Thai Xuan Village () is a multi-family condominium complex in southeastern Houston, Texas. It is located in proximity to Hobby Airport. It houses a large Vietnamese immigrant population.
History
Father John Chinh Tran, a Catholic priest, founded the apartment complex. He named it after Thái Xuân, a hamlet in Xuân Lộc District, South Vietnam he had founded in the 1950s with peasants who fled from North Vietnam. The group, who were Catholic, were from Thái Bình Province. Due to the Xuân Lộc location and the Thai Binh origin, the hamlet was named "Thai Xuan". After the Vietnam War lead to the disestablishment of South Vietnam, many Catholic refugees arrived in the United States. In Houston, Chinh founded Thai Xuan Village as a new community, and named it after the old village.
The new Thai Xuan was founded in the former Cavalier Apartments facility. It was one of several apartments that lost White middle class tenants after the 1980s oil bust. In 1993 a development company owned by another immigrant Vietnamese purchased Cavalier. Paragon First Trading, controlled by Tony Nguyen, sold Vietnamese people condominium units for low prices.
After the apartment complex changed hands, many Mexican Americans who had been living in the complex came into conflict with the arriving Vietnamese. Josh Harkinson said that the Mexican American population was "territorial." Louis Ballesteros, a police officer who headed a nearby Houston Police Department storefront, received telephone calls from both Mexican Americans and the Vietnamese, with the Mexican Americans complaining about the Vietnamese operating "the way they wanted to live" and the Vietnamese accused the Mexican Americans of stealing and vandalizing. Ultimately Ballesteros used a federal mediator to resolve the conflict.
In October 1996, Paragon First Trading filed for bankruptcy. It had not surrendered the deeds or replatted the units. A court-appointed lawyer took possession of Thai Xuan Village. Paragon had a debt of $500,000 in back taxes. Several residents believed they had been victimized, and feared that they would be expelled from the complex. The residents protested to raise awareness of their situation. As a result of the hearings, the fact that villagers had renovated the residents had renovated the buildings while not having permits to do so was publicized. Tony Nguyen, who had legally changed his name to Benjamin Armstrong, decided to work with the residents and the bankruptcy trustee, allowing the residents to remain living in Thai Xuan Village. Through legal action, the Thai Xuan residents won the deeds to their units, with a condition stipulating that the residents had to make payments.
In February 2007, residents of Glenbrook Valley complained to Mayor of Houston Bill White about the condition of the complex. Around that time, the City of Houston was offering apartment complexes funds from municipal and federal sources so the apartments can be renovated, with up to $25,000 per unit funded; Thai Xuan was not eligible since it was an all-condominium complex.
Composition
Thai Xuan Village, which has 380 units, is entirely composed of condominiums, and not apartments.
In 1998 Betty Ann Bowser, a reporter for PBS NewsHour, said that Thai Xuan Village was "beginning to show its age." In 2007 residents of Glenbrook Valley characterized the complex, as paraphrased by Ruth Samuelson of the Houston Press, as "a firetrap with numerous building code violations" that had been "falling apart for years". Samuelson said in 2007 that Thai Xuan Village was "[t]he most dilapidated complex" of the multi-family complexes in its area.
As of 2005 it has an underground reserve of oil which is worth $40,000 per unit. The presence contributed to a mid-1990s legal dispute.
Exterior and façade
Josh Harkinson of the Houston Press said "unmatched shingles and cracked parking lots" present in the complex "suggest Houston." He explained that the complex's buildings "could form almost any decaying and ersatz apartment complex in the city" except that the flag of South Vietnam planted in the complex's courtyard and a large yellow placard labeled "Thai Xuan Village" give the appearance unique aspects. Harkinson said that from the outside the flag and the placard are the "only signs of pride". The complex has pitched roofs with wrought iron fringes. Harkinson said that the roofs "almost evoke French villas."