U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

How City Officials Keep Dallas Segregated, and the Two Developers Suing to Stop Them

Yesterday I wrote about Curtis Lockey and Craig MacKenzie, who were on my mind Tuesday night as I watched the final electoral votes for Obama click into place. Lockey and MacKenzie are real estate developers suing Dallas in federal court over what they claim is massive misuse of federal de-segregati ... More >>

Perhaps Now Barack Obama Can Be the Sheriff We Deputized in 2008

Last night, when those final electoral votes rang up on my CNN app, I suddenly thought of Curtis Lockey and Craig Mackenzie, two guys who have been missing from the news for a while. I told you about Lockey and MacKenzie two years ago. They are developers who brought a formal administrative "false ... More >>

In Dallas As in Miami, It's Time to Build Low-Income Housing Where the Jobs Are

​Who's a liberal these days, and who are the conservatives? I look in the mirror, I don't even know. I look in The New York Times this morning, I'm even more confused. The Times has a story out of Miami about major cuts in federal housing subsidies. The story calls them "some of the deepest c ... More >>

Before Hearing, Read City's $13-Mil HUD Loan Application for Lake Highlands Town Center

Via.​Earlier this month we noted that the city hopes to use $13 million in federal funds to turn 70 acres at Walnut Hill and Skillman into, you know, the Lake Highlands Town Center, where ground was broken way back in November 2007. Behold: On the city's website you'll find a draft of the applicat ... More >>

City Hopes $13 Mil in HUD Block Grants Will Jumpstart Lake Highlands Town Center

​For those wondering whatever become of the stagnating Lake Highlands Town Center, a ray of hope appears on the council's Economic Development Committee's agenda for Monday: "Community Development Block Grant Section 108 Guaranteed Loan Application for the Lake Highlands Town Center." I'll post th ... More >>

Whistle-Blowers Claim City Misused Housing Money

Federal dough meant for affordable housing went to downtown.

Federal Judge Unseals Suit That Asks: Did Dallas Screw HUD Out of Hundreds of Millions?

​On June 10, 2010, I wrote a column for the newspaper about an official complaint brought to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by two Dallas developers alleging a decades-old pattern of racial discrimination and fraud by the city of Dallas, the county and other local entit ... More >>

How Hateful Was Robert Jeffress's Mormonism-Is-a-Cult Line? Very, If You Know History.

​Alfredo Corchado has a story in today's Dallas Morning News about Mitt Romney's Mexican relatives: "Mitt Romney's relatives in Mexico are supportive but wary." It's a topic that has been in the back of my mind ever since Dallas's own Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of Dallas First Baptist, tri ... More >>

Dallas City Hall gets whopped upside the head for its low-income housing policy.

Top 10 Schutze Columns of '10

​Nothing slow about us, but just when you thought my third annual list of Schutze's best columns wouldn't take shape, Jim's check finally cleared, so I took the time to look back at his fine work throughout the year and picked out the 10 that made me fall in love with him all over again. As in ... More >>

Head of Economic Development Explains $2 Million Grant Proposed for North Oak Cliff

Click to embiggen the map of the area that would be impacted by the proposed $2 million economic development grant.​On Friday we sneak-peeked that proposed $2-million economic development grant proposal intended to "support emerging development opportunities in North Oak Cliff." Before Wednesday's ... More >>

City Expects $2 Mil In Federal Money Will Spur Development Around Four Light-Rail Stations

The Hatcher Station, one of four light-rail stations identified as by the city as a recipient of the feds' grant announced this morning​This morning we've received several press releases from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Transportation announcing ... More >>

How Affordable Is Downtown Dallas Housing? We Send Our Intern to Find Out.

Photos by Elliot Kaiser​Note from Jim: In the last week of April I asked the city to tell me how many guaranteed low-income housing units are available in downtown Dallas. There should be lots of them by now -a a couple thousand by some estimates -- because over the decades, the city has used hu ... More >>

Congo Street Initiative Feted By AIA, HUD For Restoring "Integrity" to Community

AIA/HUDBefore and after along Congo Street​Till a Friend of Unfair Park just pointed it out, I hadn't seen mention made anywhere of Brent Brown and bcWORKSHOP's accolade handed out a few days back by the American Institute of Architects and the U.S. Housing and Urban Development. Brown's Congo Str ... More >>

City Hall Had Better Look Over Its Shoulder Because HUD Is Ready To Kick Some Fair-Housing Butt.

A Fond Farewell for M. Thomas Lardner, Uptown Developer and Downtown Visionary

Tom Lardner​This morning's daily newspaper provided a sad occasion to reflect on downtown Dallas. Tom Lardner, an early developer of Dallas's Uptown district, died May 24. His classified-ad death notice is in The Dallas Morning News today but no editorial obituary has appeared yet. I had lunch wit ... More >>

Locked Out of LTV Tower Redo, Developer Sends City Council a Very Pointed Letter Today

​Curtis Lockey and Craig MacKenzie, erstwhile developers of the LTV Tower 1600 Pacific Building and subjects of my column in the current edition of the paper, have sent to Dallas City Council members and city staffers a letter alleging deliberate discrimination against low-income persons and famil ... More >>

City Hall's Desire For A Fancy Downtown (Without Too Many Poor People) Costs Developers $30 Million

What in the Wide World of Sports Does a HUD Secretary Know About Levee Safety?

HUD deputy secretary Ron Sims has quite the résumé, but what does any of it have to do with the Trinity River?​Unintentionally hilarious item in The Dallas Morning News today: "Council's Frustration Spills Over," by Rudy Bush on the Metro front, in which council member par excellence Ron Natinsk ... More >>

Just How in the Heck Does the City Decide How to Spend Federal CDBG Money Anyway?

​Tomorrow, the city council will take a long, hard look at how federal community development block grants are spent -- or, in this case, not. According to the briefing document, there are 109  already approved projects and programs still sitting on $7 million in federal money that was suppose ... More >>

The City's Still Trying to Skate on Southern Skates, But HUD Will Have Last Word

​No need to recap the sad history of Southern Skates -- our October 19 item about the beleaguered roller rink on East Ledbetter Drive should bring latecomers up to speed, while old-timers know the song by heart. With that, second verse same as the first: The council's Economic Development Committe ... More >>

HUD Money, or: If You Think You've Heard the Last of Southern Skates, Oh, Guess Again.

Maybe Dwaine Caraway's right -- keeping Southern Skates open seems a whole lot easier than trying to sell it.​Dwaine Caraway wants Southern Skates kept open; Vonciel Jones Hill, in whose district the skating rink on East Ledbetter Drive actually sits, is among those who'd prefer it closed -- or, b ... More >>

City, Hamiltons to Rework Atmos Complex Deal in Hopes of Jump-Starting Development

The Atmos Complex, which the Hamiltons are still intending to develop behind the Statler Hilton​Larry and Ted Hamilton took control of the four-building Atmos Complex, situated almost directly behind the Statler Hilton, a little more than a year ago, after Forest City got tired of paying penalties ... More >>

Everyone Get Out on the Floor! It's an All Skate as City, Yet Again, Ponders Rink's Fate.

Southern Skates​The first time we wrote about Southern Skates on E. Ledbetter Road was a month after Europe agreed go with the euro, a month before Saving Private Ryan opened and six months before the House impeached Bill Clinton. In other words, a million years ago. Back then, former Black Panthe ... More >>

Forest City's "Not Ready" For Mercantile Continental to Become Landmark. Or Apartments Either. Not Just Yet.

Flickr photo: JVanTJim Truitt, Forest City's vice president of residential development, called me back today to discuss yesterday's meeting of the Landmark Commission's Designation Committee, which did indeed vote to re-initiate the historic designation process for both the Mercantile Continental Bu ... More >>

Gustav Isn't Screwing Around, and Neither is the City of Dallas

Stonewall Jackson's Out

Fantroy, Guilty as Charged

"For the Love of Money": Or, Alphonso Jackson Takes a Gamble

Alphonso Jackson and His Wife Know a Lot of People, Sounds Like

More Than a Year Later, Alphonso Jackson's Still Being Investigated

Housing the Homeless, How Novel

A Lott of Work to Do at DHA

No Room at the Inn (Well, Apartment Complex, But, You Know)

The DHA Mess? It's Getting Messier.

Pie in the Sky

The Allure of Azure

Harwood builds a fancy condo tower without a nickel in handouts from City Hall

Sweep Legal? Oh, That's Richie.

Actionable Jackson

Someplace Like Home

Does Miami hold the key to solving Dallas' downtown homeless problem? Maybe, but it's a very expensive key.

Houses Divided

A fight over public housing pits working-class East Dallas homeowners against their poorer neighbors in a battle tainted by claims of racism

Unscrewed

Grenadier wards off injunction, says its Gaston Avenue rehab is back on track

Spinning wheels

Fahim Minkah cleared one set of hurdles to build a South Dallas skating rink, only to have the city put more in front of him

Union busting

Managers of a publicly subsidized apartment complex try to shut down tenant organizers

Gimme Shelter

With public housing under assault from Congress, the Justice Department, and HUD, Dallas tenants' advocate Alice Basey is part of a grassroots movement fighting to keep poor families from going homeless

A Dream Deferred

Former Black Panther Fahim Minkah seeks redemption for a drug-infested neighborhood, but the Southern Dallas Development Corporation turns its back

Fee fight

For lawyers, beating the city is only the beginning

Early thaw

Hope is renewed for four downtown housing projects

Bad landlord

HUD audit urges ouster of firm targeted in Observer story