Section 8 no reason to shut doors

Texas law gives apartment owners the right to reject an application from anyone who relies on government aid to pay the rent.

That has made Houston one of the most economically segregated cities in the country, according to the Pew Research Center. And experts know that nothing contributes more to keeping people in poverty than forcing them to live in lousy neighborhoods with under- performing schools.

Compounding the problem in Houston, eight of the federally subsidized apartment complexes that welcome residents who rely on so-called Section 8 assistance are in flood zones, according to an investigative report the Chronicle published last year.

When my colleague Rebecca Elliott asked the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last year why taxpayer dollars were paying for 900 families to live in floodplains, the answer was shockingly frank.

“We simply have no choice — people need a roof over their heads,” HUD spokeswoman Patricia Campbell said in an email. “While the risk landscape is dynamic, housing is fixed, and there’s precious little of it, especially for those who need it most.”

Harvey damaged or destroyed hundreds of these units, sending hundreds into shelters. And with so few apartment owners willing to accept Section 8 vouchers, these families will be the most dificult to relocate, especially since many are senior citizens or disabled.

Families with Section 8 vouchers will also have to compete with the thousands of middle-class families that lost their homes to the flood. HUD will issue emergency vouchers to these families, but they are easily distinguished from people who rely on long-term aid.

The key question for Houston is whether apartment building owners, who suflered from high vacancy rates before the storm, will change their policies and accept low-income, government- subsidized tenants. Or will they only accept the middle class, and force the poor to seek out sub-standard housing in the city’s more dangerous parts?

If you own or operate an apartment building in a good neighborhood, nothing you could do following Harvey would help more than renting to a low-income tenant. Because nothing does more to lift a family out of poverty than moving into a better neighborhood.

Poor children who moved into a low-poverty neighborhood were more likely to go to college and they earned 31 percent more later in life than children who stayed in a poor neighborhood living in government-owned housing, according to a 2015 study by Harvard economists.

“The results of this study demonstrate that oflering low-income families housing vouchers and assistance in moving to lower-poverty neighborhoods has substantial benefits for the families themselves and for taxpayers,” the authors concluded. “It appears important to target such housing vouchers to families with young children — perhaps even at birth — to maximize the benefits.”

In normal times, the rich and the poor rarely interact, or even see one another. About a quarter of high-income families live in high-income neighborhoods, while 37 percent of low-income families live in low-income neighborhoods, making Houston the most economically segregated city among the country’s 10 largest metro areas, according to the Pew Center.

Disaster changed that.

Houstonians from all walks of life pitched in when Harvey’s floodwaters drove tens of thousands of people from their homes, both rich and poor. People who normally would never encounter each other in their daily lives were thrust together and equally humbled by nature’s power.

If Harvey burst the bubbles that we live within, then can we agree not to build them back up? If capitalism allows the rich to gentrify poor neighborhoods, can compassion integrate those displaced into high-opportunity neighborhoods?

Many states make it illegal to discriminate against someone based on their source of income. Houston and other cities have talked about introducing such ordinances in Texas, but the Legislature stepped in to make that impossible.

That leaves it up to the owners and managers of rental properties to do the right thing. To make a contribution to making our city stronger, both in the short and long term. Yet another test of whether #HoustonStrong is a slogan or a promise.

Chris Tomlinson is the Chronicle’s business columnist. chris. tomlinson@chron.com twitter.com/cltomlinsonwww.houstonchronicle.com/author/chris-tomlinson