联邦官员威胁要在哈维飓风飓风袭击后的风暴缓解项目基金中分发了10亿美元的德克萨斯州法院，声称在该过程中对黑人和西班牙裔和西班牙裔居民歧视的州机构。

The U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) shared its findings in aMarch 4 letterfollowing complaints by Houston-area advocates last year that the Texas General Land Office (GLO) had used discriminatory criteria for itsHurricane Harvey State Mitigation Competition.

The competition was funded using part of the $4.3 billion HUD allocated for disaster assistance and mitigation in Texas after Hurricane Harvey caused widespread damage along parts of the Gulf Coast.

“该部门发现，竞争的设计和运作是根据种族和国家的基础歧视，”克里斯蒂娜·刘易斯，哈德的区域主任国家的来信。“Glo利用了两次得分标准，即基本上和可预测的弱势群体居民，对黑人居民特别不同地存在。”

There is still another $1 billion allocated for a second round of the competition that has not yet been held, according to HUD. The agency wants GLO to agree to a voluntary resolution that would “address the discriminatory outcomes of the competition as well as adopt enhanced fair housing planning and monitoring metrics.” Otherwise, HUD will refer the matter to the U.S. Justice Dept., the letter states.

In Harris County, home to Houston, County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement that vulnerable communities have been left behind in flood mitigation efforts, and that the county would continue to invest in shovel-readyflood mitigation projects.Hidalgo补充说，她感谢HUD的干预。

“它并不复杂：哈里斯县为飓风哈维的闭心的影响而被归零，并继续受到脆弱的影响，”Hidalgo说。“我们从联邦政府收到的缓解基金的份额应该反映这种现实。”

A GLO spokesperson said in a statement that the office administered its competition in accordance with HUD guidance and a HUD-approved plan, and that more than two-thirds of Texans benefiting from the program identified as Hispanic. They claimed HUD is “politicizing mitigation.”

“Glo正在考虑所有选项，包括针对HUD的法律诉讼，释放这种熨斗攻击性资金，并恢复社区的资金管道，”发言人说。

HUD确定了GLO竞争的方式的两个主要问题。首先，Glo将$ 10亿美元的锅分成两件500万美元的碎片，一个人在20个县和10个邮政编码HUD被确定为最受影响和痛苦的（中间）区域，另一个29个县18luck官网被确定为中部区域。HUD规则要求至少有一半的资金益处低收入或中等收入的人，并且至少有一半的资金利益中段。HUD说，它确定的中部区域包括竞争区居民的约88％，但Glo选定的区域的居民不太可能具有低收入或中等收入，更有可能成为白色非西班牙裔人。结果，对于该地区的白人非西班牙裔居民可以从中受益，西班牙裔美国人居民只能从84美分中受益，黑居民只有72美分，哈德说。

The second issue HUD identified was the way GLO scored the jurisdictions applying for funding, which benefited smaller communities that HUD says were more likely to be home to more White non-Hispanic residents. GLO gave higher scores based on the proportion of a community a jurisdiction said its project would benefit. In one case identified by the letter, the city of Iola, with a population of just 379, received a 10 out of 10 score because the city’s proposal would benefit all its residents. But an application for a project in Houston was scored at less than one point because, while it would have benefited 8,845 people, that’s just a small piece of the city’s population of 2.3 million. Also, funding was capped at $100 million per project, limiting the scope of work for larger communities like Houston and Harris County, HUD says. Further, applicants were limited to claiming project beneficiaries in just one watershed per project, benefiting small communities located entirely within one watershed and preventing those like Houston that span multiple watersheds from achieving a positive score on the metric.

Harris County accounts for 51% of the competition's eligible population, but projects in the county received just 9% of the money, HUD says. Projects proposed by the county itself and Houston were denied funding. Other large jurisdictions including Jefferson and Nueces counties also received no money. GLO denied 66 of the 67 applications from jurisdictions with populations over 100,000.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement that he agrees with HUD’s findings and that the city is still asking for a proportional share of the flood mitigation funds.

“当飓风来,和极端天气事件happen, they are not looking for a Democratic or Republican city or neighborhood,” Turner said. “In Hurricane Harvey, it did not matter if you lived in a poor or affluent community or Democratic or Republican neighborhood.”

其他来源为该地区的洪水缓解项目提供了资金。18luck官网哈里斯县选民批准了25亿美元bond program2018年资助数百个项目。18luck官网美国军队的工程兵团正在沿着海湾沿岸的几个项目与Glo合作，其中包括拟议的290亿美元的项目，以建立跨导航渠道的障碍和大门，以防守18luck官网部分Gulf Coastagainst storm surge.

David Wheaton, advocacy director of Texas Housers, one of the groups that filed the complaint with HUD, said they had publicly raised objections to GLO’s competition throughout the process, but that the “pleas fell on deaf ears.” After the awards were announced and didn’t include money for communities battered by Hurricane Harvey like Houston, Port Arthur, Beaumont and Corpus Christi, Texas Housers and Northeast Action Collective filed a civil rights complaint with HUD.

HUD is also continuing to investigate alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act raised by the groups.