Archive for category Galveston Daily News
GHA plan builds homes for kids, not free gifts for junkies
Posted by Alice Melott in Galveston Daily News on June 23, 2012
Don’t be sucked in by shrieking meanies crying “FOUL” on the GHA’s plan for affordable housing. They are NOT telling you the truth. Rebuilding the lost units as stand-alone structures will create homes for children, not free gifts to junkies. The vitriol on the Galveston Daily News comment boards is just unremitting hatefulness.
And to the person who told me that we shouldn’t have public housing on a barrier island because during an evacuation it would be “such a burden for those without transportation or a place to go when they leave,” I say watch your back. What are you going to say when somebody decides you’re too OLD to evacuate yourself? Are you prepared to move? Your argument puts the notion of efficiency before the people’s desire to live where they were born, grew up, lived and loved. There are Central and West Texas legislators who feel exactly the same way you do. But they say that the island has had its windstorm rates subsidized for way too long, so get ready for a 200% rate hike.
I wonder if you see a distinction between you (the worthy) and lower income folks (unworthy)?
Galveston run-off a malevolent referendum on the poor
Posted by Alice Melott in Galveston Daily News, The Storm on June 21, 2012
Dear Galveston:
Insomuch as this year’s election has become solely a referendum on the Galveston Housing Authority’s strategy for low-income and affordable housing, and the Mayor’s support of that, I sincerely hope that readers of the Galveston Daily News recognize that a small cadre of selfish, merciless, pernicious people dominate the comment sections of those editorial pages, and most sensitive, considerate Galvestonians have opted not to engage with them. The naysayers are neither representative nor correct. They are merely loudest.
I hope, too, that the silent majority makes the effort to get out and vote for Mayor Jaworski in Saturday’s run-off election. There is no question of competence and leadership here. The only question is whether or not Galveston will improve the manner in which they help those who need it or become a national symbol of malevolence.
Hurricane Ike taught so many of us what it feels like to be helpless. How quickly we forget.
Mayor Jaworski is not a liar
Posted by Alice Melott in Galveston Daily News on February 8, 2012
As published in The Galveston Daily News February 8, 2012:
Candidate Joe Jaworski said “no more projects.” The Galveston Housing Authority Board is pursuing legally required rebuilding of the low-income homes through scattered-site and mixed-income development. That’s the opposite of multiunit projects.
He promised not to ignore poverty. The mixed-income plan not only gives eligible residents incentive to kick it up a notch, the board created a point preference system that ranks veterans, seniors, disabled people and heads of household who work, train or study 30-plus hours a week high on the waiting list.
Folks who work in our restaurants and hotels, change the beds at the University of Texas Medical Branch and mow the esplanades can live here. Their families can populate our churches and Little League games, buy groceries and live life here rather than somewhere else. Working people will live in these homes.
Finally, he promised more accountability. The board makes stringent eligibility requirements for tenants, goes after slumlords abusing the Section 8 program and delegates operation of more than half the required units to a national leader in mixed-income management. You might not agree with the mayor about GHA, but that doesn’t make him a liar. Alas, we can’t always get what we want. Accepting that is part of being a grown-up.
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Cyber-squeaking = not helpful
Posted by Alice Melott in Galveston Daily News on January 22, 2012
I moved from Galveston to Atlanta last February. I love my island and quickly adopted the habit of reading the Galveston Daily News online a couple of times a week to appease my homesickness.
It didn’t take long for me to notice a pattern in the online comments about a few apparently salacious subjects: the democratically elected yet unpaid Mayor & City Council, who should live on the island and who should pick them (seriously?), East End-West End relations, Houston area collaboration, progress in general… okay, change of any kind. The public remarks were and are consistently negative, critical, angry, bitter, regressive, and completely not helpful. It made me sad to think the island that showed so much promise and was given seemingly endless opportunity to improve after Hurricane Ike was instead in the radical free-fall that the comments implied.
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Alice Melott, cyber bullies, Galveston, Galveston after Ike, Galveston Daily News paper, Joe Jaworski, online comments
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