Gulfton is a community in southwestern Houston, Texas, United States that includes a 3.2 sq mi (8.3 km 2 ) group of apartment complexes with a mostly Hispanic and immigrant population. It is located outside the 610 Loop and inside Beltway 8, west of the city of Bellaire, east and south of U.S. Highway 59, and north of Bellaire Boulevard.
In the 1960s and 1970s Gulfton was developed, in the midst of an oil boom, with new apartment complexes geared towards young singles from the Northeast and Midwest United States who came to work in the oil industry. In the 1980s, the economy declined and the existing group of tenants vanished, causing the complexes to become bankrupt and foreclosed. The owners of the complexes marketed them to newly-arrived immigrants, so Gulfton became an immigrant community. Beginning in the 1980s, the Gulfton crime rate increased and the schools were increasingly overwhelmed with excess students; Houstonians nicknamed the community the "Gulfton Ghetto." The city responded to the sudden changes in Gulfton by increasing its police presence and the school district opened more schools to handle the sudden influx of children.
By 2000, Gulfton consisted of 71 percent Hispanic residents, including many recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America, and became the most densely populated community in Houston. After the 1980s demographic and socioeconomic transition, Gulfton gained a community college campus, two additional elementary schools, added public bus routes, a park and community center, a public library, a juvenile detention facility, and aspects of Latin American culture and recreation.
History
1950s to 1979
Before the 1950s, Gulfton consisted of greenfield land, and much of the area was part of Westmoreland Farms. In the mid-1950s, the Shenandoah subdivision, located adjacent to the land which would become the Gulfton apartment complexes, was built; Shenandoah consisted of 16 blocks of ranch-style homes. Shenandoah would, decades later, clash with Gulfton-based organizations as the demographics of the surrounding apartments deteriorated and property values became threatened.
With many large acreage parcels and a widely spaced grid road pattern, Gulfton was well-suited to the construction of large apartment complexes. In the 1960s, a number of large apartment buildings were added, and more opened during the 1970s, when Houston prospered during the oil boom. The apartments were geared towards young, predominately white people from Rust Belt areas in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States who were going to work in the burgeoning oil industry. The opening of the apartments satisfied an increase in demand for housing caused by the influx of the professionals.
According to Jim Gaines, director of the Jesse H. Jones Center for Economic and Demographic Forecasting at Rice Center, a Rice University-affiliated urban research center, the development of apartment complexes was not well planned or coordinated, and there was often little interest in building a quality product. Developers were more concerned about generating easy revenue, with deregulation of financial institutions, tax laws favoring apartment construction, inflation, and a housing shortage in the Houston area helping guarantee quick profits for them.
1980-1992
In the mid-1980s the Houston-area oil industry economy declined, and Houston lost more than 200,000 jobs. As a result, thousands of renters left, causing a rise in vacancies. Many apartments throughout Houston experienced bankruptcy, foreclosure, and constant changes in ownership. For instance, Colonial House Apartments, which became known throughout the Houston area for advertisements featuring California promoter Michael Pollack, faced foreclosure and DRG Funding, a mortgage lender headquartered in Washington, DC, took over the complex. On September 16, 1988 the Government National Mortgage Association took over Colonial House Apartments and other properties of DRG after DRG missed making payments, and on Wednesday May 11, 1989 the Colonial House Apartments were auctioned off to an out-of-state investment group for USD $8.9 million, causing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to incur a $42 million loss. The following year Colonial House was renamed "Lantern Village."
Apartment complex owners noticed that many immigrants from countries such as Mexico, El Salvador, and Vietnam wished to settle in Houston, so the owners abandoned previous "adults only" policies that barred children from living in the complexes, listed vacancies in Spanish, and reduced rents. Despite the reduction of the rates, a July 17, 1988 Houston Chronicle article stated that rent rates at poorly maintained apartments in Gulfton and other Houston areas were about the same as at well-maintained apartments in other areas of Houston. According to Gaines, the complexes in Gulfton began to cater to illegal aliens, and landlords allowed renters to "double-up" housing, with several individuals and/or families sharing the same unit. John Goodner, a Houston city council member representing a district including Gulfton at that time, said that more demographic changes occurred in his district in the several years leading up to 1988 than in any other area of Houston, referring to the changes in demographics in various apartment complexes. The complex owners were unconcerned about this development as long as the rent payments were made. Landlords, including those who did not perform standard background checks, had difficulty in filling apartment complexes. Many banks and other lending institutions owned foreclosed apartments and did not properly maintain them, being uninterested in "pouring money down a perceived rat hole." Gaines added that many complexes deferred maintenance.
Many of the new Gulfton residents found that they did not have easy access to government services for low income residents such as food stamps and municipal and county health care. By July 1989, the Gulfton area was designated by Houston's city council as a "Community Development Target," low income areas with increased services supplemented by federal funding. Board members of the Houston Resident Citizens Participation Council (HRCPC), a citizen commission that monitored funding for low income residents, formally protested to city council against the diverting of funds from the "old poor" in existing low income areas to the "new poor" in newly created low income communities. The HRCPC members said that the original "Community Development Targets" were not fully served before the service areas expanded and the budget was decreased. The HRCPC had no official authority to force changes in public policy. Rose Mary Garza, then the principal of Cunningham Elementary School, said that some government officials felt reluctant to expand services to Gulfton because they believed that the low income apartments would be bulldozed. As a city council member Goodner lobbied for services in his district such as a satellite health department clinic for apartment renters.
Robert Fisher, a professor and chair of Political Social Work at the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Houston, and Lisa Taaffe, a project manager for Houston's "Communities in Schools," stated in "Public Life in Gulfton: Multiple Publics and Models of Organization," a 1997 article, that the development and decline of Gulfton originated from a "purely short term, relatively spontaneous speculative process" that focused on building apartment complexes, clubs, and warehouses for short-term profit without providing supporting infrastructure such as parks, libraries, recreation centers, small blocks, and sidewalks; one park exists in Gulfton.
In 1985, recent Salvadoran immigrants opened the Central American Refugee Center (CARECEN) to provide legal services for Central American immigrants. Between 1988 and 1992 CARECEN cooperated with the Central American Refugee Committee to publicize and advocate proposals related to the Salvadoran Civil War and the immigration of Salvadorans to the United States. In 1988, various representatives of religious institutions opened the Gulfton Area Religious Council (GARC); any Christian church was eligible to join the organization. GARC advocated assistance for Gulfton residents and established relevant programs. Taafe and Fisher said that GARC focused on relieving the symptoms of poverty instead of removing its causes. After Goodner, described as "conservative" by Fisher and Taafe, organized a March 3, 1989, town hall meeting, an organization called the Gulfton Area Action Council (GAAC) was started. The GAAC consisted of business owners who tried to reduce recreational drug use and crime and to improve the neighborhood in order to restore property values.
In the late 1980s, the Southwest Houston Task Force, a coalition of members of the City of Houston government, members of health and human services organizations, businesses, schools, religious organizations, and Gulfton-area residents held two meetings between City of Houston representatives and community groups related to a proposal to establish a municipal health clinic in Gulfton. The organization's meetings led to the opening in 1991 of the Sisters of Charity Southwest Health Clinic , the Gulfton area's first major health clinic. The clinic, jointly operated by the task force and the City of Houston, provided pre-natal and child care. Fisher and Taafe said that the organization "lost its focal issue." After performing a "community ne
Houston Apartment Association (HAA) | Texas
Online Guide to Job Boards. Job Board Directory. JobBoardReviews.com is designed to help jobseekers, employers, staffing & recruiting professionals find the most targeted Job ...
Houston Apartment Association | Apartment SPLASH Program
Job Board Career Articles Working in the Industry Salary Survey Education Home ... The Houston Apartment Association, YMCA and Texas Childrens Hospital have partnered to promote water ...
MySpace - Apartment Jobs - 41 - Male - HOUSTON, Texas - myspace.com ...
Apartment Jobs's Latest Blog Entry [Subscribe to this Blog] GET A JOB ... Houston Apartment Association
Houston Apartment Association | CAPS - Certified Apartment Property ...
Job Board Career Articles Working in the Industry Salary Survey Education Home ... Texas 77041 | (713) 595-0300 | (281) 582-1503 FAX © Copyright 2009 Houston Apartment Association.
Houston Apartment Association’s (Houston Apartment Association ...
View all Houston Apartment Association’s (Houston Apartment Association) Friends on MySpace. ... Apartment Jobs
Apartment Careers
Houston Apartment Association Houston, TX http://www.haaonline.org/ Lubbock Apartment Association ... Browse Jobs Browse current jobs available by search criteria. View All Jobs
Apartment Association to build in Westway Park - Houston Business ...
The Houston Apartment Association is making plans to build new offices on a two-acre site in Westway ... Search for Jobs powered by onTargetJobs
MySpace - Apartment Jobs - 32 - Male - HOUSTON, Texas - myspace.com ...
Finding Jobs for Apartment professionals, some ... We have offices in Houston and Austin, TX. Hire Priority Apartment Staffing has been recognized by the National Association of ...
Houston Apartment Finder | Facebook
Ribbon Cuttings are always fun! Congrats girlie for doing a kick-butt job! ... Texas 77041| (713) 595-0300 | (281) 933-8412 FAX © Copyright 2009 Houston Apartment Association.
City Of Houston — Blogs, Pictures, and more on WordPress
The Houston Apartment Association Better Government Fund PAC endorsed candidates in the December 12 ... Wow I have been applying for jobs since the weekend I was let go from my job ...