At the dedication of the new Dallas Housing Authority building named for Secretary Alphonso Jackson. “His work with the agency and in housing is legendary in Dallas and across the country,” said Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price.
In 1989, Jackson became the president and CEO of the Housing Authority of the City of Dallas, Texas. He was the first African American to head the agency. In his seven years on the job, he worked to improve the dilapidated buildings and unsafe conditions that had become standard in the city’s neglected public-housing units. The Dallas Housing Authority was named the best-managed city housing authority in the country during Jackson’s tenure.
In 1996, he left the public sector and joined American Electric Power as president of Texas operations. In 2001, he was appointed as the U.S. Housing and Urban Development deputy secretary and COO under the George W. Bush administration. In 2004, he became the nation’s 13th U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
