Local activist Hilton Kelley and members of the Community In-Power and Development Association says key city officials have shunned applying for federal funds that would help more low-and-moderate people return or move to Port Arthur, following Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey.

But a City Council member said Monday night that Kelley doesn’t understand the housing process and was protesting at the wrong place — he should have been protesting at the Port Arthur Housing Authority, which is empowered to seek grants.

In a news conference on the steps of Port Arthur City Hall, Kelley suggested Monday morning that Mayor Derrick Freeman and the Port Arthur City Council aren’t seeking federal money for low- and moderate-income housing in the city because they don’t want poor people to live in the city; Port Arthur’s population, he said, is composed of some 80 percent of people who are deemed to have low or moderate incomes.

“We are a blue-collar city,” he said.

Unless the city seeks more obtainable federal funding to help build or repair affordable housing in the city, he said, his organization may file suit.

“All of them are on the same page, the mayor and City Council,” Kelley said.

But District 4 Council Harold Doucet took sharp exception to Kelley’s statements. He said Monday evening that the city could not seek the funds Kelley referenced; only the Port Arthur Housing Authority could do that. And he said the Housing Authority — which is located in Port Arthur, but is not “of the city of Port Authur” —has not opted to pursue the federal funds Kelley is touting.

Doucet said the Housing Authority weighed options for new apartments, heard negative comments from Port Arthur people and declined to move forward in seeking Housing and Urban Development grants.

“It has nothing to do with the city,” Doucet said.

Doucet said the last three Housing Authority projects have not panned out for Port Arthur the way Housing Authority leaders said they would. In one case, he said, city leaders believed residents of the housing development would be able to purchase the homes in which they lived; that didn’t happen. In a second case, he said, the city was told a development was solely for seniors, but eventually others moved into the development. In a third case, the Housing Authority gave vouchers for new housing to residents of an older housing development, and many of those residents took the vouchers and moved away.

“Every time the Housing Authority says they are going to help the city, it doesn’t help the city. It helps the Housing Authority,” Doucet said.

“Here in the city we have to understand what is going to improve our economy is we have to find ways to generate revenue,” Doucet said. “We have to do what is going to benefit the majority of city, not just a few.”

The city has been promoting a program that is building homes for working-class families downtown. Some homes have been built, others are under construction and more homes are planned.

Doucet said the Housing Authority could have used some insurance money or reserve funds to rebuild some low- and moderate-income housing in Port Arthur, but has not done so.

Kelley said Seledonio Quesada, executive director of the Port Arthur Housing Authority, could have applied for the money but suggested city officials were discouraging such Housing Authority applications.

Quesada, who answers to a board, declined comment.

In August, Land Commissioner George P. Bush announced that $13 million in federal funds would be allocated to help repair housing units at Southwood, located on Highway 73, where all the first-floor apartments were flooded during Harvey.

An additional $3.5 million in federal funds for Southwood were announced last week. Southwood is a Port Arthur Housing Authority development.

In announcing the grant, Bush lauded Freeman as a champion for housing in Port Arthur.