05/26/2010
After the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service and Texas Appleseed had alleged that Texas had failed to meet its affirmatively furthering fair housing obligations, HUD had withheld from Texas $1.7 billion in Community Development Block Grants.
Among other things, the settlement that has now been reached requires Texas to:
- Shift an additional $152 million toward housing needs of low- and moderate-income households;
- Provide funding for the replacement of all public housing units in the City of Galveston and in other municipalities where units were destroyed by hurricane damage, and set aside $100 million to rebuild subsidized housing;
- Fund an $18 million "Impacted Area Buyout" program to permit low- and moderate-income victims of the hurricanes to move out of areas of high minority and high poverty concentration; and
- Provide up to $5 million to fund a "Moving to Opportunity" program under which tenants with portable rental subsidies can relocate to higher opportunity areas
The complainants were represented by Michael Allen of the law firm of Relman, Dane & Colfax.
The full text of the settlement is available below.