FROM PROSPERITY TO POVERTY
‘Houston annexed Sunnyside in 1956, and it’s been neglected since 1956’
A couple of blocks south of Larry Sawh’s resale shop in Sunnyside sit rows of barren, boarded storefronts. From the driveway of his business, he can point and name a few of his former neighbors.
Marshall’s Tire Shop. South Side Store Food-n-Moe. David’s Furniture. Screwed up Records. Money to Loan.
Sawh, or Mr. Larry as locals call him, says these once-mainstays along with many others helped the community — once known as Baby River Oaks and Black Wall Street — flourish, keeping unemployment low and hopes high.
“This is a close knit-community, and for many people here, starting a business was a good way to support each other,” Sawh said.
But that was more than 30 years ago, before the oil busts and the recessions. Now, these defunct businesses illustrate the predominately black neighborhood’s deepening spiral and burgeoning unemployment rate.
From 2006 to 2016, Sunny side area businesses fell from about 800 to 600, a Houston Chronicle analysis of Harris County data shows.
After losing a quarter of its businesses in 10 years, Sunnyside saw its unemployment rate grow to the highest in Houston. It shot up from 12 percent in 2006 to 29 percent in 2016 while the population growth stayed flat, according to Census figures. Houston Gardens, a much smaller community in north Houston, had the second-highest unemployment rate with 20 percent.
The economy in Sunnyside, located just outside Loop 610 in south Houston, diverges greatly from Houston’s own flourishing narrative with its 5.5 percent unemployment rate and job growth.
Sunnyside’s businesses grew out of necessity because for decades residents said the community, and neighborhoods like it, were marginalized and underserved.
But when the economy tanked, the entrepreneurial culture residents grew and leaned on also backfired.
“These weren’t businesses with a lot of resources. They were businesses living quarter-to-quarter, month-to-month, weekto-week,” said Frederick Barksdale, a Greater Houston Black Chamber board member. “So it doesn’t take much like a bad economy to put them out.”
Now, residents and experts fear that if the city does not assist one of its most underserved communities, the last leg of Sunnyside’s remaining resolve will break.
That fear is exacerbated by factors beyond the loss of jobs and businesses. More than 30 percent of Sunnyside’s households live below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census. Two elementary schools have closed in the neighborhood.
And the rate of reported crimes per capita ranks fifth-highest in Houston, according to a Chronicle analysis of Houston Police Department data.
Each of those factors drives away young residents and keeps private investors at a distance. City officials recognize Sunnyside’s challenges and the neglect it has endured for decades.
In 2016, the City Council approved a tax increment reinvestment zone, or TIRZ, in the western half of Sunnyside. A TIRZ is a taxing district that collects a portion of property taxes and uses the revenue inside the zone to pay for infrastructure such as streets, sidewalks and waterlines.
“Sunnyside is a historic community. However, there has been a lack of infrastructure and economic development,” said council member Dwight Boykins, who pushed for the TIRZ.
The funds the district will generate, however, will be a slow build, and redevelopment could take 10 to 20 years. Residents say that’s too long a wait. ‘The Black Wall Street’
The driveways of several dull-colored brick duplexes in Sunnyside are nearly full. Vehicles, often older models, sit idle and cram the narrow neighborhood streets.
It is not a weekend or a holiday. It is midday on a Tuesday in May — a stark contrast to what the community looked like 30 to 40 years ago, residents said.
Lots were occupied, residents were working, and the neighborhood was eager to develop. The community grew after its annexation by Houston, hinging on promises made by the city to provide proper drainage, sidewalks, waterlines and other infrastructure.
Residents said those promises never came, but that is when an entrepreneurial spirit began to mature, said Sunnyside resident Travis McGee.
“Most things were blackowned. The gas station, the convenience store, the hamburger stand,” he said. “We even had a drive-in movie theater.”
According to Census data, even educational attainment rose. The unemployment rate was low, and favorable monikers began to emerge.
“Sunnyside was actually the Black Wall Street, ya heard me?” said McGee, who owns a local barber shop.
Then the oil bust of the 1980s hit.
Recovery never came, and then the Great Recession of 2008 caused business closures and unemployment to spike again, erasing any progress Sunnyside managed to make.
McGee, a vocal community activist, laments the passing of pride the area once had. But he is fighting to restore Sunnyside to its former glory — or at least a community residents can be proud to call home. McGee has petitioned to get sidewalks installed, ran for City Council and helps organize public support for long-term community planning strategies for the neighborhood.
“The same Sunnyside you see now, is (worse) than the Sunnyside I grew up with,” he said. “Houston annexed Sunnyside in 1956, and it’s been neglected since 1956.”
Sawh, 61, of Larry’s Resale, has owned the shop for 12 years. He had a unique view of the recession.
“The recession was great for me,” he said, with a laugh. “When times are hard, people come to me to save and make money.”
But Sawh, an immigrant from Trinidad, said the last 10 years were particularly tough for Sunnyside.
“I’ve seen many businesses leave,” he said. “They were good people, but it’s hard to make something grow here.”
But U.S. Census business data suggest AfricanAmerican-owned businesses in the region didn’t disappear entirely.
For the most part, they grew in the west and south into Missouri City and Pearland, leaving Sunnyside in exodus.
A 2016 report by the U.S. Census Bureau concluded that minority-owned businesses were disproportionately impacted during the Great Recession. At its high point in March 2010, one in six black Americans were unemployed in the aftermath. The 2016 report noted that the growth of minorityowned businesses, particularly for black and Hispanic-owned firms, was more sensitive to changes in home prices than other racial and ethnic groups. Depressing job search
For 12 consecutive years, the Harris County Precinct 7 Constable’s Office has been holding a career fair. Its most recent took place in early May in Sunnyside. More than 200 people showed up looking to end what has been, for many, a long, unending search.
Applicants as young as 18 and as old as 60 applied for jobs that day.
Many declined to talk about their job search, citing how embarrassing it is to discuss the difficulty in finding employment.
One woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said the search is demoralizing. She was 52 when she was laid off from her job eight years ago and has had various contract work since then.
“I can’t find a job these days because I’m not trained on the systems being used now,” she said. “Companies are hiring younger and younger these days. It’s depressing.”
When there aren’t job fairs, the library is where residents go. The back wall of the Johnson Library in Sunnyside is covered in job postings.
One asks for a bachelor’s degree and five years worth of experience. Another asks for applicants to have a reliable vehicle. Most residents have neither. These listings have been unchanged for several months.
Opportunity doesn’t come easy in Sunnyside, said resident Shaun Robinson, 27.
“It’s tough,” she said. “You see everybody in here? We’re all probably applying for the same thing.” Transition possible
The lack of opportunities and investments echoes the discrimination predominately black neighborhoods have experienced for years, according to a 2016 report by the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service.
The report argues public services and infrastructure improvements were systematically denied to Sunnyside and other minority communities.
Typically, public money follows private money, said Susan Rogers, an assistant architecture professor at the University of Houston.
“In other words, areas where there is a lot of private investment, they are also seeing the public expenditures in infrastructure that other neighborhoods are not,” Rogers said. “The opportunity … to create inequality in public investment is incredibly strong.”
That inequality has resulted in wealthier communities furthering the economic gaps between the affluent like River Oaks and Midtown and low-income neighborhoods such as Sunnyside.
“Within the political geographies, you have massive variations and discrepancy between prosperous and struggling areas,” said John Lettieri, co-founder of Economic Innovation Group, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., that addresses economic challenges.
He said Sunnyside might be the quintessential example of just how economically divergent places in close proximity can be.
“What you will end up seeing in many areas (like Sunnyside) is just the perpetuation upon generation on generation of economic despair,” said Lettieri.
Boykins, whose council district represents Sunnyside, said that despite the challenges, Sunnyside will rise, citing the city’s 2016 vote to establish the TIRZ.
“I have witnessed the transition of many neighborhoods from blighted pockets within the city to high-profile, highly desirable residential neighborhoods,” he said. “This is precisely how we can describe Sunnyside and its future.” ‘Incredibly challenging’
Sunnyside’s business decline began much earlier than 2006, but unemployment grew there notably in the last 10 years, creating remarkably more economically disadvantaged families, based on the Chronicle’s data.
From 2010 to 2015 the number of Sunnyside households making below $25,000 increased from 4,576 to 5,062.
Also, take the percentage of economically disadvantaged students in the local high school — Worthing. In 2008, state education data shows economically disadvantaged students made up 65 percent of Worthing’s enrollment. Today, it’s 95 percent. “It’s incredibly challenging to springboard kids into economic independence and stability,” said Lettieri, the co-founder of Economic Innovation Group.
But Lettieri and Rogers agree that there is a silver lining for Sunnyside.
The entrepreneurial character it grew in the 1970s and 1980s may help it rebound.
Realtors have even begun eyeing the area, with one company expecting to build at least 50 homes priced between $160,000 and $200,000.
Sunnyside’s history of family businesses and community connectedness may work in its favor despite broader economic headwinds, Rogers said.
“It’s like this history and this memory that’s holding most of these communities together,” she said.
Lauryn McClellan and her cousin, Shamoni Carouthers, joined about 200 other teenagers and young adults in Sunnyside at Worthing High School in April to attend a job fair held by the city of Houston. Those between 16 and 24 are some of the hardest hit by unemployment, according to Census data.
The two were among the first to arrive that morning. McClellan had her nails painted with a glittery silver polish, while Carouthers opted for a solid vivid pink. The two Worthing students wanted to stand out.
McClellan, a junior, wants to buy a car and save for college.
Carouthers, a senior, wants to ease her mother’s financial burden.
“I need this job so that I can be independent and use the experience to find even better jobs,” McClellan said.
A McDonald’s representative motioned for Carouthers. It was her turn for an on-the-spot interview. She smiled, and she was engaging. A few of her jokes fell flat, but the recruiters laughed anyway.
After 10 minutes, they extended Carouthers an offer.
“Really?” she said with a long drawl, wide eyes and an even wider smile.
At the same time, across the room, her cousin was offered a position at the same location. As they ran toward each other to share the news, their smiles said everything before they could. They start this month.
Carouthers and McClellan were the fortunate applicants. TD McGinnis, 23, left the fair after four interviews. Two job fairs later, he was still waiting for a call back as of Friday.