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New Hope Housing & Star of Hope’s Cornerstone Community receives Urban Land Institute award for excellence in the Americas

Sep 9, 2021

HOUSTON — The Urban Land Institute (ULI) has awarded New Hope Housing and Star of Hope’s Cornerstone Community with its annual ULI Award for Excellence: The Americas. Since 1979, ULI has recognized with this award truly superior development efforts in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Winning projects represent the highest standards of achievement in the land use profession. The program evaluates submissions on overall excellence, including achievements in marketplace acceptance, design, planning, technology, amenities, economic impact, management, community engagement, innovation, and sustainability, among others.

Joy Horak-Brown

Joy Horak-Brown

“We are honored to receive this prestigious international award, together with Star of Hope” shared Joy Horak-Brown, President and CEO of New Hope Housing. “Cornerstone Community shows that two independent non-profit organizations collaborating can boldly tackle the problems faced by homeless and at-risk families, aiming to break the cycle of generational poverty.”

The 47-acre Cornerstone Community campus includes the Star of Hope Women & Family Development Center and New Hope Housing Reed’s 187 fully-furnished, affordable apartment homes. Star of Hope raised 95% of the funds for the Development Center from private donors, and New Hope Housing combined a variety of public and private funding sources to develop Reed.

New Hope Housing Reed was designed by GSMA and Star of Hope’s Women & Family Development Center was designed by Kirksey Architecture. Both firms have received the AIA Houston Firm of the Year honor, in 2013 and 2021 respectively.

“Cornerstone Community is a collaborative campus serving homeless women and families,” said Hank Rush, President and CEO of Star of Hope Mission. “It is dedicated to helping them overcome their challenges, exit homelessness and move forward with independent and successful lives.”

The Star of Hope Women & Family Development Center offers temporary housing and services for up to 150 families and 180 single women. It is at NHH Reed that many of those same families find permanent affordable housing in one-, two- and three-bedroom apartment homes along with robust wrap-around services.

Star of Hope’s Women & Family Development Center includes a clinic operated by Harris Health and a Workforce Development program. NHH Reed includes a 6,000 square foot family services building; a market supported by The Houston Food Bank; and a clinic operated by Healthcare for the Homeless-Houston.

As one of just 12 winners, Cornerstone Community is among the 72 projects and programs from across the Americas region that were submitted for the competition. From this impressive field of 72, the multidisciplinary jury of 12 ULI members representing a range of real estate and land use expertise, including development, finance, planning, urban design, architecture, and landscape architecture, selected 23 finalists. After speaking with the teams behind these projects and visiting as many as possible, the jury chose the 12 winners.

New Hope Housing’s core purpose is to provide life-stabilizing, affordable, permanent housing with support services for people who live on very limited incomes. The organization’s vision is to be an enduring institution serving Houston’s most vulnerable. Visit newhopehousing.com.

Star of Hope’s core purpose is ending homelessness…one life, one family at a time. The organization has, for 110 years, offered transformational assistance to the homeless. Visit www.sohmission.org

Joy Horak-Brown

Joy Horak-Brown

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