GALVESTON — The leaders of two of the island’s social advocacy groups oppose the Galveston Housing Authority’s latest plan to rebuild 569 public housing units.
Both David Miller, president of the Galveston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and Leon Phillips, president of the Galveston Coalition for Justice, want the housing authority to rebuild all of the housing demolished after Hurricane Ike on the four properties the agency owns north of Broadway.
Harish Krishnarao, housing authority executive director, on Monday recommended rebuilding 340 apartments, row houses and duplexes on the old public housing sites and scattering 229 throughout other island neighborhoods.
But people who don’t want public housing residents back on the island certainly aren’t going to welcome families getting government assistance into their communities, both Miller and Phillips said.
“How many historic neighborhoods are going to be willing to have their next door neighbor as a Section 8 client?” Phillips asked, referring to the federal rental assistance voucher program. “If they’re going to holler now, I know they’re going to holler then.”
Taking Too Long
Both Miller and Phillips want people displaced by the storm brought back as soon as possible. The fastest way to do that is to rebuild on property the agency already owns, they said.
Making people wait any longer than necessary is a form of stress-induced genocide, Miller said.
“Stress kills more than wars,” he said. “We are genociding the poor.”
When they voted to demolish the four damaged public housing developments, housing authority board members said they hoped to rebuild everything in two years. Krishnarao now says the redevelopment could three or four years.
Housing Assistance Needed
While Miller and Phillips oppose the new plan because the rebuilding will take too long, neighborhood groups oppose it because they don’t think the city needs as much public housing as it had before Hurricane Ike.
During a raucous public meeting Monday, several people questioned the housing authority’s decision to replace all the old units.
But the island always will have residents who need an affordable place to live, as the number of people waiting to get into public housing before the storm showed, Miller said.
“We had over 3,000 people on waiting lists before the storm, so don’t tell me there’s no need,” Miller said.
And with rental rates going up after the storm, it will be even harder for people with low-paying jobs to make it living in Galveston, Phillips said.
Changing Perceptions
Monday’s public meeting quickly devolved into a racially charged scene.
“We never had the kind of stuff back then that we had the other night,” Miller said. “This is frightening.”
The people so vehemently opposed to public housing are acting out of fear, Phillips said. Most of them moved to Galveston fairly recently and based their opinions about public housing on the violence and criminal activities that plagued the developments during the 1980s and 1990s, he said.
Although the environment in the developments has changed since then, few people have changed their minds about the residents, Phillips said.
Public housing opponents should understand that many people who grew up or lived in Magnolia Homes, Cedar Terrace, Palm Terrace and Oleander Homes became preachers, teachers and doctors, he said.
Phillips said he hoped the supporters and opponents of public housing could start talking about the rebuilding plans.
“Once conversation begins between the two groups, a lot of myths and other conceptions about public housing will go away,” he said.
