The Trellis and Native American Connections organizations have made inroads in the downtown and midtown Phoenix area for low income residents by building affordable housing units and apartment complexes.
The Garfield neighborhood is one of the most historic neighborhoods in all of Phoenix. It is home to mostly middle- and lower-class households, with roughly three fourths of the residents in the neighborhood having incomes below $50,000 a year, according to Patricia Duarte, president and CEO of Trellis (formerly Neighborhood Housing Services of Phoenix).
The neighborhood is very expensive with new urban housing on Roosevelt and Portland streets going for prices as high as $249,000, according to Duarte. She said the neighborhood is being encroached on from all sides.
“Garfield is being squeezed,” she said. “There’s the freeways to the north. There’s the whole large-scale medical downtown trying to just gobble up this poor neighborhood.”
Duarte said there are about 1,900 housing units in Garfield, 57 percent of which were built before the 1950s.
The Trellis Organization has played a large role in reshaping the Garfield neighborhood. Duarte said 80 percent of the 72 houses built between 1990 and 2000 came about because of a partnership between Trellis and the City of Phoenix.
Native American Connections is working to accommodate lower income households as well. The group built the Cedar Crossing apartment homes, which are set to open in January on Third Street and Virginia Avenue. The 74-unit apartment complex will serve individuals and families at 40-60 percent of area median income.
“This will put low-income residents close to jobs, light rail, bus routes and schools,” said Joe Keeper, the director of real estate development for Native American Connections.
The complex, formerly a vacant medical office building, was paid for through funding from both the city of Phoenix and the state of Arizona. He said the group is attempting to expand and open more affordable housing projects as well.
“About 4,000 units are being developed in central Phoenix at the market rate. Our units will be $1,000 less per month,” Keeper said.
“It is important to assure all people can live in central Phoenix,” said President and CEO of Native American Connections Diana Yazzie Devine.
Native American Connections currently has several affordable apartments located in the downtown area. Some of these apartments include Urban Living on Second Avenue and McKinley Street, and Carefree on North Central, located on Third and Maryland avenues.
For Scott Sinon, a resident of Urban Living since March, the affordability and the location of the apartments has been a great relief to his family.
“I know I couldn’t afford to live in a two-bedroom apartment that had all the amenities that Urban Living had to offer,” he said. “We were living in a one-bedroom apartment with horrible appliances. Where we came from the neighborhood was bad and I wasn’t comfortable letting my three children play outside.”
Sinon said he was put on a waiting list for the apartments, but now he can appreciate being closer to the light rail and all the activities going on downtown, like Diamondbacks games. He offered this advice to residents of Phoenix who were applying for affordable housing in a place such as Urban Living:
“If you apply for housing, stick it out. I was on the waiting list for a while, but being at Urban Living has brought my family closer together because we do more things together.”
Contact the reporter at Daniel.Perle@asu.edu.
