ustxtxb_obs_1982_07_09_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

TEXAS SERVER July 9, 1982 A Journal of Free Voices 75 40 Two Houston Women “We’ll be told we’re cutting too deep .. . 99 By Joe Holley HoUston I t’s too pat, I realize, this journalistic conceit I’m about to construct; nevertheless, two women I @ncountered in Houston recently, purely by coincidence, stick in my mind. Hilda Davis is a short, sturdy-looking woman in her 60’s whose bountiful breasts beneath a shapeless cotton dress rest easily at her waist. Her dark perspiring face, framed by tufts of gray hair, smiles easily. On this hot and humid summer morning the day the President comes to town she is pulling weeds in her patch of yard at Allen Parkway Village. Her grandson plays by himself on the back steps. Allen Parkway Village, a few blocks west of downtown Houston, is one of the older and more decrepit of the city’s housing projects. Thirty percent of Mrs. Davis’ neighbors in the 1300-unit project row after row of dilapidated, yellowbrick 2-story buildings are black; these days almost 70% are recent \\Viet namese immigrants, few of whom can speak English. A walk through the project resembles a walk down a Saigon side street, complete with the odors of frying fish, the rhythms of Oriental speech, even miniature rice paddies at each back door. Residents of Allen Parkway Village pay 25% of their income, excluding what they spend for medicine and utilities, for rent. Soon they’ll be paying 30%, with no deductions for medicine and utilities, thanks to recent guideline revisions from HUD. Mrs. Davis and her