We have selected Port Arthur, Texas as a location for building the prototype homes For the Texas Grow Home project. The city, located at the southeastern most part of Texas right on the Gulf of Mexico, was near Ground Zero for Hurricane Rita.
Port Arthur has seen hard economic times before the hurricane. The median family income is only about $27,000 a year and a quarter of the households in the city fall below the poverty level.
44% of the city is African-American and 32% white. There are significant Hispanic and Vietnamese populations as well.
Low median household incomes and low value homes predominately characterize African-American households in Port Arthur. The median household income for African-Americans is less than $21,000 per year and the median house value of homes occupied by African-Americans is less than $30,000.
A major part of the two thirds of the population comprised of people of color live in older wood frame homes generally constructed from the 1930s through the 1940s. Many of these homes have a significant amount of deferred maintenance prior to the hurricane. When Hurricane Rita came ashore in 2005 these older homes were extremely vulnerable to the high force winds.
While accurate numbers are not available, a very high proportion of the low income population in Port Arthur who own their homes had little or no homeowners insurance because of the high price of insurance on the Gulf Coast and the extremely low incomes of these homeowners.
Lower income neighborhoods in Port Arthur and their residence share a number of characteristics with extremely low income neighborhoods in New Orleans that were devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
We selected Port Arthur is the location to build the model homes because of the large extremely low income population of homeowners who had been affected by the disaster of Hurricane Rita. Also, Port Arthur was at the center of a lot of positive housing rehabilitation and reconstruction activity on the part of local churches and community organizations and national faith-based organizations. This meant that there would be organizations on the ground we could work with to identify families to participate in our housing program.
Texas Grow Home 