So last Friday July 13, 2007 (did that make for an unlucky day for anyone?), HPRA welcomed David Mincberg as the guest speaker. It made for a curious luncheon, but a civil one considering that I had to warn Mr. Mincberg that he was walking into a den of tigers. Forewarned, Mincberg went about his talk and went away to his next appointment that afternoon relatively unscathed.
Mincberg reminds me quite a bit of current Houston Mayor, Bill White. Both men are in their 50's and well off. They are genteel and come across as fairly harmless older fellows. Such personnas help considerably when it comes to dealing with people on a personal level, which is always a plus when you find yourself in the viper pits of political life. Still, his personality has not always won over would be friends within the Democratic Party, many of whom think that Mincberg is all about - well - David Mincberg.
But none of that was talked about at this luncheon. I had wired up the podium microphone so that I could capture a podcast of the day's meeting, but Mincberg started off his talk by nimbly stepping away from the podium so that in his own words he "could speak more clearly to the audience". Very clever of you, Mr. Mincberg...
Mincberg first recounted that he was born in 1950 and that his parents were Holocaust survivors who had come to Houston in 1949 without any money, no friends, and no English language skills. Despite all of these handicaps, they did well for themselves and raised their family in the Fondren / southwest part of Houston. Mincberg is in the apartment construction business, having built some 30,000 - 35,000 apartment units in the City. He knew a fellow in the audience named Jerry Seltzer who owns a plumbing company. He knows the Mayor through their contacts in the Democratic Party and when White became Mayor, he asked Mincberg to become a special assistant with a portfolio for multi-family housing, though he also deals with single family housing issues and the homeless. Mincberg happens to be one of those high powered $1 per year salary types whom the Mayor seems to be able to get to work for him in droves. Mincberg also told of a story where the Mayor invited Mincberg on a trip to New York City to look at what was being done with various housing matters, but was then told that he had to pay his own way.
Mincberg told the audience that the City of Houston has three agencies which deal with housing. The first is the Housing and Community Development, which dispurses about $70 million in federal grants. The second is the Housing Authority of the City of Houston which people apply to get on waiting lists for housing vouchers. Mincberg told the audience that about 20,000 people are waiting to get on the list. The third agency is an agency which offers low interest loans for aspiring home buyers. The Mayor asked Mincberg to look into ways in which the agencies could be co-ordinated.
Mincberg then went on to the main part of his descriptive talk in which he said early in his tenure to the Mayor that he was not a big fan of government building apartments for low income residents. When the Mayor asked him why, Mincberg gave the reason that were the government to go out and build some nice new residences, that would in return cause the best residents in current complexes to move out of them and into the newer ones - I suppose one might say that the filtering effect is kicking in here.
So what, if anything is to be done with regards to housing? Mincberg stated that there were areas of town which have become rundown and that these areas had a tendency to become criminal hot spots. He outlined three aspects of what the Mayor White administration has decided to do:
1) The Administration pushed through a crime ordinance against apartment complexes. Complexes would be looked at from a crimes per capita aspect and the worst 5-6 percent would be paid a visit by the Houston Police Department where they would be required to upgrade facilities (such as lighting) that would mitigate criminal activity. He noted that certain areas of town like Westbury, parts of Sharpstown, Gulfton, 45 & 1960, and Airport &59 had become hot spots. I asked Mincberg if this was to be done on the public dime or not and he said no, it was up to the property owners to pay for mandated security improvements out of their own pockets.
2) Mincberg described a so - called "Habitability Ordinance" on apartments. There is now to be a minimum standard threshold for apartment maintenance. Holes in roofs, backed up sewers, vermin running loose, or continually opened gates would all be grounds of citing.
3) A program called "Neighborhoods to Standards" where public monies would be available for neighborhoods. The Broadway and Fondren areas were being targeted as pilot areas.
Some of the comments made by the lurking tigers in the audience included:
- One fellow, who had been a victim of a mugging many months ago, asked about the dispersal of Hurricane Katrina evacuees throughout the city and in particular out of the 77042 zip code area. He asked why the City forced aparment owners to take in evacuees and then not allow them to perform background checks on the new residents. Mincberg replied that the City did not force anyone to take in evacuees. As far as performing background checks, the big problem is that the Hurricane had destroyed most of the government buildings on the New Orleans area, which made background checking extremely problematic.
- Another attendee wondered if Katrina evacuees were still living on the dole. Mincberg told the audience that FEMA had whittled down the funding for evacuees and that the waiting lists for rental assistance had been closed. This was challenged by another member of the audience.
- One attendee asked what has made America different where we have to hand out money for housing? After all, Mincberg's parents didn't get money for housing and neither did his parents who had come to Houston as poor people. Mincberg said he wasn't sure of an answer to such a broad and complex question.
- Another person asked what Mincberg thought about the appraisal system. Mincberg mentioned that the City files dozens of lawsuits against HCAD on appraisals every year. I suppose one could draw one's own conclusions based upon hearing this.
- Someone asked how many apartments are owned by the City of Houston. The answer was that the Housing Authority owns 2,500 - 3,000 units out of the 500,000 or so aparment units in the Houston area. The Housing Authority contracts out management to private parties.
There were other questions and replies, but I couldn't write fast enough to catch what was said. Mincberg did have another speaking engagement at 2:00pm, ergo he had to leave. It was an informative day and we did play a bit of softball considering this guy is a likely candidate for some powerful local post in the near future. Still, we had to remind ourselves that Mincberg was not speaking as a political candidate but as the Mayor's housing czar.
HPRA President Barry Klein was absent from the day's luncheon as Barry has been diagnosed with cancer of the tonsils. He was going in for some dental work before going in for treatment as doctors felt they needed to do this to treat Mr. Klein's ailment more effectively. We all wish Barry well in his upcoming therapy.