'An Answered Prayer': How A South Dallas Pastor’s Equitable Development Uplifts City’s Poorest ZIP Codes

When Chris Simmons first came to Cornerstone Baptist Church in 1988, the congregation doubted he would last.

Members were weary after chronic violence in the area led to a revolving door of leadership. Many who had been with Cornerstone for decades didn't believe they could find a pastor willing to weather the storm alongside them.

“If I had known better, I probably wouldn’t have gone,” Simmons joked. “The area was called a war zone — there were a lot of drive-by shootings, a lot of gang activity and a lot of challenges in the neighborhood.

“We thought to ourselves, ‘It must be difficult to be part of a church where you feel like nobody really wants to pastor to you,’ and so we made a commitment that we would stay here and raise our family.”

Simmons kept his promise. Thirty-five years later, he remains head of the church.

But his role has evolved to extend far beyond the walls of Cornerstone. Today, it touches nearly every block of the 75210 and 75215 ZIP codes.

Twenty-four years ago, Simmons created Cornerstone Community Development Corp., a nonprofit dedicated to uplifting South Dallas through the transformation of nuisance properties. 

Cornerstone’s mission was to improve the community while keeping homeowners in place, a delicate balancing act that required an intimate understanding of what the neighborhood needs while ensuring residents are the ones who reap the rewards.

“The community often talks about projects that ‘pimp the poor,’” Simmons said. “[Investors] raise money as if they’re going to make this poor neighborhood better, but what they’ve done is just pimped them — they’ve gotten the resources to do it, but they haven’t done anything to uplift economic opportunities in the community.”

Simmons was determined to do things differently.

His projects have put millions of dollars back into the South Dallas community, created hundreds of jobs and dozens of affordable housing units, and spurred opportunities for residents in an area historically overlooked because of low incomes and high crime rates. 

“Pastor Chris Simmons is a God-filled man, a spirit-filled man, because there is no way that a human being can do what he does, when he does and in the time he does it without visible resources, without pretense and without looking for any personal accolades,” said Chris Jones, interim executive director of Cornerstone Economic Opportunity Center. “He really is just a selfless person.”

An Evolution Of Service 

Simmons was born in 1963 in Washington, D.C. His parents, George and Josephine Simmons, had been working in the foster care system for several years when their youngest of three children came along.

Watching his parents care for children who had been abused or neglected inspired Simmons to lead a life of service, and in the late 1980s, he headed to the Dallas Theological Seminary to begin his life’s work as a pastor.

Upon taking the job at Cornerstone, Simmons realized he had his work cut out for him.

South Dallas had never fully recovered from the devastation to homes and businesses inflicted by the 1950s-era construction of Interstate 45, and the lasting impacts of segregation and redlining created high concentrations of poverty, a dearth of economic opportunity and a hotbed for crime.

But the spirit of South Dallas was strong, Simmons said. In the early days, the church held food and clothing drives and provided medical and dental care, after-school programs, sewing classes, and English as a second language courses for immigrants.

“At the time, we did what we had with limited resources,” Simmons said. “We have now come to understand there are more resources available, which has allowed us to do more things in and for the community.”

Today, the average annual household income in the ZIP codes served by Cornerstone is $16K. More than half of grandparents are raising at least one grandchild, and the vast majority of children — Simmons estimates around 98% — don't have a father in the home.

About 10 years into Simmons’ tenure, a lightbulb went off.

Drug use, sex work and crime had ravaged the neighborhood, and homes and businesses had fallen into disrepair. Simmons decided to begin a development corporation he could use as a vehicle to acquire and repurpose properties to benefit the community.

“How do we develop the neighborhood so that it is sustainable?” Simmons said of the philosophy behind the formation of Cornerstone Community Development Corp. “We are real passionate about land acquisition in the community and the renovation of old, dilapidated properties and putting those back into use.” 

Given the extremely low incomes of Cornerstone’s members, raising money through the congregation wasn't an option. Instead, Simmons partnered with private organizations like Southwest Airlines to fund the endeavors.

The organization’s first project was The Care Center, which took a run-down apartment complex and turned it into transitional housing, a medical and dental clinic, and a clothing closet. After that, Simmons purchased three drug-infested houses behind the church. 

The original plan was to tear the 1910-era houses down, but in the spirit of preserving the area’s history, Simmons opted instead for renovations. Those early projects inspired Cornerstone’s mission of urban renewal without urban removal, which Simmons said is key to keeping legacy homeowners in place.

“We don’t want people feeling like they’ve been pushed out or that they’re not welcome here,” he said. “This is their home, and we really want to do what we can do to make it stay their home.”

Over the years, those three structures have evolved into Viola’s House, a maternity home for pregnant teenagers; Hope Farms, a leadership program for at-risk boys; and the Cornerstone Center for Economic Opportunity, a business incubator for South Dallas entrepreneurs.

“The idea was to really try and capture a lot of the entrepreneurial spirit that was down here, which was hitting sort of an economic wall and a knowledge wall,” Jones, a retired executive of the financial services industry, said of CCEO. “With average household income less than $20K a year in this ZIP code, almost everyone has to do something on the side.”

Seventy-five entrepreneurs turned up at CCEO’s first meeting in March 2020. Today, membership has grown to 163 clients, and the center has doled out more than 50 grants totaling $160K, Jones said. 

“The most gratifying part is the opportunities we’ve seen from people who have gone through every kind of trouble you can imagine who have just blossomed and grown,” Jones said. “If there is a key to our success, it is that we are here — we are not breeze in, breeze out.” 

A Turning Point

It seemed that every time Simmons filled a need, another would make itself known. But despite best intentions, a lack of expertise and funding limited what Cornerstone could do for the community. 

A major turning point came in 2017, when The Real Estate Council awarded Cornerstone and two other community organizations a $1M catalytic grant. The goal was to promote equitable development in South Dallas, improve the quality of life for residents, and increase job preparedness and wealth creation opportunities. 

Five years later, that partnership has grown to include 22 projects, more than 68K SF of redevelopment and around $24M of investment in an area of South Dallas known as the Forest District.

“It’s been transformative,” Simmons said of the partnership with TREC. “We have done more in the past five years than we’ve done in 30 years working together with them.”

TREC has funneled its own money into the Forest District, but more importantly, it has leveraged its network and resources to solicit pro bono and in-kind services, President and CEO Linda McMahon said. 

Simmons and other community leaders tell TREC what the neighborhood needs, and TREC finds the best path forward to make it happen, she added.

“We take a little bit of cash and we take the power of our members and their relationships, and we turn that into a major project,” McMahon said. 

Most TREC members working on projects have never been exposed to such extreme poverty before, McMahon said. The hope is that they approach future projects with a better understanding of the importance of equitable development.

“This really opens the eyes of our members to the challenges and problems that we face as a major urban city,” McMahon said. “They not only come away changed in an emotional way, but they also come away with a different perspective on how to solve these problems.” 

With the help of TREC, Simmons turned a vacant building into Cornerstone Community Laundromat in 2019. The idea came after a study commissioned by the State Fair of Texas revealed children in the neighborhood often skip school due to a lack of clean clothes.

Allen Rodriguez has been living in one of Cornerstone’s second-chance housing developments since he was let out of prison in late April. He works at the laundromat and also has a job washing dishes at a nearby restaurant. 

The opportunity for housing and work has been pivotal to Rodriguez’s success, he said, and has allowed him a chance to reconnect with his four children and five grandchildren.

“It’s a blessing. It’s an answered prayer,” he said. “And it’s only getting better — I get excited thinking about what’s coming next.” 

TREC’s leadership class also donated in-kind services and money to help Cornerstone open a grocery store in a run-down shopping center. 

The 800 SF Southpoint Community Market provides fresh food and vegetables, shelf-stable items, bread, dairy and more in an area where the nearest full-service grocery store is more than a mile away. The market also carries some of the goods made by EEOC’s entrepreneurs. 

Later this summer, Cornerstone and TREC are set to debut a commercial-grade, 2,200 SF cloud kitchen in the same building as the market. The goal is to give EEOC entrepreneurs the ability to produce their wares on a larger scale.

“We were using our regular kitchen that we use to feed the homeless,” Simmons said. “But there were always scheduling challenges, so we thought it would be better for them to have their own space.”

Each individual Cornerstone project underscores the passion Simmons has for uplifting his community, McMahon said. Simmons’ daughter, Christina Hood, leads a summer learning program for children in the community. She said the camp is yet another example of her dad’s steadfast commitment to the neighborhood and its residents.

“Any needs that the kids have, whatever the cost, he’s willing to make it happen for them,” she said. “A lot of the time, people won’t invest in our kids because they may not see the return. But there’s nothing he won’t do for them.”

Urban Renewal Without Urban Removal

The partnership with TREC will end this year, though McMahon said the organization will continue to have a presence in the Forest District. One of the last projects to open before TREC moves on to another area of Dallas is a 12K SF retail center at 1632 Martin Luther King Blvd., which will include a restaurant and several storefronts.

The $1.8M redevelopment project is led by Scott Rohrmon, founder of 42 Real Estate, and is funded in part through a $1M economic development incentive from the city of Dallas.

Bringing TREC into the fold allowed Cornerstone to ramp up acquisitions and has raised the area’s profile, McMahon said. Increased property values will likely follow, but the hope is that the job opportunities created by the improvements will put residents in a position to withstand the hikes.

“The last thing we want to do is make a neighborhood attractive and then have everybody pushed out — that’s not our intention,” McMahon said. “That’s why the partnership with the community organization, with Pastor Chris, who spends every waking hour here, is critical. They’re leading what they want to see happen in their neighborhood — we are not leading that. We are the vehicle for them to get what they want done.”

Property taxes in South Dallas have skyrocketed in recent years. A study commissioned by TREC found that the city’s low-income neighborhoods, most of them in South Dallas, have seen property values increase by more than 150% since 2017. 

Simmons and McMahon are working to arm residents with the knowledge they need to protest their values and take advantage of all available exemptions. But any increase is difficult for families living under the poverty line to absorb, Simmons said, which is why he and McMahon also advocate for policy changes that prevent displacement.

“You’re talking about people who are living on very limited income,” Simmons said. “To have their tax values doubled is very traumatic for them.”

Land acquisition by well-intentioned individuals is the best way to keep homeowners in place, Simmons said, which is why Cornerstone is constantly looking for new parcels and properties to pick up. The group owns 50 properties that are either operational or are in the process of being redeveloped.  

There has been a magnifying lens on the southern sector as of late, with everyone from city officials to private investors zeroing in on opportunities in the region. Simmons is grateful for the assistance that comes from greater exposure; he just hopes locals are prioritized in the process. 

“We realize we are in a prime place, less than 2 miles from downtown Dallas, and there’s a lot of opportunity for growth and development,” he said. “But there’s some people who want to be here, so let’s help them be here and take advantage of the resources that are coming to the neighborhood.”