Neighborhood Centers Inc. has been present in the Gulfton/Sharpstown area since 1980. During that time, we’ve provided early care and education to children while serving as a resource for family literacy, parenting and adult education through the Klein and New Horizon Head Start and Early Head Start centers, at school-based Head Start sites and at THE BRIDGE/EL PUENTE in Napoleon Square Apartments. While all programs have been highly successful, we now endeavor to expand our current and future programs to more effectively meet the needs and develop the assets of our neighborhood.

Asset-Based Community Development

Neighborhood Centers Inc. initiated an ongoing process of conducting interviews with individuals from a variety of sectors who live and/or work in the Gulfton/Sharpstown area. Using an asset-based approach, inquiries were made to better understand the neighborhood and community. Beginning in February 2005, Neighborhood Centers Inc. staff interviewed 120 residents and key community leaders from the for-profit, nonprofit and public sectors asking unconditionally positive questions to solicit constructive responses to describe the neighborhood and community;

Where its center is located
Who are its natural leaders
What unique qualities attract people to the area
What would make residents want to stay in the area longer
How regional leaders can better build upon the vibrant strengths of this community

After five months of door-to-door interviews, data was compiled and analyzed showing the emergence of five key themes and a network of identified relationships:

Gulfton/Sharpstown has an international community of hardworking families.
Accessible services for the entire family will enhance the area.
The community is home because it has a piece of many countries here in America.
Markets are central to the neighborhood for accessing people, services and commerce.
Gulfton/Sharpstown cultivates the “Human Dream” with resources, values and opportunities.

On July 2005, seven focus groups were conducted from residents and leaders that confirmed the themes followed by a presentation of a community report in August 2005. This “Gulfton Voices” community report now guides staff and architects in developing effective program and site plans.

Neighborhood Centers Inc. also began providing community residents, service providers, businesses, faith-based and educational institutions bi-monthly issues of Gulfton/Sharpstown Neighbors & Gulfton/Sharpstown Vecinos as a service to the community. This community newspaper encourages everyone in the neighborhood to highlight the excellent work, events and resources in the area.

Gulfton/Sharpstown Neighborhood Center

In partnership with the City of Houston and JPMorgan Chase, Neighborhood Centers Inc. plans to build a new community center and marketplace at the corner of Rookin and High Star that provides resources, education and connection to our Gulfton neighbors. It will house an immigration center, a comprehensive family education center that includes classroom space and a resource library, meeting space and a center for economic development.

The center will also include a charter school that creates a continuum of education in partnership with our Head Start program. Like all our centers, programs and services will be advised and driven by the community, and the campus will be reflective of the unique international flavor and cultural diversity of Gulfton/Sharpstown community.

We welcome your participation and feedback as we move forward with this exciting project. If you would like more information or would like to get involved with this initiative, please email us at community@neighborhood-centers.org.

The Gulfton/Sharpstown Marketplace

Neighborhood Centers Inc.’s new community center in the Gulfton/Sharpstown area – a key component of our New Century Campaign – will function much like a village market, providing a central gathering place where neighbors can easily come together to access the resources they need.

The complete “neighborhood marketplace” will:

Provide much-needed educational programs for families to increase English proficiency, improve young children’s school performance and help adults gain skills and knowledge for citizenship, business ownership and more.
Create a neighborhood network allowing individuals and leaders to harness the energy and knowledge of the community.
Serve as an incubator for economic development to help immigrants transition into Houston’s economic and social systems.

Houston's untapped potential

The Gulfton/Sharpstown neighborhoods make up an 8.4-square-mile section of Southwest Houston, and have a population density three times greater than that of the city’s inner loop.

Gulfton, specifically, is our nation’s new Ellis Island – a portal neighborhood in a gateway city that originally came to prominence in the 1970s and early 1980s, when developers built a number of large apartment complexes for young professionals. As times changed, the neighborhood did too – and by the 1990s, it had become a refuge for newly arrived immigrants.

Today, the community is a true melting pot of cultures, with extended families from Mexico, Central and South America, Europe, Africa and Asia all living together in apartments once popular with singles. They come here for a new life and the opportunity to pursue their dreams. Often, they find only hardship.

Most Houstonians aren’t aware of this “new Ellis Island” in their midst. But the statistics – facts about the Gulfton neighborhood alone – tell the story:

More than 90 percent of the immigrant families living in the community rent from one of the many huge apartment complexes in the neighborhood. With so many large families sharing single apartments, Gulfton has enormous population density, with about 16,000 persons per square mile – roughly eight times that of Harris County and three times that of Houston’s inner-loop.
While 70 percent of males and 55 percent of females are employed, many are underemployed. They live paycheck-to-paycheck with nearly half earning incomes below $25,000.
Approximately 40 percent of the families with young children in the community live below the poverty level. Few benefit from any form of public assistance.
Sixty-two percent of households have school-age or preschool children; less than half of the adults in the area graduated from high school. And 53 percent do not speak English well.

Despite the difficult living conditions, the Gulfton/Sharpstown area has tremendous assets.

Its residents share a tangible passion for a better life and an entrepreneurial spirit that belies their current status. They also share common traits with all disadvantaged people: the desire for support, not handouts; the dream of a better standard of living made possible by their own efforts; and a yearning to be treated with respect and dignity.