A partnership for positive change
Prairie View A&M plans to develop pipeline of resources for Haverstock Hills residents
Affordable housing complex Haverstock Hills was built with the intention of being a place where residents who have fallen on hard times can temporarily live and get back on their feet.
“Don’t nobody plan to be here, but some people fall off” and need help, said resident
Rosha Davis, a 35-year-old mother of two who has lived in Haverstock since 2003.
The idea has been for residents to use the housing at Haverstock as a bridge to employment or the “next level,” said Rodney Waites, program director of Rainbow Housing Assistance Corp., a nonprofit that serves Haverstock residents.
“The goal is to provide that resident with all the tools they need to literally be self-sufficient and needing zero government assistance,” he said.
But the 700-unit Houston apartment complex, constructed in 1972 on Aldine Bender Road near Humble, has been burdened with high levels of crime and drugs, and the city’s imposed efforts to resolve them.
In 2010, Haverstock Hills was the target of Harris County’s first-ever gang injunction after law enforcement responded to more than 3,000 calls at the property. The legal move banned dozens of suspected gang members from a 57-acre zone that included the complex. A second injunction approved in 2014 identified additional gang members and banned them from Haverstock Hills and a larger surrounding safety zone encompassing 217 acres.
By 2017, the Harris County District Attorney’s office hosted a resource fair in collaboration with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, the Harris County judge and
the apartment’s management. And Haverstock Hills has been hosting a range of professional and education-related services for residents.
Davis said she has received various certifications through the housing association, including her Occupational Safety and Health Administration certificate, and that her children often attend after-school programs at the community center.
“It takes a village to raise a child, and this village raised my child with all of its programs,” Davis said.
Now, Prairie View A&M University is stepping in to help complete the transformation and restore the intended reputation and reality of Haverstock Hills.
The university is developing a pipeline of resources for residents, said Terrence Allen, a research scientist and social worker at the Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention Center. The center, headquartered on the Prairie View campus, was created by legislation nearly a decade ago to reduce and prevent juvenile delinquency.
A main objective of the partnership is to create that pipeline starting in the second grade that will see youth through to college, possibly by creating a relationship with the Aldine Independent School District, where many children from Haverstock attend school.
College preparatory programs, family empowerment support groups, community engagement events, and health and wellness education will be among the features of the new Prairie View-Haverstock
Venture.
“Our goal is crisis intervention, but it’s not the traditional way people think a research center would work,” Allen said. “We have a responsibility to create opportunities for people and give them hope and demonstrate how we can breathe life back into that type of community.”
Allen, along with Grady Paris, an attorney and the center’s associate director, launched the partnership earlier this year following a decision to adopt and improve a community with university resources.
Haverstock was at the top of Allen’s list after hearing about the community through friends and family, he said.
Rainbow Housing Assistance Corp. has long offered services of its own, including GED and afterschool programs, scholarships, a range of professional certifications, and free access to social work professionals, often through its on-site Paggi Community Center.
Some residents say the community center has been a godsend since opening in 2010.
Shaunta Smith, a 39-year-old single mother of six who has lived in Haverstock since Hurricane Harvey, said the Rainbow Corp. offered her son a four-year college scholarship.
“I want to further myself to get out of Haverstock,” said Smith, adding that she’s already used some of the services offered by Rainbow Housing.
But much of the positive work happening in Haverstock either isn’t reported in the news or is overshadowed by some of the criminal activity that occurs, Davis said.
Paris said that means there’s more work to be done, especially for younger residents, some of whom are already in the juvenile justice system.
After visiting the complex and telling residents what they hoped to do, Allen and Paris said people were excited.
“We literally thought it was a blessing that came out of nowhere,” said Waites, the Rainbow Housing program director.
Waites had already been working to collect information about residents — learning about their history, needs for affordable housing and the process for those transitioning out of the complex — in an effort to better serve them.
“The fact that they were so open and excited, we knew that we had to make something happen,” Allen added.
Since those initial meetings, the Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention Center has been working to get to know the community. They hosted a street festival for the partnership’s official launch in late October and a town hall meeting in November where officials and residents could talk.
If the partnership is successful, Paris said it’s an opportunity for Rainbow Housing and Prairie View A&M to expand similar services to other housing complexes around the state. The Texas Juvenile Justice Center is already working toward setting up sites in Dallas, Tyler, Austin, San Antonio, and areas of Waller County.
Allen and Paris said they are still finalizing details about the assistance that will be offered at Haverstock Hills and are considering a street-law program to educate youth on the law and its consequences. They are also dreaming of establishing a lawyers’ bureau to offer free family and criminal law services to residents.
And although the secondgrade to college pipeline would be a 10-year commitment, and Prairie View A&M’s Juvenile Justice Center is currently only signed on for two, they’re looking forward to seeing how the program evolves, Allen and Paris said.
“The buzz is high and … a lot of the residents are chomping at the bit for the ability to literally be a part and find out what’s going on,” Waites said.