Homeowner Gwendolyn Mitchell (right) sits on her front porch with a friend in Houston’s Acres Homes community (Photo Credit: Regal Media Group/Todd A. Smith).
In the African-American community, building generational wealth is often a top priority.
But how can families build wealth if they are fighting for survival?
Many African-American families have lost property that has been in their families for years because of the higher taxes brought about by gentrification.
However, the Houston Community Land Trust (CLT) and other land trusts throughout the country are fighting back to save homes and save the culture of some of the country’s most historic neighborhoods.
On March 18, Houston community media executives and journalists took a bus tour to neighborhoods like Third Ward, Freedmen’s Town, Wayside Village and Acres Homes to see how the Houston Community Land Trust has fought to maintain affordable housing for residents, even speaking to some homeowners and renters in these quickly changing neighborhoods.
Ron Johnson, who owns a home thanks to the CLT program, said, “I was a previous homeowner years ago when the market crashed. I lost my property, so I didn’t really think that homeownership was going to be my thing going forward. I was in the renter’s mindset, paying a lot of money in rent.
“But then this program came about, and then I changed my whole perspective of how I can still be in the community. I grew up in Sunnyside. It was important for me to move back to Sunnyside, and I did that through this program. Since then, I’ve joined the board to be able to encourage and work with other homeowners and those who want to transition from rental properties to actually homeownership. So, it’s been a blast. It’s been a lot of hard work, but it’s been a good work that has happened in our community.”
Neighborhoods like Freedmen’s Town have worked for years to preserve the historical aspects and the cultural makeup of the community.
After the emancipation of slavery, many African-Americans settled in Freedmen’s Town, Houston’s oldest historic African-American neighborhood in 1865.
The formerly enslaved Houstonians built homes in the area near downtown Houston, paving the neighborhood with bricks when the city would not pave the neighborhood roads.
As integration occurred and more African-Americans found more lucrative jobs, many sought to live in more affluent suburban neighborhoods.
However, when many African-Americans began populating predominantly White suburban neighborhoods like Inwood Forest, Northwest Park and Oaks of Inwood on Houston’s northwest side, White flight led to many White residents moving to neighboring towns like The Woodlands, Texas, Conroe, Texas and Cypress, Texas.
However, the commute to the city from suburban towns began to be too much for many White Texans.
Therefore, many have sought to move closer to the city, making neighborhoods like Third Ward, Midtown (formerly known as Freedmen’s Town and Fourth Ward) and Acres Homes more attractive to people who probably would have never dared live in those neighborhoods during the 20th century and early 2000s.
At the same time, many African-Americans who had moved to the suburbs began selling the property owned by their deceased relatives.
Real estate investors began snatching up those properties, demolishing the affordable houses and replacing those structures with high-rise condominiums.
While many of these neighborhoods look better now because of the new high-end homes, the high-priced houses have raised the property taxes so high that many lower-income and elderly African-Americans are unable to afford to stay in homes that they have owned for decades and generations.
To combat this from happening and to help people of color return to the neighborhoods of their youth, the Houston Community Land Trust buys property at affordable prices, which allows them to keep rent and mortgages affordable for the residents, even when property values and taxes increase.
The land trust owns the land collectively, while the owner owns the actual structure.
Ashley Allen said, “So when we think about affordability, a lot of times affordability is affordable for a short amount of time. And then the home goes back to being market rate, which ultimately ends up pushing out a lot of businesses, traditional and historical residents. And then also we end up losing things like green space. We want to build on everything.
“And so, the purpose of a community land trust is to put land and trust into the governance and the ownership of the community, not the single individual, not a developer, but community having a voice and deciding what happens to their community.”
Allen told RegalMag.com that business owners and churches should get involved with land trusts because if their clientele and members move far away from their community, it might adversely impact their bottom line, as it will not be feasible for many to make a long commute to get their hair done or attend Sunday service.
She added that the CLT homes are indistinguishable from homes not in the trust, making it impossible to know which homeowners are a part of the program.
Houston’s CLT began in Acres Homes, a historic neighborhood on Houston’s northwest side.
Many notable Houstonians once called Acres Homes their home, like former Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Texas), actress Loretta Devine and former Major League Baseball star Carl Crawford, who is now CEO of 1501 Certified Entertainment, the former record label of rapper Megan thee Stallion.
One of the newest residents of Acres Homes is Gwendolyn Mitchell.
Many thought that with her income, she would never own her own home.
Despite the doubters, Mitchell is now a homeowner thanks to the CLT program, and for the price of just $75,000.
She said, “The Lord said, ‘I’m going to give you a house that you can have…He’s going to give me one where I want to live…He can make up a program just for me.”
That program is the Houston Community Land Trust.
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