Dallas is getting a new toolkit to fight displacement and gentrification.
Builders of Hope Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit developer and community development organization, on Monday unveiled the first key pieces of a multilayered strategy that aims to give vulnerable communities “the right to stay” and the “opportunity to return” to neighborhoods amid rapid development and rising housing costs.
The toolkit uses data to help the community identify neighborhoods where gentrification is underway to provide guidance and steer development decisions.
The plan was presented at a Monday meeting of Dallas’ housing and homelessness solutions committee.
Stephanie Champion, Builders of Hope’s community development and policy officer, says the group has been working behind the scenes to raise private funds and gather a team focused on giving tools to the public after years of local residents feeling pushed out of their homes and communities.
“Displacement is something that happens naturally,” Champion said. “But we’re trying to understand when does it really happen in the context of gentrification.”
Builders of Hope presented maps to committee members with initial findings that show how vulnerable Dallas neighborhoods are to displacement, along with a geographic look at demographic and housing market changes.
The project aims to map the geography of displacement, measure neighborhood change using census data and categorize how at-risk neighborhoods are to the effects of gentrification.
The project will then identify 18 neighborhoods across Dallas to include in case studies of vulnerability mapping, which Champion says they plan to complete in March.
The project defines gentrification as a “process of neighborhood change where new investment floods a historically marginalized neighborhood; property values rise, increasing housing costs and reducing the supply of affordable units.”
Gentrification is made complete when a neighborhood is “physically transformed through the influx of new, higher-end construction,” and the area demographics shift as higher-income residents move in and low-income residents – often Black or Latinx – are pushed out. At the end, the “cultural character” of a neighborhood is fundamentally altered.
Determining whether gentrification is reversible or preventable in a given area is one of the chief tasks of the anti-displacement toolkit.
The project will be a roadmap that steers public policy and development decisions so that lower- to moderate-income families have a greater chance to stay in their homes, says Cullum Clark, director of the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative and a policy advisor on the project.
Dallas is among cities where developers’ building of luxury homes in high-income neighborhoods is a “very strong economic force” that often doesn’t have straightforward policy solutions to counter the effects of gentrification.
Clark says the goal isn’t necessarily to “freeze the city in amber” and keep neighborhoods unchanged, but a high degree of housing instability is harmful, including to children’s educational outcomes and crime occurrences in an area.
Builders of Hope adopted a methodology used in Austin, led by University of Texas professor Heather Way, who is also a policy advisor for the Dallas project.
The city of Austin in 2020 committed $300 million for its anti-displacement fund, and the city of San Antonio passed a $150 million affordable housing bond last year.
Builders of Hope CDC President and CEO James Armstrong says the next step is to sign a memorandum of understanding with the city to continue collaborating with the nonprofit, which is planned for Tuesday.
Still in question is whether the anti-displacement toolkit will be included in the city’s comprehensive housing policy. Champion says with no cost to the city, she sees no reason why the city wouldn’t adopt it as a resource.
JPMorgan Chase and & Co. donated $250,000 and The Dallas Foundation funded $150,000 toward the project. Builders of Hope CDC partnered with the Dallas College Labor Market Intelligence Center for its data analysis and with CoSpero Consulting as community engagement partners.
The project’s advisory committee includes community members and leaders of eviction and homelessness assistance organizations.
