Cite 76 cover

Editor’s Note

Cite 76 was guested edited by Susan Rogers. In "Building the American Dream: The Politics of Housing," Rogers writes:

Fear and uncertainty have gripped the nation as the market rises and falls in the wake of the mortgage mess. It is becoming clear that the cost of the housing crisis will be measured not in billions but in trillions. Numbers most of us can’t comprehend. A persistent anomaly, and once defined as the boomiest and bustiest of cities, Houston so far stands apart in this crisis. The economy continues to exhibit elasticity—buoyed by (the diminishing) windfall profits of the energy industry—and the low cost of living. However, our housing problems are real and a drive through Houston’s most neglected neighborhoods illustrates this clearly. The cost of rental housing has increased nearly 30 percent in the last eight years, foreclosures in Harris County are averaging over 1,000 a month, and one in five households (totaling nearly 300,000 households) in the Houston region cannot afford fair market rent on a two-bedroom apartment. Initiatives in Houston such as the 99K House Competition and the joint program of Houston Hope and the Land Assemblage Redevelopment Authority are boosting the tireless efforts of our nonprofit community housing organizations to provide affordable housing in the city. Yet however laudable their efforts, the scale is simply not proportionate to the need, especially given the larger framework of a failed national housing policy that provides no support. Thousands of families in Houston and more throughout the country will find that while they were looking the other way, the social safety net was pulled out from beneath them. Talk of the Great Depression and a new New Deal has become commonplace as we look backward to understand how we might move forward.

Susan Rogers

Contributors

Reginal Adams; Christa Forster; Troy Gooden; Nonya Grenader; Antonio Jocson; Madeleine McDermott Hamm; Raj Mankad; Barry Moore; Thomas L. McKittrick; Susan Rogers; Barrie Scardino; Ronnie Self; Sandy Sheehy; and Christof Spieler.