Poverty and politics collided at this corner in West Las Vegas.
The Rev. Simmie Richard watched it happen, over the course of seven years, from the nearby window of his tiny church -- a former Circle K convenience store. Richard tells a tale of a neighborhood "on the rise."
There once was a low-income public apartment project called Sierra Nevada Arms at the corner -- Richard's church provided food and counseling for some of the residents.
"There were a lot of poverty-stricken people here. It was drug infested. It was run down," said Richard, pastor of Bread of Life Church on the corner of Simmons and Coran streets. "This community used to be in shambles."
Today, instead of slums there are 195 gray and green stucco townhomes standing on the 10 acres behind his church, along with a basketball court and picnic tables, barbecue grills and signs that say, "car stereos must be turned down while on premises."
A couple of first-time developers -- two other pastors who call their organization Shepherd Hills Development Corp. -- struggled for years to turn the property into this by-the-community, for-the-community, low-income housing complex.
But accomplishing that took them far outside this neighborhood -- to Washington, D.C.
And, ironically, it even led them to team up with a former associate of the Sierra Nevada Arms alleged slum lord.
After their seven-year wrestling match with public housing politics, the Shepherd Hills group says that the system is rife with racism and cronyism. They say their public image was tainted because of news reports that chronicled a steady stream of mishaps at the site, such as missed construction deadlines and improper removal of buildings. Despite the battle weariness, Shepherd Hills celebrated a grand opening last week, and Las Vegas City Councilman Lawrence Weekly lauded the complex as "a reason to move back into our community."
For Sameerah Briley, 21, it is exactly that.
Briley, who is raising four children by working as a leasing agent at a different development, rented a three-bedroom townhouse in the new Shepherd Hills community for $760 per month -- $300 less than her previous rental home on Tropicana Avenue.
"I love it here," Briley said, while giving a quick tour of her new, two-story home."At first, I thought I wouldn't want to live in this area because I don't want to live in a ghetto -- but it's really nice up here now. We've got a real cute home."
The Rev. Emanuel Wasson, Shepherd Hills president, says the struggle -- however complicated -- was worth it.
"They all said we couldn't do it. But here it is," Wasson said. "Sometimes I can't believe we made it. But we did it."
This is how a group of Las Vegans got into the public-housing business.
Beginnings
In 1994, the Sierra Nevada Arms Apartments made headlines when then-U.S. Housing and Urban Development Assistant Secretary Andrew Cuomo called the site one of the worst low-income housing projects in the nation.
The 352-unit complex on Simmons between Vegas Drive and Lake Mead Boulevard, owned by Los Angeles investor A. Bruce Rozet, had raw sewage flowing near a playground and broken glass and other garbage littered across the 26-acre lot.
In the 1980s Rozet built one of the largest HUD portfolios in the United States by turning thousands of debt-ridden multihousing units into tax shelters for wealthy businesses. But his development skills allegedy were eclipsed by his knack for abusing the system.
In 1997 HUD accused Rozet of defrauding the government by collecting excess subsidies in 17 apartment complexes in California and Nevada. In April 1998 HUD filed additional civil fraud charges that accuse him and his associated companies of improperly pocketing millions of taxpayer dollars in a massive kickback and insurance scam. The charges involve 90 apartment projects in 26 states, including Nevada.
But in 1994, when HUD threatened to condemn the Sierra Nevada Arms apartments, residents such as Italia Taylor didn't want the property to be sold to another wealthy developer whose interests were outside of the neighborhood. Instead, she wanted the residents to have a say in what would become of the site.
"I'm a fighter. I fight for what is right," said Taylor, who has been in Las Vegas for 19 years. "We deserved a say in what would happen."
Taylor petitioned community leaders to give the local black community a chance to redevelop the property and have a say in the management.
Wasson, pastor at the Holy Trinity African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, and the Rev. A.J. Thompson, then pastor of Victory Baptist Church, also saw an opportunity.
"Rev. Thompson and I were friends, and we had heard about the situation at Sierra Nevada Arms like everybody else," Wasson said.
"Rev. Thompson called me over, and we sat down in his living room one night and said we need to get this property for the community ... We were a concerned religious body who wanted to make a difference in the community."
The pastors formed Shepherd Hills Development Corp. and made Taylor a consultant. With no development experience -- and no money -- they faced an uphill battle in securing the redevelopment project.
They also faced competition.
Parallel pursuit
Across the country, a Maryland developer was simultaneously placing calls to Rozet asking to take over the Sierra Arms property.
Steven Brookins saw the Las Vegas corner as a launch pad for his fledgling company, Quality Neighborhood Housing Inc.
Although Brookins was relatively new to the development game, his father was an old hand in the urban redevelopment arena -- and had worked with Rozet before.
In the 1980s the Rev. H.H. Brookins, a bishop in the AME church, needed help to revive thousands of church-owned, debt-ridden housing units in Los Angeles.
So he turned to public-housing powerhouse Rozet.
"I was trying to get help wherever I could," H.H. Brookins recalled last year during a telephone call from his office in Nashville, Tenn.
"The one organization that is sensitive to and responsible for the needs of the poor in urban areas is the church, but the churches often don't have the funding they need (to maintain public housing)...
Rozet appeared as a lifeboat to H.H. Brookins by syndicating the debt-ridden properties as tax shelters. H.H. Brookins told the Los Angeles Times in 1989 that he viewed Rozet as the "Santa Claus" that helped save rundown, inner-city HUD properties in Los Angeles.
Years later when Steven Brookins, H.H.'s son, wanted the Sierra Nevada Arms property in Las Vegas, Rozet introduced him to the Shepherd Hills group. Brookins signed on as the for-profit developer to the nonprofit Shepherd Hills.
Steven Brookins' company, Quality Neighborhood, was incorporated in Nevada in 1996, and he moved to Las Vegas.
Outsiders
But the group still faced formidable challenges in acquiring the land. Aside from the fact that they were asking to be gifted land that might otherwise be bid on, Brookins was a newcomer in Las Vegas, and the Shepherd Hills group was a newcomer to housing deals.
"I knew we didn't have a chance (at getting the property) with the good ol' boys network here," Steven Brookins said.
By law, if HUD had foreclosed on the Sierra Nevada Arms property, it would have given the city and state first dibs on putting it up for bids. So rather than deal in Las Vegas politics, the Shepherd Hills team decided to work with the devil they knew: Washington politics.
As a prominent bishop in the AME church, Steven's father, H.H. Brookins, climbed to a position of some national political influence by the mid-1990s.
In 1996 he was ranked the 15th most powerful black man in the United States by Ebony magazine, ahead of his friend the Rev. Jesse Jackson, ahead of then-Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, ahead of San Francisco and Atlanta Mayors Willie Brown and Bill Campbell.
H.H. Brookins was credited with launching the political careers of Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. Later, he became bishop of the AME district that included Washington, where he befriended Mayor Marion Barry.
His political connections helped him land several lucrative government contracts over the course of his career.
But while H.H. Brookins' influence could help his son circumnavigate Las Vegas politics, his connection to Rozet was a stumbling block with HUD officials who were leery of the possibility that Shepherd Hills might be in cahoots with Rozet.
"Our Rozet connection was a problem. Many (HUD officials) have it out for Rozet. I think they thought he would come back in through the back of the deal," Steven Brookins said.
When negotiations became difficult, Steven Brookins said, "I had my dad and Jesse (Jackson) go see them (HUD officials) ..."
At a meeting in Washington in December 1996, HUD officials, Rozet, the Brookins, Wasson and several others cut a deal on the Sierra Nevada Arms property.
Group members were asked to sign affadavits asserting that alleged Rozet would not benefit from the Las Vegas land if it were awarded to them. They complied.
"If we wouldn't have had friends at the highest levels, it would have never worked out," Steven Brookins said.
Under the terms of the deal, the entire piece of property -- nearly 30 acres -- would be transferred from Rozet to HUD, and HUD then would give it to the nonprofit Shepherd Hills Development Corp. for $1.
But Las Vegas and regional HUD officials still wanted to put the property up for bid -- to make some money on it and ensure that an experienced developer would see the project through. They urged further negotiations.
"We just weren't completely comfortable that this unqualified nonprofit could develop the whole site," said Pat Goray, San Francisco regional HUD director of operations.
A second agreement was then reached where the property was divided, and longtime Las Vegas developer Saxton Inc. bought roughly two-thirds of the property for about $130,000. (Saxton completed new townhomes on the site in 1999.)
Shepherd Hills still managed to acquire 10.2 acres for $1, along with a $448,000 HUD grant to demolish the old buildings. Later, the state of Nevada issued $10 million in private activity bonds to help build the $21 million project.
To help cover the remainder of the costs, Shepherd Hills recruited an equity investor from Chicago, who, in exchange for investment, will earn back more than the investment in tax credits.
More challenges
But the project was long from complete.
"This has not been easy," Wasson said. "Sometimes I wondered what I got myself into."
After Shepherd Hills got the property -- in 1997 -- the West Las Vegas neighborhood waited anxiously for apartments while in the news, headline after headline reported building glitches. Subcontractors who were hired to demolish the old structures opted to move the buildings rather than demolish them, and then collected insurance money when the buildings burned as a result of suspected arson in 1998.
"We had nothing to do with that. It was just an unfortunate series of events," Wasson said.
Shepherd Hills also asked the city for four extensions on its contractual obligation to secure financing while it struggled to find a lender.
Wasson, Taylor, and the Brookins attributed much of the difficulty they had in launching the project, as well as the negative news reports, to racism.
"The problems, I would say, are 50 percent about racism," Steven Brookins said. Taylor said it was more than 50 percent.
When asked for specifics, the group said it would be counterproductive to air those grievances.
Rewards
Today the 195 units at Shepherd Hills -- the last portion of the original Sierra Nevada Arms site to be developed -- are 70 percent occupied. Children's bicycles are propped against porches, and residents park in covered spots.
Rents range from $644 to $747 for two- or three-bedroom homes.
"People from other nearby apartments are coming over and applying," Wasson said. "We have to turn away those that earn too much."
Shepherd Hills "mutual housing" concept is designed to include representation of the renters in residential rulemaking and maintenance decisions to avoid the grim situation that caused Sierra Nevada Arms decay.
"We're setting up a tenants' council to help with decision-making," Wasson said.
"And we are talking about building a day-care facility, too."
Rents, which are capped by HUD, are being paid through a management company to the Shepherd Hills group.
"Things are good," Wasson said. He has recently moved his Holy Trinity AME Church from a 1,700-square-foot storefront to a 17,000-square-foot building.
As for whether the completion of the Shepherd Hills was worth the coast-to-coast politics, the financial struggle, the publicity hurdles, Wasson said, "Oh yes.
"That's the just type of person I am. Once I get my teeth into something, I don't turn it loose. I go against the odds.
"I believe this development is going to be a positive asset to the community, and because of that, the ends justified the means.
"Yes, it was worth it."
Sun reporters Steve Kanigher and Erica Johnson
contributed to this article.
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