The Galveston County Daily News

The anger in the discussion about public housing in Galveston has dismayed many people. They are talking about racial tensions. They are wondering whether the diverse, tolerant community they thought they lived in has suddenly disappeared.

I don’t think so.

I think people who live together under the same roof occasionally get on each other’s nerves. Even people who respect and love each other don’t always fight fair.

I think we have a classic communications problem. We should try to have a conversation, rather than an argument. And to have a good conversation — as opposed to a shouting match — good information about plans, goals and visions helps.

I don’t think most people understand the housing authority’s plans to rebuild public housing after Hurricane Ike.

Be honest; do you?

Do you know who would inhabit those 569 units that would be rebuilt to replace housing lost in the storm?

How many of the people who used to live in public housing and were displaced by the storm could legitimately be expected to come back? If some of them don’t come back, who would occupy those units? What does the housing authority’s waiting list look like? Are there names of real people on the list? Or do we just have projections from demographic data?

Are there real opportunities here for using federal funds designed to help communities rebuild after a disaster? I suspect there are, but is there a specific plan out there — one that ordinary people who live in Galveston could visualize — that would allow them to weigh the benefits of that idea?

Wouldn’t answers to questions like that allow us to start talking about the benefit of putting real people — people who live and work in this community today — into decent housing?

And wouldn’t we all rather be talking about those questions than about race?

Here’s a confession: I know the answer to the last question — generally, we talk about race in this country whenever we don’t have anything substantive to talk about. But I don’t know the answers to the others.

I’ve asked. I’ve asked administrators, board members, elected officials, consultants. I’ve been a pest. I’ve nagged and criticized. I haven’t been able to get the information.

So here’s a promise: I’ll do everything I can to get information on questions of public interest into the newspaper in a way that’s fair, honest and easy to understand.

And here’s a prediction: In the absence of information about these plans for our community, folks will continue to talk. I bet we’ll talk about race.

Heber Taylor is editor of The Daily News.