New affordable homes transform Wilmington's Hedgeville

The row of six houses next to the sign “Heart of Hedgeville” brings life to a lot that was, for five years, a reminder of the loss of a valued community center, the Jackson Street Boys and Girls Club.

After the Boys and Girls Club was demolished in 2018, it sat as a vacant lot, a hole left in a neighborhood that, like Donald J. Thompson III, has seen its share of struggle.

In 2023, after spending a few years at what he came to see as a dead-end government job, Thompson decided to go into real estate and development and founded Truth in Actions Holdings, becoming the only Black housing developer in Wilmington, a city dominated by just a couple of large development companies.

Getting into development wasn’t easy. He faced challenges with getting subsidies and high market prices. One day he drove by the vacant lot that was the Boys and Girls Club where he had spent so much time during his formidable years, and decided that lot was the one.

Thompson went directly to the owners of the lot, who knew him from the neighborhood. They worked out a deal that made it possible for the development of Heart of Hedgeville, a row of six four-bedroom homes with garages built in, all of which sold or are on hold for around the upper $200,000s.

Delaware’s median home price is about $390,000, up from $252,000 five years ago.

Building the development aligned perfectly with Thompson’s goal to build spacious homes that sell for under the market average in neighborhoods like Hedgeville, an economically and racially diverse neighborhood that is majority Black and Hispanic.

Giving back to the community with an affordable place to live

The new homes in Hedgeville bring more middle-class professionals to the region, which sits just to the west of I-95 on the south side of the city.

Some of the buyers moved to Wilmington from other cities, looking for more room and affordability in a less crowded area. While home prices in Delaware are rising along with the rest of the country, the state has one of the most affordable homeowners costs while being easily accessible to more expensive metro areas.

“[Housing prices are] never going back to pre-COVID,” Thompson told Technical.ly while doing a walk through of one of the homes. “So the idea of ‘affordable’ has to adjust.”

The six new homes bring about $2 million in housing value to Hedgeville. Enriching the neighborhood is part of the plan, Thompson told Technical.ly in 2023.

Unlike old-fashioned gentrification, where existing residents are often an afterthought, Truth in Action centers Thompson’s own community as a way to give back.

“Now that it’s completed, families have homes that they can be proud of,” Thompson said. “I will continue to do this for the people — and for myself.”