HOUSTON – Cuney Homes was first built in 1938, making it the longest-standing public housing in Houston. There are talks of revitalization and a debate is brewing on how it should be done.
Delores Ford said she has seen her neighborhood change.
“All you have to do is go down one of these streets,” she said. “You see new townhomes, new houses being built.”
Through it all, Ford said Cuney Homes has remained a constant.
“I’ve been here long enough where I can say this is my neighborhood,” she said. “This is where I live. This is where my children grew up.”
She wants to continue to call it home.
“I don’t want to be priced out,” she explained.
But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to see any change.
“As far as the choice initiative, I’m all for it,” she said.
In June of 2021, the Houston Housing Authority was awarded a $450,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to come up with a neighborhood transformation plan.
“This is for the residents to be able to come out and say look, we want this,” Ford said.
The HHA said the goal is to work with community partners on how to leverage public and private funds to transform the community.
“The challenge is the training for us to be able to know what the law says for us,” Verdell Ingram said.
Ingram has lived in the community for nine years. She said every resident deserves to be a part of each step of the process.
“They do training,” she said. “They do engagement, but it’s only 60 to 90 minutes. So, if it goes longer than that or you have more residents show up, it’s always cut off.”
The founder of “Can I Live” a national tenants’ rights organization, showed up in the Cuney Homes community on Wednesday afternoon, encouraging the residents to question the process of these grants.
“Residents can actually organize,” Racquel W. Jones said. “They can create entities, they can create non-profits.”
The Houston Housing Authority said part of being awarded the grant is making sure there’s meaningful participation from residents and other community stakeholders.
“Community groups, including the Cuney Homes Resident Council, have been directly involved in developing the Transformation Plan throughout the entire process, including monthly taskforce meetings and additional community events that further guide the agency’s efforts in this initiative,” the statement said.
“Anything that is put on this property should start with the residents’ needs first,” Ford said.