Dallas Accused of Violating Federal Housing Rules Again, as Investigations Keep Coming
Dallas City Hall is winding itself tighter into a legal snare on federal housing issues. Two shoes dropped before the holiday. Pretty bad shoes.
The city attorney informed the City Council that it has been accused of jerking around an existing low-income housing project near the Galleria Mall in North Dallas, trying to get it to move away. This is after and in spite of countless closed-door lawyer briefings warning the council that picking on federally subsidized low-income housing — especially trying to steer it away from affluent areas — is what the feds call “racial segregation.”
Remember, this is about hundreds of millions of federal dollars that the city takes from the feds. The city doesn’t have to take that money. To get it, they have to apply. They have to compete for it, in fact. So if it doesn’t want to get into trouble with federal housing law, all the city has to do is not apply for, not compete for and not take federal housing money.
Just don’t take the money. But if you do take the money, if you sign a contract promising to obey federal law, if you swear every year that you’re still obeying the law, and if you openly and flagrantly violate the law, then you are an idiot.
Read more: http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-accused-of-violating-federal-housing-rules-again-as-investigations-keep-coming-9020624