Building for Those Who Built Texas: Our Nonprofit Housing Strategy

Texas is in the midst of a housing crisis that no single developer, government program, or nonprofit can solve alone. At Acreage Developments, we believe that private land developers have both an opportunity and a responsibility to be part of the solution — not by abandoning commercial discipline, but by applying it in partnership with the organizations closest to the communities that need homes most.

The Scale of the Problem

Texas has long been celebrated for its development-friendly regulatory environment and its willingness to build. The state has led the nation in new housing permits every year since 2008. And yet, by virtually every measure, supply has failed to keep pace with need — particularly at the bottom of the income spectrum, where the consequences of a shortage are not inconvenience but instability.

The most recent data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition's The Gap 2025 report is sobering. Texas has a shortage of 665,967 affordable and available rental units for households earning at or below 30% of area median income (AMI) — the threshold that defines extremely low-income (ELI) renters. Put differently, there are just 25 affordable and available units for every 100 ELI households in the state. That places Texas in the bottom five states nationwide for affordable housing availability.

The numbers worsen in Texas's largest metros. Dallas-Fort Worth has only 14 affordable units per 100 ELI households — one of the lowest ratios in the entire country. Austin sits at 16. Houston at 16. Taken together, three of the five worst-performing major metro areas for affordable housing in the United States are in Texas. More than 85% of extremely low-income renters in Dallas, Austin, and Houston are severely cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than half their income on rent alone, leaving little for food, healthcare, transportation, or childcare.

The Texas Comptroller's office notes that between 2012 and 2022, rental units priced under $1,000 per month declined by 29% statewide — a direct erosion of the most accessible tier of the rental market. Meanwhile, housing units priced at $2,000 or more per month increased by 253% over the same period. The market is building at the top. The gap at the bottom is widening.

Who Bears the Burden

The populations most exposed to this shortage are not abstract demographics. They are neighbors, coworkers, veterans, and the people who keep Texas communities running day to day.

Seniors aging in place represent one of the fastest-growing cohorts in need of affordable, accessible housing. As fixed-income retirees face both rising rents and rising property taxes, many are forced to choose between their medication and their rent. Texas's senior population is projected to nearly double by 2050, and the existing stock of senior-specific affordable housing is nowhere near sufficient to absorb that growth. Purpose-built senior communities — with accessible layouts, proximity to healthcare, and rents calibrated to Social Security income — are critically undersupplied across every major Texas market.

Veterans are disproportionately represented in Texas's unhoused population. Housing prices are getting more and more expensive in North Texas, and that puts a particular burden on veterans who often leave the military with little preparation for civilian housing markets. A 2018 Urban Institute study found that 78% of Fort Worth landlords refused to accept housing vouchers — and Texas law protects their right to do so. Veterans with physical disabilities, PTSD, or limited rental histories face compounded barriers that the open market is not equipped to address. The need for veteran-specific supportive housing — combining stable, affordable units with wraparound services — remains acute across the DFW region and beyond.

Workforce families earning between 60% and 100% of AMI occupy a particularly precarious middle ground. Too affluent to qualify for most subsidized programs, too income-constrained to afford market-rate rentals in high-demand urban and suburban areas, teachers, nurses, first responders, and retail workers are increasingly priced out of the communities they serve. A teacher in Fort Worth Independent School District earning $55,000 annually cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment in many of the neighborhoods where she works — a structural inequity with real consequences for teacher retention, commute times, and community cohesion.

Formerly incarcerated individuals face one of the steepest re-entry barriers in the housing market. Landlord screening practices, often using blanket criminal history exclusions, deny housing to people who have completed their sentences and are actively seeking to reintegrate. Without stable housing, recidivism rates rise and community costs — in emergency services, incarceration, and lost economic productivity — multiply. Faith-based organizations and specialized nonprofits have been among the most effective providers of transitional and permanent housing for this population, but they consistently lack the land and capital to scale.

People experiencing homelessness, including families with children and the chronically homeless with co-occurring mental health or substance use disorders, require housing models that combine affordability with services. The "Housing First" philosophy — placing people in stable housing before addressing other challenges — has become the evidence-based standard in communities across Texas. But it requires a supply of deeply affordable units that simply does not exist at the necessary scale.

The Nonprofit Housing Ecosystem in Texas

Across Texas, a network of nonprofits, housing authorities, and faith-based organizations has been doing the difficult, capital-intensive work of housing vulnerable populations — often with inadequate land, constrained balance sheets, and complex financing structures. These are the partners Acreage Developments is actively seeking to engage.

Habitat for Humanity affiliates operate across every major Texas market, offering sweat-equity homeownership for low-income families. Their model is powerful but land-constrained — affordable infill lots in established neighborhoods are increasingly difficult to source at prices that make the economics work. A land development partner that can identify, acquire, and convey suitable parcels at below-market cost or through donation dramatically expands what Habitat affiliates can accomplish.

The Veterans' Land Board of Texas has administered land and housing programs for Texas veterans since 1946, providing low-interest land loans and home improvement financing. Coordinating with VLB on veteran-targeted subdivision development — particularly in suburban and exurban markets where land costs are lower and veterans with families seek housing — presents a natural alignment of mission and market position.

Faith-based housing organizations — from Catholic Charities to local church-based affordable housing ministries — often control underutilized land holdings in urban neighborhoods. These organizations are natural co-development partners for mixed-income projects that reserve a percentage of units for congregation members, re-entry populations, or other mission-driven tenant pools. Their community trust and local knowledge complements Acreage's entitlement expertise and development capacity.

Local housing authorities are critical infrastructure partners. Fort Worth Housing Solutions serves more than 5,200 low-income families and individuals through public housing and Section 8 voucher administration. By partnering with housing authorities on project-based voucher applications, a private developer can unlock rental subsidies that make deeply affordable units financially viable within a mixed-income project. In Austin, ECHO (Ending Community Homelessness Coalition) coordinates the region's entire homelessness response system and serves as the lead Continuum of Care applicant for HUD funding — receiving approximately $12 million in CoC funds for fiscal year 2023 alone. In Dallas, CitySquare has pioneered models that combine permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, and community development financing to serve the chronically homeless, providing over 1,000 low-income units across the city through multiple housing programs, including the landmark CityWalk@Akard tower in downtown Dallas.

Development Models That Work

Acreage Developments approaches nonprofit housing partnerships through four primary structural models, each calibrated to different partner capacities, target populations, and market conditions.

Land donation and discounted conveyance is often the most direct form of partnership. When Acreage acquires a larger tract and subdivides it, there are frequently parcels that are constrained for market-rate development — floodplain adjacencies, irregular shapes, or locations that don't pencil at market rents — but are entirely suitable for nonprofit-sponsored affordable development. Conveying those parcels to a Habitat affiliate or community land trust at below-market or no cost removes the single largest barrier to nonprofit project feasibility, while allowing the market-rate portions of the overall development to cross-subsidize the community benefit.

Reduced-cost entitlement services address a different bottleneck. Many nonprofits have access to capital and mission alignment but lack the in-house expertise to navigate Texas's complex zoning, platting, and permitting processes. Acreage can provide entitlement services — site plan preparation, variance applications, utility coordination, regulatory engagement — at reduced or deferred cost structures, enabling nonprofit partners to move projects from concept to shovel-ready at a fraction of typical predevelopment expense.

Fee developer structures allow a nonprofit to own and operate a project — capturing the long-term community benefit and tax-exempt financing advantages — while engaging Acreage as the development manager who handles site acquisition, design coordination, contractor procurement, and construction oversight. The nonprofit retains ownership and mission control; Acreage contributes the development infrastructure. This model is particularly effective for organizations with strong community relationships and access to soft financing but without in-house development staff.

Community Land Trust (CLT) co-development offers the most durable affordability outcome. In a CLT structure, a nonprofit acquires and holds the land in perpetuity while homebuyers purchase the improvements — the homes themselves — at below-market prices. Buyers sign long-term ground leases (typically 99 years) and agree to resale restrictions that keep the homes affordable for successive generations. Houston's CLT now supports more than 200 households and continues to expand. San Antonio has three active CLTs backed by a $150 million affordable housing bond. In Austin, the CLT Accelerator Program is helping emerging organizations develop the technical capacity to implement the model at scale. Acreage can play a founding role in CLT-linked developments by providing the land at cost or below, and by structuring platting and infrastructure in ways that reduce the CLT's long-term carrying burden.

The Financial Case for Mission-Aligned Development

Sophisticated investors sometimes view affordable housing as a charitable concession — a social good that comes at the expense of returns. The reality of today's financing landscape is more nuanced, and in many cases more compelling.

The Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), established by the Tax Reform Act of 1986, remains the federal government's primary tool for incentivizing private affordable housing development. Developers who agree to reserve units for income-qualifying tenants receive dollar-for-dollar federal tax credits over a 10-year credit period. A project with $10 million in eligible basis generates approximately $900,000 in annual credits — $9 million over the credit period. Those credits are sold to institutional investors (banks, insurance companies, corporations seeking tax liability reduction), converting future tax savings into upfront equity that reduces the need for construction debt. In 2023, Texas passed H.B. 1058, creating a state-level LIHTC program layered on top of the federal program, administered by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs (TDHCA). Texas developers can now stack state franchise tax credits and insurance premium tax credits alongside federal LIHTC allocations, improving project-level economics significantly.

HOME Investment Partnerships Program funds, administered at the local level by participating jurisdictions, provide flexible gap financing for affordable housing development, including acquisition, new construction, and rehabilitation. Cities like Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and Houston receive millions in annual HOME allocations that are specifically designed to be layered with LIHTC and other financing sources. Developers working within a nonprofit partnership structure can access these funds as subordinate debt or grants, reducing the amount of conventional financing required.

Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), also administered locally, can fund infrastructure improvements, site clearance, and public facility investments that directly benefit affordable housing projects. Strategic engagement with local CDBG administrators early in the development process can unlock public investment in infrastructure that would otherwise burden project-level pro formas.

Beyond government programs, the impact investment market has matured significantly. Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs), mission-aligned foundations, and ESG-focused institutional investors are actively deploying capital into affordable housing projects at below-market interest rates in exchange for documented community impact. For a developer with a demonstrated track record of nonprofit partnership and community benefit delivery, access to this capital pool represents a genuine competitive advantage — lower cost of funds, longer loan terms, and investors whose patience horizon aligns with the realities of affordable development timelines.

Texas Leaders Showing What's Possible

Across the state, organizations are demonstrating that the intersection of nonprofit mission and private development capacity produces outcomes that neither sector achieves alone.

In Fort Worth, Fort Worth Housing Solutions administers housing programs for more than 5,200 low-income families and individuals, managing both public housing units and Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers. FWHS has been an active partner in mixed-income development across Tarrant County, using project-based voucher commitments to anchor the affordable portions of projects that would otherwise require deeper subsidy. Their engagement with private developers — particularly on transit-adjacent sites and infill parcels — has produced workforce housing accessible to the families and individuals who otherwise fall into the DFW affordability gap.

In Austin, ECHO (Ending Community Homelessness Coalition) coordinates one of the most comprehensive homelessness response systems in the state. Serving as the lead Continuum of Care agency for Austin and Travis County, ECHO manages a network of service providers, runs the biennial Point-in-Time count of unhoused individuals, and coordinates permanent supportive housing placements that combine housing access with mental health, substance use, and employment services. ECHO's $350 million plan to effectively end unsheltered homelessness in Austin depends critically on the development of new permanent supportive housing units — units that require engaged development partners who understand both the technical and community dimensions of the work.

In Dallas, CitySquare has built one of the most integrated models of community development in the country. With over 1,000 low-income units across the city — including the 200-unit CityWalk@Akard tower in downtown Dallas, the Cottages at Hickory Crossing (50 tiny homes for the chronically homeless), and new container-housing developments — CitySquare has demonstrated that the most structurally marginalized populations can be stably housed when housing is paired with food security, healthcare, and economic opportunity. Their willingness to partner with for-profit developers on mixed-income projects, as they did with Lone Star Gas Lofts in Oak Cliff, shows the potential of creative cross-sector collaboration.

Acreage's Commitment: Community-First Development

At Acreage Developments, our business model has always been built on the conviction that land development done right creates value for the entire community — not just for those who can afford market-rate product. That conviction is not a marketing posture. It reflects our understanding of what makes development sustainable over the long term in Texas markets.

The communities that attract the strongest long-term investment — stable workforce populations, engaged civic institutions, high-quality public services — are the ones where housing affordability has been intentionally managed. A neighborhood that displaces its teachers, nurses, and first responders eventually loses the service quality that made it desirable in the first place. Developers who treat affordability as someone else's problem are, in economic terms, free-riding on community investments they are actively degrading.

Our approach to nonprofit housing partnership is structured around a simple premise: we bring the land, the entitlement expertise, and the development infrastructure. Our nonprofit partners bring the mission clarity, the community relationships, and the specialized financing tools that make deeply affordable units viable. Together, we can produce outcomes that neither party achieves working independently.

We are actively seeking to expand our nonprofit partnership pipeline across the DFW metroplex and in the secondary Texas markets — Waco, Tyler, Abilene, Lubbock, El Paso — where land prices remain accessible and the need for affordable housing is no less acute. If you represent a nonprofit housing organization, a local housing authority, a faith-based development ministry, or an impact-focused capital provider, we want to hear from you. The Texas housing crisis will not be solved by any single initiative. But it will be solved — project by project, partnership by partnership — by developers and nonprofits who are willing to work at the intersection of commercial discipline and community commitment.

That is the work we are here to do.