Affordable housing push in Clarksville

AUSTIN (KXAN) - A lot of work lies ahead, but soon a couple of families will call two houses on 11th Street in Austin's Clarksville neighborhood "home."

The Clarksville Community Development Corp., an affordable housing organization, announced Tuesday plans to renovate two old homes on West 11th Street. The corporation rents properties at low rates to families in need.

Built nearly a century ago—and vacant for a decade—the two houses need some hefty renovations.

“A third bedroom, a second bath and a big deck,” said Mary Reed, president of CCDC, as she outlined some of the needed construction. Also, each house will get a new roof, new foundation and new paint.

A $300,000 grant from Old West Austin Neighborhood Association enabled the CCDC to tackle the project.

“Our mission is to keep the neighborhood ethnically and economically diverse by providing people who do not have the means to live here otherwise with safe comfortable houses to live in,” Reed said.

Their work helps people like Alexandra Perry. Sitting on her front porch with her two young daughters, she said she hasn’t always been so fortunate.

“It's kind of the first real house I've ever lived in,” Perry said.

She and her husband and two girls were living with her mother. Shopping around for apartments was getting her nowhere.

“Whenever I'd look in our price range, I couldn't find anything. Or whatever I did find turned out to be one of those scams,” Perry said.

But help from the CCDC meant her daughters would have a place to call home, and a home that’s part of a community.

“There's lots of things really close. There's parks and playgrounds we can take our kids to a lot that we can just walk to,” Perry said.

With a yard, garden and all, the family lives in a home where they feel confident and comfortable planting their feet and growing up.

Planners expect the two new homes to be ready for rent by early next year.

CCDC is the only affordable housing organization operating west of I-35 in Austin.