Envy Apartment

September 27, 2005 | By Joe Newman, Sentinel Staff Writer When Lesley Brown got her first job out of college, she figured it was time to move out of the cramped house she shared with three other people. But finding something Brown, 22, could afford near the Lockheed Martin facility on Sand Lake Road was another matter. At $950 a month, even a small one-bedroom apartment was out of reach for the University of Central Florida graduate . At that price, she would have been spending much more than a third of her salary on rent. "I was definitely surprised by the prices," Brown said. "The market soared out of my reach." Finding an affordable rental in Central Florida is becoming a Herculean challenge. Two of every five renters in Orange, Seminole, Polk and Volusia counties spent 35 percent or more of their monthly income on housing in 2004, according to a recent U.S. census report. The bureau did not track Osceola County . More than half of all renters in Orange, Semi...

A new article about the department of Housing and Urban Development called “Is Anybody Home At HUD?” says: “HUD has long been something of an overlooked stepchild within the federal government. Founded in 1965 in a burst of Great Society resolve to confront the “urban crisis,” it has seen its manpower slide by more than half since the Reagan Revolution.” The piece, co-published by New York Magazine and ProPublica, profiles HUD Secretary Ben Carson and outlines how pending cuts to the agency will affect programs that serve millions of Americans on the brink of poverty. Journalist Alec MacGillis writes : “For a White House that swept to power on a wave of racially tinged rural resentment and anti-welfare sentiment, high on the demolition list might be a department with “urban” in its name. The administration’s preliminary budget outline had already signaled deep cuts for HUD. And Donald Trump had chosen to lead the department someone with zero experience in government or social p...

Juan Parras gives one hell of a tour of Houston’s east side. He’s charming and funny. Wearing a beret, he strikes an old-world look, like he might lead you to a cafe on a plaza. He doesn’t charge a fee for his services. After all, you’re on a “toxic tour,” and Parras is on a mission. Parras grew up in 1950s West Texas . He remembers segregated schools, the restaurants that wouldn’t serve him, the unpaved roads, and the people who lived closest to the local refinery . Those experiences led him to a career as a social justice advocate . The resident of Houston’s heavily industrial east side has worked in a city housing department , for a union, for a law clinic, and on a campaign that stopped a PVC factory from being built in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” For the last decade, he has served as executive director of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (better known as t.e.j.a.s.). Part of his work is leading tours past the heaping piles of scrap metal along Houston’s Buffalo Ba...