CBS 11 News
While many neighborhoods fight to keep out public housing, one south Dallas development is being touted as the reason that newer development should come. The Frazier Courts Public Housing Community is one of the largest housing developments for the poor in Dallas. It is now undergoing a major facelift to become the latest example of the new look of public housing.
For decades, the community lived with the label of being a cesspool of poverty and crime.
The Frazier Courts Public Housing Community is also one of the oldest housing communities in the city of Dallas. This is the same public housing community where State Senator Royce West once lived. "You gotta understand, I was a paperboy. That was 40 years ago," he said.
Now, more than 300 new low income homes have been built.
The ribbon-cutting on Tuesday was viewed by some as a symbol, leading the way for more development in the poorest sections of Dallas. "It's important that we invest in the south Dallas community," said Ann Lott with the Dallas Housing Authority, "but it was difficult to bring market rate developers into a community with dilapidated, rundown public housing."
The Dallas Housing Authority is spending millions of dollars to build new public housing in old areas like the Frazier Courts Public Housing Community, in hopes of getting rid of old attitudes about public housing, and giving working poor taxpayers a viable housing option.
Kathy Mack's one-bedroom apartment has the one thing that she has been searching for: affordability. "It's a great change," she said. "It's totally different."
"I think, with help from the community and residents, I think it could be a great place to live," Mack said. "But it's going to take everyone working and pulling together."