Charles Blain - President, Urban Reform Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Six twenty three at a time here in Houston's Coorting News.
So we have Mayor John Lippmeyer, who has pulled city
funding for the Montrose Bridge lines. He wants to put
that two point six billion towards his new homelessness initiative.
I'm not sure how much funding he's been able to
put together for it. And I'm not even quite sure
what kind of power the mayor has to just pull

(00:21):
money from one project and put it into another one.
Charles Blaine joins, US President of Urban Reform. Any idea, Charles,
and what kind of mayoral power allows you to just
take money from one project and put it towards your
pet project?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, good morning, Jimmy. So that was the big part
of this conversation when it came up before council. Some
of the council members are saying they previously approve this funding,
so how can the mayor unilaterally decide to just change
that funding? And so really what was happening was he
came out and said that this was his plan and
then brought forth a change to council to then do

(00:55):
that plan. So he made the proclamation and essentially got
everyone on his side, and then kind of few well
forced councils hand to decide whether they want to fund
lights or fund homelessness initiatives.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Okay, well, I guess if you're going to look at
it from a practical standpoint, the homelessness issue in Houston
is a bigger problem in bridge lights, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I mean i'd argue the same, especially when you see
where we are today. It seems like if you go
to different parts of the city, homelessness is worse than
it's been in recent years, despite folks at the county
and otherwise claiming that it's better. And when you think
about it, two point six million dollars that was just
the city's portion of the funding for the lights. These
lights cost about six and a half six point six

(01:34):
million dollars, and so that's a lot of money, especially
if we can actually address something that's going to fix
the city city wide. Now, I hope they actually do.
You know, we often hear about homelessness initiatives and then
may see some change for a little bit and then
it goes back to normal. So I hope it's actually
something that's sustainable.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Well, that's a great point, because I think most people,
most taxpayers take a look at these situations and they say, listen,
you know, I want my taxpayer money spent on something
that I can see the results of. I just don't
want to pour millions of dollars into something as a
band aid approach that doesn't really cure the problem.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Well exactly. And if you'll recall, a couple of years ago,
Sevester marisus to Turner did a massive homelessness initiative, you know,
claim they reduced it by like sixty two percent or something,
and you know, put a lot of funding towards it,
and then you didn't really see that materialize on the ground,
although they tried to tell us that we were wrong
and our eyes were relying to us. And so I
think people are hoping that we actually see change from this.

(02:26):
And the program that he's putting together is supposed to
bring together a number of different areas. So there's going
to be city funding, some philanthropic effort from private sector businesses,
hopefully some state funding. But it's still a work in progress,
so we don't know what the final result is going
to be.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Well, we know it's going to cost a lot of money.
We know that there's a variety of different people who
want to fund it. Do we know what the initiative is,
How do they intend to try to cure the homeless issue?
What programs do they intend to put in place?

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Right what they're saying is that from their perspective, the
big issue that there are not enough constantly available bet
for the homeless, and so they're trying to make or
that there are more beds available and then use HPD
and other resources to get out to the homeless folks
and tell them what resources are available. Now, I mean,
it sounds a lot like what we've done in the past,
not just in Houston and but in a lot of
other cities as well. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

(03:15):
I think for some folks it works, and for some
folks it doesn't. And so I mean, I hope that
it's a robust effort that actually does change. But as
far as what I'm hearing now, it sounds a lot
like what has been done elsewhere and what has been done.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
In Houston before, and all that really does is give
them a place to sleep at night. It doesn't cure
the issue. They're still without a home, They're still on
the streets all day long.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Exactly exactly. I mean This is just a temporary fix
until you get them actually, whether it's a drug related
problem or something else, or just get them into a permanent,
sustainable home, You're still going to have this issue. I mean,
and this is the same thing that some other folks
were complaining about a couple of months ago, when the
city was looking at a I can't recall the name
of it, but it was an ordinance to prohibit them

(03:54):
from sleeping on certain parts of the sidewalks in public areas.
They were saying, well, this is fine for area, but
you just shift them to another area doesn't solve the
problem permanently. And so I think that's the thing that
people are hoping for. We're gonna spend a lot of money.
We want a permanent fix, let's hope. So Charles Blain,
thank you. President Reformed Charles Blaine at six twenty seven