When San Antonio’s Alazán-Apache Courts—the city’s oldest public housing complex, where the overwhelming majority of residents are Mexican American—landed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places in 2020, Opportunity Home, formerly the San Antonio Housing Authority (SAHA), and a private developer had plans to demolish the 929 one-and two-story units and rebuild the site as a mixed-income property.

Some residents backed SAHA’s plan, but many others viewed it as part of a larger trend of gentrification and privatization, which threatened to displace vulnerable families—especially at a time when deeply affordable housing in San Antonio is both in high demand and extremely scarce. Razing the site would have also wiped out a significant chapter of the city’s history

“The importance of the Alazán-Apache Courts is not just the architecture, it’s the stories of the people who live there,” said Amy Webb, senior director of the preservation programs at the National Trust. “These are places that hold the collective memories of Americans.”

Two local organizations, the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and the Westside Preservation Alliance, nominated the Alazán-Apache Courts for inclusion on the list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. They also mobilized residents to protest SAHA’s redevelopment plans through their “Mi Barrio No Se Vende” (“My Neighborhood is Not for Sale”) campaign. Their efforts were successful: SAHA abandoned its plan to demolish the complex and has instead committed to rehabilitating the aging buildings, improving living conditions, while adding new units and amenities.

The inclusion of the Alazán-Apache Courts on the 11 Most Endangered list also caught the attention of the National Park Service’s (NPS) Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), which selected the site for documentation. Founded in 1933 in partnership with the Library of Congress, HABS records America’s architectural heritage through detailed drawings, photographs, and written histories. HABS records, which include approximately 45,000 sites, are publicly available for free through the Library of Congress website.

According to HABS architect and San Antonio native Robert Arzola, who oversaw the documentation of the Alazán-Apache Courts, the site was selected for documentation in part to fill in a gap in the collection of Latine and Mexican American sites. “We wanted to amplify the message that, these are significant historic sites that are worth documenting by including them in our national collection of historically significant architecture,” he said.

A Grassroots Effort

Located on San Antonio’s West Side, the Alazán-Apache Courts were built between 1939 and 1942 as part of a New Deal initiative to address a housing crisis. As the city's first public housing development, they offered affordable homes for low-income residents. Legal segregation was the norm at the time, and so the complex was built primarily to serve the Mexican American community that made up a large portion of the area’s population.

The projects, known to locals as “Los Courts,” provided a vital solution to overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions: Before their construction, many Mexican American families lived in makeshift housing along the Alazán Creek, much of which was destroyed by a devastating flood in 1921 that also claimed many lives. “For many people that lived in this housing, it was the first time they had access to a toilet or running water,” said Arzola.

While the Alazán-Apache Courts once represented a major improvement, they have since fallen behind modern housing standards. The units are small and basic in design, made primarily from concrete, and lack crucial amenities like central air conditioning. Some of the units are also located within floodplains. Today, approximately 1,370 residents live in Los Courts. Some families have called the complex home for generations, unable to afford housing elsewhere and unwilling to leave the community they’ve helped build.

Though Los Courts were born out of segregation, racism, and tragedy— and its residents have long struggled with poverty and a lack of city services —the community has thrived in its own way. Los Courts have shaped the culture of San Antonio’s West Side, producing many local artists and musicians. “And even though this is a difficult episode, it is important still,” said Arzola. “Even though it was public housing, a lot of positive things happened there.”

Hands-on Learning

The HABS documentation project focused on the leasing office and two representative housing units—one single-story and one two-story—chosen to reflect the overall character of the complex. The documentation was carried out by Kevin Ponce-Victoria, an undergraduate architecture student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, and Isaac Knott, a San Antonio native and graduate architecture student at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Both Ponce-Victoria and Knott participated through the Latino Heritage Internship Program (LHIP), an NPS initiative, managed in partnership with Environment for the Americas, that provides internship opportunities for young adults, with an emphasis on Latine people, in a variety of career fields.