston can’t continue with business as usual. And we can’t just copy things like Smart Growth and New Urbanism. We need solutions that are creative, and uniquely Houstonian. Who better than an architect to come up with this kind of answer? It worked in Curitiba.

Oh yeah, and The New York Times picked up on Houston’s race for Mayor. An interesting read.