Builders of Hope: A New Partnership Model for City Impact

A couple of miles West of downtown Dallas, on the South side of the Trinity River, Mable Armstrong was using her time and the few resources she had to provide food for the homeless. When her husband, Dr. James Armstrong Sr., wasn’t pastoring the flock of Community Fellowship Church, he was buying up drug homes in the community. This was the only way to get rid of them.

Mable and James had a heart for their community. And for a young James Armstrong III, they set an example of what it meant to give back.

It was just James, his mom, and his sister growing up. They came from meager means but were rich in other ways. Despite the difficulties brought on by the poverty of their area, the family stayed motivated and committed to serving the people around them.

Yet the problems persisted. For one, West Dallas was isolated from the rest of Dallas. For a long time, it was considered the outskirts of town–it was once the nation’s largest public housing project–so it didn’t receive the sort of attention or financial investment other areas enjoyed. Similarly, there were environmental concerns with living in the area, mainly due to irresponsible business practices and waste. As the population increased, so did racial tension and crime.

James graduated and left to pursue his studies at Baylor University. There he earned a degree in finance and a ticket out of the strife he grew up in. When he returned to Dallas, he began work for JP Morgan and had a pretty clear idea of what his career would look like. “I didn’t have any intention of committing my life to public service,” he said with a laugh.

Ah, but the best-laid plans…

Shortly after he returned, Community Fellowship, the church his grandfather started, called him to serve. Meanwhile, James became chair of the Housing Finance Board, a position that Mayor Rawlings personally appointed him to.

As he got more involved in his community, a ministry partner of his mentioned that Builders of Hope needed leadership too.

“I heard that they had gone through some unstable times and that they needed a leader to renew the vision.”

— James Armstrong

James answered the call.

“I didn’t know anything about it really,” he said. “But I heard that they had gone through some unstable times and that they needed a leader to renew the vision.”

Since the nineties, Builders of Hope has sought to fight poverty by developing affordable housing. Over the years, they have had their share of success and roadblocks. Over time, it became apparent that only so much progress could be made through City Hall given the nature of government bureaucracy. There was turnover in leadership roles and financial pressures that kept mounting too.

The truth is that Builders of Hope was in a difficult position by the time James came aboard. They would need to forge a new path forward to survive, with new partners and a clear vision. But how?

When James became President and CEO, he met another person who cared about West Dallas: Philip Wise, a Founding Partner of Cienda Partners. Philip had been one of the Founders of Habitat for Humanity in the mid-eighties, and he first got involved in West Dallas the area in 1999. Much like James’ grandfather, he had been helping Builders of Hope and Habitat for Humanity buy homes from one of the most notorious slum lords in Dallas (…more on that story soon).

In the late eighties through the nineties, Philip was an Investment Manager for Crow Holdings. Now out on his own, he wanted to use his real estate expertise and relationships to do something exciting and new for the city of Dallas. West Dallas caught his eye. “I have a big aerial map of Dallas in my office,” he said. “And one day, I started looking closely at it, and noticed several hundred acres of green space on the Trinity River and wondered: What is all of this open land along the Trinity?”

He soon learned that this was the previous site of the nation’s largest public housing project; that is until it was torn down by federal order.

Years of vacancy, deterioration, and frankly, neglect from the city, had left the area in a tough state. So there it sat, on the other side of the Trinity River, where no private developers ventured.

But Philip looked and saw something different. For him, it was a great location with strong boundaries and a high rate of home ownership.

People like Tom Leppert, who had yet to become Mayor, were serving on the board of West Dallas Community School. The wheels began turning. “We just simply asked: ‘Is this area close to jobs and in the path of progress?’ and we believed wholeheartedly that yes it was,” he said.

So Philip chose to help lead the way. Through a unique public-private partnership, Cienda Partners developed Greenleaf Village with Habitat for Humanity and KB Homes. This new approach to housing, which won numerous national awards, is still recognized today as one of the best models of its kind.

Philip had been involved with Builders of Hope early on, so when James came aboard, he was excited to see a new leader from West Dallas stepping up. And despite coming from two very different parts of Dallas, there was an instant connection between James and Philip. “Our values aligned, which to me showed how well all of us can get along in this city,” James said. “And we formed a friendship out of that common purpose.”

As they reviewed the unique partnerships that had formed in West Dallas, James recognized the ongoing, untapped potential for this private-public-nonprofit partnership. He knew that Builders of Hope could play a bigger role if it thought strategically.

This new way of thinking completely changed the trajectory for Builders of Hope. “Almost 100% of our activity involves some type of partnership,” he said. “Four years later, and we are now the largest affordable housing producer in the city of Dallas.”

Thanks to the creative, advantageous nature of this partnership, Builders of Hope now outpaces Habitat for Humanity in the area. “When I first arrived, we had one lot,” James said. “Now we have over 91 and six or seven more on the way; it all came from that initial spark.”

James, a West Dallas native who cares about the future of his home, noticed how a group like his could build its capacity and expand quickly. He took Builders of Hope from a small nonprofit to a power player in the world of affordable housing and preservation for the city.

And he’s happy to know that people like Philip in this city care about West Dallas too. “It would be comfortable for them to stay on their side of the river,” he said. “But they see that lifting one part of our city lifts our entire city, and they are not afraid of getting their hands dirty.”