THE PUBLIC HOUSING DEBATE



CONTENTS:


Introduction


Does Texas need public housing?


Problems facing public housing


The past:

1935 -beginnings of public housing

1936 - Public Works Administration builds public housing

Housing Act of 1937

1937 - 1945 - Public housing in Texas

1945 to 1997 - Special interest, race and local control


Solutions to fix public housing


Postscript: Allen Parkway Village today


For more information


TxLIHIS' work in public housing

copyright 1998 Texas Low Income Housing Information Service



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Introduction
This web site explores the history, the problems and the future of public housing in Texas.

Public housing is one of the oldest, least understood and most maligned of the government's programs to address poverty and urban decay.

More than 1 million Texans have lived in public housing over the past sixty years. For most public housing residents it is the only thing that stood between them and homelessness.
Public housing development in Houston, 1940's. (photo: Houston Public Library)
While the majority of public housing developments are adequately managed, they face problems.
  • Most public housing developments were built in low income, minority neighborhoods and themselves contribute to this concentration of poor and minority families.
  • Relationships between public housing residents, community residents and management are often strained.
  • The majority of public housing developments for families are more than thirty years old and often in need of major and expensive modernization.
  • The burden society places on public housing is too great. Public housing suffers from pressures created as a large and growing number of very poor families try to get into the few public housing apartments available.

The increasing concentration of extremely poor families in public housing has become a problem in gaining public acceptance and support for public housing. Poor people are generally not viewed sympathetically these days.
How many public housing units are there in your Texas city?
Public housing on the west side of San Antonio. Very low income families are increasingly concentrated in public housing. (photo: Institute of Texan Cultures)
National media attention has focused almost exclusively on severely troubled public housing developments in Chicago. This media attention has created an image of public housing among the general public which is highly distorted.

Public housing also makes news in Texas. Public housing in Vidor, Texas was ordered desegregated to permit black families to move in. The Ku Klux Klan responded with threats and intimidation which made national news. A federal judge ruled that housing authorities and city governments in more than thirty East Texas counties engaged in systematic racial discrimination in the operation of public housing. A federal court in Dallas ordered the Dallas Housing Authority, in response to years of racial segregation in public housin, to build new public housing developments in all white, muddle income Dallas suburbs. This court order has resulted in a firestorm of white resistance.

This web site offers a perspective on public housing which is different than the stereotypes presented in the national media. We seek to get behind the court orders and the headlines about public housing and understand what public housing is like, what are the alternatives and how it got to be where it is today. We will see that the problems facing public housing are complex, but solvable.

This site offers answers to the questions:

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