- Tax Reform Adds Uncertainty to Houston’s Weak Affordable Housing Supply [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Texans Preparing for Future with Raised Homes, Private Flood Gates After Harvey [NPR]
- ‘Recovery Czar’ Marvin Odum on What Recovery Looks Like for Houston [Marketplace]
- City Launches New Website To Track Federal Funding Requests at PostHarvey.org [Click2Houston]
- Costco-Anchored Retail Center Near Greenway Plaza Changes Hands [Houston Chronicle]
- Luxury Retailer Events Gifts Leaving River Oaks Shopping Center After 30 Years for Westheimer Location [HBJ]
- Jersey Village Red Barn Furniture Closing For Good in February [Community Impact Newspaper]
- Metro Saw Its 2nd-Worst Month for Train Crashes in November Despite Recent Safety Solutions [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- The Most Dangerous Intersections for Pedestrians in Texas [Houston Press]
- The Most Congested Roadways in Texas, 2017 Edition [The Urban Edge]
- Fire Destroyed About 35 Units in South Houston’s Ashton Place Apartments Yesterday [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Hermann Park: Marc Longoria via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Tax Reform – The only thing remotely tangible in this article was that cutting corporate taxes from 35% to 21% may devalue the tax incentive for building low income homes. This is a 4% or 9% tax cut depending on quantity of low income homes you build. There is a lot of “Potential” issues that do nothing but stir up people over something that is not there or isnt there yet. What the article fails to mention is that there are further tax incentives for developing in low income neighborhoods. Chon = fake news.
I agree with Mr. Clean. The headline made it seem like tax reform was hurting low income renters but the first paragraph if the article said that the tax reform bill left alone the existing laws needed to help finance law income housing. I didn’t get the connection in the article between corp tax cuts and lack of funding on low income housing. That seemed really tenuous at best and likely just total BS. I do recall an article in the chron about how the housing dept lost tens of millions of dollars. Does the chron even read or remember their own articles? That didn’t get mentioned at all. I really hate to say it, but FAKE NEWS. In defense of the writer, she is the one who discovered the lost money in the housing dept. I think the editor got his hands on this article and reshaped it to the current fake news piece it is.
That story was so full of BS…
” Hurricane Harvey destabilized the region’s already fragile low-cost housing market, and local leaders worry a lower corporate tax rate, coupled with an uncertain federal budget, could make building and maintaining affordable homes more difficult.”
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BS. There wasn’t a huge # of units knocked off line. And there was plenty of supply. I know, I rent low costs apts.
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The reason many buildings don’t take housing is it’s a pain. It’s huge paper packets, longs waits for inspections, dumb rules regarding rent. So basically rules put in place to “protect” the renters drive them to substandard properties as they’re the only ones that’ll put up with it since renting to non housing people isn’t an option.
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Also I saw MASSIVE MASSIVE fraud when it came to Harvey. Why were so many put up into hotels for so long? Were they people that lots their housing? Most of them, no. But lets say they did lose their housing. Were they not paying rent at their old property? Why not just simply move into a new property and pay rent? If they lost some belongings or they need some help getting back on their feet fine, but months and months of paying people to live in a hotel? Give me a break.
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I’d say 90% of the FEMA / HUD funds for Harvey “victims” were simply people taking advantage.
Also what do lower corporate taxes have to do with making affordable housing more difficult? Unemployment is near record lows. Jobs are there for people that want them. At some point you have to let people be responsible for their own situations rather than giving them just enough handouts to keep them as permanent underclass that grows to rely on handouts.
Those pesky tax cuts are going to ruin HUD
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/10/watchdog-calls-out-hud-for-500b-plus-in-accounting-errors.html
The unemployment statistics fall firmly into the “too good to be true” category, no doubt about it.
actually it was pretty interesting to see that tax credits are sold and traded. And thus, the lower taxes are, the lower the tax credits are worth, thus the lower the incentive a tax credit provides.
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Learn something new every day….