Evangelist Gerald Jackson looks out pensively at the area around his church, pointing out landmarks in the neighborhood. There’s a drug lord’s house where he once saw little children playing. There’s a park where prostitutes regularly solicit work. There’s his churches’ shattered sign, vandalized by a rock thrown after a sermon on drugs and alcohol.
The area between 34th Street and 19th Street near Interstate 27 is largely “a forgotten neighborhood” said Jackson, evangelist for Central Church of Lubbock. It’s also a community he says is often compared to another former problem area –North Overton.
“It is postured to be a candidate for the same thing that took place in Overton, where the only thing that will save the neighborhood is a good razing,” said Jackson.
Hundreds of houses were destroyed in the North Overton redevelopment project in 2002, leaving acres of prime building land where developments are still underway. While Jackson said the new commerce is good for Lubbock, he said the clean sweep approach is the last thing he wants to see happen in his community.
“Before we consider a final solution of just destroying the neighborhood,” he said, “let’s see if it may not be better and more economically sound to renovate and regenerate the one that’s there.”
Jackson is not alone. Brian Rex, assistant professor of architecture at Texas Tech University, is also looking for ways to preserve the neighborhood and to bring it to the attention of city leaders.
“I’d just like the city to know this is here,” Rex said.
City government has begun to show more interest in the community, Jackson said, particularly through a $45 thousand grant this year. But he’d still like to see more outside involvement. For now, he said most of the progress in the neighborhood is brought about by a few local community members who are working to turn their neighborhood around from within.
In light of that premise, Central Community Church now offers rehab programs, designed not only to help people recover from addiction, but to train them to be able to take care of themselves and their families. This year, the church will renovate and donate a home from the neighborhood to a former rehab patient. Jackson said the project will not only give the new homeowner a hope for a better future, but also improve the neighborhood overall.
“And if we can do more like that,” he said, “and buy the homes up in the neighborhood that are run down, that are possessions of slum lords, and get people in who have pride in what they do and pride in ownership, then we can make this neighborhood better from the inside out.”
While Jackson sees the North Overton project as a last result, and something he would rather not see happen again, community member Rick Dorsett, who watched the changes occur, sees the project as a positive thing for the city, and especially for Tech.
The latest addition to the area, the U-Lofts located across from campus, will tie Tech into the project even more said Kurt Lauer, construction superintendent for the lofts.
“Lubbock will be proud of this for sure,” he said. “This will add to the whole Overton area, and it’ll be a dramatic difference.”
While Jackson said he applauds the city and McDougal Cos. for the changes in Overton, he believes the area should never have been allowed to run down to the point that it had to be wiped clean.
“You’re going to always have poverty, you can’t eliminate that,” he said. “But you don’t have to have the throws of a society that’s been neglected,” he said.
