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Opinion

Armstrong: Meet Dallas’ equitable developers

Real estate has been used against minority communities. These firms are changing that.

James Armstrong is a Dallas Morning News contributing columnist.
James Armstrong is a Dallas Morning News contributing columnist.(Debonair Photos)

Anna Hill sees her neighborhood going from “bad, better to great.” At a time when housing prices are soaring and neighborhoods are becoming less cohesive, Hill, president of the Dolphin Heights Neighborhood Association in South Dallas, is optimistic, partly because of the efforts of firms like Titan & Associates.

Titan, led by CEO Kwame Ellis and COO Khalid Shabazz, is one of several local firms pursuing something city planners call equitable development — an attempt to mend the broken relationship between historically marginalized communities and the American dream.

In Dolphin Heights, it’s working.

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Historic injustice

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Equitable development is a trend getting a lot of attention among developers. To understand it requires understanding the ways real estate development has been unfriendly to minority communities in the past.

Throughout America’s history, real estate has been a sure way to create wealth and promote economic mobility. But not for Black and brown communities. Due to racially motivated policies like redlining, cultural trends like white flight, and more recent neighborhood displacement for the sake of economic development and growing the tax base, diverse communities have viewed the real estate sector as exclusive and harmful. As a result, one of the most transformative investments available to American families is often ignored in these communities, one reason the wealth gap persists.

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In an effort to remedy that, the federal government introduced an urban renewal plan through the Housing Act of 1949 that aimed to address blight caused by redlining and migration by investing in public housing projects. It ended up displacing more than 300,000 people while creating more concentrated poverty. No wonder Black and brown communities have a negative relationship with real estate.

Further, minorities are less likely to be developers themselves. According to a 2023 study by the Grove Collective Foundation, Black and Hispanic developers represent 0.56% of the industry.

That’s what makes Anna Hill’s neighborhood trajectory “Bad, better to great” notable. Equitable development is helping reverse decades of disinvestment and put minority-owned businesses to work in the process.

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Developing developers

Innovan Neighborhoods, an urban real estate development firm led by Maggie Parker, is another development firm in this field. Innovan invests in developers of color who are interested and committed to building in underserved neighborhoods. To date, 22 developers have participated in Innovan’s Community Developers Roundtable (CDR), which equips them through networking, leadership development and access to capital.

Parker’s previous work managing the Real Estate Council’s Community Development Financial Institution brought capital to much-needed projects that some traditional lenders would have deemed unbankable, and led to the creation of the Dallas Collaborative for Equitable Development, which is helping transform West Dallas, the Bottom and the Forest District.

Investing in the developer of color who then invests in their community creates a ripple beyond the development project, Parker said. Developers are hiring local contractors who have roots in the neighborhood, and securing homeownership for families which provides more rooftops to support local businesses. Not to mention the neighbor that gets paid a few extra bucks to provide an extra set of eyes for security or site cleanup.

In development circles, impact is usually measured in terms of quantity: how many units are created. But equitable development invites us to reimagine impact differently: how far an investment ripples throughout the community.

Business roundtable

Parker isn’t alone in her efforts. A recent CDR bus tour showcased cohort participants, and the transformational impact of their work was obvious.

Ferrell Fellows of Kingdom Legacy is building a wellness center and business hub in the heart of South Dallas, directly next door to a grocery store that recently closed.

Jason Brown of Dallas City Homes is developing a 15-unit apartment complex that will offer seniors stable housing amid rapidly mounting gentrification occurring in the La Bajada neighborhood of West Dallas.

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And Ellis of Titan & Associates is navigating the difficult topography of Dolphin Heights to deliver quality single-family homes at an affordable price.

These developers are proof that impact is more than the size or number of sticks and bricks. They are also proof that equitable development is worth pursuing.

Development in Dallas can no longer repeat our country’s past failures. New models are needed that are inclusive, non-disruptive and which spur ripples of economic mobility.

To Anna Hill, the results are seen in new homes and new neighbors. She has lived in Dolphin Heights since the 1980s, when police wouldn’t respond to calls there and gang activity was rampant, she told me. Now, she sees families who want to live there.

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