Houston, TX

LEADERSHIP

Executive Director:
Amanda Timm

Chair, Local Advisory Committee:
Brian Stoker
AmegyBank of Texas
CONTACT INFORMATION
1111 North Loop West
Suite 740
Houston, Texas 77008
Telephone: (713) 334-5700
Fax: (713) 334-5707
Website

Established in 1989

Achievements by the Numbers:

(By LISC and Affiliates since inception)
  • 5,677 homes and apartments
  • 764,718 square feet of commercial space
  • $115.7 million total investment
  • $287.5 million leveraged

Profile:

Founded locally in 1989, Houston LISC assists Community Development Corporations (CDCs) in their efforts to transform distressed neighborhoods into healthy communities. LISC supports these community-based groups to ensure that they form appropriate business plans, create solid financing strategy, and secure the right human and capital resources before new projects are launched.

Moreover, we are able to help the CDCs develop plans that look holistically at their neighborhoods, integrating their needs for residential, health, education, recreation and commercial developments. We help them identify their neighborhoods’ most pressing needs, identify the best way to meet those needs, and then work hand-in-hand with the CDCs and their partners to execute the plans.

In 2007, Houston LISC embraced a new vision for supporting healthy neighborhood development in a sustainable manner. Our comprehensive approach brings together strategies for development of both “places and the people” concentrated in specific neighborhoods. We define a sustainable community as places of choice and opportunity where families can live, work, and raise their children.

A year later we launched a community revitalization program based on these goals called GO Neighborhoods. Key criteria for selection of these pilot neighborhoods included: the depth and breadth of residents and leader participation in community organized discussions, an ability to collectively agree upon neighborhood priorities and whether the participants could agree upon a demonstration project. Two neighborhoods—Near Northside and Independence Heights—have been selected. The program begins with residents discovering what is right about their neighborhood, and it puts them in charge of their future by developing their neighborhood’s Quality of Life Agreement leading to implementation and success.