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New housing project, San Antonio

SAN ANTONIO

Turning Neighborhoods Around

Spring Comes to Spring View

Spring View is a 50-acre housing development, built in the 1950s, that went into decline in the 1970s as the area attracted gangs and drug dealers. In 1994, a $50 million HOPE VI grant from HUD provided for demolition of the substandard projects and the construction in their stead of single-family houses for working households. An area once notorious for its concentrated poverty will soon attract middle-class homeowners. The HOPE VI program also provides newer housing for those displaced from Spring View who are not ready to buy a home.

Toyota Comes to Town

In the Southern District and elsewhere, San Antonio’s CDCs have worked to help inner-city neighborhoods capitalize on the city’s economic resurgence. A major Toyota assembly plant is scheduled to open in the Southern District in 2006, and it is projected that within two years, the $800 million facility will bring 2,000 jobs to the city and related service businesses such as suppliers will bring another 1,000. Enterprise is working to expand the area’s community development capacity so that CDCs can make Southern District a livable, affordable community.

San Antonio’s CDCs are meeting these challenges. Bringing education and stable, affordable housing to San Antonio's fast-growing, youthful Latino population will determine the future of the city's middle class. CDCs and local government are working to ensure that as jobs come to San Antonio, moving up doesn’t mean moving out.