Gulfton is a community in Southwest Houston, Texas, United States. It is located between the 610 Loop and Beltway 8, west of the City of Bellaire, southeast of Interstate 69/U.S. Highway 59, and north of Bellaire Boulevard.
In the 1960s and 1970s Gulfton experienced rapid development, with new apartment complexes built for young individuals from the Northeast and Midwest United States. They came to work in the oil industry during the 1970s oil boom.
In the 1980s, as the economy declined, existing tenants left, resulting in a significant drop in occupancy rates in the apartment complexes and forcing many complexes into bankruptcy and foreclosure. Owners marketed the empty units to newly arrived immigrants and Gulfton became a predominantly immigrant community. In the 1980s, the community of Gulfton experienced a surge in crime and a significant increase in student enrollment, leading Houston citizens to dub it the "Gulfton Ghetto." In response, the city and school district took action, increasing police presence and opening new schools.
Since then, the community has undergone positive changes, including the addition of a community college campus, elementary schools, public transportation routes, a park, a community center, a public library, and a juvenile detention facility.
By 2000 Gulfton was the most densely populated community in Houston, with 71 percent Hispanic residents, including many recent immigrants from Mexico and Central America. Although traditionally a Salvadoran and Mexican neighborhood, many immigrants began coming from different Latin-American countries, particularly from Venezuela, Honduras, Cuba, Guatemala and Colombia. There are also American citizens from other states and territories like Puerto Rico.
History
1950s to 1979
Before 1950, Gulfton consisted of farm land and much of the area belonged to Westmoreland Farms. In the mid-1950s, the Shenandoah subdivision was established; consisting of sixteen city blocks of ranch-style homes. Shenandoah was located adjacent to the land which would later become the site of the Gulfton apartment complexes. Decades later these communities would clash as the apartments surrounding Shenandoah deteriorated and property values became threatened.
Due to the large parcels of land available and the grid road pattern, Gulfton was well-suited for the construction of large apartment complexes. In the 1960s, a number of large apartment buildings were built. More complexes were added during the 1970s as Houston prospered from the oil boom. These apartments catered to young, predominantly Caucasian workers from the Rust Belt regions of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States employed in the burgeoning oil industry. Americans came from the South, the Midwest, New York, and California to live in the area of complexes. The complexes also housed some individuals from western and eastern Europe, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South America, Philippines, and Vietnam. Few native Houstonians lived in the housing complexes. The apartments were given names meant to be fancy, such as "Napoleon Square" and "Chateau Carmel." Some complexes gave free videocassette recorders to renters who signed leases for one year.
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 these apartment complexes was not well planned or coordinated. There was often little interest in building a quality product as developers were primarily concerned with generating quick revenue and capitalizing on the deregulation of financial institutions, tax laws favoring apartment construction, inflation, and a housing shortage in the Houston metropolitan area.
1980–1992
In the mid-1980s the Houston-area oil industry economy declined and more than 200,000 jobs were lost from the local economy. Thousands of renters left causing a rise in apartment vacancies. Many apartment complexes throughout the Houston area experienced bankruptcy, foreclosure, and frequent turnover in ownership. Colonial House Apartments, which became known throughout the Houston area from advertisements featuring California promoter Michael Pollack, is an example as they faced foreclosure. 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 fell behind on its mortgage. On Wednesday, May 11, 1989, the Colonial House Apartments were auctioned off to an out-of-state investment group for $8.9 million and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development realized a $42 million loss. The following year Colonial House was renamed "Lantern Village."
Marketing to an influx of immigrant workers, owners abandoned "adult only" policies (prohibiting children), listed vacancies in Spanish, and reduced rents. Despite the rent reduction, a July 17, 1988, Houston Chronicle article stated that rates for poorly maintained apartments in Gulfton and other Houston areas were comparable to well-maintained apartments in other parts of the city. According to Gaines, complexes in Gulfton began to cater to illegal immigrants and landlords allowed renters to "double-up" housing (several individuals and/or families living in a unit). John Goodner, a Houston city council member who represented a district that included Gulfton at that time, said that more demographic changes occurred within his district in the years leading up to 1988 than in any other part of the city. He was referring to the shift in the demographics of various apartment complexes. Goodner said that the complex owners were unconcerned about this development as long as the rent payments were made. Landlords had difficulty filling apartment complexes even if they did not require background checks. Many banks and lending institutions owned foreclosed apartments and failed to properly maintain them, considering it "pouring money down a perceived rat hole." Gaines added that many complexes deferred maintenance.
Many of the new Gulfton residents found limited access to government services 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." These provided low-income communities with increased city services supplemented with federal funding. This drew a response from the Houston Resident Citizens Participation Council (HRCPC), a citizen commission that monitored funding for low-income residents. Board members formally protested city council against diverting support funds from the "old poor" in existing low-income areas to the "new poor" in newly created communities. The HRCPC members argued that the original "Community Development Targets" were not fully served prior to the service areas expanding and budgets shrinking. The council had no authority to force any changes in public policy. Rose Mary Garza, then the principal of Cunningham Elementary School, stated that some government officials were reluctant to expand services to Gulfton as they believed the low-income apartments would be bulldozed. During his time city council member Goodner lobbied for a satellite health department clinic for apartment renters.
Robert Fisher, 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." They state that the process 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.
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 (CARC) to publicize and advocate issues related to the Salvadoran Civil War and the immigration of Salvadorans to the United States. In 1988, various religious representatives created the Gulfton Area Religious Council (GARC) open for any Christian church to join. GARC advocated assistance for Gulfton residents and established focused programs. Taafe and Fisher suggest that GARC focused on relieving the symptoms of poverty instead of removing its causes. Representative Goodner, described as "conservative" by Fisher and Taafe, organized a March 3, 1989, town hall meeting which sparked the creation of an organization called the Gulfton Area Action Council (GAAC). The GAAC was made up of business owners who advocated the reduction of recreational drug use, local crime, and the improvement of the neighborhood, in an effort to restore property values.
In the late 1980s, the Southwest Houston Task Force was established as a coalition of representatives from the City of Houston government, health and human services organizations, businesses, schools, religious organizations, and Gulfton-area residents. The Task Force held two meetings related to the proposal for the establishment of 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. Jointly operated by the GAAC and the City of Houston, the clinic provided pre-natal and child care services. Fisher and Taafe state that the organization "lost its focal issue" after the clinic opened. After performing a "community needs assessment" and identifying "local leaders", the organization disbanded in early 1992. During the same year the Salvadoran Civil War ended but CARECEN continued to provide legal services, publications, and advocacy for Central American immigrants. They also began campaigning the federal government to provide permanent legal residency to the Salvadoran refugees.
1992–2009
In August 1992, Mike McMahon of the GAAC and Francisco Lopez of CARECEN founded the Gulfton Area Neighborhood Organization (GANO). In 1995, CARECEN merged with GANO as both organizations had board members and goals in common. Fisher and Taafe said in the 1997 article Public Life in Gulfton: Multiple Publics and Models of Organization that the merger into GANO made cooperation between the members of the combined "progressive" GANO and Shenandoah Civic Association with the more "conservative" GAAC unlikely. By 1993, Gulfton received 500 new street lights, paved streets, and new sidewalks as part of the City of Houston's "Neighborhoods to Standard" program.