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Public Works Administration builds public housing Special interest, race and local control
copyright 1998 Texas Low Income Housing Information Service |
| Problems facing public housing | ||||||||||
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Fortunately the public stereotype of massive high-rise public housing does not exist in Texas. There is not a single high-rise public housing project in Texas except for a few elderly developments which are well maintained. This does not mean there are not serious problems with public housing in Texas. Much of the public housing set aside for families in Texas is fairly very old and many units badly need repair. Public housing units built in the mid-1930's are still occupied by families today. |
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| This public housing high-rise in Texarkana is for the elderly. Unlike many other states, Texas has no high-rise public housing developments for families. (photo: TxLIHIS) | ||||||||||
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Most Texas public housing units for families are located in inner city neighborhoods where crime and drug problems exist. As we will see in the following section about the history of public housing, the reason for these projects being located where they are is rooted in local political decisions which were not in the best interest of either public housing or the people who lived there. A great majority of the families living in public housing in Texas have very low incomes and have no alternative to public housing. The private sector has not and will not be able to serve Texas huge and growing low income families housing needs. The lack of decent, low-cost housing in Texas consigns hundreds of thousands of Texas families to deplorable living conditions and crippling rents. The history of public housing in Texas will demonstrate that an adequate supply of publicly supported housing for the poor has been blocked repeated in Texas by special interests and racial and economic prejudices. Many people blame low income residents of public housing for all the problems facing public housing. There are some bad tenants in public housing, just as there are some bad tenants in private housing. But the problems of public housing in Texas are largely the result of lack of inadequate funding and in some cases bad local policies and illegal practices by some local public housing authorities and local governments. The solutions to these bad policies and management practices which have beset some public housing lie in the active involvement of the citizens of local communities, particularly public housing residents themselves in the management and recreation of public housing. We will explore these solutions in the final section of this web site. For now we turn our attention to the problems of public housing today. The problems lie in four areas:
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The economic problem facing public housing |
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