Affordable Housing Proposal puts neighbors on edge. Erin Mulvaney, HoustonChronicle.com ($$$)
The Houston Housing Authority, under federal and court pressure to address years of segregation, hopes to break ground this fall on a 233-unit affordable-housing apartment complex at 2640 Fountain View. The project, expected to be completed by 2018, would be the local housing authority's first in an area considered high-end and high opportunity.
Residents are mounting a fierce campaign against it, enlisting the help of their city councilman and representatives on the Houston ISD board, state Legislature and U.S. Congress. Hundreds have joined the effort and say they primarily are worried about school crowding, although some also admit to concern over property values or traffic.
To be sure, they are. No one LIKES the idea of those of a different economic strata (specifically, the strata below them) moving into the same neighborhood, and there are typically big, wide-ranging fights that occur when they do.
Of course, it doesn't just happen when those on the top have to share. Take a look at the battles over gentrification and you'll see that the angst is just as strong on the other side as well. State Rep. Garnett Coleman rails against the "destruction of the community" in Houston's 3rd Ward etc.
All of these lead me to believe that the argument against the desegregation of urban Houston isn't based (totally) on race, but largely on class. A class system, in America, that is newly formed and, for the most part, not acknowledged by many but supported by most. Especially when it comes to urban life.
The ruling class and the courtesan class work together with the unproductive class to make rules on how the working, professional and underclass should live. Any deviation from these rules (say, mixing affordable housing into upper-class areas) is met with revulsion and arguments about "the children" and such.
Of course, advocates for the underclass, most of them minority groups, will instantly scream "racism" when confronted with resistance. They will also be wrong. It does not matter what race the people are who are expected to buy into the houses, it only matters that they are poor.
In Houston the talk often focuses on racial segregation, as the most metropolitan region in America is extremely segregated within the confines of the city limits. The conversation should be focused on economic segregation because that is the bigger issue.
A totally separate issue is whether or not it should be an issue at all?
For years now we've tried to bring up the quality of poor neighborhoods and communities by giving them access to schools (through bussing) shopping (through tax incentives) and perks only formerly available to the upper class. The result? We're now looking at income that's more divided than ever. The poor are still poor, but they've developed expensive tastes as they try to keep up with the Joneses.
The poor now feel the need to drive fancy cars, wear designer, name brand clothes, talk on $700 cell phones and shop at Whole Foods. Do you think increasingly relocating them to "high-opportunity" (and high expense) areas are going to do anything toward moderating their standard of living?
Maybe a better idea is to try, really try, to improve the living conditions of so-called "poor neighborhoods" and to better equip those low on the socio-economic ladder by teaching them how to budget, and (more importantly) how to stick to it. Possibly then we can see something happening that won't involve building taxpayer-subsidized housing next to the Galleria so that some poor family can move in and immediately be hit by a wave of things they cannot afford but are urged to buy so they don't get treated like pariahs in schools.
Of course, that would mean taking a look at our failing education system, and training kids the basics instead of trying to indoctrinate them into a specific world view. Fat chance of THAT happening.
So the fight for inner-city real estate continues, and will continue until we start thinking smarter, not harder, about what we are trying to accomplish in our cities.
