Project Row Houses

Project Row Houses is a development in the Third Ward area of Houston, Texas. Project Row Houses includes a group of shotgun houses restored in the 1990s. Eight houses serve as studios for visiting artists. Those houses are art studios for art related to African-American themes. A row behind the art studio houses houses single mothers.

Rick Lowe, a native of Alabama and 2014 MacArthur "genius" grant winner, founded Project Row Houses. In 1990, according to Lowe, a group of high school students approached Lowe and asked him to create solutions to problems instead of creating works that tell the community about issues it is already aware of. Lowe and a coalition of artists purchased a group of 22 shotgun houses across two blocks that were built in 1930 and, by the 1990s, were in poor condition. Lisa Gray of the Houston Chronicle said that the houses, originally used as rentals, were "previously ruled by drugs and prostitutes."

Inspired by the work of John T. Biggers, the group used seed money funds from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts to restore the houses. Corporate sponsor Chevron renovated the outside of several shotgun houses. The director of the Menil Foundation allowed Monday to be a day off of work for the employees so that they could help renovate the shotgun houses. Volunteers numbering in the hundreds fortified porches, removed trash and used needles from lots, and hanged wallboards. Several individuals and families from the area and one local church "adopted" individual houses. Garnet Coleman adopted one house. The houses first opened in 1994.

Deborah Grotfeldt created the concept of the Young Mothers Residential Program, which began operations in 1996; Grotfeldt had worked with Lowe since the Project Row Houses project started. The program gives single mothers one year of housing to allow them to finish their education and organize themselves. Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times said "It has been as successful as the artist residency program."

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