Allen Parkway Village (Houston, Texas)

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In the early 1940's, Black land and business owners were displaced to make way for San Felipe Courts, now Allen Parkway Village, the largest public housing project in Houston. To appease possible civil unrest, Blacks were assured by political movers and shakers that they would be allowed to partake in the new housing once construction was complete. However, in order to justify funding during World War II, the project was designated as part of the war effort to serve military families. A brick wall was erected instead to separate the Courts from the remaining Freedmen's Town. Only whites were allowed to be housed in the Courts.

It was not until 1968 that the first Blacks were permitted to reside there. Today, the Courts are Allen Parkway Village (APV). The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) allotted $10 million to rehabilitate APV in 1979, the local government chose to try to sell the project to private interests, and used $1.5 million of this money elsewhere. A HUD investigation in 1987 disclosed gross mismanagement of the said monies. This history of misspent public funding continued with the expenditure of $451,000 to rehabilitate units at APV that were kept boarded up while the waiting list of homeless families rose from 6,000 to over 8,000; the decision to demolish instead of to restore well-built housing units at an additional cost of at least $50 million to taxpayers; and, even more recently, the decision under former Mayor Bob Lanier's administration to allow approximately $4 million in city funds, originally granted to build 350 units of low-income housing, to be used toward only 150 units and to let private developers keep the rest.

While outside nonprofit groups, such as the Houston Renaissance and the Housing Authority of the City of Houston, have obtained public funds not equally offered to locally-based nonprofits, such as the Fourth Ward Health and Educational Center for Youth, the Freedmen's Town Association, and the Fourth Ward Community Coalition, the battle to preserve and to restore APV has been led by the Resident Council of Allen Parkway Village (RCAPV), founders of the original Allen Parkway Community Campus plan used as a model throughout the nation. Unfortunately the Housing Authority of the City of Houston has pursued other plans for the site, including the forcible eviction of residents, demolition of most of the buildings they voted to preserve, and now the contested disposal of historical burial remains recently uncovered at APV.