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Part I of II LEAD-IN BY HOST: The Fourth Ward, what used to be called Freedman's Town - Houston's most culturally-rich black neighborhood - has gone through drastic changes in the last few years. In this two-part feature, Sky Lanigan looks at current housing development in this area, focusing on a few of the many forces determining the future of this neighborhood in transition. STORY: Developer Larry S. Davis "Our main concept has been going into inner cities and trying to revitalize them and then pricing the units so they can be affordable. And we just released one project, and you know, they're half sold-out, and we haven't even turned dirt yet." Lanigan: Where's that? Developer Larry S. Davis: "Thatís over in the Fourth Ward." [ambient sounds of circular saw and building] Housing Authority of the City of Houston Spokesperson Robert Reyna: It is not a Housing Authority of the City of Houston kind of thing. It is a national movement to end public housing as we know it. And I think people need to understand ..." Reverend Elmo Johnson: "Oh, Fourth Ward, Lord, Fourth man poor. Man, I know you're having a hard time out here, but I tell you man, I wouldn't give up this for nothing. I love what I do, because God called me to minister to people and to change peoples' lives. And that's what I'm here for." [Ambient sounds of clapping and singing: "Jesus, he's the holy, he's the power, the light, the hope, the holy pray and listen ..."] Houston's old Fourth Ward, situated just West of Downtown, is the nexus for a whirlwind of local issues - economic, historical, racial and political - making it a microcosm of the climate of development within the inner loop today. "About eight years ago we started doing as we call them, 'tin houses.'" Larry S. Davis is a local architect and the owner of Urban Loft Town Homes. He is currently the only private developer building above West Gray in the Fourth Ward. "...galvanized metal town homes. You know, instead of designing a $2 million home, I was designing these town homes being creative and innovative to bring spaces in that would be fun and interesting to live in. And then pricing them in a sense that could be affordable to more of the public. And we've done over 350 today." Davis' target market is young professionals and empty-nesters. He is especially proud that many architects and design professional have bought his homes. Very few of his clients have children in the home. So this particular inner-city revitalization probably will not have much positive effect on infrastructure such as the local schools. Davis: "You have apartments that don't allow children. You have vacation hotels that don't allow children. When you're looking inside the city neighborhood, you're just not dealing with families, because you're not dealing with schools. And they're not the schools, a lot of the times, that people feel comfortable having their children go to. I don't believe that just because there aren't children there, that that doesn't make it any less of a neighborhood, or any less functional of a neighborhood. It's just different." While he has cooperated with local preservation groups to relocate historic houses on lands slated for new construction, neither he nor his new homebuyers have had much interaction with the remaining existing community. "When we were there, there weren't even the houses there. The homes that were there were more or less flophouses. I'm not quite sure what people were saving. I think the city did try in good faith to go and relocate people in some of the other houses they were doing. But again, if you're dealing with people who aren't paying the rent, I don't think they really had to worry about trying to relocate them. If a house is empty, it doesn't give someone the right to break into it and to live there and then not get out." These views are not held by all of those involved in development in the Fourth Ward. "You know, a lot of those houses around the corner that we've boarded up, people just live in them. I mean, they just live in them. And we just let them live, because they've got to have a roof over their head. I pay the water bill, of course. They don't have any electricity or anything." Reverend Elmo Johnson of the Rose of Sharon Baptist Church. "People will probably have to move when we re-do and make it safe. But it's pretty tough. It's pretty tough, man. Sometimes they bring it on themselves and sometimes it's just the circumstances: It's the way things are. I think it's getting worse. I hope it levels off. But this holiday season, and I've been here 19 years, may have been one of the worst, I think, as far as people needing things." Two and a half years ago, Reverend Johnson's church created Uplift Fourth Ward Incorporated, one of several church-run community development corporations, or CDCs, now building government subsidized housing in the Fourth Ward. Together the CDCs have built approximately 160 new houses in the area, but there is controversy over who can afford to live there. "Weíve built on 24 lots. And the thing I like about what's happening in new houses is that we have an Indian, we have Hispanic, we have blacks, we have whites. It's a multicultural people that's moving in because it's for low to moderate income. And you have to be in an income bracket, you have to be making about $28,000 a year and then you can't make more than $32,000 a year. That's for one person. Now if you've got two persons, it goes up. You can make $35 and if you have three you can make $38. Well, most of the people that have moved in are single parents, you know, like mothers with children. All of my houses are three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, and two-car garage and it's a first time homebuyer. The City bought the land, so we cannot sell the houses for over $92,000. Now if you notice, that's moderate income, it's not low-income... because I can't afford that." Though the church is renovating 16 existing shotgun houses for very low-income seniors, the CDCs' primary approach to community uplift closely resembles the mixed-income approach of the Housing Authority of the City of Houston, the most central player in Fourth Ward development. In the next segment, I will focus on their current projects in the area. This is Sky Lanigan, for KPFT News, Houston. E-mail Sky Lanigan at skybird@rice.edu. This story was broadcast on December 20, 2002.