Some people who are angry about public housing in Galveston are looking to Texas City for a model. In the early 1980s, Texas City began a long process of getting rid of its old barracks-style housing. The idea was to get low-income people out of one segregated area and to spread those families throughout the community.
“When you have people of one income-level, race, creed or color crowded all into one section, that’s not a good thing,” Mayor Matt Doyle said.
Texas City put families that had been in the old housing projects into private housing, using Section 8 vouchers to subsidize the rent. The city also built some duplexes on scattered sites. It worked with private developers to build housing for low-income seniors using tax credits.
George Fuller, who heads the housing authority in Texas City, recalls sitting on the porch with a woman who lived in the old projects, which were just across the street from the refineries.
Fuller recalled that he jumped when a flare went off at one of the plants. “I remember thinking this is just not a good way to house people,” he said.
The 56 families in the old public housing complex were moved into private housing around town, using the Section 8 program.
Before Hurricane Ike, the housing authority managed 338 Section 8 vouchers in Texas City and another 48 through an agreement with the city of La Marque.
After the storm, the number of Section 8 vouchers managed by the Texas City Housing Authority has increased to 760. Many people who lost their homes in Galveston during the storm have moved to the mainland.
Fuller said there’s a key to a successful Section 8 program — strict inspections. Renters are entitled to good housing, and landlords are entitled to a fair market price. No corners should be cut at either end.
In addition to managing the vouchers, the city manages 72 duplexes.
Of those, 24 are on a single street. They were built during the 1960s. The rest are scattered throughout the city.
Officials who are responsible for public housing in Texas City say you can’t compare the operations in the two communities. Galveston has much more public housing than Texas City.
There’s also an important difference in the rental market. Section 8 works well where rent costs are stable.
In places where rents tend to climb, relying solely on Section 8 means either offering fewer and fewer units as rents increase or expecting the federal government to put in more and more money.
In Texas City, policy has moved in the direction of Section 8. But those duplexes still are owned by the public.
There are several interesting themes in this story:
• There was a realization — throughout the community — that Texas City could do better than the old barracks-style housing. People could, and did, talk clearly about a vision for getting people into better places.
• That effort to communicate crossed racial, cultural and economic boundaries. In Texas City, the change was something that was widely seen as a good thing.
• People in the community favored Section 8 vouchers, rather than housing units owned by the housing authority. At the same time, the city didn’t convert entirely to Section 8 — it still has a significant percentage of its units in duplexes owned by the housing authority. Also, city officials made it clear that they did not want to be embarrassed to find people with housing subsidies living in substandard housing. There is widespread support for strict inspections of Section 8 housing.
• The city made it a goal to reduce the concentration of public housing in any one neighborhood. Public officials are not at all shy about talking about that goal.
• City officials worked with private developers to create housing for low-income senior citizens through tax credits. While critics said that’s difficult to do, the two developments in Texas City and one in La Marque suggest it can be done.
Through all those themes you see a common thread, a community planning to make improvements that were reasonable and beneficial to all.
