When a small group of elected city officials and community members toured an East Dallas apartment complex on Thursday, they stepped into the only vacant unit on the lot.

The two-bedroom apartment at Kiva East — funded in part by the Dallas Housing Opportunity Fund, a community-led initiative raising a mix of private and municipal funds — is like many in Dallas.

But out of the 87 units in the affordable housing development that opened its doors in November, 71 are reserved for renters making 60% or less of the area median income — about $63,000 a year.

Parents living at Kiva East also get a valuable perk: free childcare for preschool-age kids. Bezos Academy’s Old East Dallas location is accepting applications for 3- and 4-year-olds for the fall semester.

Dallas City Council member Jesse Moreno, who lives in the neighborhood, said the location was a perfect fit for East Dallas, with easy access to public transportation and the Santa Fe Trail.

“My wife and I have a 6-year-old daughter, so we understand that a lot of our households are cost burdened, and that means they’re barely getting by to afford rents,” Moreno said. “Dallas has a 97% [occupancy] rate in apartments, so every single unit that comes online means that we’re able to put another family into an apartment.”

Since its launch, the Dallas Housing Opportunity Fund has raised nearly $30 million, including $7.5 million from Sunflower Bank and $10 million from Truist Bank, and is on track to open more than 400 affordable housing units to renters.

A $6 million seed

In January 2022, the city of Dallas entered into an agreement with LISC Fund Management, LLC — a subsidiary of Local Incentives Support Corporation — to raise at least $40 million from private donors by the end of 2026 for affordable housing projects.

The city of Dallas seeded $6 million into the fund to launch its efforts to create or retain at least 1,500 units affordable for households that make at or below 120% of the area median income by the end of 2031.

With the help of the community investors division of local industry group The Real Estate Council, the housing fund focuses on preserving existing housing and creating new mixed-income developments in “high-opportunity” neighborhoods that are close to well-paying jobs, good schools and transportation.

A key feature of the fund is to create more inclusive, mixed-income communities by connecting affordable housing to areas of high opportunity to support a growing workforce, said Michelle Spivak, director of business development for LISC Strategic Investments.

“If you are building on the outskirts of town by the gas station and food desert, with no schools and no transit, you don’t want to live there,” Spivak said. “How can you expect someone else to live there and have a successful life and have educated children?”

Need for more

Rep. John Bryant, D-Dallas, lives about a mile from Kiva East apartments. He spoke to the group on Thursday about the need to support policy solutions at the state level that spur more affordable housing development.

“Texas is 44th in the nation in the effort it makes for promoting affordable housing, which means among the big states we’re at the bottom,” Bryant said. “We have 30 million people. We’re a nation-state basically. We’re the ninth-largest economy in the world. There is no reason why we would be dead last in housing.”

Bryant cited data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s The Gap report, an annual snapshot of the affordable housing supply across the nation. Texas has 25 affordable homes per 100 extremely low-income renter households, among the lowest in the nation and just above Florida, Arizona, California and Nevada, according to the 2024 report.

Bryant also added that it’s bad for business to keep customers economically burdened by housing costs. He said he wants Texas lawmakers to step up and carve out more than the $13 million sliver of affordable housing received from the state’s more than $300 billion biennial budget.

In addition to the East Dallas complex, LISC staff gave tours to residents and officials, including Dallas City Council members Kathy Stewart, Zarin Gracey and Jaynie Schultz, who visited two complexes in Oak Lawn developed in part by the strategic fund.

Oak Lawn Place, which prioritizes LGBTQ renters who are 55 years or older, will add 84 units affordable at or below 60% of the area median income.

Of Rawlins Chateau’s 54 affordable units, 22 apartments are reserved for people with disabilities who experienced chronic homelessness. A unit of Metrocare’s behavioral health services is also on-site for direct access to families. Metrocare supports care for mental health, developmental disabilities and substance abuse disorders across North Texas.