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Houston's Midtown development zone spent nearly 15 years quietly amassing hundreds of lots in and around Third Ward, a large-scale effort to slow gentrification and build affordable housing in the historic Black neighborhood.

Yet the Midtown Redevelopment Authority's single largest housing expense to date is a half-empty office building no one lives in.

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"The intention was never to have Midtown fund it. But to do it, that's what it required," he said. "I wanted them to build the building, not for me (but) because of all the things that it symbolized and the revitalization. Can't Black people have nice things in their neighborhoods, too?"

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Coleman, 63, retired from the Legislature in 2022 due to complications from diabetes, he said.

He now serves as CCPPI's director of strategy and innovation. He began earning a salary in 2019, and said he made $150,000 last year.

"I'm not staying here for the salary," he said. "My experience and understanding is worth $150,000 a year."

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Coleman said he recruited all of the building's tenants, proving the "sweat equity" value of CCPPI's work. Coleman recruited "most of them," Thibodeaux said.

"We're paying rent; we're just not paying it the same way others pay it because we're adding value," Coleman said. "This building would be empty. I took responsibility."

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Moreover, Na'Shon has used his affiliations in professional organizations such as Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., American Planning Association, and Emerging 100 Houston to support his areas of expertise in practical community development in limited-resource communities. Lastly, he is published in the Texas Institute for the Preservation of History and Culture and the Houston Forward Time. Na'Shon's current research focuses on barriers associated with Community Development Policy. He aspires to become a thought leader in Public Policy that emphasizes Community Development and Housing.

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