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

Solutions to fix public housing The crisis in public housing has produced calls for reforms which would actually make matters worse. A reform, embraced by Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike calls for a diminished role for the federal government in providing public housing funding and setting standards. These politicians claim that federal regulations and controls on local decision makers have produced the problems in public housing. Much of the so called 'over regulation' of public housing by the federal government came about in response to disastrous local decisions such as maintaining racial segregation and local scandals in the developmental process. Based on the history of public housing, deregulation probably will make matters worse. Dr. Stephen Fox professor Rice University, Houston CLICK PICTURE FOR MOVIE   Learn how to see VIVO movies I think this whole issue has to go back to what is problematic about public housing. Certainly in the case of Houston and most especially in the case of Allen Parkway Village what one sees is that the root problems are problems of administration, not of the people who live there and not of the place itself. And because those problems not only are never addressed but are never acknowledged to even be problems and even when there are controversies as there have been with not only with Erwin Blum in the early 1950's but there have been subsequent controversies in the City of Houston's Housing Authority. They never become an occasion for reform. ... So that the whole stigma attached to public housing seems to have as much to do with the general public's unwillingness to examine what is wrong with public housing rather than to continue to construct stereotype explanations based on very negative representations of the people who live in public housing. Cuts in federal housing subsidies will only put more pressure and increase overcrowding in public housing. Residents of public housing are a focus for many current voter backlashes as some find it convenient to blame the problems of public housing on the low income people who live there. While some residents are responsible for aggravating bad conditions, the fundamental problems are beyond the control of the public housing residents. In fact, giving residents more responsibility in how public housing is run seems to be one of the solutions. The other solutions are to provide funding to build and maintain an adequate supply of affordable decent housing for the poor to create decent paying jobs for low income people and to overcome the special interests who manipulate public housing at the local level for their own gain. The solution to public housing must come from the inside and the outside. People who live in public housing must be permitted and must take the initiative to get involved. All of us have to care about the problem enough to balance the effects of the special interests, the politics of prejudice and intolerance and the apathy which allows problems to develop and continue. The answers to the public housing debate lie in our willingness to spend the money to provide and maintain housing for the poor and to get involved to ensure that public housing housing is operated in the best interests of all of us. Wessie Seyrus, public housing resident, Allen Parkway Village, Houston CLICK PICTURE FOR MOVIE Learn how to see VIVO movies If they closed down public housing my family's address would be, I suppose, America. Because when we refer to homelessness here in Houston we always say your going to end up under the Pearce Elevated, the freeway. And that's rather a misnomer because they really don't permit you to be anywhere. Our family would be in a lot of trouble because our monthly income is only $441 per month. We couldn't pay public sector rent. We'd be in a lot of trouble. Lenwood Johnson, public housing resident, Allen Parkway Village, Houston CLICK PICTURE FOR MOVIE Learn how to see VIVO movies At some point in that downward spiral, before too many people die from being on the street, that the public can relearn it's history and implement the '37 Housing Act again and maybe if they learn their history they can implement it better than they did last time. Real change for public housing