Brief History of the Corpus Christi Housing Authority

In the late 1930s a Corpus Christi Housing Authority (CCHA) study revealed that residents of the city’s slums lived in overcrowded, unsafe structures and lacked even the most basic amenities. More than 500 homes in the city’s poorest areas had families with five to nine people sharing a single bedroom, 1,200 families were without indoor toilets, and hundreds lived in houses with no floors. These findings instigated a CCHA effort to clear some of the worst slums, and existing substandard dwellings were demolished to make way for three low-cost housing projects. Reflecting the racial makeup of the neighborhoods involved, these complexes were segregated by race and named for important historical figures in the community which each was designed to serve. The Kinney Place complex was designated for Anglos (later known as George Wiggins Homes, located outside APE), Navarro Place for Hispanic residents, and D.N. Leathers Place (now known as the D. N. Leathers Housing Center) for African Americans. Local firms were awarded the design contracts so that the complexes would be best suited to the local climate, and all three were built to similar designs, with long rows of one- and two-story flat-roofed rectilinear buildings built of structural concrete and clad in dashed stucco, grouped in courts (see Figure 3). Each of the three complexes also included an administrative and community center and playground area. Rents were calculated as a percentage of the tenants’ income and included city water, though tenants were responsible for gas and electric costs. In providing affordable housing, the CCHA hoped to create more stable environments for families, leading to the ultimate goal of homeownership.

Figure 3. Architect’s rendering of D.N. Leathers Place (“Tenant Selection for Negro Housing Unit Set for August,” Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 2 June 1940). D.N. Leathers Place, developed in 1940 and officially opened in 1941, was built to house approximately 122 families with monthly incomes between $35 and $80, providing African American residents with “decent, safe, and sanitary dwellings” at a time when many residents of the Washington-Coles neighborhood lived in substandard housing. The complex was named for a local businessman and prominent leader in the African American community, who had sold the land to the city. The area’s streets, Fisk, Tuskeegee, and Xavier, are named for historically African American colleges. The Leathers project provided housing in close proximity to churches and the Solomon M. Coles School, as well as the port and other major employers of African Americans. Its location, at the western edge of the neighborhood, was selected as it was assumed that the congested African American neighborhood would likely expand in that direction. Demand for the units was high, as over 80% of housing available to African Americans was still considered substandard, and a 1950 census showed that African Americans occupied 14% of the city’s substandard housing despite making up only 6% of the total population. A second complex, D.N. Leathers II, was constructed in 1952 to meet this demand. Located nearby between Lake and Nueces Streets, this complex was demolished in 1999 due to chronic flooding. D.N. Leathers I Project Description

The Corpus Christi Housing Authority submitted a Demolition/ Disposition Inventory Removal Application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on March 01, 2016.

The proposed activity is demolition/disposition of 122 units of public housing and associated infrastructure and facilities at the subject property and disposition (sale) of the property to the Texas Department of Transportation.

D.N. Leathers I property may be eligible for listing on the National Register for Historic places, based the NHRP Eligible or Listed Resources in the APE. The eligible criterion is Criteria A, Social History, Community Planning and Development; and Criteria C, Architecture, and that the proposed demolition of the existing historic structures and clearance of the property will have an adverse effect on the historic resource by directly altering the characteristics that qualify the property for inclusion in the National Register in a manner that would diminish the integrity of the property’s location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, or association with respect to the above-noted criteria of eligibility. As interested members of the public, we invite you to comment or express your concerns.

Attached below is a comment card for your comments and concerns of D.N. Leathers I Demolition/Disposition Inventory Removal Application. A site map, legal description and photographs are also available on the Corpus Christi Housing Authority website at www.hacc.org. COMMENT(S)

Corpus Christi Housing Authority D.N. Leathers I Demolition/Disposition Inventory Removal

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Please email comment card to [email protected] or mail to:

Deborah Sherrill, Sr. V.P. Housing/Community Development Corpus Christi Housing Authority 3701 Ayers Street Corpus Christi, Texas 78415