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3.18.2009

RFP: Hope VI Grant Application, Revitalization Plan and Program Management Services

RFP: Hope VI Grant Application, Revitalization Plan and Program Management Services:
The Houston Housing Authority hereby solicits proposals from qualified professional consulting firms to provide services for the Development of a Hope VI Grant Application, Revitalization Plan and provide Program Management Services for the revitalization of Kennedy Place and Kelly Village Housing Developments as specified in RFP No. 09-02.

Interested offerors may obtain the Request for Proposals package by contacting:ANNA SIMOTASPURCHASING OFFICERHOUSTON HOUSING AUTHORITY2640 FOUNTAINVIEW, SUITE 408HOUSTON, TEXAS 77057(713) 260-0554 FAX: (713) 260-0556

The Request for Proposals is available on the Internet at http://www.housingforhouston.com/.

The Pre-Proposal Conference is rescheduled for Thursday, February 12, 2009, at 3:00 p.m. (CST) in the Houston Housing Authority Boardroom, 4th Floor, 2640 Fountainview, Houston, TX 77057.


The proposals must reach the Houston Housing Authority no later than 4:00 P.M. (CST) on February 18, 2009. Proposals received after the deadline will be rejected unless the conditions allowed for late submittals exist for consideration as specified in the RFP.

A Fair Housing and Equal Employment Opportunity Agency. For assistance: Individuals with disabilities may contact the 504/ADA Administrator at 713-260-0528, TTY 713-260-0547 or 504_ADA@housingforhouston.com

3.17.2009

The Housing Crisis - "Older Americans are getting whacked twice,"

Sylvia Merlin, 94 (© MSN Money)

At 94, Sylvia Merlin is stuck.

MSN reports in it's article, Seniors crushed by housing crisis, the widow can't sell her home or fall back on her investments. She's lost $200,000 in the stock market since the beginning of 2008, she says. Like a growing number of seniors, she's been unable to move into the retirement community she had planned to because of the shattered housing market and her dwindling retirement portfolio.

And Merlin is running out of time: Her health is deteriorating, and her home is increasingly unlivable.
94 and nowhere to go

"Older Americans are getting whacked twice," says Thomas Shapiro, the director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University, and the co-author of a study titled "Living Longer on Less." "Home equity, which is their largest reservoir of wealth and their largest expense, has taken a tremendous hit. Portfolios have taken the same hit as everyone else, but seniors don't have the same length of time to dig themselves out."

Elderly Americans with fixed incomes are increasingly being compelled to make seemingly impossible decisions, Shapiro says, such as choosing between paying their housing bills or their medical costs.

More than 54% of all senior households "do not have sufficient financial resources to meet median projected expenses based on their current financial net worth, projected Social Security and pension incomes," according to the Brandeis study.

Some seniors are moving in with their children because they can't pay all the bills. Census reports show multigenerational families are on the rise in part, experts say, because of the housing and larger economic crisis. An estimated 3.6 million parents (not all of them elderly) live with their adult children, according to 2007 census data, up from 2.3 million in 2000, an increase of 57%. In those households, the number of parents 65 and older was up 62%.

Others are turning to reverse mortgages, loans available for seniors 62 and older that allow them to get cash based on the value of their home with no monthly mortgage payments. Such a loan is repaid out of proceeds from the eventual sale of the home or from the borrower's estate after his or her death. More HERE