Escobedo at Verde Vista was a blighted, vacant and boarded-up former public housing development just north of downtown Mesa. Built in the early 1940’s, this 10+ acre site originally housing African American British and U.S. Air Force pilots during World War II in segregated military barracks. Once the war ended, the development was converted into segregated public housing for African American and Hispanic households living in poverty. It was integrated in the late 1960's, and was finally vacated and boarded up in 2007 and 2008 due to its severe obsolescence, leaving a gaping hole in this otherwise single family neighborhood.  Gorman & Company is currently redeveloping this city-owned site into a new, mixed-use and mixed-income neighborhood.

Over the course of a six month period in 2011, Save the Family Foundation invited Gorman & Company to participate in Arizona’s first ever Supportive Housing Institute, hosted by the Corporation for Supportive Housing, the Valley of the Sun United Way, and sponsored by the Arizona Department of Housing.  At the time, no site had been identified, but the goal was to find a location to build a mix of affordable and permanent supportive rental housing, along with a new headquarters for Save the Family Foundation from which to expand its array of housing and social services. Soon after completing the Institute, our team was called into the Washington Park Escobedo Neighborhood by the West Mesa CDC who, with the help of Phoenix LISC, had engaged the community in two years of visioning and strategic planning.

The development team involved in this redevelopment project, which broke ground in November 2012, includes a broad spectrum of high-capacity, well-respected Mesa-based housing and social service providers and community institutions, teamed up with one of the nation’s ‘Top 50 Affordable Housing Developers’.  The project’s sponsor and co-developer will be ARM of Save the Family Foundation, a certified Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO). The resident service provider will be Save the Family, an affiliate of ARM. Founded in Mesa in 1989, Save the Family is one of Arizona’s leading housing and social service providers with an entrepreneurial focus on building the self-sufficiency of families with children throughout the east valley. On-site services to be provided to residents of the development and the surrounding neighborhood will include a before-and-after school program, computer training, financial literacy, and job placement services. A comprehensive site-specific service plan has been assembled to expand upon the amazing services already offered by Save the Family.