Houston's Housing

There is also concern that the number of units restricted to low-income renters -- more than 1,400 of the 1,682 -- may create problems. Such high concentrations of poor have been discouraged by HUD over the years in favor of "mixed-income" properties, which have a better chance of avoiding the recurring problems of drugs and crime that plague areas exclusively populated by poorer residents.

Still, says one housing advocate, Willow Creek, "can be a benefit to the community. If the private investor manages it well, keeps it safe decent, sanitary. You know, if everything is ideal. But the chances of that happening are pretty slim."

A few years ago, no one would have given the Oak Lake Apartments much of a chance, either. The 452-unit complex off Kuykendahl and FM 1960 in Harris County had degenerated into the kind of place that even pizza delivery drivers wouldn't enter after dark. Residents in a nearby neighborhood called the complex "Coke Lake." The police referred to it as the "War Zone."

But that was before last September, when Houston Interfaith Housing, a nonprofit group with 23 years of experience with low-income housing, bought the faded gray complex from the RTC. The organization put up the purchase price, about $1.8 million, and now manages the complex. Local churches joined together with area civic groups to form the nonprofit Bridges Community Friends to run support services for the low-income residents.

The alliance of Houston Interfaith and Bridges Community Friends lobbied the state government in Austin to win more than $5 million in low-income housing tax credits over the next ten years, which, coupled with $1 million in federal funds, will be used to rehabilitate the complex. Though that rehabilitation is not yet in full swing, there are already signs of good things to come at Oak Lake.

A small office set up in a two-bedroom unit in the center of the complex serves as the nerve center for Bridges Community Friends. Two small children hop up and down on plastic chairs as a middle-aged woman reads them a story. The book is from a library assembled in one of the unit's rear bedrooms. Notices seem to hang everywhere -- the windows, doors, two bulletin boards -- announcing upcoming Girl Scout and Boy Scout meetings, tutoring sessions, English lessons, a job service. Just outside the door, two young women prepare picnic tables for the summer lunch program that feeds 82 children from the complex.

Down a worn concrete path are two dilapidated tennis courts. The nets have been taken down, awaiting the work crews that will begin building Oak Lake's new community center. Once complete, the center will allow Bridges Community Friends to provide job training, immigration services, a food pantry and health clinics for women, children and the elderly on-site. Those needs are now available to Oak Lake residents at the Northwest Assistance Ministry, two miles away.

Those involved with Oak Lake say they believe it's a model of what the RTC affordable housing program was really meant to be. Nonprofits, which aren't concerned with the bottom line, can combine truly low-cost housing with social services to address the long-term problems of being poor.

"It's not that the housing authorities of the cities aren't capable," says J.O.T. Couch, a staff member at Houston Interfaith Housing. "In fact, the city's sales aren't necessarily wrong in the sense of taxpayer benefit. The question is, what is the spirit?"

Doran says that both the churches and the residents of nearby neighborhoods had to be convinced that the complex could thrive under the nonprofit's ownership. But in the end, she says, it boiled down to common sense.

"One of the reason we did this was because there were people tripping over our doorstep saying, 'We can't find anyplace to live,'" Doran says. "And another was that this place is smack dab in the middle of our neighborhood. If we said, 'Wow, look at that property going downhill,' and five years later had done nothing about it, we had nobody to blame but ourselves."

One-bedrooms at Oak Lake rent for between $295 and $325. Most of the 136 two-bedroom units are available for under $400. While those rents may still tax the resources of many working poor, they are about 25 percent less expensive than the units bought from the RTC by the city. And the for-profit investors who bought from the city aren't offering social services.

Bingham, the city's community development director, says that, yes, the city received offers from nonprofits for the seven complexes the city sold. Houston Interfaith Housing was not one that expressed interest, says its board chairman, Paul Nichols, because the organization was not made aware that the city was putting the complexes up for sale.

Bingham says the city decided to sell to for-profit investors because it feared a nonprofit might not be able to afford necessary rehabilitation. And, she admits, the city's profit wouldn't have been as large if they had sold to a nonprofit.

"The RTC would have paid us a 5 percent resale bonus for selling to a nonprofit," Bingham says. "But we wanted more than 5 percent."

Lanier is confident that the city's purchase and resale of the RTC properties was not only the most economical way to increase the city's affordable housing, but will bode well for the future. He says the profits realized by the city will go toward "a whole range of things" that will bring about 5,000 new affordable housing units "on stream."