A model project shows how public-private alliances can lead to home ownership

Nonprofit housing developer James Armstrong shook hands with West Dallas residents and some of the city’s top brass on an empty field where a rare deal was done.

Some of the attendees for the groundbreaking project likely hadn’t seen Dallas from this spot, a few blocks from the levee that cradles the Trinity River, with a line of trees mostly blocking the downtown skyline to the east.

By fall of next year, the ground near Bickers Park will be transformed into one of Armstrong’s Builders of Hope projects, giving 20 working families affordable homes.

Families making at or less than 80% of the area’s median income would be eligible to buy one of the three- or four-bedroom homes listed between $185,000 and $240,000.

Households normally priced out of the D-FW homebuying market will also get about $50,000 in equity at closing, a key tool to creating economic mobility for families.

The $5.7 million West Dallas project is more than a dream-maker for some families previously denied it, Armstrong says. Dallas’ huge housing shortage — and that of all urban communities — is everyone’s problem, a real emergency.

And the path that the Builders of Hope project paved, Armstrong said, can be a model to help solve the housing affordability crisis. Armstrong said he believes that, to offset the high costs of creating affordable homes, everyone who can give, must give. Governments, financial institutions and nonprofits have stepped up to show that it can be done.

Armstrong remembers his grandmother saying that a project like Revitalize West Dallas sounds too good to be true.

“And the acknowledgement that a family can actually buy a house at an affordable rate, and that house grows in value as the homebuyer’s income grows, to say that is too good to be true speaks to the injustices of our Black and brown families,” Armstrong said. “It’s not too good to be true. It’s what we call the American dream of homeownership.”

Economic mobility
No one would have stood on the empty field last week without a unique approach to solving housing affordability: partnerships between public, private and nonprofit groups.

Mayor Eric Johnson and David Noguera, the city’s housing director, represented Dallas, which subsidized the project with $810,000; Commissioner Elba Garcia represented Dallas County, which handed over $596,000.

Among the crowd also sat U.S. District 30 Congresswoman-elect Jasmine Crockett, Armstrong’s friend and one-time opponent in the 2020 Texas primary.

Other partners backing the project were the Muse Family Foundation, Inwood Bank, Benchmark Bank and Tolleson Wealth, all of whom sent ambassadors to the groundbreaking and all of whom spoke about the partnerships necessary to meet an urgent and growing need.

For the right cause, partners are willing to pay the price, Armstrong says.

The murder of George Floyd and the racial justice awakening that followed have spurred organizational reforms seeking to heal the harms of the past. More companies, banks and cities who recognize the effect of racist housing policies are now trying to improve the economic position of people of color, Armstrong said.

Making homeownership obtainable is the place to start, Armstrong says, because nonwhite families were excluded from history’s largest transfer of wealth, through generations passing down equity from homeownership.

“That number is in the trillions,” he said. “And so we have to be very intentional about creating opportunities for Black and brown families to improve their economic status.”

About 17% of homeowners in Dallas County in 2021 were Black or African American, even though they occupy 25% of the housing units, according to the census data; 42% of Dallas County homeowners are white only, while 31% percent are Hispanic or Latino.

The Revitalize West Dallas project is expected to generate $1.5 million in new family wealth as each homebuyer gains equity, giving families access to resources they likely never had.

Ma’Kisha Pippens, 44, recently bought a Builders of Hope home after years of struggling with the loss of her husband and then undergoing cancer treatments.

“I’m a product of West Dallas,” Pippens said to the crowd in West Dallas. “I graduated from Pinkston High School. To come back home to where I belong is wonderful.”

Displacement
Many West Dallas residents like Pippens who dream of owning a home in the neighborhoods they now rent in or grew up in have faced displacement over the past decade.

Dallas’ booming economy and population growth have spurred increased demand for housing. With the rise of construction costs and interest rates, homeownership is more out of reach than ever for many.

“What Dallas is slowly becoming is a city where its everyday workers are unable to afford to live where they work,” Armstrong said. “The teachers that teach in our schools, the nurses that work in our hospitals, the bus operators, the people that keep our city moving are slowly being priced out of the Dallas housing market.”

West Dallas has been experiencing rapid gentrification for years now, with property values increasing more than 300% in recent years.

“I lived the experience. I literally drove down my street in West Dallas and saw these towering homes over these small wood-framed homes. I heard the cry of people saying that their teenagers would have to get part-time jobs to help pay for the property tax bill. I saw it firsthand,” Armstrong said.

The mayor, who grew up in West Dallas, highlighted this pattern of displacement to the crowd last week.

“We welcome all new residents who have moved here in recent years,” Johnson said. “We’re grateful for the new development. And we’re also grateful and excited for what’s to come. But we are and we will remain committed to ensuring that West Dallas will always have a place for the people who made it great in the first place. And that’s our working class.”

Partnerships
The partnership approach to solving problems isn’t entirely new, but Builders of Hope’s collaboration network is a key model to help address the local housing needs, Armstrong says.

“It’s going to take everyone from the foundations to the banks, to corporate sponsors to local municipalities. It’s going to take everyone for us to make a dent in our housing crisis,” he said.

A key piece of support the developer also needed for the project: federal money.

The city receives $6 million a year in HOME Investment Partnership Program grant funding, with a requirement that 15% must go to groups such as Builders of Hope, according to the city’s housing director David Noguera.

Armstrong’s nonprofit receives subsidies like this as a Community Housing Development Organization, one of three the city currently partners with for affordable housing projects.

“Where the market erodes affordability, subsidies have to make up for that,” Armstrong said. “Projects that include subsidy and grants and down-payment assistance are necessary so that everyone that works a full-time job will be able to participate in the American dream of homeownership.”

Alta Mantsch, a senior vice president of compliance for Tolleson Private Bank, lamented to the West Dallas crowd about the sacrifices many families are forced to make, including giving up on dreams of owning a home.

“That dream, that glimmer of hope of having that safe home with a backyard to play in with a park across the street, to host special milestone moments, a space for memories, thanks to this project, that dream is becoming a reality starting today.”