Houston Democratic State Representative Hubert Vo Owns A Slum Property

Houston-area Democratic state representative Hubert Vo owns an apartment building that appears to suffer from slum conditions.

This property has been cited by the City of Houston for these slum conditions.

From the Houston Chronicle article about the slum citation—

City building inspectors on Wednesday issued several safety citations against an East End apartment complex owned by state Rep. Hubert Vo.

The citations to the Courtyard Apartments on Villa de Matel allege eight structural and electrical problems, including rotting wood, missing balcony railings, loose boards and broken windows, city officials said.

“There were the kinds of things you’d see in a building that has not been well-maintained,” said Susan McMillian, a senior staff analyst in the city’s Public Works and Engineering Department. “It needed more intense maintenance than what had been done.”

Homeowners in the nearby County Club neighborhood have complained about the property for years, calling it a visual blight and a magnet for crime.

“It’s really a deplorable situation, and the sad thing is that people are actually living there,” said Charles Mayfield, a member of the area’s Super Neighborhood Council. “It’s really disheartening to see, and surprising, to say the least, that anybody — no matter who they are — would let the property get into such a condition.”

Vo, a Democrat running for re-election to his southwest Houston seat in the Texas House, has owned the four-building, $2.8 million property under one of his companies, Newlink Investments, Inc., since 2002.

Here is a Chronicle blog post by city reporter Matt Stiles that has pictures of the apartment building.   

A frequent theme of this blog is that city voters have the right to expect more from Democrats than just being pimped for votes at election time. 

How did this building get into such a state of poor repair to start? How about a push for more inspectors and better enforcement from our Democratic Mayor and Democrats on Houston City Council?

I don’t live in Mr. Vo’s district. If I did I would not vote for either Mr. Vo or his Republican opponent in November. 

This is all the worse coming from Mr. Vo because his winning the seat over the very obnoxious Republican incumbent Talmadge Heflin was such a great victory.   

This is not about private conduct by Mr. Vo. He has a public responsibility to the people who live in his building and to the public as a whole to keep this building in good condition. 

I’m not having any more of voting for Democrats at the municipal or urban level when they have a hand in the seemingly never-ending decline and neglect of America’s cities.  

I don’t know if we need a third-party, or a competitive Republican party in our cities, or a new Marcus Garvey to lead people out of a society that does not care if city folk live or die.

Maybe what we need is a better Democratic party.

I do know that we don’t need Hubert Vo.