I smell a former bug killer --- Houston HAD 24,000 empty apartments.

[wakeme2008]

When I was reading this post http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5599754 I was troubled by the fact that just before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Houston, home of Tom Delay,, had around 24,000 empty apartments and FEMA filled them up with a promise of one years lease payments.

Bush's economy is really great when Houston has that many empty apartments. And I wonder how many Bush donors FEMA helped out with their vacancy rate. :grr:.... Maybe my :tinfoilhat: is just a little too tight...

[Canuckistanian]

1. Probably all condemned properties

To make room for golf courses and condos.

[Flirtus]

2. numbers ain't my strong point

but Houston is a very large city, and 24K empty apartments might be normal in a time of low interest rates for home buying. I have Houston relatives who have barely mention the influx of New Orleans folks, they mostly speak of their gratitude for being missed by the major storms.

HOWEVER, you score points on the 'isn't it convenient' that lots of FEMA funds are going to Houston. I wonder what the ratio of funds going there is to, say, the funds coming to my city, where there are some really neat new neighbors who appear to be staying with us.

[Zan_of_Texas]

3. That's not a high vacancy rate.

Harris County (in which Houston sits) has over 3.5 million people, which is larger than a number of US states. I figure that's roughly 700,000 apts. Just a guess. But, 24,000 empty ones would be a 3.4% vacancy rate.

Survivors of Katrina in Houston got immediate cash vouchers, then survivors elsewhere got red tape and delays in getting theirs, so there was some apparent favortism.

I will say that Houston absorbed at least 100,000 evacuees right after the storm, perhaps many more than that. For the most part, Houston did a good job. And, yes, I live here, and I and many of my friends turned out to help sort food and clothing donations, or attend to the evacuees themselves. There were probably thousands of Houstonians volunteering in those first days.

Did the Bush government treat Texas better than some other evacuees sites? My guess is yes.

[elehhhhna]

4. OOPS, no. Fema's fighting to reneg on the one-year guarantees,

which will stick the evacuees, Houston & its landlords, bigtime.

[Zen Democrat]

5. You're missing the point. Houston's Democratic Mayor was the hero.

Mayor Bill White is the one who opened up the Astrodome and other facilities when the need was immediate. He's the one who made deals with the hotel and apartment owners to quickly get evacuees into single family dwellings and worry later about the city recovering the money from FEMA. Houston footed the bill up front and Mayor Bill was the first elected official outside of Louisiana to step up to the plate. He made appeals to all hotel/motels and apartments, and also to families who had extra space to take evacuees.

Believe me, it had nothing to do with Tom DeLay -- who, in fact, has always represented Sugar Land in Fort Bend County, which is not Houston (Harris County). In 2002 Hot Tub Tom added parts of Galveston County and parts of the NASA/Clear Lake area, and parts of Pasadena, TX to his district. So he's basically a "Houston area" congressman -- but doesn't represent a Houston district. Houston congressional districts are represented by Gene Green (D), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D), Al Green (D), and John Culberson (R). The City of Houston is predominantly Democratic. The wealthy gated suburbs and surrounding counties are another story -- and this is where Tom DeLay comes in.

But, bottom line, Houston's Democratic Mayor picked up the ball and ran with it when everyone else was standing around wringing their hands.

[bobbieinok]

6. heard recently that Houston is 75% non-white; is this correct??

[Flirtus]

7. I looked up the numbers

lost the link, sorry, it's googled info, probably last year's data, but good enough for our purposes,
and it's "Houston" not the surrounding areas:

HOUSING OCCUPANCY
Total housing units 782,009 100.0%
Occupied housing units 717,945 91.8%
Vacant housing units 64,064 8.2%
For seasonal, recreational, or occasional use 4,169 0.5%

Homeowner vacancy rate (percent) 1.6%
Rental vacancy rate (percent) 8.7%


White 1,012,413 51.8%
Black or African American 505,101 25.9%
American Indian and Alaska Native 15,743 0.8%
Asian 114,140 5.8%
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 2,877 0.1%
Some other race 367,423 18.8%

HISPANIC OR LATINO AND RACE
Total population 1,953,631 100.0%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 730,865 37.4%
Mexican 527,442 27.0%
Puerto Rican 6,906 0.4%
Cuban 4,970 0.3%
Other Hispanic or Latino 191,547 9.8%
Not Hispanic or Latino 1,222,766 62.6%
White alone 601,851 30.8%

[Neil Lisst]

8. This was a play mandated by the White House, not Delay.

The White House badly wanted to place blame for their nonresponse on the two elected Democrats in Louisiana who were most visible - the mayor and the governor. They wanted to show how organized and compassion the Republican led Texas governments were.

The whole thing was set up around Mayor White, not through him. The primary local spokesman at the time was not Houston's Mayor, but Harris County's Bob Eckels, the County Judge, a Republican.

Harris county is Republican, even though Houston leans Democratic.