Houston is a safe haven for Slumlords.. (Atlanta, San Diego: low income, appointed)

[usc619]

...What's wrong with this picture?

Following boys' deaths, calls for better apartment inspections in Houston | TOP STORIES | KHOU.com | News for Houston, Texas (http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080717_tj_aptinspections.672dee55.html - broken link)

Thought?

[Topaz]

Horrible. Something definitely needs to change as the current system appears to be broken.

[modster]

Oh don't pull my cord on this one...

Before they do any additional codes or regulations, they need to get serious about hiring enough neighborhood protection officers to enforce the rules we already have, because it is not happening.

Kudos to Peter Brown for trying to do something with this.

[EasilyAmused]

Problem is if they are going to enforce all these code violations, slumlords will majorly raise rents and remodel...then the current residents will move on..and most likely out of town where they can find cheap rent.

It's kinda a catch 22.

[Poltracker]

Originally Posted by EasilyAmused

Problem is if they are going to enforce all these code violations, slumlords will majorly raise rents and remodel...then the current residents will move on..and most likely out of town where they can find cheap rent.

It's kinda a catch 22.

Yep! They will move to the unincorporated areas
and since counties cannot make rules or regulations folks will have to wait years for the Texas legislature to get off their >>>> and pass legislation which would allow the counties to create rules or they would have to create a commission of some sort to do it...maybe assign it to the health dept.

[modster]

Originally Posted by EasilyAmused

Problem is if they are going to enforce all these code violations, slumlords will majorly raise rents and remodel...then the current residents will move on..and most likely out of town where they can find cheap rent.

It's kinda a catch 22.

If the market will bear a higher rent, the landlords are already charging it. If they could raise rents they would have already done it. If the market won't bear it, they won't be able to get it regardless of what their expenses are.

[usc619]

It just amaze me that a city this big could still be stuck in the stone ages when it come to certain things. I would never see this kind of stuff regarding the apartments situation in San Diego. I remember when I first moved here some guy at work tried to explain to me that Houston city officials still very much operate on the "Good ole boy code"

Since I've been here I would say from the stuff I've seen from the Justice department to the city hall scandal I would rate the city officials a "D minus"



"HOUSTON -- There are 2,500 apartment complexes in the city of Houston. Those complexes are home to more than one million people.

So, how many city inspectors are there to inspect those complexes? 10" This quote says it all

[southland]

Wow.

There is a ton of sub-par construction when it comes to rental housing in Houston. I think a lot of this has to do with the timeframe Houston experienced it's "boom".

The area along I-10 between Mobile, Alabama and Houston seem to hit that magic point in the 1970s....when much of the construction and architectural styles were cheap and cheesy. Then, many of those neighborhoods died and changed dramatically during the oil bust, which left many of those buildings in rough condition.




The system isn't completely broken though. Houston has little or no "homestead exemption", which is created by a particular party to keep low income voters in certain districts. I'm familiar with this form of political stabalization from my living in New Orleans and Atlanta. Houston's system makes it difficult to afford to live in very prime locations for fixed income families and retirees...who sell their property and move to a cheaper suburb or lower income part of town while more dense private development is naturally encouraged in the city center. Houston also has it's act together since it's willing to annex land around it to keep it's tax base here. Atlanta refuses to do this because the demographic makeup secures the political future of Atlanta's city government, who doesn't want anything to change (which is why you have a city of half a million in an area with 4 million people).

So the housing situation in Houston and Texas is, I think, ahead of the curve when compared to the rest of the country despite many's frustration with the lack of zoning in the region- which is a ploy to promote investment and development...it works. Everything eventually evens out. As there is more demand in one area, older housing will be torn down and replaced with higher density construction, which forces the city to upgrade the infrastructure constantly...and they can afford to do so because it's difficult to cheat on property taxes.

It's a great system, and puts Houston in a perpetual state of privatized urban renewal- it's especially powerful tool with Houston's lax zoning.
That's the end of my "appreciation for Houston" section.

More inspectors are probably needed, however, because Houston is full of sprawling neighborhoods that were built because the land was affordable back in 1980. These neighborhoods, as they age, have no draw to new investments since suburbanites move farther out and DINCs stay closer to the city center. They are like slummy suburbs...I like to call it "no man's land"..and you can see this trend in Houston about 10 years before you see it in the rest of America because of the rapid self-renewal process.

It's a city of at least 3 million people....I'd think that more than 10 inspectors are warranted and worth the investment- and that goes with fire and sewer inspection too.

[icon7]

Some of the politicians are the biggest owners of the slums:
Hubert Vo , His Slums specialize in housing illegals, because they do not complain. I remember when they confronted him about it and he started to dance like a little B**** Must be nice living in that 5M+ house knowing that many of the slums he owns would never pass inspection.

Houston Democratic State Representative Hubert Vo Owns Slum Property « Texas Liberal

[modster]

I know everybody that has been in and out of Hobby has seen that one complex on Broadway right by Bellfort, the one that is really, really bad. Thai Xuan Village. It is actually condos now. But anyway when we complained to Mayor White about the deplorable conditions there he admitted that the complex was not up to code and couldn't be brought up to code. He basically refused to enforce the existing codes on it because he didn't want to disperse the people living there. The neighborhood protection officer then got up and tried to "explain" how nice the people living there were, like that was an excuse for the condition of the building. I never did understand the concept of that one.

After the Houston Press ran another story on the problems there the Mayor, in his infinite wisdom, appointed Hubert Vo in charge of working with the complex to "clean it up."

If you have been down Broadway lately then you have seen the "after" picture of that little effort. Disgraceful.

I'm not bitter.

What a disgrace for an "entrance gate" to Houston for people coming and going from Hobby Airport. But even when a place clearly doesn't meet codes, if the right people like you, it apparently doesn't matter.