Sunlight

In the sunlight I can see
No longer fingerprints that belong to me
Now only the smoothness of my skin
Like dreams long since vanished in the wind.

The sunlight reveals my dreams – so clear
It’s that moment I should not fear
To understand the trueness of my being
I must accept the sadness of my seeing.

What though is sadness, if not regrets
If only somehow I could pay back all of my debts
Then most assuredly I would see
What the sunlight is revealing to me.

C.N. Lemmon
January 2010

Affordability

[This essay is based on part of an introductory talk that I gave at the U.S. Green Building Council’s Earthday program this year.]

In some sense anything that sells has to be affordable to someone, otherwise it wouldn’t sell. But when we talk of affordable housing, then we are usually talking about what is affordable to someone of lower or middle income. The rule of thumb is that housing is affordable if it costs no more than 30% of your yearly gross income, including utilities, upkeep, taxes, insurance and mortgage or rent payments.

That 30% number can change, especially as your income grows. If you have a little money, then you have more choices. You can choose to eat out (more), buy a fancier car, send your children to private school—or buy more house. The less income that you have, then the fewer choices are available to you.

In Dallas 63% of residents make less than $50,000 (All the statistics here are for time periods from 2006 to 2008, the latest I could find, but there isn’t much reason to think the numbers have changed significantly.). If your income is $50,000 per year, then the most expensive home you could normally afford would cost about $120,000.

Only 10% of the homes in Dallas sell for $120,000 or less.

The gap between what people can afford and what a home costs probably explains why only 42% of Dallas residents are homeowners, 25% less than the national average.

Those statistics only begin to tell the story. Another 35% of Dallas residents could not afford to buy a home that costs more than $75,000. Out of all of Dallas’s housing in the southern sector, 42% is substandard and most of those homes are the cheapest—no surprise there.

Building a new three bedroom, two bath house costs a minimum of about $120,000. Community development corporations like Central Dallas CDC knows that it takes a minimum amount of about $30,000 to make those homes affordable to most families. The City of Dallas has about 400,000 households. If we wanted to reach the national average for homeownership, then we would have to help another 100,000 Dallas families become homeowners. At 30,000 in subsidy per home that would cost roughly $3,000,000,000–$3 billion just to get to the national average.

You can probably guess that that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Even in their wildest dreams, community housing organizations have never thought about asking for more than $30 million in city funding, that isn’t likely to happen, and even if it did, and the population didn’t increase, then it would still take 100 years for Dallas to get to the national average for homeownership.

What do all these numbers mean? In the short term they mean that Dallas will remain a city with a very high proportion, probably a majority, of renters. That’s not such a bad thing and we’ll talk about why in another essay.

A Red, Red Rose

by Robert Burns

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it ware ten thousand mile.

My Weekend

By Nick Sowell

This past weekend was a busy weekend. I spent a good deal of time moving the rest of my things into my new apartment in Uptown – really, people should only have to ever move once in their lives. Also, I had a dinner for my good friend’s wedding, and I house sat for my brother since he was trapped in Paris due to the volcano.

I got to see my sister this weekend; she is a freshman at the University of Texas. It was great seeing her. We all had dinner as a family, even though there were a few family members missing.

I am so happy there are Big Reds in the coke machine at work, seriously great.

Overall, rested and ready to battle another week.

When You Are Old

by W. B. Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

CityWalk Movie Night a success!

Residents Sharon Tillis and Bobby Warren

William Ferguson and Joseph Gant

Sea Shell

by Amy Lowell

Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sing me a song, O Please!
A song of ships, and sailor men,
And parrots, and tropical trees,
Of islands lost in the Spanish Main
Which no man ever may find again,
Of fishes and corals under the waves,
And seahorses stabled in great green caves.
Sea Shell, Sea Shell,
Sing of the things you know so well.

National Poetry Month – The Eagle

by Lord Alfred Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

The Differences between CityWalk and EVERgreen

Today’s blog began as an answer to a question on the Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum, but I thought it had enough general interest to post here. EVERgreen is a proposed permanent supportive project from First Presbyterian here in Dallas.

“How would you compare & contrast this proposal for Expo Park with Central Dallas Community Development Corp and 511 Akard?”

I have only glanced at the EVERgreen application, but I can talk a little bit about the differences between Evergreen and CityWalk.

First, the projects are based on different models. We copied from Common Ground in New York. Projects based on that model try to include a mixed population of people who have been homeless and people who haven’t. To make that work, the housing has to be attractive enough so that market tenants aren’t discouraged from renting there by the stigma that still attaches to a homeless building.

That’s why CityWalk needed to be downtown. Affordable housing is so rare in Downtown Dallas that demand far exceeds supply.

The downside is that it’s a very expensive choice. We raised a ton of philanthropic money for CityWalk, but that was because it was a first and caught the imagination of some people with money. In New York, Common Ground has managed to build 3,000 units on this model because a lot of state and local money is available. In Texas there is no state money, and there will only be local money if the City Council and the voters approve it in a bond issue–and that money would likely not be available until 2012 at best.

Evergreen looks to me like it is based on some of the models I saw in San Francisco (I don’t know if they looked at those models or not). In the old Tenderloin district there are a number of former Merchant Marine hotels that have been converted to permanent supportive housing. They all have shared kitchens like the Evergreen project.

I have looked at projects that are 100% formerly in a number of cities and they work just fine, so I don’t think that’s a problem. I also think the location is fine. To properly run a permanent supportive housing program you need enough units (probably a minimum of 75 units) to do so efficiently. Otherwise the operating costs eat you up.

The need for that much density makes it difficult to locate in traditional single-family areas. You also need access to good mass transportation and land that isn’t too expensive. In Dallas, the best locations are Downtown (if you can afford it), the Cedars, the near East Side, the Design District, and maybe some of the more commercial areas of Oak Cliff or near one of DART’s light rail stops.

The more diverse and dense a place is, the better. Most of those locations are going to have to have 100% psh units. I know the people in the Cedars or Expo park don’t want to hear it, but those areas are sketchy enough already for renters. There won’t be a market for mixed projects any time soon, unless you do something really special with building.

Graham Greene is a good architect and the Evergreen building looks good, from what I’ve seen. I think Evergreen would actually raise property values–it’s likely to be the best looking building in Exposition Park. The approach is very similar to what and where New Hope housing is doing in Houston. Their projects have been very successful.

The only thing I don’t like about Evergreen is the shared kitchens. That won’t affect people outside the building, but they tend to be a management problem. People don’t clean up, take other people’s food. The problem isn’t any different from four guys sharing an apartment in college–but it’s a problem there as well.

I would guess it was done as a cost saving measure, but it could also be an expression of their philosophy. Building community be eating together and all. I still wouldn’t do it.

Either a mixed population or all psh works fine–if you get people a place and do a good job with management then there really aren’t any other secrets, from what I’ve seen.

I don’t see any reason it shouldn’t be a successful project and an asset to the community.

A final note: It’s just coincidence that both Evergreen and The Cottages are under development on the East Side of Downtown. We don’t talk to each other about our projects, even though we all know each other. With only two or three viable choices, it’s not so surprising. I have tried to develop projects in the Design District and the Cedars, but those didn’t work out for one reason or another. First Presbyterian also had a proposal Downtown that didn’t work out.

Anyway, that’s all I know and more.

CityWalk—the poem

Since it’s Poetry Month, and this is CityWalkTalk, here’s a poem about CityWalk that my wife, Rebecca Garza Greenan, wrote and performed at a Poetry Slam in San Antonio. You should think of it as a blues piece, sort of a la Langston Hughes.

City Walk

I walked around the city,
‘cause I’d no place to sleep.

I walked around the city,
‘cause I’d no place to eat.

I walked around the city,
‘cause I’d no place to be.

I once had a bed,
A roof over my head,

But something went wrong,
And I lost my home.

Then I heard about a place,
Being planned just for me.

A high rise downtown,
A safe haven for me,

A clean bed in a place,
To which I’d hold the key.

My home is now City Walk.
Now,
The city
Walks around me.

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