City and feds partner to improve troubled housing department
Houston Mayor Annise Parker and federal officials on Tuesday announced an effort to improve the city’s long-troubled housing department with cash and advice from the federal government and nonprofit groups.
Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Mercedes Marquez called the move a “partnership,” not an “intervention,” stressing that Parker had asked for federal assistance.
Marquez said the effort may cost up to $500,000 in federal dollars over three years and involve about 15 to 20 “highly skilled, experienced folks.”
“These are the dollars that are almost impossible to find. They’ll give you dollars for capital but they’re aren’t dollars for expertise to come tie things together,” Marquez said.
Parker replaced much of the leadership at the city’s Department of Housing and Community Development last year and on Tuesday noted the department’s history.
“We have very clearly had problems with our relationship with local HUD, with national HUD. The city of Houston has been cited in the past,” Parker said. “This is a different situation. I turned to HUD … and said, ‘Show us the way we need to go. Help us move forward.’ This is an area that the city really has never, in a consistent manner, tackled in the past.”
The effort will focus on improving the department’s management, forming a strategy to guide its spending, and developing an equity fund to direct private dollars to neighborhood revitalization projects.
Federal staff and various nonprofit groups will be involved, including Enterprise Community Partners, Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the Corporation for Supportive Housing.
Affordable housing advocate John Henneberger, co-director of the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service, welcomed the announcement. He noted the city’s administrative struggles, which have left hundreds of frustrated residents on waiting lists for housing.
“I think by any objective standard the city’s housing programs have been troubled for a long time,” he said. “It is appropriate, and indeed it’s critical, for HUD to provide assistance to the city to solve these serious ongoing problems.”
mike.morris@chron.com
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