Last Friday was a major milestone in the extensive reporting requirements of the Recovery Act.  Recovery.gov released the first round of reports by local recipients regarding the status of some 142,825 initiatives receiving recovery funds.   This round of reports covered Feb. 17, 2009, through Sept. 30, 2009—the reports will be updated quarterly going forward.

As TXLIHIS is closely following the recovery act funds related to housing, we awaited these initial reports with interest.  However, a quick glance at the data revealed little new insight regarding the programs we are following.

TCAP, the supplemental funding program for low income housing tax credit developments, is well underway in Texas.  In fact, the TDHCA board has already awarded the first round of TCAP funding.  However, none of the funds have been dispersed because the winning developments are still undergoing underwriting and the contract language for the funding structures are still being finalized.

Because none of the funds have been actually dispersed, the Recovery.gov report on the TCAP program in Texas merely states “During the first reporting period project activity has been limited to administrative activities at the Prime Recipient level.”   This is in line with other states:  The only state to report actually expending TCAP funds by September 30th is Colorado, which reported making its first award in mid-September.

Similar language describes the status of the Weatherization Assistance Program in Texas.   While that funding was available in early September to local service providers that executed contracts with TDHCA, as of September 30^th, Texas reported spending just .03% of its weatherization funding from the recovery act.  While this lags behind other states (Georgia reports spending 19% of its funding, South Carolina 15%), this may indicate that service providers initially prioritized conventional Weatherization Assistance Program funding over Recovery Act funding rather than a lack of weatherization activity.  At a housing conference in early October, TDHCA staff indicated that some 4,000 units had been weatherized in Texas.

So, this data release is a case where the interesting details were those behind the data, not in the data itself.  The next round of recipient reports should be released Jan 29^th.  By then, we hope to have more activity reported from these programs.

Related Links:

• Coalition For An Accountable Recovery
• Recovery.gov

Confusion reins at Freddie Mac where the quasi-governmental agency cannot bridge the roles of oversight and profiteering. The organization was hit twice by negative news reports this week; one for gagging employees from disclosing dealings and another for failing to provide audit oversight to banks receiving stimulus money.

Meanwhile, FEMA continues to fumble and fret in Galveston. Mobile homes that were painfully slow in being delivered are now difficult to repossess from tenacious occupants. In other news from the island, the housing authority’s plan to rebuild units devastated by Hurricane Ike has drawn fire from housing advocates. This follows a stormy public hearing last week at which NIMBYs stated they wanted no public housing rebuilt.

For a pdf version of the full stories, plus contextual articles in social, environmental and legal areas, contact Bo McCarver at bmccarver@austin.rr.com

Freddie Mac’s Secrecy Pacts Face Court Test

By Edmund Andrews   New York Times October 22, 2009

WASHINGTON — One year after the government took over and bailed out Freddie Mac, the giant mortgage finance company, federal regulators are blocking former employees from revealing information to investors who are suing the company for fraud, lawyers for shareholders say.

The Treasury has propped up Freddie Mac with more than $50 billion in taxpayer money since the company nearly collapsed more than a year ago, and officials warn that the company will probably need additional billions in the months ahead.

Federal prosecutors in Virginia and the Securities and Exchange Commission are already investigating whether the company misled investors about the risks it was taking with securities backed by subprime mortgages and no-document loans.

But in a battle that will surface on Friday in a federal courtroom in New York, the company and its primary government overseer, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, are trying to enforce secrecy agreements that scores of former employees signed as a condition for receiving severance payments when they left the company.

Freddie Mac, Given Oversight of Mortgage Mod Program, Falls Down on Job

By Paul Kiel ProPublica October 22, 2009

Since its March launch, the government’s $50 billion program to prevent foreclosures has been marked by confusion, delays and doubts. A little-noticed conclusion in a government report released on Wednesday reveals that the program’s auditor is no different: Freddie Mac—yes, that Freddie Mac—has been given responsibility for auditing the program. And it turns out, Freddie is stuck at square one.

As ProPublica and others have reported, homeowners have frequently been rejected for loan mods even though they appear to qualify. The Treasury Department tapped Freddie to police just that kind of thing.

Home Prices In August Up Fourth Straight Month

Reuters October 27, 2009

NEW YORK – U.S. home prices in August rose for the fourth straight month, surpassing forecasts and providing the latest sign that the hard-hit housing market is stabilizing after a three-year slump, according a report on Tuesday.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller composite index of home prices in 20 metropolitan areas rose 1.2 percent in August from July, above the estimate of a 0.7 percent rise found in a Reuters poll. The increase, however, was less than the 1.6 percent seen in July, S&P said.

The composite index of prices in 10 metropolitan areas gained 1.3 percent in August after a 1.7 percent rise the previous month.

The monthly price increases helped the annual rates, with the yearly pace of declines in home prices slowing to a 10.6 percent drop in the 10-city index and a 11.3 percent decrease in the 20-city index.

Dallas-Fort Worth home prices drop 1.2% in S&P index

By Steve Brown   Dallas Morning News October 27, 2009

Dallas-Fort Worth home prices were down 1.2 percent from a year ago in the latest Standard & Poor’s / Case-Shiller Home Price Index.

But the closely-watched measure of local home prices was up in August from July – the sixth consecutive monthly increase. D-FW prices in the index were at the highest point since September 2008, the report released Tuesday shows.

The D-FW area had the smallest year-over-year decline among the 20 major U.S. cities Case-Shiller tracks.

Nationwide, home prices were down an additional 11.3 percent in August from a year ago. But the index showed an increase from July, which was hailed as more indication that home values across the country have bottomed out.

Homebuyer tax credit extension is debated

By Jaime Adame Abilene Reporter October 25, 2009

For David Grasso, the move to Abilene isn’t exactly his choice.

“That’s where the Air Force is putting me,” said Grasso, 29, a captain in the Air Force stationed in South Dakota.

Last week, Grasso was in town shopping for a home. Like many other first-time homebuyers, he’s eligible to receive a tax credit up to $8,000.

If the timing works — the tax credits are set to expire Nov. 30, though there is talk of extending the program — getting the credit would be a “bonus,” Grasso said.

But Grasso said he doesn’t want to use a tax credit to force him into buying a house he doesn’t want, saying “it’s not really going to affect if I buy a house, or even how much I spend on a house.”

Why homeowners stop making payments they can afford

By Monica Hatcher   Miami Herald October 24, 2009

Andres Duque thought he got a real steal when he paid $125,000 for his Little Haiti condo. But four years later, similar units are selling for $35,000 and even less.

And so, faced with the prospect of being underwater on his mortgage — owing more than the unit is worth — for the next 20 years, Duque, 33, made what seemed to him like a rational choice: to cut and run.

He stopped paying the mortgage, basically forcing the lender to take the condo off his hands through foreclosure.

“I was able to pay off all my credit cards,” said Duque, who is biding his time in the condo, waiting until they come and evict him. “In a way, it was the best thing that happened to me because all my income is not being consumed by this freaking monster of a debt.”

Court Deals Blow to Owners of Apartment Complex

By Charles Bagle   New York Times October 22, 2009

The state’s highest court dealt a potentially crippling blow on Thursday to the owners of the sprawling Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village complexes in Manhattan when it ruled that they improperly began charging market rents on thousands of apartments.

The ruling by the Court of Appeals may leave the current owner, a partnership of Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, and the former owner, Metropolitan Life, liable for an estimated $200 million in rent overcharges and damages owed to tenants of about 4,000 apartments.

In a 4-to-2 decision, the court said the owners improperly raised rents beyond certain set levels at the complexes while receiving tax breaks from the city for major renovations.

The ruling could affect landlords of as many as 80,000 apartments across the city who may also have improperly raised rents and deregulated apartments while receiving special tax breaks.

But the immediate and most devastating impact was on the Tishman Speyer partnership, which was already facing extreme financial difficulties after paying a record $5.4 billion in 2006 for the properties near the East River. The owners are running out of cash to pay building loans, and analysts have said it is highly likely the partnership will default by December. If the owners are forced to reimburse tenants, analysts say it would only hasten the path to default.

Affordable? U.N. Puts a Questioning Eye on New York’s Housing

By Mike Reicher   New York Times October 23. 2009

Everybody knows New York City is an expensive place to live. But the United Nations wants to know if affordable housing is so tough to come by that it actually violates human rights.

The United Nations has assigned an official, “a special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing,” to check the city’s affordable housing. The rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, is to tour the city for the next three days with housing advocates and city officials to “hear the voices of those who are suffering on the ground,” she said.

Pedestrian-friendly Miami 21 zoning code approved

Four years after the discussion began, Miami commissioners Thursday adopted an urban-oriented, pedestrian-friendly zoning code.

By Charles Rabin   Miami Herald October 22, 2009

Miami commissioners on Thursday finally passed the city’s most comprehensive zoning code ever — one that promises a healthier city and friendlier walking corridors — after making dozens of tweaks before a City Hall packed with neighborhood groups.

After more than four years of debate and literally hundreds of public meetings, commissioners voted 4-1 Thursday evening to approve the cornerstone of Mayor Manny Diaz’s development plans for Miami.

Poll: Voters want tough land-use law

Ashby high-rise controversy cited for apparent turnaround in public opinion

By Bradley Olson   Houston Chronicle October 19, 2009

More than two-thirds of Houstonians are ready for tighter land-use restrictions in the wake of several high-profile conflicts between developers and neighborhoods in recent years, according to a Houston Chronicle poll.

Out of 601 people surveyed between Oct. 12 and 15, 71 percent said they strongly or somewhat agree that “Houston should enact tougher land use restrictions.”

Housing group alleges bias by town of Sunnyvale

By Ray Leszcynski   Dallas Morning News October 27, 2009

The Inclusive Communities Project, a Dallas fair housing agency, filed court documents against the town of Sunnyvale on Monday, citing a failure to live up to a 2005 agreement and discriminatory practices the plaintiffs say date to the town’s incorporation.

The action marks the latest salvo by plaintiffs in a legal battle that has dragged on for more than 20 years over the right to develop affordable housing in Sunnyvale, a rural enclave of mostly upper-end homes in eastern Dallas County.

Monday’s filing was triggered after the town denied a multifamily development on ICP property, the third low-income housing development attempted unsuccessfully in Sunnyvale since 2008.

There are no apartments and no Section 8 residents in Sunnyvale, where the average home has a market value of $274,081.

“This was an opportunity to see if they would do the right thing,” said Betsy Julian, ICP president.

Plaintiff’s attorney Mike Daniel, who has been working to add such housing to Sunnyvale since 1985, said he does not know how long it will take to get a ruling or even which judge will hear the case.

Advocacy groups oppose public housing plan

By Leigh Jones   Galveston County Daily News October 22, 2009

GALVESTON — The leaders of two of the island’s social advocacy groups oppose the Galveston Housing Authority’s latest plan to rebuild 569 public housing units.

Both David Miller, president of the Galveston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Leon Phillips, president of the Galveston Coalition for Justice, want the housing authority to rebuild all of the housing demolished after Hurricane Ike on the four properties the agency owns north of Broadway.

Harish Krishnarao, housing authority executive director, on Monday recommended rebuilding 340 apartments, row houses and duplexes on the old public housing sites and scattering 229 throughout other island neighborhoods.

2nd chance to weigh in on GHA plan

By Leigh Jones   Galveston County Daily News October 27, 2009

GALVESTON — Galveston Housing Authority officials Thursday will hold the second of four public meetings on a proposed rebuilding plan.

Last week, Executive Director Harish Krishnarao announced his recommendation to build 340 town houses and apartments on the sites of four public housing developments demolished after Hurricane Ike. Krishnarao wants to scatter another 229 housing units across the island.

The housing authority board of commissioners voted unanimously earlier this year to rebuild all 569 public housing units lost to the storm. That decision was part of an agreement with advocacy group Lone Star Legal Aid, which threatened to file an injunction against any rebuilding plans that decreased the number of public housing units on the island.

FEMA mobile home residents face evictions

By T.J. Aulds and Rhiannon Meyers   Galveston County Daily News October 25, 2009

Before Hurricane Ike, Sidney Lampman rented the first floor of her sister’s two-story house on West Hunter Drive in Old Bayou Vista. The hurricane flooded the house and, even though Lampman rented the property, rather than owned it, the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave her a mobile home while she looked for a new place to live.

This month, the agency sent Lampman a letter telling her she must move out of the mobile home because there are plenty of apartments and rental houses in the area.

FEMA mobile homes for sale – well, sort of

By T.J. Aulds   Galveston County Daily News October 25, 2009

Frank Kaplan hopes to be out of his government-issued mobile home and back into his own house in Galveston in time for Christmas.

As he nears that goal, he’s had plenty of offers to buy the mobile home, including one from guys who want to put it on a deer lease.

Marty Rogers and his wife, Barbara Davis, who are living in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s mobile home park in High Island, would like to buy their mobile home and put it on the lot where their house stood in Gilchrist before Ike washed it away. At a community meeting in San Leon last week, about six people who live in FEMA trailers said they want to buy their mobile homes.

Charities recruit officials to find Ike victims

By Rhiannon Meyers   Galveston County Daily News October 27, 2009

Charities armed with federal dollars to help hurricane victims find help Monday recruited Galveston County mayors, constables, firefighters and postmasters to help them track down people still living in hurricane-damaged homes.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency gave Recovery for Ike Survivors Enterprise, operated by Lutheran Social Services, $24.3 million to hire case managers from six local charities. The case management program is a first for FEMA. Case managers are charged with finding people who need help repairing or rebuilding their houses, buying new appliances, paying their rent or seeking treatment for mental or physical health problems.

But officials with those charities said they’ve had trouble finding hurricane victims who’ve slipped through the cracks.

More funds could go toward winterizing homes

By Tracey Idell Hamilton   San Antonio Express-News October 27, 2009

Under pressure from a group representing many of the city’s poorer neighborhoods, CPS Energy officials agreed Monday to consider adding millions more dollars to the utility’s weatherization program.

COPS/Metro Alliance says CPS promised to shift $25 million from its $900 million conservation program to more weatherization. But others at the meeting, hosted by Mayor Julián Castro, dispute that, saying the parties agreed to no firm figure and that CPS still needed to crunch the numbers.

Making that shift in the Save for Tomorrow Energy Plan could jeopardize CPS’ goal of saving 771 megawatts of power by 2020, utility officials say, because other parts of the plan have a bigger conservation payoff. Saving those megawatts represents a large power plant CPS would not have to build, reducing carbon emissions, along with demand.

For better or worse, redevelopment is changing Fort Worth’s oldest neighborhood

By Alex Branch   Fort Worth Star-Telegram October 25, 2009

FORT WORTH — John Ledbetter bought his two-story colonial-style home on Samuels Avenue in 1965, back when black Angus cattle could be seen from the bluff, grazing near the shadows of the Fort Worth skyline.

Large Victorian homes and smaller cottages filled the city’s oldest neighborhood, perched just northeast of downtown. Residents walked to the small Courthouse Market for groceries.

Steeped in tradition, some Samuels Avenue homes dated back to the 1870s and were treasured, remaining in families for generations.

Even later, as many homes fell into disrepair and were marked with graffiti, and as gangs clashed in the 1990s, families resisted the urge to leave.

“It was kind of like our little secret back here,” Ledbetter said. “Homes were hardly ever for sale. You’d watch children grow up next door and then watch them raise their own kids there. Change was not something you saw a lot of.”

But today, few Fort Worth neighborhoods are changing as dramatically. Upscale town homes, condominiums and apartments have risen along the south end of the bluff where old or dilapidated houses and buildings once stood.

Veteran Fort Worth firefighter fights to take control of his life after becoming homeless

By Alex Branch   Fort Worth Star-Telegram October 27, 2009

http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1712793.html?storylink=omni_popular

FORT WORTH — From his bunk in the Salvation Army homeless shelter, Greg LaRue can hear the wailing sirens of fire trucks as they roar down East Lancaster Drive.

For most homeless people, it is background noise. Another fire. Another person sick. Another person injured.

But to LaRue, the sound is a stabbing reminder of the life he had, the career he cherished and the challenges he must overcome.

For 17 years, LaRue was a proud Fort Worth firefighter. Among the ranks known as the city’s bravest, a man who ran into burning buildings, aided wreck victims and pulled people from floodwaters.

He often rode an engine along East Lancaster, paying little attention to homeless people along the away.

“I had my dream job,” he said.

But his life unraveled about two years ago. Drug addiction, fueled in part by marital problems, took his home, his car and his career. Finally, he says, it took his dignity.

Vet was given shelter but goes back to tent

By Vincent Davis   San Antonio Express-News October 25, 2009

Patrick Owens had found a way out of being homeless, and for four months, he grappled with it.

Taken in by a neighboring couple, the bearded, pony-tailed 60-year-old Vietnam veteran had hot showers and a roof over his head after a decade of living outdoors, most recently in a tent in the Cibolo Creek basin in Schertz.

Last summer, Owens got an attorney to file for Social Security disability benefits. The agency agreed he was entitled to them but required a “third-party payee” to manage his finances after determining he needed help looking after the money.

But Owens has gone back to living in a tent. The third-party payee red tape was too much for him.

Austin designer Michael McDaniel has developed an alternative temporary housing solution to the FEMA trailer. He calls it the Reaction Housing System, a temporary shelter that can be stacked up and loaded onto a flatbed 20 at a time.

It is an interesting option to provide extremely short-term shelter. In real world applications however the inordinate length of time between the disaster and the restoration of permanent housing would make living in his Reaction Housing System impractical. If we are able to successfully address the more rapid provision of permanent housing then his solution becomes practical. That is what we are struggling to do through the Texas Grow Home project.

Inclusionary zoning is a policy whereby a city or municipality mandates that a certain percentage of units in newly constructed multifamily developments has lower-than-market rents. This practice may also designate a proportion of newly built single family homes within subdivisions to be sold below fair market value.

It would seem that by implementing these zoning requirements, cities would be taking a step forward in making housing fair and affordable to all. However, when these zoning ordinances include stipulations as to who receives first priority in occupying low-rent housing, the policy can be quite the opposite of inclusionary. An article in the New York Times presents some examples from Connecticut and New York where the equality in affordable housing created under inclusionary zoning is called into question.

The cities whose “inclusionary” zoning requirements give residents, former residents, and city employees top priority when disbursing newly affordable units stand to deter fair housing, especially in situations when the city in question lacks socioeconomic diversity. This may be the case with most suburban municipalities, which historically, tend to be largely white, middle-to-high income families.

Due to this lack of diversity, residential priority in suburban “inclusionary” zoning will fail to provide a fair opportunity to affordable housing across race, ethnicity, and economic status. On the other hand, it will provide an economic upper hand to the already advantaged white middle class. It will illustrate the classic cliche: “the rich [although relative] get richer…” Suburban residents who qualify for affordable housing will end up in safer and possibly more economically lucrative areas than their inner city counterparts. Moreover, residential priority bars inner city families from gaining access to the better schools and public services that are associated with suburban living. Such segregation could lead to social inequality for future generations to come.

It is up to us, as housing advocates, to make sure that inclusionary zoning remains inclusionary, and that those seeking to better their situation through affordable housing have an equal opportunity to do so, regardless of where they live now. By restricting residential priority in zoning ordinances, we can make our communities more rich in diversity and abolish the notion that economic success is limited to one subset of the population.

Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) in Texas

Another housing program expanded by the 2009 Recovery Act was the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP).  WAP funds local agencies to provide minor home repairs to low-income Texans.  These repairs increase the energy efficiency of the housing stock and reduce the heating and cool components of the housing cost.

The recovery act bumped up the funding of weatherization in Texas from $13 million to $327 million, a 2500% increase.  Half of this funding has already been sent to Texas by the Department of Energy, and TDHCA has awarded it to some 66 local governments and non-profit agencies.  This is an expansion from the 34 agencies funded under the program prior to the recovery act.

The details of the program are well summarized in fact sheets by the Center for Public Policy Priorities (Texas) and  Green for All (National), so we won’t repeat them here, but we thought it was worth sharing some of the policy questions surrounding this program that we think are important:

• Is the program helping those who need it most? The income eligibility threshold for the program increased from 150% of the poverty level to 200%.  Lower-income residents may require more outreach by the local agencies, and agencies may have incentive to skim the top of the eligible population.  TDHCA should make sure that local agencies are both prioritizing and providing active outreach to families at or below the poverty level to make certain such families are benefiting from the program.
• Does the program training provide sustainable skills? The recovery act increased the funding available for training and technical assistance from 10% of the program funds to 20%.  This is an opportunity for a strong job-training component of the program that can provide skills to workers that will outlast the temporary WAP funding.  TDHCA should maximize the workforce development impact of this funding.
• Does the program actively enforce a high level of quality control? Weatherization is more than just caulking the holes in a house, and if done poorly can adverse affect air-quality.  Weatherized homes should be inspected to ensure that the repairs created or maintained a healthful indoor environment in the home.

These are a few of the things we hope to follow as these programs get underway, and we’ll share any insights we discover here at Texas housers.

Additional resources for those interested in learning more:

National resources on the WAP program and the Recovery Act:

• Green for All WAP fact sheet
• Department of Energy WAP page

Texas resources on the WAP program and the Recovery Act:

• TDHCA Recovery Act WAP page
• Center for Public Policy Priorities WAP fact sheet
• United States Government Accountability Office Report on Texas Recovery Act WAP funds

January 1960 I stand with my mother where Davy Crockett fell.

Yesterday’s blog post, actually ghostwritten by Kristin Carlisle, stirred the recollections of more than one reader regarding the portrayal by Fess Parker of Davy Crockett in the 1960’s Walt Disney television series that bore the name of the famous illegal immigrant to Texas.

I too was a Fess Parker fan and was saddened as a child watching the television series to know Davy Crockett was doomed to die at the Alamo.

As a seven-year-old I carried this great sense of sadness around with me and into the Majestic Theatre in downtown Dallas in 1962 to see the epic John Wayne movie The Alamo, without doubt, the greatest motion picture ever made.

The movie lifted my sense of sadness and replaced it with a sense of stubborn determination that I derived from a speech John Wayne gave to his female love interest concerning his decision not to flee before the armies of Santa Anna but to stay behind with the Texans at the Alamo to fight and die.

I put the speech the memory and have recited it upon thousands of occasions (including a number of stone cold sober ones). I present it here as an insight into the motivation of a dedicated Texas Houser.

John Wayne speech to Flaca from the movie The Alamo.

I’m going to tell you something Flaca and I want you to listen tight. It may sound like I’m talking about me but I’m not, I’m talking about you. As a matter of fact I’m talking about all people everywhere.

When I come down here to Texas I was looking for something. I didn’t know what. It seems like you added up my life and I spent it all either stomping other men or in some cases getting stomped. Had me some money and had me some metals, but none of it seemed a lifetime worth the pain of the mother that bore me.

It’s like I was empty somehow. Well I’m not empty anymore. That’s what’s important — to feel useful in this old world. To hit a lick against what’s wrong or to say a word for what’s right even though you get walloped for saying that word.

Now I may sound like a Bible beater yelling up a revival at a river crossing camp meeting but that don’t change the truth none. There’s right and there’s wrong. You got to do one or the other. You do the one and you’re living. You do the other and you may be walking around, but your dead is a beaver hat.

In Ben Bernanke’s America, the recession is ending, stocks are rising, and cash is flowing. The housing crisis is over: banks that invested in subprime loans are flush with taxpayer dollars. The tent cities have disappeared from the outskirts of our cities, or at least they have disappeared from the front pages of our newspapers. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/us/26tents.html)

Then there is another America. This week we learned this week that this America is quite a bit larger than most of us thought. One in six Americans live here, and it is not an America of stock options, but instead an America of two options: buy food and get evicted or pay the rent and go hungry.

According to the National Academy of Science’s formula for determining the poverty rate, approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty. This is 7 million more than the government’s official figure determined by the U.S. Census Bureau, which relies on an antiquated formula created in 1955.

A lot has changed since the “Ballad of Davy Crockett” was the #1 record in the U.S. and Eisenhower was president. But the Census Bureau’s poverty rate calculations have not. It does not factor in health costs, which have risen by double the rate of inflation (http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml. Nor does it consider increases in transportation and childcare. Under this archaic and flawed formula, the housing costs for a family living in New York City are identical to that of a family in Boise, Idaho.

This impoverished America is home to millions more poor people than the Census Bureau would have you believe — and tragically many of them are the elderly. Using the NAS formula, Americans over the age of 65 have a poverty rate that is twice as high (18.7%) as the Census Bureau’s figure.

The Christian Science Monitor writes: “Under either measure, poverty rose significantly last year as the nation was entering recession. And the number in poverty has gone up even more since the Census gathered data early last year, as the recession deepened.”

http://features.csmonitor.com/economyrebuild/2009/10/20/poverty-is-up-but-how-much-census-tells-two-stories/

The bells on Wall Street ring hollow for a true end to the recession. This is especially true for those living in the other America, which has been hidden for too long under false numbers.

Its time for Congress and the Obama Administration to embrace an accurate measure of poverty. The public, politicians, and the media have long failed to acknowledge the existence of the poorly housed, hungry, and underpaid America. A necessary step toward addressing this crisis is acknowledging their existence in the government’s official record.

Seeking to provide mortgages to a huge wait-list of first-time homeowners refused by private banks, the Obama Administration has initiated a program in hope of jump-starting the faltering housing industry. Meanwhile, analysts note that the big banks are profiting while mortgage defaults skyrocket, thanks to federal bailouts.

The GAO has examined FEMA’s performance and released recommendations that include having the agency engage in actual construction in storm-devastated areas.

In Galveston, a full-blown NIMBY protest has erupted as the housing authority unveils plans to replace units destroyed by Hurricane Ike.

For a pdf version of the full stories, plus contextual articles in social, environmental and legal areas, contact Bo McCarver at bmccarver@austin.rr.com

InU.S. launches aid for state, local housing agencies

Reuters Oct 19, 2009

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Monday launched a new program to help state and local housing finance agencies provide hundreds of thousands of affordable mortgages and further stabilize the depressed U.S. housing market.

The program, described as temporary by the Treasury, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, will use government-sponsored mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to provide temporary financing for housing finance agencies hurt by gridlock in the credit markets.

The move is the latest attempt by the Obama administration to prop up the faltering U.S. housing market, by restarting a source of financing for first-time and low-income homebuyers that has all but dried up.

Foreclosures Force Ex-Homeowners To Turn to Shelters

By Peter Goodman   New York Times October 18, 2009

CLEVELAND — The first night after she surrendered her house to foreclosure, Sheri West endured the darkness in her Hyundai sedan. She parked in her old driveway, with her flower-print dresses and hats piled in boxes on the back seat, and three cherished houseplants on the floor. She used her backyard as a restroom.

The second night, she stayed with a friend, and so it continued for more than a year: Ms. West — mother of three grown children, grandmother to six and great-grandmother to one — passed months on the couches of friends and relatives, and in the front seat of her car.

But this fall, she exhausted all options. She had once owned and overseen a group home for homeless people. Now, she succumbed to that status herself, checking in to a shelter.

“No one could have told me that in a million years: I’d wake up in a homeless shelter,” she said. “I had a house for homeless people. Now, I’m homeless.”

41 people in 4 states charged in mortgage fraud

Associated Press Oct. 15, 2009

NEW YORK — A mortgage fraud crackdown announced today resulted in the arrests of dozens of people, including six lawyers, seven loan officers and three mortgage brokers in four states.

Thirty-one people were arrested in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina. They were among 41 people charged with engaging in mortgage fraud scams that defrauded lenders out of more than $64 million in home mortgage loans.

Of the 10 other defendants, one was expected to surrender later today, four were previously charged and five remained at large.

Foreclosures rise. Big banks show profits. How can that be?

The bailouts helped the banks, but they’re also benefiting from improvements in the housing market and overall economy.

By Mark Trumbull   Christian Science Monitor   October 15, 2009

It’s an anomaly of the great credit bust. Big banks in the US are reporting profits even as their borrowers are going into foreclosure at a record pace.

The stark disconnect came into the spotlight Thursday. The number of foreclosure filings rose 5 percent in the third quarter to a record level, RealtyTrac reported. The firm says foreclosure-related actions occurred on 1 in every 136 US housing units during the quarter.

Meanwhile Citigroup, a banking behemoth that has received massive federal support during the financial crisis, reported net income for the quarter of $101 million.

Is Foreclosure Relief Failing?

By Andy Kroll   Mother Jones Octoer 14, 2009

Is the Obama administration’s signature foreclosure relief program succeeding? Absolutely, according to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who last Thursday trumpeted the news that 500,000 mortgages had been modified—on a trial basis—under the Home Affordable Modification Program, a month ahead of the administration’s November 1 benchmark for reaching this goal. A day later, however, the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) reached a far different conclusion when it released its own evaluation of the Treasury Department’s foreclosure prevention efforts. According to the financial watchdog, the efficacy of HAMP is very much in doubt, and the program may wind up doing little to assuage the growing foreclosure mess.

Tarrant foreclosure filings up 35 percent from a year ago, but down from October

By Sandra Baker   Fort Worth Star-Telegram October 15, 2009

A high number of Tarrant County homeowners risk losing their residences to foreclosure in November as postings in the Metroplex inched toward an annual record, the Foreclosure Listing Service said Thursday.

For the Nov. 3 auction, 1,814 postings were filed in Tarrant County, up 35 percent from November 2008, but down 8 percent from October, figures show.

Home sales drop again

Wichita Falls Record-News October 18, 2009

Existing-home sales here, along with sales volume, dropped again in September, according to the monthly report from the Wichita Falls Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service, which likely is the result of consumer sentiment, broker Danny Steed said.

“The September local MLS home sale numbers, although down somewhat from last month and last September (’08), are probably indicative of local consumer sentiment more than anything else. We are still showing a very stable housing market when it comes to balanced inventory of affordable homes, extremely low interest rates and properties holding their values. September even showed an average home sales price increase of 6 percent over August, and an increase of 15 percent over September last year,” Steed explained.

Developers’ bust proves a boon for land trusts

By Peter Fimrite   San Francisco Chronicle October 19, 2009

Smartsville, Yuba County — The frog eluded the grasp of Erik Vink, who scrambled after it along the rocky shore of the Yuba River where chinook salmon were thrashing around in the riffles.

It was a joyous day for the boyish Vink, the project manager for the San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land, as he recently toured the 595 acres of oak woodlands and 2 miles of river in the Sierra foothills that he and his colleagues had just agreed to purchase and forever preserve.

The chaparral-covered land 15 miles outside of Marysville had been slated to be bulldozed for homes. But the bottom dropped out of the economy and the plan to build homes was yanked, allowing the trust to swoop in with a $4 million offer that was quickly accepted.

Report: FEMA must have role in post-storm housing recovery

By Mike Smith   Beaumont Enterprise October 18, 2009

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials might want to enter the construction business to speed up the post-disaster housing recovery process in stricken areas, a federal report concludes.

The recommendation is one of a set of suggestions made in a report by the U.S. General Accountability Office that examines FEMA’s response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.

The GAO is an arm of the federal government that investigates public spending.

Some Ike victims facing eviction

By Leigh Jones   Galveston County Daily News October 18, 2009

GALVESTON — About 20 Galveston County residents are facing evictions because the Galveston Housing Authority failed to pay their October rent.

Some people in the Disaster Housing Assistance Program blame problems on overworked case managers who lose important paperwork and provide incorrect information.

Housing authority officials don’t deny that some people have been kicked out of the program by mistake, but they said 20 problems among 2,900 cases is not an excessive number. All mistakes are being corrected, and rent will be paid retroactively for anyone who legitimately qualifies for the program, officials said.

Galveston Housing Authority unveils new public housing plan

By Leigh Jones   Galveston Daily News October 20, 2009

GALVESTON — Galveston Housing Authority officials on Monday unveiled plans to replace 569 public housing units torn down on four sites after Hurricane Ike with 340 new apartments, town houses and patio homes.

The other 229 units needed to replace what was lost could be scattered through the rest of the island’s urban core, housing authority Executive Director Harish Krishnarao said.

The scattered site recommendation is a shift from Krishnarao’s initial plan to rebuild all units on the now-vacant sites at Oleander Homes, Palm Terrace, Cedar Terrace and Magnolia Homes. The housing authority board decided to demolish all four developments after they flooded during Ike, which made landfall last year.

Meeting on housing plan ends in shouting match

By Leigh Jones   Galveston County Daily News October 20, 2009

GALVESTON — The public meeting hosted by the Galveston Housing Authority on Monday ended in a shouting match between people who support the plan to rebuild 569 public housing units and those who oppose it.

Encouraging poor people to live in Galveston is a bad idea, opponents of the plan, who were mostly white, said. But without public housing, the island’s nurses, teachers aids and service industry workers will have nowhere to live, supporters of the plan, who were mostly African-American, said.

Regulator rejects windstorm insurance rate increase

Beaumont Enterprise October 19, 2009

State insurance regulators cut coastal homeowners a break by rejecting a request from Texas Windstorm Insurance Association to hike rates 10 percent, the Houston Chronicle reported online.

The association, which insures thousands of policyholders who can’t find coverage in the private market, asked permission to increase rates for homeowners and businesses. The state-backed insurer must seek approval before it can boost rates 5 percent or more.

In an order denying the increase, Insurance Commissioner Mike Geeslin noted that the rate should reflect how lawmakers revamped the association’s funding this year by allowing it to issue securities to raise funds, the Chronicle reported.

Wimberley asks for attorney general’s opinion on water protection powers

Opinion could have implications across Hill Country.

By Asher Price   Austin American-Statesman October 18, 2009

An upcoming opinion by the state attorney general on whether Wimberley can regulate development in areas outside its city limits could have implications across the Hill Country.

The City Council wants to enact construction rules in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction — an area outside the city but subject to some city rules — to limit pollution from oil washing off driveways or from fertilizer washing off yards, among other things. The rules could require setbacks from waterways, detention ponds to capture pollutants or silt fences to prevent construction materials or eroding soils from washing into streams.

Texas AG files lawsuit against four people selling residential lots without water, sewage facilities

By Stephanie Sanchez   El Paso Times October 15, 2009

El PASO — Attorney General Greg Abbott announced today that he has filed a lawsuit against four people for allegedly selling residential lots on the far West Side without water and sewage facilities.

The lawsuit identified the defendants as Homero R. Galindo, Rosella A Galindo, Nahum Prieto and Rosella Prieto. They are accused of dividing an eight-acre plat into four lots and selling them without obtaining approval from El Paso County Commissioners Court. The approval process would ensured the lots had water and sewage facilities.

Montrose? Planned?

Houston Chronicle October 9, 2009

We were surprised that the American Planning Association recently named Montrose one of its “10 Great Neighborhoods” for 2009. Montrose is a great place. But does it, as the association writes, “highlight the roles that planners and planning play in creating communities of lasting value”?

We think that planning helped make Montrose what it is. But much of what’s great about that funky urban neighborhood had nothing to do with planning — and in fact, arose in spite of it.

It may surprise you to hear that Montrose was planned. Not publicly, by city officials of course: Houston’s not that kind of town. But in the 1910s and ’20s, private developers made many important decisions, such as laying out a pedestrian-friendly street grid, that gave the neighborhood good bones.

As New York Adds Housing for Poor, Market Subtracts It

By Manny Fernandez   New York Times October 14, 2009

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is closing in on a milestone: building or preserving 165,000 apartments and homes for low-, moderate- and middle-income families, the goal of a $7.5 billion housing plan he announced in 2002 and expanded in 2005.

It has already financed the creation or preservation of 94,000 units, including 72,000 for low-income households, city officials say.

But those efforts have been overwhelmed by a far larger number — the 200,000 apartments affordable to low-income renters that New York City has lost during the mayor’s tenure.

The shrinking supply of these apartments, highlighted by researchers at New York University, illustrates not only the increasing strain that housing costs have had on this city of renters, but also the limits of the mayor’s success in providing the city’s poor with reasonable places to live. While the mayor’s plan has put thousands of low-income families in new or rehabilitated buildings and helped stabilize neighborhoods, it has been nearly drowned out by the twin waves of gentrification and rent deregulation.

Full story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/nyregion/15housing.html?_r=1&hp

Having exhausted the over-sold mortgage ruse, predators now set their sights on reverse mortgages and the elderly. As the scams spread, consumer advocacy groups press for tighter rules with the usually sandbagging by the banking industry.

In Galveston, homeowners still wait for the city and county to set up programs to spend $90 million to rebuild and repair houses damaged last year.

For a pdf version of the full stories, plus contextual articles in social, environmental and legal areas, contact Bo McCarver at bmccarver@austin.rr.com

Obama declares small victory in war on home foreclosures

Half a million at-risk homeowners now are less likely to default, thanks to HAMP, the Obama administration’s foreclosure-relief program.

By Mark Trumbull Christian Science Monitor October 8, 2009

The Obama administration announced Thursday that its foreclosure-relief program reached a key milestone sooner than expected.

Call it a small victory in what could be a long war on foreclosure. Federal policies are helping to ease strains in the US housing market, but the challenges remain formidable.

Consider Thursday’s news: Half a million at-risk homeowners have had their mortgages modified since this spring, making them less likely to default, the Treasury Department said. That’s ahead of target, since the agency’s aim had been for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) to hit that mark by the beginning of November.

Foreclosures mark pace of enduring U.S. housing crisis

By Tom Brown   Reuters October 8, 2009

MIAMI – Every 13 seconds in America, there is another foreclosure filing.

That’s the rhythm of a crisis that threatens to choke off hopes for a recovery in the U.S. housing market as it destroys hundreds of billions of dollars in property values a year.

There are more than 6,600 home foreclosure filings per day, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Durham, North Carolina. With nearly two million already this year, the flood of foreclosures shows no sign of abating any time soon.

Reverse mortgages ripe for abuse, consumer group says

By Tony Pugh   McClatchy Newspapers October 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — Consumer advocates say a growing number of older homeowners and a new crop of eager lenders could steer the reverse mortgage industry down the same financial course that toppled the subprime mortgage market and left taxpayers footing the bill.

In order to avoid a repeat occurrence, a new report by the National Consumer Law Center urges Congress to enact new consumer protections to curb shady marketing tactics, deceptive advertising and other potential abuses in the popular reverse mortgage program.

Some of the problems include television advertisements that market the loans as a “government benefit” and financial incentives for loan processors known as “yield spread premiums.”

“These are financial kickbacks that make loans more profitable for lenders and loan brokers, but more expensive for borrowers,” Tara Twomey, the NCLC attorney who authored the report, said Tuesday.

Dallas-Fort Worth new home sales drop 34% in 3Q

By Steve Brown   Dallas Morning News October 7, 2009

New-home sales in the Dallas-Fort Worth area continued to fall in the third quarter – even with the help of tax incentives that brought out more buyers.

Home sales by builders dropped by almost 34 percent in the quarter compared to year-earlier numbers, housing analyst Residential Strategies said Wednesday. The 4,163 new-home sales number was virtually unchanged from the previous quarter.

Reclaiming Pioneer Square Alleyways for Community Gatherings

By Julia Levitt   Northwest Hub October 7, 2009

What can a downtown alley be used for? More than you think—and a group in Pioneer Square has been working to prove it. The network of businesses connected to the historic Nord building, located near First Avenue and Main Street, has created a vibrant and charming social space in an unlikely locale: the alleyway behind their offices.

Todd Vogel of the International Sustainability Institute bought two floors of the Nord in 2007, and began using it for his own office space as well as renting space to a number of for-profit and non-profit tenants. When he moved in, he began doing small things to clean up the adjoining alley, wanting to send a signal to others to respect the space.

HISD plan offends neighborhood

District wants to take over 11 properties to expand elementary

By Jennifer Radcliffe   Houston Chronicle   October 11, 2009

The Houston ISD is forcing Fifth Ward residents out of their homes for a school expansion that wasn’t vetted by the neighborhood, community leaders said Sunday.

The school district is threatening to use eminent domain to acquire 11 properties near Dogan Elementary School without offering the homeowners fair purchase prices or any details about why their land is needed, Council member Jarvis Johnson said.

Austinites fear for future of neighborhood plans

By Patrick Brendel   Community Impact October 9, 2009

As the City of Austin embarks upon the formation of a new comprehensive plan to replace the 1979 Austin Tomorrow Plan, neighborhood association leaders fear that meticulously crafted neighborhood plans—that exist as amendments to the 1979 plan—will be swept away, along with years of collaborative effort among Austin residents and the city.

Each neighborhood plan involves about two years of meetings among residents and city staff, Austin Neighborhoods Council President Cory Walton said. The plans are citizens’ prescriptions for the zoning of individual plats of land and are intended not to be overridden by the city (or developers) without residents’ approval.

County looks to purchase 500-plus Ike homes

By T.J. Aulds Galveston County Daily News October 10, 2009

County commissioners are expected within the next month to decide whether to push ahead with buyouts of about 560 homes or properties — mostly on the Bolivar Peninsula — that were destroyed or severely damaged by Hurricane Ike.

More than 1,200 homeowners applied for the county’s buyout program.

The homes included in the Phase 1 buyout proposal are within a 300-foot buffer zone from the shore.

Rebuilding grant delays frustrating homeowners

By T.J. Aulds Galveston County Daily News October 11, 2009

Nona Trussle attended a recent Hurricane Ike recovery meeting sponsored by Galveston County hoping to hear details of the $99 million program aimed at repairing and rebuilding houses.

No details were available, and all she heard from officials was “be patient, and it’s a long, complicated process.”

In February, the Houston-Galveston Area Council announced Galveston County would receive $165 million in federal community block development grant money, while the city of Galveston was awarded $267 million. About 60 percent of that money is to be set aside to help homeowners like Trussle.

To date, not one single dollar has been spent. In fact, the city of Galveston and the county are just in the early stages of getting their housing programs up and running.

Federally funded Ike case managers step up efforts

By T.J. Aulds and Rhiannon Meyers Galveston County Daily News October 11, 2009

Case managers charged with finding and helping Hurricane Ike victims are stepping up their outreach efforts.

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, which has received federal dollars to help hurricane victims find help, has launched a door-to-door campaign to find “those hidden cases,” such as Manuel Chavez Jr., of Kemah, and Mark Holland, of Clear Lake Shores, who risk losing their homes if they don’t repair them soon.

“We know there are people who need help, we just don’t know where they are,” Harold Fattig, of Catholic Charities, said.

Catholic Charities is among a handful of area charitable organizations that received funding from Recovery for Ike Survivors Enterprise, called RISE, to pay case managers to canvass the county and find people who need help.

Hunt for Housing: More low-income renters looking for assistance

By Jeremy Roebuck   McAllen Monitor October 11, 2009

McALLEN — With no job, five young mouths to feed and an income earned by his wife that barely breaks $19,000 a year, Chris Valle still considers himself lucky.

He has a place his family can afford to call home.

But for more and more of the Rio Grande Valley’s low-income renters, the basic need is falling out of reach. According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates, more than half of Hidalgo County’s renters spend more than one-third of their income on housing — the benchmark by which the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development determines affordability.

Longtime ‘mayor’ of homeless village under I-45 in Dallas moves into new townhome

By Kim Horner   Dallas Morning News October 7, 2009

Mack Choice may have stepped down as the “mayor,” but he moved up in the world.

Choice, who has lived in a cardboard box under a Dallas bridge for 15 years, moved into his own townhome Wednesday, thanks to the kindness of a local charitable organization.

David Timothy, who runs the SoupMobile, a nonprofit that serves food on the streets, handed Choice the keys to his new home about noon.

Choice was so overwhelmed and thankful that he wept openly.

Faces of Homelessness

Another Downtown attempt to find answers

By Marc Salov   Austin Chronicle October 9, 2009

First, the good news.

Depending on where in Austin you live, the entertainment district’s ongoing woes – among them a slaphappy, punch-drunk summer that just barely missed doing the Berkowitz shuffle and enough radiant heat to make last month’s filming of local action auteur Robert Rodri­guez’s hyperviolent Machete both look and feel like a viva la raza!-themed remake of Do the Right Thing – appear considerably less intractable than they did when we first took a look at Downtown crime earlier in the year (“Crime and the City Solution,” Music, June 26).

Make no mistake, it’s still a smart idea to keep a can of Mace or pepper spray in your purse, pocket, or high-stylin’ D&G messenger bag when you’re out and about Downtown. Despite a visible uptick in Austin Police Depart­ment bicycle officers and both marked and unmarked patrol cars in the area bordered by Congress Avenue and I-35, 11th Street and Cesar Chavez – and a string of arrests – the situation persistently teeters between friendly, albeit drunken, Sixth Street chaos on a good night and outright assaults (or worse) on a bad one.

One of the TDHCA programs we are tracking with our new American Recovery and Reinvestment Act accountability initiative is the Tax Credit Assistance Program (TCAP).

The website for the program explains “The current economic crisis has decreased demand for [housing] tax credits [HTCs] by investors” and “TCAP provides funding through the HOME Program to compensate for the current devaluation of HTCs, which is jeopardizing the financial stability of affordable rental developments awarded HTCs in 2007 and 2008, as well as current program applicants.”

So in short, the stated purpose of the TCAP program is to “fill the gap” in funding created by the recent fall in prices for Housing Tax Credits.  (For those just coming up to speed on Housing Tax Credits and how they are used to support affordable housing, stay tuned for a future article focused on demystifying the Housing Tax Credits.  In the meantime, AARP recently released a short overview of the program.)

TDHCA recently posted the first round of TCAP applications (in response to an open records request by TxLIHIS, we note).  These projects are requesting TCAP funds due to adverse changes since their original applications in 2007 or 2008.  We’ve been reviewing these applications to see how the applicants have proposed to use the program.  As expected, a fall in demand for Housing Tax Credits was cited to justify the requests for supplemental funds across almost all the applications.  In general, applicants claimed an average 14% reduction in the value of their tax credits since their original applications, while some applicants claimed they couldn’t sell the credits they had been granted at all.

What we found that we didn’t expect is that all but three of the 28 applications claim that direct construction costs have materially increased since the original applications.  All of the applications claimed total costs, including indirect fees and financing costs, increased.  Total costs increased an average 8% across all applications.  This contrasts with published construction cost indexes that show construction costs flat or decreasing since 2008 (see here, here and here, for example).

This inconsistency raises a red flag that some developers are taking advantage of the funding opportunity to pad their estimates–while we would expect some developments to discover higher costs due to site-specific problems, the almost universal claim of increased costs is a concern.  It is unlikely that cost changes at all of the eligible projects are out of line of industry norms.

The choreographed shift in applicant’s estimates most likely related to a change in incentives in the program.  In the normal competitive process, developers may underbid their costs to receive bonus points for lower costs per square foot.  They may believe they can recoup these costs elsewhere, such as higher credit prices or rent (i.e. AMI) growth than projected in underwriting.   Now that the process is no longer competitively scored, the incentive is to over-estimate costs to cut the chances that the project will run over budget and eat into developer profits.

TDHCA has stated that all currently pending 28 applications to the TCAP program are expected to be funded if they pass the underwriting process.  We hope that in the underwriting process TDHCA demands recent documentation to justify increases in construction costs, and doesn’t provide additional funding just because it is available– Recovery Act funds should be used to provide jobs and housing, not a second bite at profit protection.

The bank doesn’t want your mortgage: with more profit to be made at less risk in other ventures, banks are increasingly rejecting mortgage applicants. The reasons are often miniscule but data show a clear racial bias against people of color.

In Dallas, jurors have found former mayor pro tem Don Hall guilty of taking kickback from housing contractors.

For a pdf version of the full stories, plus contextual articles in economic, environmental and legal issues, contact Bo McCarver at bmccarver@austin.rr.com

Report: 1 in 3 loan applications denied

By Alan Zibel   Builder September 30, 2009

WASHINGTON – Nearly one in three borrowers who applied for a mortgage last year was denied as lenders kept their standards tight as the mortgage crisis accelerated, the government reported Wednesday.

In its annual look at mortgage practices among lending institutions, Federal Reserve said the denial rate for all home loans was about 32 percent last year – about the same as in 2007, but up from 29 percent in 2006. The denial rates for blacks and Hispanics were more than twice as high as the rate for white borrowers.

Frustrated Homeowners Turn to Media, Courts

By Alexandra Andrews   ProPublica October 1, 2009

Qualified homeowners are being routinely denied loan modifications through the Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable plan, but they have little recourse to correct the mistaken denials, housing advocates say. In the absence of an effective appeals process, some borrowers have improvised their own solutions: They turn to journalists or congressmen – or take Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to court.

According to the government’s latest public figures, less than 12 percent, or roughly 360,000, of the borrowers projected to pass the program’s initial eligibility test had received loan modifications by the end of August, about five months in. The process of reviewing those borrowers for final qualification has been “pretty haphazard,” according to Geoff Walsh of the National Consumer Law Center.

“People are wrongly denied all the time. Every day,” said Irwin Trauss, supervising attorney at Philadelphia Legal Assistance. “The lenders are generally applying the criteria incorrectly.”

Firms are getting billions, but homeowners still in trouble

By Chris Adams   McClatchy Newspapers October 4, 2009

WASHINGTON — The federal government is engaged in a massive mortgage modification program that’s on track to send billions in tax dollars to many of the very companies that judges or regulators have cited in recent years for abusive mortgage practices.

The firms, called mortgage servicers, have been cited for badgering, manipulating or lying to their customers; sticking them with bogus fees, or improperly foreclosing on them.

Mortgage servicers are the middlemen between homeowners and the investors that hold their mortgages, collecting homeowners’ checks and disbursing payments for the mortgages, property tax and insurance. They’re a necessary player for any modification.

The reliance on such companies points to an ironic paradox for federal regulators: Cleaning up the nation’s financial crisis often rewards the firms that helped create the mess. Those Wall Street banks and mortgage servicing companies argue that they’re best positioned to repair the damage they’ve helped cause. In the case of the mortgage program, the firms getting the taxpayers’ money are, after all, the firms that control the troubled mortgages.

Days of using homes as wealth generators is over, experts say

By Peter Y. Hong   Los Angeles Times   October 3, 2009

For generations of Americans, a home was seen not simply as a dwelling, but as an engine of personal wealth. That view was promoted by the homebuilding and real estate sales industries as well as the U.S. government, which subsidized home loans and provided tax deductions for mortgage interest.

There have been booms and busts along the way, but from the second half of the last century through the start of this one, nothing derailed the real estate locomotive on its uphill climb. The train stalled here and there and rolled back now and then, but each time it roared back up and got homeowners to the mountaintop.

Now, however, the worst housing crash since the Great Depression might mean that a home purchase perhaps ought to be considered with the same warning issued to investors in securities: Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Dallas-Fort Worth apartment demand improves

By Steve Brown   Dallas Morning News October 5, 2009

Third-quarter demand improved for Dallas-Fort Worth apartments after months of declines. But the increase in net leasing wasn’t enough to keep rents and occupancy levels from falling.

Overall apartment occupancy in the D-FW area dipped below 90 percent for the first time, according to statistics released Monday by apartment analyst MPF Research Inc.

And a steady stream of new apartment openings pushed Dallas-area rents down by more than 4 percent in the quarter.

The best news in the new apartment data is that net leasing rose by 2,770 units – the first such increase in four quarters.

Agency faults reinsurance purchases

Consumers needlessly pay extra, office says

By Purva Patel   Houston Chronicle October 4, 2009

Texas homeowners covered by the state’s three largest home insurers could save an average of 8 to 14 percent a year on premiums if they didn’t bear the cost of coverage that companies buy for themselves, a state consumer agency says.

Allstate, State Farm and Farmers all buy policies, known as reinsurance, to help pay claims after a major disaster and say what they spend is necessary. They usually pass on part of that cost to policyholders.

“But they don’t need it,” said Deeia Beck, head of the Office of Insurance Counsel, which represents consumers before regulators. “Some smaller companies that only sell in Texas or are highly concentrated on the coast might need it, but for the larger diversified companies, it doesn’t make sense.”

A Modern Answer to the Commune

By Penelope Green   New York Times September 30, 2009

JOHANNA BRONK wants to make communal vegetarian meals and keep chickens. Mariel Berger hopes for social, artistic and political collaborations. Harmony Hazard is into hula hooping, book groups and anarchism.

Oh, to be a young city-dweller in search of a house share. Finding a roommate has never been easy, but for some, the endeavor has lately assumed all the urgency, emotion and extreme specificity of shopping for a life partner.

Last month, just in time for leases to turn over, the housing portion of Craigslist, the uber-community bulletin board and road map to the 20-something’s psyche, featured dozens of impassioned tone poems, vivid personal biographies and ideological wish lists.

Are the plans to build a green, sustainable building of tomorrow smack in the heart of downtown Dallas some pipedream or a reality?

By Robert Wilonsky   Dallas Observer October 2, 2008

Imagine, if you will, a utopia smack in the heart of downtown Dallas. In this green, sustainable building of tomorrow, you might roll out of bed, take a shower and find your runoff water feeding vegetation growing on the roof and walls, upon which you’ll feast later that night. Or maybe you’ll move downtown and become a cattle rancher several stories above the concrete jungle. Or perhaps you’ll grab a bite in the slow-food café downstairs after knocking off your shift working the counter in the holistic pharmacy next door.

Solar panels heat and light your home, and the high-tech and the natural mesh seamlessly in a Logan’s-Run-to-a-kibbutz kind of way. It’s a place so inviting, so self-contained that there’s really not much reason to ever leave home.

The possibilities, say the three architectural firms competing to design this future world, are endless—so much so they can’t really pin down what life in their buildings would be like, which is precisely what makes it so hard to believe one will ever exist. But if local affordable housing advocates Brent Brown and John Greenan have their way—and they insist they will—this world of tomorrow might be a lot closer than you think.

Housing Battle Reveals Post-Katrina Tensions

By Campbell Robertson   New York Times October 3, 2009

CHALMETTE, La. — The parish of St. Bernard, a quiet, insular suburb just east of New Orleans, has in the end agreed to allow housing for low-income families.

But even though it is only a few hundred apartment units, it had to be ordered by a federal judge. The parish has fought desperately to prevent such housing and an influx of renters, at one point even approving a law that prohibited homeowners from renting to anyone other than a blood relative, before it was challenged and repealed.

The battle over low-income housing has been one of the most bitter that anyone in the middle-class, mostly white parish can remember, one that has stoked issues the region has been grappling with since Hurricane Katrina: anger at the federal government and long-simmering class and racial tensions.

It also reflects widespread anxiety about just how drastically the area changed after the floodwaters receded.

Housing authority facing renewed opposition

By Leigh Jones   Galveston County Daily News September 30, 2009

GALVESTON — Galveston Housing Authority officials are planning a series of informal meetings for island residents to ask questions and voice concerns about the agency’s plan to rebuild the four public housing developments demolished after Hurricane Ike.

Harish Krishnarao, the agency’s executive director, suggested the meetings after several residents started asking questions about the housing authority’s housing choice voucher program and the island’s largest neighborhood association adopted a resolution questioning the rebuilding plans.

Study fans worries at port

By Laura Elder   Galveston County Daily News October 3, 2009

GALVESTON — A county decision to spend $80,000 in Hurricane Ike recovery money to study redevelopment of the island’s downtown has raised ire and eyebrows, even among some who voted for the measure.

“I’m having second thoughts,” said County Commissioner Ken Clark, who on Wednesday voted with four others to approve using federal Community Development Block Grant money to help pay for a study commissioned by the Historic Downtown Strand Seaport Partnership, which represents businesses and merchants.

Contaminated housing authority land’s fate uncertain

By Denise Malan   Corpus Christi Caller-Times October 3, 2009

CORPUS CHRISTI — The artist’s rendering of D.N. Leathers Townhomes still sits in the office of Corpus Christi Housing Authority CEO Richard Franco.

It wasn’t going to be a typical public housing project. The tan, two-story townhomes with red roofs were supposed to house residents of varying incomes.

“The whole idea of that was to change the stigma of low-rent (housing),” said Elmer Wilson, chairman of the housing authority’s board of commissioners.

But in the process of planning the 130-unit project, the housing authority received a shock: Required environmental assessments found petroleum and lead contamination that rendered the land unusable.

Housing authority restricts, delays access to public information

Lawyer: Board’s meeting “one of the clearest and most profound violations I’ve ever heard of”

By Denise Malan   Corpus Christi Caller-Times October 3, 2009

CORPUS CHRISTI — The Corpus Christi Housing Authority board of commissioners discussed the defunct D.N. Leathers Townhomes project at its meeting Tuesday — but the public wasn’t privy to that conversation or notified beforehand that the housing project would be discussed.

The board’s agenda included an executive session, to be conducted behind closed doors. But no issues for discussion were listed under the executive session, as would be required by the Texas Open Meetings Act.

Don Hill plans to appeal in Dallas City Hall corruption case

By Jason Trahan   Dallas Morning News October 5, 2009

Former Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill and four others were found guilty on major charges in the Dallas City Hall public corruption case.

Hill was found guilty on seven charges, including bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery. He was found not guilty on money laundering. D’Angelo Lee, who was Hill’s appointee to the Dallas Plan Commission, was found guilty on seven counts and he was not entrapped.

Proposed panhandling ban Downtown

Groups want council to change ordinance

By Shannon Wolfson   KXAN Sept. 29, 2009

AUSTIN – Several Downtown business and residential groups are asking the Austin city council to ban panhandling Downtown. The current ordinance only bans panhandling Downtown at night.

“I’m panhandled every day Downtown. I’m panhandled aggressively Downtown,” said Bill Brice, with the Downtown Austin Alliance.

The DAA, along with several Downtown churches and even the ARCH, support a Downtown ban. They have proposed a ban to the Austin city council which would prohibit any panhandling from 11th Street to the West Frontage road of I-35 and Cesar Chavez to San Antonio.

Partnership proposes day shelter for homeless

By Nick Cenegy   Galveston County Daily News October 5, 2009

GALVESTON — Each morning the men and women set out on their migration across the island, toting beaten plastic shopping bags or ratty rucksacks containing their possessions.

Some take a morning meal at the Salvation Army, 2228 Broadway. Others seek sustenance elsewhere. But between breakfast and dinner, when the doors of the shelters are closed, police say some of the homeless fall asleep in residents’ yards, urinate in public and commit petty crimes. As the sunshine intensifies, the men and women with no place to go set off down 23rd Street or other thoroughfares to seek out the haunts and crags of the island and wait out the day. Some beg for money off tourists. Some just cross the street and wait for the Salvation Army to reopen.

The homeless long have been at odds with businesses and homeowners, but after Hurricane Ike, with social programs only partially reinstituted, the problem is more obvious, Mike Winburn, executive director of the Gulf Coast Center, said. The center is the designated mental health authority for Galveston and Brazoria counties.

But a new partnership between police and the Gulf Coast Center may yield a day shelter for the homeless.

In the wake of the conviction of  former Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill and Planning Commissioner D’Angelo Lee in the housing tax credit corruption trial, Dallas Morning News reporter Rudolph Bush writes in his City Hall Blog today…

The alleged fraud revolved around minority contracting requirements and community housing development corporations. But so far, there has been precious little talk about those changing how those work at City Hall. Will that change?

Bush notes there is lots of talk about ethics reform at Dallas City Hall in the wake of the corruption convictions.

Surely some of the reform must come from within the CDC community and from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs that administers the housing tax credit program. But so far, unlike Dallas City Hall, there is little discussion of reform coming from these other circles.

The Dallas Morning News reports the federal district court jury found all of the defendants in the Dallas Low Income Housing Tax Credit corruption scandal guilty.

• Hill was found guilty on seven charges, including bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery.
• D’Angelo Lee, Hill’s appointee to the Dallas Plan Commission, was guilty on seven counts.
• Sheila Farrington, Hill’s wife, was guilty on five counts.
• Rickey Robertson, a car dealer, was found guilty on two counts.
• Darren Reagan, of the Black State Employees Association of Texas, was guilty of conspiracy to commit extortion and aiding and abetting extortion.

Thousands of Gulf Coast poor driven inland by Hurricanes Katrina and Ike have not returned; many choose not to and many simply can’t. While their stories vary widely, a common thread is that federal and state assistance is inadequate to help the most vulnerable.

In Texas, only about 40 percent of $428 million in federal emergency funds allocated in 2007 for Hurricane Rita recovery has been spent by the state.

For a pdf version of the full stories, plus contextual articles in social, legal and environmental areas, contact Bo McCarver at bmccarver@austin.rr.com

Who Owns Your Mortgage? “Produce The Note” Movement Helps Stall Foreclosures

Huffington Post September 23, 2009

Modern-day home mortgages have been so sliced and diced by rapacious financiers that some homeowners are successfully delaying — or even blocking — foreclosures through the simple tactic of demanding that banks produce the original mortgage note, which amazingly enough is often not so easy for them to do.

As the foreclosure rate continues to set new highs, a little-noticed legal provision that requires bankers, if challenged, to prove they hold the original mortgage documents before getting possession has spawned a minor homeowner rebellion, alternately called “produce the note” or “show me the note“. For homeowners trying desperately to keep their homes, the tactic is one way to buy some time — and maybe even get the upper hand on the lender.

Full story at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/22/whos-got-the-mortgage-pro_n_294169.html

Austin area foreclosure postings jump

Austin American-Statesman September 22, 2009

Central Texas foreclosure postings for the Oct. 6 auction hit their highest level since early in this decade.

Foreclosure Listing Service Inc. said 1,481 properties were posted, 72 percent higher than for the October 2008 auction.

Postings were up 79 percent in Travis County, 66 percent in Williamson, 80 percent in Hays and 39 percent in Bastrop.

For the year to date, almost 11,600 properties in Central Texas — most of them homes – have been posted for foreclosure, 58 percent higher than in the same period of 2008, said George Roddy Sr., president of Foreclosure Listing Service.

Existing-Home Sales Unexpectedly Fall

By Bob Willis   Bloomberg Press September 24, 2009

Sales of existing U.S. homes unexpectedly fell last month for the first time since March, signaling the housing recovery will be slow to gain speed.

Purchases dropped 2.7 percent in August to a 5.1 million annual rate, the second-highest level in the last 23 months, the National Association of Realtors said today in Washington. The median price dropped 12.5 percent from August 2008. A government report showed unemployment claims declined.

Vacant Homes Give Habitat a Leg Up

Famed for building homes for the poor from scratch, Habitat for Humanity sees a silver lining to thousands of foreclosed homes available for a pittance.

By: Pam Kelley   Miller-McCune Online Magazine September 25, 2009

Shanta Brown, a nursing assistant in Charlotte, N.C., walked through her soon-to-be home in August, pointing out favorite features — the living room’s vaulted ceiling, two full baths and new black countertops she chose for durability.

In a few minutes, Brown would stand outside the front door and cut a ribbon, dedicating the first house in Habitat for Humanity Charlotte’s ambitious new effort to rehab homes in neighborhoods decimated by foreclosures.

Across the country, Habitat chapters are doing the same — buying vacant, foreclosed-on homes at rock-bottom prices. For most, that’s a big departure from their longstanding model of using volunteer labor to build affordable housing from the ground up.

Chronically Displaced in NOLA

Four years after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the disaster continues.

By Fatima Shaik   In These Times September 25, 2009

On July 26, about 50 people lined up to testify before a United Nations advisory committee in the cafeteria of McDonogh 42, a New Orleans elementary school. Though there had been only a small notice in the New Orleans Times-Picayune calling for public input, about 300 Hurricane Katrina survivors turned up to tell the UN-HABITAT advisors about the difficulties they still face returning to their ancestral homes even four years after the disaster.

According to the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center (GNOCDC), about a quarter of the city’s pre-Katrina population—more than 175,000 people—has not returned.

Though many of their neighbors have given up and left town, the group gathered at McDonogh wants to remain in New Orleans because their families have lived here, as one person says, “since before the United States.”

Many displaced islanders not coming back

By Rhiannon Meyers   Galveston County Daily News September 28, 2009

Annette Cooper is not coming home.

Two days after Hurricane Ike struck Galveston, the island native grabbed a handful of clothes from her flooded apartment, walked 20 blocks to Ball High School and hopped a bus for San Antonio.

She’s never been back to salvage her possessions. She never returned for a last look at her apartment before the Galveston Housing Authority tore it down.

“I don’t want to set foot on that ground,” Cooper, 53, said.

After Hurricane Ike damaged thousands of houses in Galveston, Cooper and scores of other islanders still live in Central Texas, where buses left them a year ago.

Housing agency says it’s Rita aid pace picking up

By Kelley Shannon   Associated Press September 24, 2009

AUSTIN — Hundreds of southeast Texans displaced by Hurricane Rita four years ago are still waiting for new federally funded homes to be built while a state agency tries to spend the housing construction money it has a little faster.

Those waiting residents are living with relatives or in trailers, rental property or their dilapidated, blue-tarped houses damaged when the storm struck Sept. 24, 2005. Hurricane Ike further wrecked the region on Sept. 13 last year.

So far, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs has spent only 38.5 percent of a $428 million federal allotment that arrived in 2007, agency executive director Michael Gerber confirmed this week.

SAHA, city awarded stimulus funds

By Guillermo Garcia   San Antonio Express-News September 28, 2009

Some 5,000 senior and disabled public-housing residents will benefit from improvements paid for with a $5.3 million federal stimulus grant awarded to the San Antonio Housing Authority on Monday.

“Fourteen separate facilities will see infrastructure improvements,” SAHA president and CEO Lourdes Castro Ramirez said at an afternoon press conference.

Upscale Riverside development a test case for lakeside high-rises

Houston developer offers to pony up for affordable housing – but is it enough?

By Marty Toohey   Austin American-Statesman September 24, 2009

As part of a special zoning agreement, a developer who wants to build an upscale East Riverside Drive apartment complex has offered almost $4 million for low-income housing in Austin. But as the City Council prepares for a possible vote today on the plan, a last-minute question has emerged: Is $4 million enough?

Grayco Partners says it’s giving the city a generous contribution to offset the loss of 600 relatively low-cost units, in addition to enhancing public waterfront access and numerous other concessions.

A defense against development

East Austinites strive to protect neighborhood from UT expansion

By Hudson Lockett   Daily Texan September 23, 2009

Seventeen years after the end of a land battle with UT, residents of a small East Austin community remain wary of the University’s plans for expansion along their western border.

Residents of Blackland, a community of 38 homes just east of UFCU Disch-Falk Field, began a round of meetings Sept. 12 with city entities.

Panhandlers for God

Not all street solicitors are created equal – some owe their souls to the company church

By Jordan Smith   Austin Chronicle September 24, 2009

Local radio talk-show host Charlie Hodge was driving to work one morning in late 2007 when he first encountered the Austin Restor­ation Ministries.

Hodge is one-third of the three-man, four-hour KLBJ-FM Dudley & Bob Morning Show and returns to the station for an hourlong midday chat with listeners on The Charlie Hodge Half-Time Show. Just before Christmas, a few weeks after he started hosting the noontime program, he was waiting at a red light at Rundberg and I-35, brainstorming a catchy intro for that day’s show. He wasn’t paying much attention to what was around him: just sitting, listening to the radio, staring at the red light, and thinking.

Herman: A safe place for homeless alcoholics to do their drinking?

By Ken Herman   Austin American-Statesman September 23, 2009

The head of an Austin organization working on homelessness included this caveat when she sent me her group’s thought-provoking new study on homelessness and alcoholism:

“These concepts, unfortunately, could easily end up as fodder for those interested in ’shock-jock’ type of reporting,” Helen Varty, executive director of Front Steps, said in her e-mail. “That is the last thing that citizens of Austin need.”

The report is titled “Solutions for Homeless Chronic Alcoholics in Austin.” It was produced by ECHO (Ending Community Homelessness Coalition) with financial support from Front Steps, which manages the Austin Resource Center for the Homeless.

U.S. seeing more female homeless veterans

By Thom Patterson   CNN September 28, 2009

When Iraq war veteran Angela Peacock is in the shower, she sometimes closes her eyes and can’t help reliving the day in Baghdad in 2003 that pushed her closer to the edge.

While pulling security detail for an Army convoy stuck in gridlocked traffic, Peacock’s vehicle came alongside a van full of Iraqi men who “began shouting that they were going to kill us,” she said.

One man in the vehicle was particularly threatening. “I can remember his eyes looking at me,” she said. “I put my finger on the trigger and aimed my weapon at the guy, and my driver is screaming at me to stop.”

“I was really close to shooting at them, but I didn’t.”

Now back home in Missouri, Peacock, 30, is unemployed — living in a friend’s home in North St. Louis County without a lease and paying minimal rent.

Homeless Ga. Sex Offenders Directed to Woods

Associated Press September 28, 2009

MARIETTA, Ga. — A small group of homeless sex offenders have been ordered to move from a makeshift camp in a densely wooded area behind a suburban office park.

The sex offenders had been directed to the camp by probation officers. The officers said it was a location of last resort for the sex offenders who are barred from living in many areas by one of the nation’s toughest sex offender policies.

Cobb County Sheriff Neil Warren said the decision to make the sex offenders move was made by the Georgia Department of Transportation — the owner of the property.

Warren said he did not know where the sex offenders would go next.

The State of Texas is required to submit a plan amendment to HUD by September 30 outlining its final plan for spending the $3 billion in CDBG funds earmarked for Texas for disaster recovery from hurricanes Ike and Katrina. The state’s long road to producing this plan has been plagued by false starts and reversals.

The resulting plan is, in a word, terrible.

We at TxLIHIS as well as Texas Appleseed submitted extensive comments about the State’s “plan” to HUD. Appleseed’s and TxLIHIS’ comments can be downloaded. The HUD Secretary must now approve or disapprove the state’s plan. For the sake of the thousands of Texans who must depend on these CDBG funds to rebuild we hope he sends the State back to come up with a real and workable plan to spend the $3 billion on the Texas families who need help rather than throwing the funds into a political porkbarrel as the State’s plan proposes.

It will be tragic to delay assistance to hurricane survivors. But it would be more tragic to misspend the only funds available for rebuilding. We have been urging the State for over a year to conform the plan to federal law and Texan needs, but to no avail.

To summarize our full written comments, the proposed State of Texas Amended Plan for Disaster Recovery is inadequate and plainly inappropriate for the following reasons.

1. Fails to properly prioritize individual recovery needs over public infrastructure, economic development, etc.
2. As a consequence of allowing each COG and local government agency administering housing programs to make up their own eligibility guidelines, establish program activities and set different benefit levels, the Plan provides inconsistent and inadequate housing program benefits between geographic regions and between cities even within the same county, producing an unfair and discriminatory distribution of CDBG benefits.
3. Allocates funds geographically through a flawed model comprised of weather reports with the result that funds will not be allocated based on actual disaster damages sustained in the community.
4. Fails to make significant funds available specifically for housing repairs to owner-occupied homes — the greatest need in the wake of the hurricane disasters.
5. Fails to acknowledge the demonstrable needs for and inadequately funds rental housing repair and rebuilding due to a prejudice on the part of COGs and local governments against rental housing because rental housing predominately houses low- and moderate income persons and people of color within Hurricane Ike impacted region.
6. Does not analyze impediments to fair housing at the community level and fails to coordinate the allocation and program design of CDBG funds to promote fair housing and therefore fails to affirmatively further fair housing as required under the statute.
7. Sub-allocates CDBG funds to jurisdictions that have stated their intent to use funds in a manner to eliminate rental housing and housing affordable to lower-income households, policies that are inconsistent with fair housing and civil rights laws.
8. Funds overly expensive and inefficient local housing reconstruction programs as opposed to a much more cost effective state-administered program.
9. Fails to provide explicitly for hazard mitigation to prevent a recurrence of storm damage to homes rebuilt with CDBG funds.
10. Channels funds through institutions with track records of unreasonably slow and inefficient use of CDBG funds in the Hurricane Rita CDBG disaster recovery program.
11. Adopts a funding Plan that the State knows cannot achieve the 50 percent low- moderate-income benefit statutory objective.
12. Does not meet the minimum state planning threshold required in the statute.
13. Does not meet the standards of a plan required under the statute because the Plan is subject to and is anticipated to be changed in significant ways after HUD approval.
14. Renders public participation meaningless because the Plan was approved by state administering department governing boards prior to the end of the public participation process.
15. Provides certifications to HUD that the State knows to be inaccurate.
16. Fails to take steps to address ongoing civil rights and fair housing violations by local governmental entities that will be eligible to administer CDBG funds under the Plan.
17. Adopts a regional allocation model that fails to provide funds sufficient to equitably serve the needs of low- and moderate-income persons, persons with disabilities and ethnic and racial minorities.
18. Sub-allocates CDBG disaster recovery funds to Councils of Governments and other subrecipients knowing that some of these COGs, cities and counties have stated an intend to use funds to carry out projects unrelated to disaster recovery.

Texas consumer housing advocate and attorney Robert Doggett is on a tirade.

Not against the usual predatory lenders or slumlords but against the Texas Foreclosure Prevention Task Force, a group of home lenders, government organizations and non profits providing advice to homeowners who are behind on their mortgage payments. These are people who represent themselves as the good guys trying to help borrowers save their homes.

What has Doggett upset is the selective nature of the advice these groups are providing homeowners, in particular the refusal to counsel homeowners about the option of bankruptcy to save their homes.

Doggett, a member of the Texas Foreclosure Prevention Task Force himself, quotes a representative of Fannie Mae serving on the task force saying, “We don’t want to mention bankruptcy because it is so detrimental to borrowers.”

Oh really? Is that why this government funded, state task force is restricting advice about options to help Texans save their homes from foreclosure?

On his blog, foreclosurebuzz.org, Doggett counters…

Isn’t bankruptcy one of the very few real tools borrowers have to prevent a foreclosure and force a lender to accept a payment plan for the arrearages?  Yeah, pretty sure.  Lenders hate when borrowers file for bankruptcy because it transforms borrowers from beggars, hoping to work out a deal, to debtors with rights, and it provides the supervision of a judge who is ready to enforce those rights.

So it turns out that the comment made in a state task force meeting quoted above is just the tip of the iceberg.  Lenders are perfectly willing to do anything it takes to prevent borrowers from knowing their rights, including deceiving the public, while many others are at least knowing accomplices.  Omitting the bankruptcy option from any conversation on borrower’s rights is not just an oversight; it is intentional — and it is wrong.

Doggett says that home lenders are controlling the advice given homeowners, through government funded initiatives such as the Texas Foreclosure Prevention Task Force. The lenders are censuring the advice to serve their own financial interests over that of Texas homeowners.

He is correct and this situation is wrong.

Home lenders have much to contribute to the process of counseling homeowners but they are just one voice and have a vested interest in which options that homeowners pursue in saving their homes. Homeowners must be informed fully about their options, not just the options that lenders prefer. As Doggett notes…

Of course bankruptcy is not appropriate in every case, but it could be especially helpful when a lender will not agree to a reasonable payment plan.  Having it out there as a possible tool for borrowers encourages lenders to make reasonable payment plans with other borrowers.  Bankruptcy will adversely affect a credit report, but so will a foreclosure.

Bankruptcy is merely a litmus test.  If the lenders can keep this option out of hundreds of guides and websites at all levels, imagine what else they have influenced.

The annual American Community Survey has been released and shows the pervasive effects of the recession. The meltdown of the housing industry and dramatic shifts in immigration patterns spark the data in the annual census.

Housing authorities in Corpus Christi and Galveston are in hot water this week: Corpus Christi’s agency failed to disclose complete information concerning contamination at one of it’s proposed projects and the Galveston HA released a call for Section 8 applications for victims of Hurricanes Rita and Ike. Some islanders worry that funds are being steered away from Galveston residents.

For a pdf version of the full articles, plus contextual stories in social, environmental and legal areas, contact Bo McCarver at bmccarver@austin.rr.com

Census Data Show Recession-Driven Changes

By Sam Roberts   New York Times September 21, 2009

A smaller share of Americans married, drove to work alone, owned their own home or moved to a new residence last year than the year before.

More lived in overcrowded housing. Property values declined. And fewer immigrants arrived, which meant that for the first time since the beginning of the decade, the total number of foreign-born people in the country did not grow.

Those were among the findings released Monday in the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey, a wealth of data comparing the nation’s profile in 2008 with that of 2007.

Several experts, including Mark Mather, associate vice president for domestic programs at the Population Reference Bureau, said a number of the changes could be attributed to the national recession, which began at the end of 2007. The result is an early statistical snapshot of the economic downturn and the housing bust.

Housing, jobless data point to a fragile recovery

Associated Press September 17, 2009

WASHINGTON — Housing construction rose in August and the number of newly laid-off workers seeking unemployment aid fell unexpectedly last week, adding to signs the recession has ended.

Still, the reports suggested a slow and fragile economic recovery. In part, that’s because the increased housing starts were due solely to a surge in construction of apartment buildings – while the much larger single-family homes sector fell for the first time in six months. And jobless claims remain far above the levels associated with a healthy economy.

Even as the housing industry begins to recover from its worst downturn in decades, a glut of unsold homes and record levels of home foreclosures are weighing on the industry.

Construction of single-family homes and apartments rose 1.5 percent to an annual rate of 598,000 units, the highest level since November, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That was slightly lower than the 600,000-unit pace economists had expected. And it remains more than 70 percent below the peak rate hit in 2006.

Homeowners who ’strategically default’ on loans a growing problem

By Kenneth Harney   Los Angeles Times September 20, 2009

A study shows that people who abruptly and intentionally abandon their mortgages often have high credit scores, in stark contrast with most financially distressed borrowers

Reporting from Washington – Who is more likely to walk away from a house and a mortgage — a person with super-prime credit scores or someone with lower scores?

Research using a massive sample of 24 million individual credit files has found that homeowners with high scores when they apply for a loan are 50% more likely to “strategically default” — abruptly and intentionally pull the plug and abandon the mortgage — compared with lower-scoring borrowers.

To qualify for homebuyers credit for first-timers, act quickly

Some 1.4 million Americans have tapped the special tax credit, part of the stimulus spending. But time is running out on the program – unless Congress renews it.

By Mark Trumbull Christian Science Monitor September 18, 2009

This year 1.4 million Americans have tapped a special tax credit for home buyers. Is there still time to take grab this $8,000 benefit?

Maybe, but you’d need to act fast – although it’s also possible that Congress will extend this tax break, part of the economic stimulus plan, beyond its Nov. 30 cutoff.

The tax credit is designed to stimulate homebuyer demand during a historic housing slump. On that front, it has helped. Cities across the nation are showing signs of housing-market stabilization.

Now marked down: Dallas mansions

By Steve Brown   Dallas Morning News September 17, 2009

The French-style University Park house has limestone floors, a three-car garage, a swimming pool and guest quarters out back. But what’s likely to catch a buyer’s eye is the sign out front: “New Price.”Now offered at $4.45 million, the 6,788-square-foot mansion has been marked down by close to $1 million since it came on the market last spring.

“It’s one of those listings you are scratching your head,” said agent Joan Eleazer. “You know that the market is bad, but why hasn’t this great house sold?”

With the latest price cut, Eleazer, who works for Briggs Freeman, is finally getting some nibbles from potential buyers.

Rule change makes it harder for homeowners to learn about mineral rights

By Mike Lee   Fort Worth Star-Telegram September 21, 2009

Under a rule change approved by the Texas Department of Insurance, it will be harder for homeowners to know whether they own their mineral rights.

It’s still unclear, though, whether homeowners will get a discount on their title insurance for what critics say amounts to less coverage. The state insurance commissioner, Mike Geeslin, “wants to hear that issue in the future,” said Deputy Insurance Commissioner Robert Carter, who oversees title insurance.

The new rule, adopted Aug. 13, allows title insurance companies to take a “blanket exception” regarding their responsibility to determine whether a landowner owns the mineral rights for a piece of property. That relieves the companies from doing extra title searches and may protect them from legal action.

Site contamination verified

Corpus Christi Housing Authority did not include e-mail message in previous public information request

By Denise Malan   Corpus Christi Caller-Times September 17, 2009

CORPUS CHRISTI — The Corpus Christi Housing Authority withdrew from the D.N. Leathers Townhomes project because the land was contaminated, according to records released Thursday from a state agency.

The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, responding to a public information request by the Caller-Times, released an e-mail message from the Housing Authority disclosing the reason for abandoning the project. That e-mail was not included in a Housing Authority response to a similar request from the newspaper.

The Housing Authority has declined to answer questions about D.N. Leathers, a 130-unit public housing project near T.C. Ayers Park on the Northside.

Galveston Housing Authority ad causes a stir

By Leigh Jones   Galveston County Daily News September 20, 2009

GALVESTON — An advertisement placed by the Galveston Housing Authority in Sunday’s edition of The Daily News did its job attracting attention, but the buzz wasn’t necessarily the kind agency officials were hoping for.

The advertisement urged victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita to apply for the Section 8 program, which provides rental assistance vouchers to low-income families.

Readers questioned why the island’s housing agency was soliciting clients from other areas and whether the funds to pay for the vouchers were coming out of programs that could be helping Galvestonians still trying to recover from Hurricane Ike.

As Galveston Recovers From Hurricane Ike, Some Residents Feel Left Behind

By James McKinley, Jr.   New York Times September 20, 2009

GALVESTON, Tex. — There are many signs that this seaside town has revived a year after Hurricane Ike flooded more than 17,000 homes and businesses. The big resorts are humming again, and on hot days people throng the newly restored beaches. The port is open, and the cruise ships are back. Most of the businesses on the Strand, the island’s historic strip of shops and restaurants, have reopened.

Yet the progress has been slow, and officials say it may be several years before the city fully recovers.

With the debris cleared, the main thoroughfares appear now much as they did before the storm, but on the backstreets, thousands of residents — in particular the poor and elderly who lacked insurance — are still struggling with the lingering effects of the hurricane.

About 20 percent of the 58,000 people who lived in the city before the hurricane have not returned, and one-quarter of the families whose homes were damaged by floods — about 4,000 households — are still unable to live in them.

Panel restates need for development agency

By Leigh Jones   Galveston County Daily News September 17, 2009

GALVESTON — Island leaders have a great opportunity to use federal disaster recovery funds to revitalize the city’s neighborhoods, but they need to form an agency dedicated to that task, a group of real estate and development experts said Wednesday.

The Urban Land Institute presented its analysis of Galveston’s housing challenges and opportunities to a group of about 200 people at the end of a two-day workshop held at the request of the 300-member committee that drafted the city’s long-term recovery plan.

The institute’s volunteer panel urged the city to form a revitalization authority that could buy and sell land and broker deals with developers to create more housing for families that make between $25,000 and $75,000 a year.

Area to get $225M more in Ike funds

By T.J. Aulds   Galveston County Daily News September 17, 2009

Sometimes the squeaky wheel does get the grease — Or, in the case of federal funds for Hurricane Ike recovery, an additional $225 million.

Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough said Wednesday the governor ordered a change to the formula for distributing the second round of federal community block grant money for housing and infrastructure repairs and improvements.

Gov. Rick Perry’s office confirmed Wednesday that he instructed the Texas Department of Rural Affairs to change its funding formula. The agency’s original plan used a formula based on Ike’s winds, storm surge and flooding.

Council backs zoning request for halfway house

By Gilbert Garcia   San Antonio Express-News September 17, 2009

A highly charged, four-and-a-half hour zoning case ended Thursday with the City Council disregarding the pleas of East Side Councilwoman Ivy Taylor, and approving a local nonprofit’s bid to convert an East Side convent into a halfway house.

Crosspoint Inc. operates five local re-entry facilities for federal and state convicts, and it intends to purchase a historic building on Yucca Street, near Martin Luther King Drive, belonging to the Sisters of the Holy Spirit. The Sisters, who now live in a $10 million facility across from their old convent, have actively supported Crosspoint.

Developing Stories: Goodie Basket Development

The Grayco South Shore PUD proposal

By Katherine Gregor   Austin Chronicle September 17, 2009

Can it be? Austin’s urban design and planning processes actually seem to be working, at least for the South Shore planned unit development. The large mixed-use project proposed by developer Grayco Partners goes to City Council Sept. 24; Grayco is seeking PUD zoning for a 20-acre site between South Lakeshore Boulevard and East Riverside Drive, along a stretch of Lady Bird Lake. As the first test of council’s reasserted power to consider a PUD that trumps Waterfront Overlay Ord­in­ance provisions, the project has been closely watched. While not perfect, it’s darn good, thanks to all who have worked hard on raising Austin’s PUD, waterfront, and urban design standards.

Houston: Texas-Sized Sprawl, No End In Sight

By Steve Inskeep   NPR September 20, 2009

Houston is the latest stop on the Urban Frontier, Morning Edition’s occasional look at how cities change and grow.

Houston is a swiftly growing city; it has added a million residents this decade. No doubt, some of those newcomers drive on Interstate 10, which roars in front of Houston’s own version of Mount Rushmore — giant white busts of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and two founders of modern Texas, Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin.

Since it overlooks the freeway, the spot is known as Mount Rush Hour. And it reminds visitors of a couple of things about Houston: one, that it’s a little quirkier than you might realize; and two, that it is huge.

The Green Case for Cities

By Witold Rybcznski   The Atlantic.com September 16, 2009

No where has the greening message had a bigger impact than in the building industry. Green or sustainable architecture is all the rage—as well it should be, because buildings use a lot of energy. The construction and operation of residential and commercial buildings consume as much as 40 percent of the energy used in the United States today.

The calculation of a building’s total environmental impact must factor in everything from annual energy consumption to how and where building materials are manufactured and the handling of storm water. This requires some sort of rating system, and there are currently more than 40 of them in use around the world. Most, like LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), which has become the standard in the United States, award points based on a checklist—daylighting, water recycling, solar panels, bicycle racks, and so on.

Losing Touch with the Changing Definition of “Community”

By Owen McShane   newgeography September 20, 2009

Mathew Taunton opens his review of “The Future of Community – Reports of a Death Greatly Exaggerated” (Note 1) with the observation that:

“Community is one of the most powerful words in the language, and perhaps because of this it is frequently misused. A profoundly emotive word, it is also a coercive one, and a key political buzzword in modern times. That community is being eroded in modern Britain is a matter of cross-party consensus, and it is also widely agreed that one of the state’s roles is to devise means of counteracting the decline of communities.”

It is refreshing to see a writer prepared to use ‘community’ and ‘coercive’ in the same sentence. Taunton reminds us that practically all urban architecture now attempts to force social solidarity into existence, and, by definition, condemns those who do not conform for daring to exercise their choice.

We are pleased to announce a major new initiative at TxLIHIS.

One of the largest affordable housing programs in Texas is the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program (LIHTC).  In the past year, this program has grown much larger, as much of the housing-related funding from the federal stimulus bill flows through LIHTC-related programs.

These stimulus funds flow through two new programs, the Tax Credit Assistance Program (TCAP) and the Housing Tax Credit Exchange Program (HTC Exchange). While the exact value of housing-related stimulus funds is yet to be determined, it is likely well over half a billion dollars will be spent in Texas through these programs.  Because the programs were established in the stimulus bill, they are on the fast track, with funds scheduled to be awarded and spent by early 2012.

This program expansion occurs as TDHCA, the agency that administers the LIHTC program in Texas, is scheduled to undergo review by the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission. The sunset process is one of the best opportunities for changing the operations of a state agency.  In the last TDHCA sunset in 2001, TxLIHIS successfully advocated for important reforms related to open government, an emphasis on housing the poor and transparency in the LIHTC program.

We believe the confluence of the stimulus-related focus on the LIHTC program and the TDHCA sunset process is a unique opportunity to improve this important program.  With the help of the Meadows Foundation and the Boone Family Foundation, TxLIHIS is launching an initiative to ensure that the LIHTC funds are used to most effectively house low-income Texas families.

TxLIHIS will significantly expand our expertise on the technical housing finance aspects of this program.  We will use this expertise to continue our active engagement in the public policy development of the program rules to better serve the housing needs of low-income Texans.  Towards this goal, we’re pleased to announce that Kevin Jewell will be working with us on this project.

Kevin is an economic analyst who has broad experience in housing.  He holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in Mathematical Economics from Brown University.  Kevin has worked on housing finance in the private sector, valuing multi-family real-estate deals as well as mortgage-backed securities.  He will use this experience to help us dig into the technical details of the finance end of the LIHTC program.

Kevin also has expertise in housing policy development.  He has worked with Consumers Union’s Manufactured Housing Research Project, researching how the structure of the U.S. manufactured housing marketplace affects the accumulation of assets among low-income families and developing policy recommendations for improvements in that market.  Kevin recently began representing TxLIHIS on HUD’s Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee, a federal advisory committee to HUD on regulation of the manufactured housing.

Kevin has also worked for almost a decade with Casa Marianella, an Austin-based transitional housing shelter for newly arrived immigrants and refugees.

We welcome Kevin to the TxLIHIS team and look forward to working with him on this important initiative.

The number of Texans living in poverty is up 537,000 over the past decade according to data from the US Census Bureau released last week.

3,843,000 Texans were living in poverty in 2008.

The population of Texas is about 24 million.

The Census Bureau’s estimate for 2008 places 13.2 percent of Texans below the poverty line.

Poverty statistics are especially grim for Texas children.

23.1 percent, 1,535,000, Texans below the age of 18, are living in poverty and 31.6 percent live below 125 percent of poverty. 31.6 percent of Texas children live below 125 percent of the poverty line.

Texas is the eight worst state in the percentage of children living in poverty.

Among people in families with a female householder, no husband present, with children, 42.7 percent live below poverty, while more than half of people living in such households (54.3 percent) live below 125 percent of poverty.

Given these grim and worsening Texas poverty numbers one wonders why the candidates for statewide office seldom address the issue.

Not surprisingly the ill-conceived “weather report plan” proposed by ORCA to divide up the federal disaster recovery dollars in Texas attracted such a firestorm of opposition that Governor Perry ordered it changed today. The weather report plan allocated funds based on wind and rain rather than damages incurred and allowed ORCA staff to shift funds away from hard hit urban communities like Galveston and Houston to inland rural counties where the storm did little or no damage.

The reason ORCA tried to sell the weather report plan was to give money to rural counties that ORCA exists to serve on a day to day basis. These far-flung rural counties are the political constituency ORCA is beholden to. ORCA depends on these rural county judges to save the troubled rural agency each legislative session when moves are made to abolish or consolidate ORCA’s functions in another state agency like the Agriculture Department. In pushing the weather report plan, ORCA Ignored its responsibility as the lead agency to serve the disaster needs of all Texas. The urban government officials who actually experienced hurricane damage cried foul and the Governor reined ORCA in– sort of.

I say sort of because a quick review of the actual impact of the changes in the plan by the ever vigilant Joe Higgs of Gulf Coast Interfaith shows the plan still misallocates money. Joe likes to look at the numbers by starting with the number of houses FEMA says suffered more than $8,000 in damages and dividing them by the amount of funding the Governor is making available to the region. A fair allocation plan would provide roughly equal levels of funding between regions. But here is how Governor Perry’s new plan divides the money…

Region                                   Average allocation per damaged home
Pool of 7 regions far removed 
from major hurricane area                         $596,516
Deep East Texas                                   $258,675
Lower Rio Grande Valley                           $131,247
Southeast Texas                                    $33,372
Houston/Galveston                                  $31,091

.

It is apparent that the division of funds is radically skewed to areas where there was little hurricane damage.

What’s more this fight over the regional allocation of money was completely unnecessary if the program would have been administered in a manner pursued by most other states. This would have involved the rational assessment of needs and a centrally administered program that would have spent most of the money to help citizens rebuild. In Texas the disaster recovery program has been turned into a huge government pork-barrel program in which city, county and regional government (acting through COGs) are competing to land their share of the spoils to use on their favorite local government activity (economic development, local infrastructure, etc).

While the Governor scrambles to adjust funding levels to please the local politicians the people who lost their homes in the hurricanes are being ignored.

Based on our analysis of the available storm damage data, the State of Texas must reserve at a minimum 65 percent of the funds to help Texas homeowners and property owners rebuild and repair their homes. To fail to do so will mean many of the Texas families living in FEMA mobile homes or temporarily living in apartments will not get any of the federal funds that the State of Texas received to help them rebuild.

The Governor’s plan suggests to the local politicians that they ought to set aside a mere 50 percent of the funds for housing but allows them to spend it all on themselves and spend nothing on the victims of the hurricanes if that is what the local politicians choose.

Unlike every other state governor in the wake of every other natural disaster in recent history, Governor Perry is ducking his responsibility to ensure the federal disaster recovery funds are spent responsibly. Governor Perry appears to prefer to write a blank check for $1.3 billion to local politicians and bureaucrats to spend the federal disaster recovery money however they want. As a result, many Texans will not get the help they must have to rebuild their homes.

On the first anniversary of Hurricane Ike, coastal newspapers chronicled the plight of thousands of displaced residents still waiting to return home. Scare money during the recession has contributed to slow-or-no progress in rebuilding many homes and businesses. FEMA’s efforts have largely been ineffective and most residents and businesses take a “go it alone” approach.

For a pdf version of the full articles, plus contextual stories in environmental, legal and social areas, contact Bo McCarver at bmccarver@austin.rr.com.

Foreclosure Crisis Built on Racial Injustice

The recession has resulted from, and contributed to, America’s racial divide.

By Seth Wessler   In These Times September 9, 2009

Last week, CNN reported that Obama’s foreclosure prevention plan—the one that was supposed to keep millions of Americans in their homes by giving banks incentives to refinance mortgages—has not worked. In fact, just six percent of eligible households have received assistance.

The impact of this failure is catastrophic, as millions of homeowners continue to slide into foreclosure. People of color have been hit hardest by the crisis, facing disproportionate rates of foreclosure as well as higher levels of unemployment. The recession has deepened the racial divide.

Resisting Foreclosures

By Kathrina Vanden Heuvel   The Nation September 12, 2009

In Georgia, the ease with which someone can lose a home is staggering.

A foreclosure-eviction can occur without judicial review in just 35 days, and at 10 a.m. on the first Tuesday of every month, the state’s 159 counties hold a sheriff’s auction of foreclosed homes.

That translated to 1,500 homes for sale in Atlanta on September 1. Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow PUSH Coalition–including 125 ministers from throughout the south–were in town to try to stop the auction.

A year after Ike, thousands waiting to go home

Houston Chronicle September 10, 2009

Hurricane Ike forced more than 85,000 Texas families out of their homes, but it posed a special dilemma for Karen Littlejohn: She bears her children at home, and she was seven months pregnant when Ike’s storm surge flooded her family’s house in Shoreacres.

When the Littlejohns returned to their property a few days after the storm, it was apparent that they wouldn’t be able to sleep in the house, much less have a baby there.

Uncertain when the federal government might provide temporary housing, Littlejohn, 43, and her husband, Marlon Littlejohn, 41, borrowed money to buy a new recreational vehicle that they parked on their property. It was there that a midwife delivered their third child, Stevie Ray, on Nov. 21.

Families who rented pre-Ike try to relocate

By Mike Smith   Corpus Christi Caller-Times September 11, 2009

A year after Hurricane Ike scattered her family to the winds, Cyndie Kessel is trying to reunite them.

Like many Southeast Texans who lived in rented homes and apartments destroyed in the storm, Kessel finds herself running out of options as the federal government begins to draw down its aid programs.

Kessel doesn’t have a car, but she does have a job making minimum wage as a convenience store clerk – with a chance for advancement.

Some businesses still fighting to reopen post-Ike

By Amy Moore   Beaumont Enterprise September 11, 2009

At 67-years-old, Esther Benoit still is young enough to fight and that’s exactly what she’s doing.

Not angry mobs or other physical forces, but insurance companies – Benoit is fighting for the future of a restaurant that bears her name and holds her memories.

Esther’s Cajun Seafood, which will turn 20 in November, is struggling to once again become the thriving business at the foot of the Rainbow Bridge.

“We’re just waiting to see what the flood insurance is going to do,” Benoit said. “That’s where the biggest part of our damage is from.”

Coverage is not a premium for some

By Laura Elder   Galveston County Daily News September 14, 2009

GALVESTON — Dr. Kevin Katz would seem the least likely person to forgo flood insurance. After all, he was one of thousands on the island who didn’t have coverage when Hurricane Ike struck a year ago. The island optometrist’s downtown office took in 6 feet of storm surge.

For years, Katz dutifully carried flood insurance on the downtown 1940s Art Deco Building and its contents at 515 22nd St. Unhappy about the high premiums — he was paying about $8,500 a year — he was in the middle of policy renewal discussions with his insurance agency. During those discussions, his insurance had lapsed when Ike pushed foul storm surge into the first floor of the building that had housed his Texas State Optical practice for 28 years, he said. The surge left 2 inches of muck in the building.

American Hobbit Houses

By Ian Lausa   newgeography September 13, 2009

Soon after President Obama took office, a proposed plan to “develop federal policies to induce states and local communities to embrace ‘smart growth’ land use strategies” was announced.

This “Livable Communities Program” is intended to save land and clean up the environment. It is seen as encouraging denser housing arrangements to deter automobile use and accommodate the transit industry, according to goals set by the Secretaries of HUD, EPA and Transportation.

One potential downside to this plan comes from the transit industry’s Moving Cooler study, which argues that the Administration’s greenhouse gas reduction proposals “may result in higher housing prices, and some people might need to live in smaller homes or smaller lots than they would prefer.”

Envision Next Session

Having lost its two big battles at the Lege, Envision Central Texas retrenches to win the war

By Katherine Gregor   Austin Chronicle September 10, 2009

“It was a failed session in many ways.”

Thus state Senator Kirk Watson, representative for District 14 and Travis County, assessed the bust that was the 81st legislative session and its results for bills “allowing local communities to make decisions on their own” regarding land use and transportation authority. “I misjudged it,” admitted Watson, recounting his pre-session optimism at an Aug. 31 legislative recap luncheon hosted by Envision Central Texas, a nonprofit that advocates for regional growth planning.

Camp Runamuck: A Glimpse of the East Providence Homeless Community

By John Mottern   t r u t h o u t September 9, 2009

Barbara Kalil and her husband John Freitas co-founded Camp Runamuck in late March 2009, after being forced to leave their campsite in the Roger Williams State Park in Providence, Rhode Island. The plaque above their home read “Shelter for Persons in Distress.” The irony came as a slap in the face to this unemployed nurse.

“The park ranger was really great to us, but one day the Preservation Committee found us while on a tour and were horrified to see our tent,” Kalil said. “We had to leave because we didn’t want the ranger to get in trouble.”

Now Kalil and Freitas live under a bridge with about 25 other homeless people, all residing in an assortment of tents, many covered with tarps for added protection. This makeshift village is located under a cathedral-like series of immense cement arches and pillars of the Washington Bridge, which is part of highway 195 in East Providence.

Small homelessness project by a Fort Worth photographer turning into exhibit to benefit city’s largest shelter

By Alex Branch   Fort Worth Star-Telegram September 11, 2009

FORT WORTH — B.J. Lacasse has traveled across Texas to photograph all 254 county courthouses. She has scoured small towns for picturesque movie theater marquees.

But the Fort Worth photographer says she has never taken on a project quite like the three full days she spent this summer snapping photos of Fort Worth’s homeless people.

On the streets and in shelters and campsites, she found people ranging in age from 8 months to 85 years.

“I felt torn between two worlds,” said Lacasse, who operates her studio out of her west Fort Worth home. “I came home at night and had to write in my journal to decompress. I couldn’t get the people off my mind.”

Officials hope to turn what began as a small project into a traveling exhibit at Tarrant County’s churches, agencies, businesses and schools. The prints are for sale and will benefit the Presbyterian Night Shelter.

Hope for the homeless

San Antonio’s Haven is made of big dreams, Big Brother, and huge potential

By Elaine Wolff   San Antonio Current September 11, 2009

If you’re homeless on the streets of San Antonio, beaten down by the heat, the omnipresent dust, the drought-dry fountains, and the near-constant hunger, hang in there. Early next year, Haven for Hope, the one-stop mega-shop for all your needs, will open just west of downtown. This not being much of a walking town, transportation will be provided. On its 37 acres, you’ll find housing, medical and dental care, optometrists, job training, a salon, child care and public-school enrollment, a bank, a kennel for man’s best friends, hot running water, and three square meals a day — all courtesy of the City of San Antonio and Bexar County, who are as tired of carting your ass to the drunk tank and running it off of the wide granite ledges at Travis Park as you are of being hauled and prodded.

Two Texans have been appointed to important positions in Washington DC at the National Office of USDA’s Rural Development.

Last June Agriculture Secretary Vilsack named Tammye Trevino as Administrator for Housing and Community Facilities Programs at Rural Development. Trevino served as chief executive officer for FUTURO, an Uvalde, Texas, nonprofit organization that provides housing, business, community development and technical assistance. Before that, from 1998 to 1999, she was the economic development director for LaSalle County, Texas, where her accomplishments included the conversion a 47-county, South Texas think tank into a non-profit organization to work on regional economic development and other issues.

In May Secretary Vilsack named and Judith Canales as Administrator for Business and Cooperative Programs. In 1996, Former President Bill Clinton appointed Canales as Deputy State Director for Texas Rural Development. She worked as the Acting Associate Administrator for Rural Business and Cooperative Service in Washington, D.C. She served as the Legislative Representative for the Department of Housing and Urban Development. She also served as the Executive Director of the International Hispanic Network, a national membership organization of Hispanic city managers, which promotes professional excellence among Hispanic executives and public managers in local government. She served as the Assistant City Manager for the City of Eagle Pass.

Texas also has a new USDA State Director. In June, President Obama named Paco Velentin as Texas’ USDA State Director. Scooter Brockette, who had served as Acting Director, resumed the role of State Housing Director.

Texas USDA has a lot of work ahead of it to restore housing programs to a priority within the state office. Texas has long lagged behind other states in getting its share of funds for both farmworker and owner occupied housing programs.

I hope that this Texas perspective within USDA headquarters, coupled with new leadership at the state office, will get housing programs, long relegated to a low priority by the Texas USDA office, will get back on course.

The data from the Center for Social Inclusion is disturbing.

The organization has analyzed 2009 US Census data and uncovered the huge economic gap between people of color and whites.

• Unemployment is 26.5% for young Black men, 14.2% for Young Latino men, and 11.7% for young White men.
• Wages dropped 5.6% for Latinos, 4.4% for Asians, 2.8% for Blacks, and 2.6% for Whites.
• Poverty has reached 24.6% among African Americans compared to 23.2% for Latinos, 11.6% for Asians, and 11.0% for Whites.
• The percent of uninsured is 30.7% among Latinos, 18.9% among African Americans, 17.1% among Asians, and 10.8% among Whites.

“It’s time to act. Economic recovery will exist in name only for too many of our neighbors if we don’t put in place the policies that are needed to reach everyone,” said Maya Wiley, executive director of the Center for Social Inclusion. “The newly poor are disproportionately women, children, Black, Latino and Asian. We can not let a massive recovery effort bypass the hardest hit.”

The Center for Social Inclusion calls for better targeting of stimulus funds to address the hardest hit regions and populations. They are correct. The stimulus funds have been allocated broadly as entitlements and not targeted at communities in need.  At least not in Texas. Throwing stimulus money in all directions spreads it so thin it has little effect.

ORCA has proposed to allocate the remaining $1.3 billion of the $3,057,991,440 in Ike/Dolly CDBG rebuilding funds based on a model of how much wind, storm surge and rain fell in a place rather than the amount of damage the area suffered.

This is clearly wrong, a fact that most people now acknowledge.

There is another issue at stake however. How much of the available rebuilding funds should go to rebuilding housing and how much should the local governments be allowed to build infrastructure and do “economic development” projects? This critical question has received too little attention.

Governor Perry’s draft plan would suggest that the money should be split 50-50 between housing and other uses. TDHCA says the number is firm but ORCA, the lapdog of local politicians who want to spend the money for discretionary public works project rather than rebuilding the homes of storm victims, say the 50-50 split is not firm. ORCA says local politicians can decide that they don’t have any housing need and choose to put all the money into their local budgets. This is clearly outrageous but so far Governor Perry has ducked responsibility and  allowed the controversy to fester.

One of the problems here is the lack of good damage assessment numbers from FEMA. There is not a lot we can do about that at this point. Nevertheless there can be no doubt that the need for funds to rebuild housing is huge. I was reminded about this when I read Mike Snyder’s Ike one year anniversary story in the Houston Chronicle this morning. The following paragraph caught my eye…

Today, 2,180 families remain in mobile homes or other temporary housing provided by FEMA, mostly in Galveston or in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. An additional 10,595 households are participating in the federal Disaster Housing Assistance Program, which provides temporary rent subsidies for qualified families affected by Ike.

The cost of rebuilding homes for the 2,180 families in mobile homes and the 10,595 families on the rent voucher program would be $958 million at the costs per home under the TDHCA Hurricane Rita Round 2 Recovery program and $1.6 billion at the rebuilding costs the COGs incurred in Rita Round 1 and are proposing for their Ike rebuilding programs. Keep in mind there is only about $3 billion to deal with all the rebuilding efforts, housing and otherwise for damages caused by both Hurricanes Ike and Dolly.

Let’s take the lower number and assume that the COGs cut back their housing rebuilding costs to be in line with TDHCA’s. So, $958 million is needed to get people back in houses who are still out after one year. Plus, we need to rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Dolly. Let’s say that is one-quarter of the number needed for Hurricane Ike survivors. That is another $245 million.

We also need to deal with repairing the homes of people who cannot afford to do so who have not moved out of their homes. No one knows the right number. The Federal Emergency Management Agency qualified 85,245 households for its various forms of housing assistance for Ike alone, all of which require a determination that the applicant’s home was uninhabitable. Back out the 12,275 families who are still out of their home and that leaves 72,970. Let’s assume that the state decides to only help one in three of these families with repairs at a relatively low level of $15,000 per house. That is  another $365 million. Factor in another 25 percent for Hurricane Dolly survivor home repairs of  $91 million.

Then there are the rental housing needs. The Feds require Texas to spend 10.6 percent ($324 million) on that, which is way too low to restore the affordable rental housing destroyed by the hurricanes but let’s accept that as the number for the sake of argument.

Here is what you get,,,

Ike home rebuilding        $958,000,000
Ike home repairs           $365,000,000
Dolly home rebuilding      $245,000,000
Dolly home repairs          $91,000,000
Rental housing             $324,000,000
Total                    $1,983,000,000
.

$1.983 billion is 65 percent of the available $3.058 billion in federal disaster rebuilding funds

This is the bare minimum that Governor Perry should require be spent from CDBG disaster recovery funds to help Texas families rebuild their homes. But the Governor started off only requiring that 50 percent go to housing and ORXCA is trying to set it up so that local politicians can spend even less.

If this happens there will be an awful lot of Texas families who need help rebuilding who are passed over. It is not right.

In an earlier post (see issue 14) I mentioned that some social services that Low Income Housing Tax Credit developers get credit for under the Texas program are less that useful to the tenants.

Exchanges between Former Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill and his attorney and a federal prosecutor in Hill’s public corruption trial offered evidence of this yesterday. Bright III was a nonprofit that was set up by defendants in the corruption trial to provide services at a tax credit development run by tax credit developer Brian Potashnik.

Here is the exchange first with Hill’s attorney then with the federal prosecutor (Busch) as reported by Dallas Morning News reporter Jason Trahan…

Jason Trahan/Reporter: “I feel good about that social service piece,” Farrington said on a wiretap, referring to her work with Bright III, which was funded by Southwest Housing. The government has said that the contracts were a sham used to funnel bribe payments from Brian Potashnik to Hill and Lee.

Hill described Farrington as “really really really fired up about that,” those contracts with Bright III and SWH, and reiterated that she didn’t consider it sham work.

…

Jason Trahan/Reporter: What happened to Bright III? Victor said.

It dropped out of sight, Hill said.

What happened on June 20, 2005 that affected Bright III? [This is the day the FBI served search warrants in the corruption case.]

Objection.

“My understanding was that Sheila had no further relationship with them after that because of the city hall raids. It was impossible to do anything with it at that point.”

…

Jason Trahan/Reporter: Hill said that he recommended to Sheila Farrington Hill that she enter into a contract with Bright III, the community housing development organization. “It avoided misunderstandings that can lead to litigation and that leads to the reduction of the quality of services. You want to have a good idea of what is expected of everybody” and this contract does that, Hill said.

…

Jason Trahan/Reporter: Busch: Brian Potashnik and Southwest Housing had good social services?

Yes, there had been no complaints.

Busch: And it was you that pushed Potashnik to hire Bright III, which was workign with Pilgrim Rest church.

I suggested it to him to work with the community.

Busch: But Pilgrim Rest isn’t even in district 5, your district?

Well, that’s right.

Busch: The fact that Sheila Farrington Hill, your mistress at the time, the fact that she was living in University Park, that didn’t have any bearing on your decision to have her involved in all this, did it?

She was very involved in District 5.

—

Jason Trahan/Reporter: Busch is asking about why Bright III vanished, using Hill’s words, after the FBI raids in 05. Why didn’t the Urban League “vanish” when the FBI served lawful warrants? Weren’t they providing social services for Southwest Housing too? Or getting money for it?

Hill said that Bright III was just getting off the ground at the time and couldn’t stay together after the FBI investigation went from covert to overt.

“Mr. Potashik is not in business any more and Bright III…”

Objection, non responsive, Busch says.

Busch: Has Bright III been indicted?

No.

Busch: Isn’t it true that James Mac Fulbright had no business providing social services.

He had experience in serving on boards.

Busch: Other than sitting on a board, what qualifications did he have providing actual social services.

A board is experience.

The cross examination in today’s trial makes for riveting reading.

As the housing market continues to sputter, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac falter under government conservatorship. The corporations have been redirected from their previous goal: unfettered quest for profit, and must now deal with troubled mortgages and other operations that yield little cash. Unable to find a balance between the two quests, frequent trips to the Fed for debt service seem the only solution.

For a pdf version of the full articles, plus contextual stories in social, environmental and legal areas, contact Bo McCarver at bmccarver@austin.rr.com

The US couple behind the housing crisis

By Greg Wood   BBC September 7, 2009

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sound like a homely mid-Western couple – dependable, perhaps slightly dull.

But these two almost destroyed the US housing market and their downfall was the overture to the global financial crisis.

On 7 September 2008, these giants of the financial world had to be nationalised by the US government.

Fannie Mae was a child of the Great Depression.

The Federal National Mortgage Association was set up in 1938. A government agency, its job was to buy home loans from mortgage providers.

The mortgage providers would use the money they received from Fannie Mae to make more home loans. Freddie Mac, set up in the late 60s, did the same thing.

But once Fannie and Freddie held all these mortgages on their books they had to do something with them.

Home prices seen turning the corner

By Lynn Adler Reuters September 3, 2009

NEW YORK – U.S. home prices are nearing the end of a three-year slump and should rise in 2010, though the overall economy can rebound even if the housing market does not, according to a Reuters poll.

A new-found stability will be a far cry from recovery, however as record foreclosures, a sizable pool of bank-owned property, steep unemployment and wage cuts temper a rebound, economists said.

Dallas-area home listings fall substantially

By Steve Brown   Dallas Morning News September 3, 2009

North Texas homebuyers who are hoping to find a huge supply of houses for sale may be in for a surprise.

While many markets in Florida and the West are suffering from a surplus of for-sale signs, the number of houses available in the Dallas-Fort Worth area has fallen substantially in the last year.

The supply of pre-owned homes for sale is down almost 17 percent from this time last year and has fallen by a quarter from the summer of 2007.

The drop in inventory of newly built homes is even steeper – about 50 percent since mid-2007.

And lower inventories generally provide support for home prices.

Fixing foreclosures through alliance: Habitat, state prepare to use $1.75M in stimulus funds in Bell and Coryell

By Harper Scott Clark   Temple Daily Telegram September 3, 2009

KILLEEN – Fort Hood Area Habitat for Humanity may enter into a $1.75 million contract with the state to act as its agent, selecting foreclosed homes in Bell and Coryell counties.

Habitat would manage rehabilitation of the properties – then match them to lower income families to buy. The state would pick up the tab out of federal stimulus funds.

The funds are part of a $90 million package the state received under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, said Gordon Anderson, senior communications adviser for the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

“These dollars are geared toward stabilizing neighborhoods that have suffered from foreclosures or abandoned homes, and arrest the slide of declining property values to surrounding neighborhoods,” Anderson said.

Tarrant’s property values rise 2.4 percent from 2008, smallest increase in 15 years

By Anthoby Spangler   Fort Worth Star-Telegram September 5, 2009

In the smallest increase in 15 years, Tarrant County’s property values rose 2.4 percent over last year’s, putting pressure on local government budgets.

Cities, county agencies and other taxing entities that rely on property taxes were concerned that the increase would be even lower after property owners filed a record number of protests with the Tarrant Appraisal District over their valuations, which are used to calculate tax bills.

Some 88,700 protests were filed, about 13,000 more than last year. So far, protests have resulted in appraisals being lowered by a total of $753,076,872, according to TAD. More than 34,000 protests are pending.

Price cuts clear out some downtown condo projects, but other developers are holding firm

By Shonda Novak   Austin American-Statesman September 5, 2009

Price cuts as steep as 25 to 30 percent have helped developers of two downtown-area condominium projects, the Shore and Bridges on the Park, sell off many of their remaining units.

At Bridges, which opened nearly two years ago on South Lamar Boulevard just south of Lady Bird Lake, 15 units are left, down from 30 before prices were cut June 29.

At the Shore, a 22-story tower at 603 Davis St. on the eastern side of downtown, 11 units remain, compared with 80 that were for sale before price cuts May 2.

Joe Pettyjohn, a sales associate at the Shore, expects the remaining units to be sold by Oct. 1.

Those units are priced from $194,000 to $680,000, marked down from original prices of $255,000 to $630,000.

Proposed apartment complex to place focus on families for a change

By Walt Nett   Lubbock Avalanche-Journal September 5, 2009

Lubbock’s first family-oriented apartment complex in four years is finally getting off the drawing board and on the ground.

Crews will start moving dirt Wednesday for Windsor Creek Apartments, an $18 million, 208-unit complex to occupy about 11 acres on the east side of Chicago Avenue between 53rd and 54th streets.

One Man’s Trash …

By Kate Murphy   New York Times September 3, 2009

Huntsville: AMONG the traditional brick and clapboard structures that line the streets of this sleepy East Texas town, 70 miles north of Houston, a few houses stand out: their roofs are made of license plates, and their windows of crystal platters.

They are the creations of Dan Phillips, 64, who has had an astonishingly varied life, working as an intelligence officer in the Army, a college dance instructor, an antiques dealer and a syndicated cryptogram puzzle maker. About 12 years ago, Mr. Phillips began his latest career: building low-income housing out of trash.

Federal Program Highlights:

• Funding: 3 Billion
• Administering Agency: US Treasury
• Unused funds must be returned by 1/1/2011

Texas Program Highlights:

• Funding: Up to 314 Million
• Administering Agency:
• TDHCA Awards expected by 10/16/2009

The 2009 Stimulus Bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) contained a provision allowing the limited exchange of tax credits granted under the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program for cash grants. This program has been referred to by various names, including the Tax Credit Exchange Program (TCEP), the 1602 program, the Housing Tax Credit (HTC) Exchange, or Grants in Lieu of Housing Tax Credits.

Under the LIHTC program, multi-year tax credits are available to multi-family housing construction or rehabilitation ventures that agree to provide housing for low-income tenants. These tax credits are generally sold and the proceeds used as upfront investment capital for the venture.

With the high-profile disruptions in the economy and credit markets over the last few years, the market price for these tax credits has fallen significantly. This has, in turn, disrupted the production of affordable multifamily housing under the program. Prior to the market collapse, the LIHTC program was estimated to support nearly 90 percent of all affordable rental housing created in the U.S. and 20% of multi-family construction in Texas. The Exchange program is intended to revive the production of affordable multifamily housing by replacing the funding role of the secondary market for tax credits with direct grants from the US Treasury.

In Texas, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) is responsible for administering the Tax Credit exchange program. TDHCA has adopted a policy document outlining how the agency intends to administer the program,3 and is currently evaluating applications.

Texas Program Details:

1. Developments allocated credits in 2007, 2008, or 2009 are eligible for exchange. If a development exchanges any credits, they must exchange 100% of their credits. Applicants requesting funds must provide evidence of a Good Faith Effort to obtain equity commitments

2. The Department is limited to exchanging 40% of the 2009 regular annual credit ceiling

3. The base exchange price is $0.77 (vs. an expected market price of $0.71)

4. Developments that agree to increase the number of extremely low income (households earning not more than 30% of the area median income) income- restricted units are eligible for higher exchange rates. Developments that increase extremely low-income units by at least 10% of the total number of units are eligible for an exchange price of $0.81, and Developments agreeing to increase extremely low- income by at least 20% of the total units are eligible for an exchange price of $0.85.

5. TDHCA will be a special limited partner in the developments funded by the exchange program. The base residual split to the Department will be 20%; however, if 10% more extremely low income units are included, the residual split to the Department will be reduced to 15% and if 20% more extremely low income units are included, the residual split to the Department will be reduced to 10%.

6. Priority will be given to developments that obtained the highest application scores in the round they applied in general accordance with the regional allocation formula, including set asides of 20% for At-Risk developments and 40% for Rural developments.

Policy Questions to Watch:

• Is the program having maximum impact (i.e. providing maximum benefit to low-income Texans?)
• Should program be extended in scope and/or timeframe?

Additional Web Resources

Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs

National Low Income Housing Coalition

Here is a brief overview of the Texas Credit Assistance Program and how it is shaping up in Texas.

Federal Program Highlights:

• Funding: 2.25 Billion
• Administering Agency: HUD
• Fund must be spent by 2/17/2012

Texas Program Highlights:

• Funding: 148 Million
• Administering Agency: TDHCA
• Awards expected by 12/17/2009

The 2009 Stimulus Bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) contained additional funding for developments awarded tax credits under the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program in 2007, 2008, or 2009.

Under the LIHTC program, multi-year tax credits are available to multi-family housing construction or rehabilitation ventures that agree to provide housing for low- income tenants. These tax credits are generally sold and the proceeds used as upfront investment capital for the venture.

With the high-profile disruptions in the economy and credit markets over the last few years, the market price for these tax credits has fallen significantly. This has, in turn, disrupted the production of affordable multifamily housing under the program. Prior to the market collapse, the LIHTC program was estimated to support nearly 90 percent of all affordable rental housing created in the U.S. and 20% of multi-family construction in Texas. TCAP is intended to revive the production of affordable multifamily housing by replacing the gap in funding creased by the reduced value of the tax credits provided by the LIHTC program.

In Texas, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) is responsible for administering TCAP. TDHCA has adopted a policy document outlining how the agency intends to administer the program, and is currently evaluating applications.

Texas Program Details:

1. Applicants who previously returned their credits are not eligible for the program.

2. Applicants requesting funds must provide evidence of a Good Faith Effort to obtain equity commitments.

3. Priority scoring is offered to developers with higher-than-application equity commitments. (“Credit Pricing Incentive”)

4. Applicants can request a:

• 10-year zero percent Equity Bridge Loan,
• 15 to 40-year low interest Permanent Loan Replacement, or
• replacement of the granted Tax Credit at the price expected in the approved application price (capped at .85) in exchange for a forgivable zero percent loan and an at-parity cut of the equity cash flow.

5. 5% of the funding is reserved for developments funded by the Texas Rural Development Office of the United States Department of Agriculture (TRDO-USDA)

6. 15% of the funding is reserved for the “At-Risk Development Set-Aside” (i.e. properties nearing expiration on a requirement to maintain affordability and in danger of losing said affordability)

7. The funding is regionally allocated across the state according to the same formula as the LIHTC program.

Policy Question to Watch: Is the program having maximum impact (i.e. providing maximum benefit to low-income Texans?)

Additional Web Resources

Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs:

National Low Income Housing Coalition

The 2009 Stimulus Bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) contained a provision allowing the limited exchange of tax credits granted under the Low- Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program for cash grants.

In Texas, the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA) recently adopted a policy providing incentives for developments to increase the number of units reserved for Extremely Low Income (ELI) households (i.e. those households earning not more than 30% of the area median income). Traditionally, the LIHTC program targets all but a small fraction of the apartments created under the program to families earning 50 percent to 60 percent of the area median, leaving ELI households. Under the adopted incentives, developments increasing the number of ELI units offered are eligible to receive a higher cash price for their tax credits, as well as a greater claim to the residual project value.

Texas Low Income Housing Information Service has analyzed TDHCA’s Notice of Intent to Return Credits Log1 to determine the impact of the incentive program.

Our findings:

1. Fifty-Nine Percent of all applicants to the Exchange program offered to provide additional ELI units, resulting to 883 new housing units targeted at ELI residents.

2. These additional units were fairly evenly allocated by target demographic population, with 435 new Elderly units, 411 new General units, and 37 new Intergenerational units resulting from the incentive program.

3. Although a greater percentage of rural deals elected to provide additional ELI units, (65% of rural deals vs 54% of urban deals) there were more urban deals in the application pool (and they tended to be much larger deals), resulting in 67% of the total ELI additional units being placed in urban areas. (590 new Urban ELI units, 293 new Rural ELI units)

4. Rehab deals were more likely to elect to provide additional ELI units: 72% of Rehab deals vs. 52% of new construction, but again, more ELI units resulted from new construction (541) than Rehab (342).

The table below summarizes the additional ELI units by TDHCA allocation region.

Region Representative City   New ELI Units  Total Units  % New ELI Units
1      Lubbock/Amarillo            24          413           6%
2      Wichita Falls	           52	       426	    12%
3      Dallas/Fort Worth          162	      1833	     9%
4      Tyler/Texarkana	           48	       336	    14%
5      Beaumont                    16	       400	     4%
6      Houston	                  251	      3380	     7%
7      Austin                      61	       884	     7%
8      Waco	                   71	       576	    12%
9      San Antonio	           69	       615	    11%
10     Corpus Christi	           36	       503	     7%
11     McAllen/Brownsville         50	       820	     6%
12     Midland/Odessa              23	       180	    13%
13     El Paso        	           20	       194	    10%
Total	                          883	    10,560	     8%

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Additional Web Resources: Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs: http://www.tdhca.state.tx.us/recovery/detail-htc-exchange.htm

Joe Higgs, organizer for Gulf Coast Interfaith, laid out clearly the problems with the proposed State of Texas plan to spend $1.3 billion in federal Hurricane Ike and Dolly CDBG rebuilding funds. His testimony was presented at the board meeting of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs on September 3, 2009.

Here is a recording I made of the Joe’s testimony and the staff response.