Houston, Texas: Project Row Houses Uses Art to Preserve Architecture, Culture, and Community in a Low-Income Neighborhood

HUD User publishes a series of case studies based on federal, state, and local strategies that increase affordable housing opportunities and support sustainable community development. The projects and community development efforts featured in these reports have demonstrated innovation through a multitude of partnerships and initiatives.

Project Row Houses (PRH) is a neighborhood development providing 54 units of affordable housing to residents of Houston Texas’s Third Ward. PRH’s founders consisted of 7 African American artists who worked alongside neighbors to rehabilitate 22 shotgun row houses that were threatened to be torn down. In the process of saving this southern African-American architecture typology, PRH also preserves culture and community through art-centered programs and services that mutually benefit residents and local and national artists. As PRH expands into a mixed-use development, it encourages equitable economic development through multi-partnership councils that help residents secure employment, support small African-American business owners, and transform vacant lots into retail space to meet community needs.

Visit HUD User's Case Studies page to learn more about affordable housing and to view other intriguing examples of historic preservation around the nation.