The recent Houston Chronicle article ("Boom Puts Homes for Working Class Out of Reach" http://www.houstonchronicle.com/neighborhood/katy/news/article/As-Katy-booms-housing-scarce-for-working-class-5969182.php#/0  ) on December 21 shouldn't be missed by Katy area residents who probably were getting ready for Christmas and not reading the that day.  The author, Leah Binkovitz who has been placed by the Chronicle as Katy's touchy feely advisor, just keeps churning out leftist propaganda. 

In her article, Ms. Binkovitz has taken to task the Katy City Council for "lacking  any sort of housing program..." 

I'm guessing that the Katy City Council doesn't much appreciate Ms. Binkovitz telling them they need a "housing program." Hopefully they don't want one.

The City of Katy has been around a long time, and for Ms. Binkovitz to swoop in and start telling all of us what to do (she began last summer with the KISD bond election) is kind of arrogant and condescending.  Binkovitz appears to be from some alien place and has no idea or concept of what suburban living in Texas and specifically West Houston is all about! I've lived in Katy for 33 years, and I'm still considered a newcomer!  Katy's roots run deep, and I have great confidence in the Katy City Council to do what's right by just doing what they've been doing for decades.  While I've had my quarrels with some individual Council members over the years, the thrust of their collective actions has pretty much been spot on and has served the Katy community very well.

Ms. Binkovitz did a drive by of Katy and decided for herself without much credible evidence that there's no place for people to live who cannot afford a 1.2 million dollar house.  That's preposterous.  I was a Old Age Assistance worker for the State of Texas in 1970, and the City of Katy was part of my territory.  I can tell you that there are probably plenty of economically disadvantaged people living there now just as there were then and that there are plenty of places for them to live.  At the time, my own family lived in a 750 square foot apartment on Hillcroft with three of us for $140.00 a month. (No one shed tears either for my having to office in the Allen Parkway Village Housing Project or drive all the way to Katy for interviews with welfare recipients or for my husband to work half the night and then go to Rice all day.)  Not exactly high living, but we're all supposed to live in places that we can afford without the government, using OUR tax dollars, pitching in to up our standard of living. Ms. Binkovitz needs to climb down out of her ivory tower and get a grip on reality. She's probably just angry that on her salary from the Chronicle, she can't live in a 1.2 million dollar house in Katy either! 

Ms. Binkovitz could probably find a more responsive audience if she wrote about Texas City. My advice is to ignore Ms. Binkovitz no matter what cockamamie story line she comes up with next.  We'll all be better off.

Google 'Leah Binkovitz' to see her "credits."  You will find she came straight to the Chronicle from the Washington Post and National Public Radio (NPR).

Ms. Binkovitz