The Homeless Train
I don’t like arrogant politicians like Houston City Councilmember Twila Carter, who accused me at a city council meeting of trying to “incite the community.” “I hope you can sleep at night,” she told me. She’s the one who helped keep taxpayers in the dark about a questionable real estate deal for a temporary homeless shelter for the most dangerous homeless men on our streets. And the last people to find out? The people who live around the place. By the way… I sleep just fine.
The Homeless Train
Look at all the folks who crowded into a meeting in EaDo, they are pissed off.
“Everyone in this room is here because we are worried about our business,” Cassie Batson said.
And who could blame them?
“That’s why we’re here because we’re sick and tired of the city always dumping on us.”
They’re about to be surrounded by some of the city’s most dangerous homeless folks, a new shelter that will be open 24 hours a day.
Right in the shadow of the Shell soccer stadium, on the eve of the World Cup.
Folks are scared.
“This has come as a major shock to me. I am very, just irate about this,” Batson said.
Why did the Houston mayor and city council keep them in the dark? What an insult to taxpayers.
“Everybody that I’ve told in the community had no idea,” Batson said.
We are about to show you why this 16 million dollar real estate deal stinks.
“It seems like a misuse of funds in my opinion,” Elizabeth Spivey said.
Why it could backfire, potentially ruin investment in EaDo.
“Nobody, none of you, want to live with next door neighbors who are severely mentally ill, struck out on drugs, or accused criminals on bond walking in and out of the place day and night. None of you do,” Wayne Dolcefino told the camera.
“Disruptors have been hired to come and spread misinformation,” Mayor Whitmire said.
“Thanks for the shout out, Mayor, someone has to be the disruptor. And we are fighting for a neighborhood that quite frankly could be ruined if council members vote yes,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“I get along with most people.”
“I’ll be the mean guy here,” Dolcefino said.
“I’m a pretty personable guy.”
“Some people will say not in my backyard. and I’ll say your damn right. So, Mayor, I don’t know where you live—you wouldn’t want it near your house either,” Dolcefino said.
You’re watching an out-of-control freight train, and they usually crash.
A freight train is exactly what folks in Houston’s East Downtown are now facing.
“Mayor John Whitmire making it clear to Two Investigates there is no stopping an adults-only superhub homeless center being established in East Downtown,” Mario Diaz said.
“No way to stop it? That’s not right. The Whitmire administration talked a lot about transparency after the secretive Turner administration. So what happened on this deal,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“But the administration has broken its promise of transparency this time to the folks who call EaDo home for decades,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“Folks who have brought their business here, have investments in new homes,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“So this is very upsetting that it’s going to be right across the street,” Elizabeth Spivey said.
The timeline of this freight train is important.
It was October 6th when the Houston Texas Housing Director Mike Nichols dropped the EaDo bombshell for the first time.
“419 Emancipation. I know there’s a lot of interest in that, some confusion on it, and we hope to do some of that clarification,” Mike Nichols said.
And whether you liked it or not, Houston taxpayers were told we were going to spend 16 million dollars to buy this building at 419 Emancipation.
Expect another 10 to 14 million dollars to run the place every year.
A temporary shelter to triage the most dangerous of the homeless population. Criminals who are not even allowed in other shelters.
Accused murderers… molesters.
The severely mentally ill. Drug addicts who need a fix and aren’t above stealing for it.
And the mayor was giving East End Downtown residents a whopping seven days public notice before a scheduled vote by City Council.
That vote was delayed after the local news got involved.
But just until Wednesday, October 22.
“ I would never do anything that would harm this community,” Mayor Whitmire said.
Two days before the scheduled vote, the mayor held a press conference and a tour to try to make all of us feel better about our real estate buy.
“I want to be held accountable,” Mayor Whitmire said.
The property owner and the city refused to let our camera in.
“The city is taking the position that we don’t own this building and we, in advance, made an arrangement with the owner of the property and managers of the building. And we said very clearly that it was open to participants,” Mary Benton said.
The mayor has gotten beaten up in the last few days.
And his administration looked kind of desperate to try to justify to the folks in the East Downtown area what they were doing.
Watch the city housing director lose his cool with folks who paying his salary.
Even the EaDo Management District Board, which collects tax money to help improve the quality of life around here, got no advance warning of the coming superhub for the homeless.
“We learned of this through the news when it came out,” Elizabeth Whitton said.
“Why don’t we do what we seem to do best… follow the money,” Dolcefino told the camera.
The owner of this building is 419 Hope Partners LLC, and the only listed manager on the Secretary of State records is David Denenburg.
Wait a minute.
He’s a member of the EaDo Management District Board, has been for nine years.
“We are aware that he does own the property, but he is doing this as a private property owner and not as a member of the district’s board,” Elizabeth Whitton said.
Denenburg skipped the meeting and has ignored our calls.
The two-acre site was bought by his investment company back in 2017.
And last year Denenburg’s company sued the Appraisal District, claiming the property on Emancipation was actually worth 6 million.
In May of this year, that lawsuit was settled for 5.95 million.
“Mayor Whitmire, can we talk to you about how much the city is paying 16 million for a property the owner says isn’t worth that?” Andrea Palacio said.
“I’m very pleased, thank you,” Mayor Whitmire said.
“It’s just too much money. I mean, a wiser decision could be made,” Steve Brown said.
The city only got one independent appraisal, the owner got one too, but you’re supposed to get three appraisals.
The city claims the Homeland Security Department wants to buy this place too.
“So let me get this straight, there is some kind of bidding war going on, government versus government, driving up the price, and there is a member of the board that manages this neighborhood who is going to make millions on the deal,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Here’s one problem, City Housing Director Mike Nichols may simply be too close to this deal to judge impartially.
Before becoming the City Housing Director, he was the head of Houston’s Coalition for the Homeless.
A local umbrella organization for the homeless that plans to spend 167 million in three years on the homeless.
We’ve dealt with Mr. Nichols before while we tried to investigate spending of COVID funds on the homeless.
He wouldn’t help us.
But the latest tax return from the coalition shows they had more than 19 million dollars in assets.
So, why don’t we let them pay for the place.
You know who the homeless coalition’s biggest independent contractor was last year while Mr. Nichols ran it.
Fat Property.
They owned an absolute criminal horror show apartment complex just a few doors down from my company headquarters.
Police were called there hundreds of times. It’s the place that kept making the news.
A study by the non-profit Nichols used to run revealed that as many as 40 percent of the homeless folks in downtown Houston wouldn’t say yes when offered the chance to be in a home.
The shelters are only 70 percent full, vacant apartments getting government tax breaks should house most of those who want help.
“Even the city admits that less than 250 of the homeless folks will even fit in here at full capacity,” Dolcefino told the camera.
The superhub may reduce the homeless population downtown but only by a small fraction, moving the problem just across the freeway into EaDo doesn’t solve anything
“You won’t be dealing with urination on the street. You won’t be dealing with nudity. These folks will get the help they so badly need,” Mayor Whitmire said.
“The homeless won’t be held here against their will. And history is pretty clear, show me an adult male temporary homeless shelter that doesn’t have folks roaming around outside,” Dolcefino told the camera.
The homeless have already started showing up at Settegast Park in EaDo.
This is the very kind of freight train Texas lawmakers tried to make illegal this year.
Conversions of buildings into homeless shelters require ninety days’ notice to neighbors, a public hearing.
It was a homeless project in the City of Austin that triggered the new law.
The concerns seem very familiar.
None of that public disclosure has happened here on this rushed real estate deal on Emancipation.
Although we learned today that councilwoman Twila Carter has been working on this property deal for six months keeping the neighborhood totally in the dark.
“Councilwoman Carter brought it to our attention 6 months ago,” Mayor Whitmire said.
Now is the time for Houston City Councilmembers to be counted, to examine first the spiraling costs for all this.
There are alternatives and it may be cheaper, over on Sampson a few miles away there is a now vacant HISD school, it has bathrooms, showers, a place to eat too.
And maybe we should look toward San Antonio for better answers, where the Haven for Hope is operating a shelter not for a couple of hundred but for nearly 1,700.
And a way cheaper price than what we are paying here.
But this is not just about money, we are waiting to see who will vote to knowingly send dangerous homeless folks into a neighborhood that at the same time is getting huge investments for redevelopment.
Cassie Baston speaks for a lot of them.
“We live in here. We have worked hard to invest in the community, to clean up the area, we want to live here forever, and this has come as a major shock to me,” Baston said.
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