THE PUBLIC HOUSING DEBATE CONTENTS: Introduction Does Texas need public housing? Problems facing public housing The past: Beginnings of public housing Public Works Administration builds public housing Housing Act of 1937 Public housing in Texas 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

Does Texas need public housing? The realities of affording housing: voices of public housing residents The people who face the greatest housing problems are Texans with low incomes. No one understands the realities of finding affordable, decent housing better than public housing residents. Lenwood Johnson, public housing resident, Allen Parkway Village, Houston Delorce Elliot, public housing resident, scattered site housing, Houston CLICK PICTURE FOR MOVIE CLICK PICTURE FOR MOVIE Learn how to see VIVO movies Learn how to see VIVO movies As far as housing that's available to very low income people. They can't afford housing in private markets. There are not any public housing units available besides the vacant units in Allen Parkway Village and the 6,000 families on the city of Houston public housing waiting list. The Section 8 waiting list has been closed too for the city of Houston and that was 22,000 families long. So essentially they become homeless or they find a group of them to get together to move in with a relative in an overcrowded situation. A person that is working a minimum wage job cannot afford even with one child, cause even with one child your basic fair market rent for a one bedroom in Houston is $340 [in 1995]. So if you're making minimum wage you're not gonna have any space left for food, transportation, household incidentals, just buying school clothes, school supplies, meeting your medical needs, and Lord help you if you got more than one, because it's gonna be an even greater burden then. Child care, cause you gotta have child care, and right now they're cutting all those programs so drastically. Every day hundreds of low income Texans come to Legal Services offices for assistance with their housing problems. We asked an experienced Legal Services attorney what advice attorneys could offer low income clients needing housing. Tom Oxford attorney, East Texas Legal Services, Beaumont CLICK PICTURE FOR MOVIE Learn how to see VIVO movies Their options are public housing or public housing or their families. They either get in a public housing project, they get a Section 8 certificate or they live with their mom and dad, aunt and uncle, or their brother and sister. Those are their options. For most low income Texans you cannot afford by yourself, without some sort of government assistance to get decent housing. What can low income Texans afford for housing?