Houston I wanted to see the first six houses completed in the ACORN Glen development in the North Forest section of Houston, so Orell Fitzsimmons, the field director of SEIU Local 100, whisked me out for a look. We were wildly impressed!

These were some serious houses built at two stories on a nice-sized lot with a full garage and plenty of room. Family houses for a family neighborhood. Around the corner was a huge new Fiesta grocery store, and I could easily see how another 20 or more houses would flesh out this whole area.

This is the first housing development to be assembled and built by ACORN Housing in Houston, so as always it has meant a learning curve in a new city pulling all of the pieces together to bring this one line. Marty Shalloo, director of development for AHC, has been on a steady commute between developments in Chicago, Phoenix, Houston, and now New Orleans. The last time I had asked him about the Houston development he had really sounded upbeat, so I was excited to visit, and now I can understand why he feels that they have come around the corner. This would be a wonderful place to call home.

As I took the pictures of the houses that will run with this piece, we got to the end of the street, and I was curious what the exact name of the street might be. Lo and behold, we were on the corner of Texas ACORN and Houston ACORN! One block over was Dallas ACORN street. Wonderful! How can you beat having a great house and potentially living on Texas ACORN street?

My idea of heaven! But when you see the pictures, you will find this is a fine piece of work being put together in Houston.