The goal of US
Fair Housing Law is noble: to create
diverse, vibrant cities, free from divisions based on race and ethnicity; to
allow every American to live in the best possible housing that they can afford. Landlords are prohibited from discriminating
against tenants based on race, ethnicity, religion, family status, or
disability. Realtors are prohibited from
engaging in practices like block-busting and racial steering. Cities are supposed to use municipal policy
to fight segregation.
The laws have worked remarkably well since they were written
in 1968. Neighborhoods that were almost
completely white are now diverse.
Houston’s Sharpstown was developed in the 1950s as a white suburb; today
it has a wonderful mix of Hispanic, Black, White, and Asian residents. Urban neighborhoods are no longer ghettos
where minorities live in squalor. Until
recently, the Washington Avenue Corridor east of downtown Houston was a
slum. Now it’s a hotbed of dining and
nightlife.
For the most part this was done without strong enforcement
from HUD. But that’s changing now. HUD is on the offensive against cities and towns
– using lawsuits and the threat of withholding funds against those that oppose
public and low-income housing projects. ProPublica wrote about HUD’s
involvement in a long, bruising fight over public housing in New York’s
Westchester County. (A fight that
ended in settlement.) Saint Bernard Parish Louisiana, too, has
fallen prey. HUD rushed to support a
developer’s plans to build low-income housing, despite strong neighborhood
opposition. The case is still in court.
Closest to home, and perhaps worst of all, is what
HUD threatened to do to Galveston.
Hurricane Ike severely damaged Galveston’s already deteriorated public
housing projects. Local officials
demolished the housing soon after the storm.
Rather than rebuilding the projects, Galveston’s government wanted to
use Housing Choice Vouchers to accommodate the island’s poor throughout the
island. The idea would have been more in
keeping with the tenets of Fair Housing, but HUD said ‘no.’ They
threatened to withhold all of Galveston’s
rebuilding funds, unless the City put back its old public housing projects.
While HUD forces new public and low-income housing projects
on cities and towns, Serious problems persist in existing housing: crime; rodent and bug infestations; structural
problems; sewage back ups; electrical fires.
When I was President of the Braeburn Super Neighborhood, I and my
colleagues worked to address these sorts of problems at three apartment
complexes, totaling about 1,000 units, near Sharpstown High School. After a decade-long battle, only one of the
complexes has been addressed in any meaningful way; and it was the smallest,
least troubled of the three.
Our slow progress wasn’t for lack of trying. We hammered local officials on the
issue. We contacted State
officials. We worked with private
investors. (In fact, were it not for
private investors using tax credits, we wouldn’t have even been able to address
that one complex). But we never got help
from HUD. They didn’t even have anyone
to contact about our issues. It really
felt like they didn’t care about our area.
And my old neighborhood is not alone.
Neighborhoods all over the Country face deteriorating housing stock,
urban blight, and a lack of funds to make repairs – and most get no help from
HUD.
The experience was really frustrating. The ideas behind Fair Housing Law are noble;
but HUD’s new approach is not. They’re going
to war with cities and towns, while ignoring the call to improve existing housing. It’s not fair.
