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Former WNBA Champion Leads Affordable Housing Development Effort in West Englewood

Former WNBA player turned housing developer Devereaux Peters wants people to rethink what affordable housing can look like, especially as more people struggle to keep up with increased housing costs.

“There’s a stigma with affordable housing,” Peters said. “Part of what I want to create is spaces that get rid of that stigma. … These could actually be beautiful spaces that are absolutely necessary and that will uplift communities.”

Peters — who formerly played for the Minnesota Lynx, Indiana Fever and the Phoenix Mercury before pivoting to housing development and real estate — is leading a project that aims to redevelop the former Bontemps Elementary School in West Englewood into an affordable housing development. The proposed design includes a 72-unit multifamily building and 60 units of housing for seniors.

The project is still about two years away from starting construction, as Peters works with partners on zoning changes, finalizing designs and architectural drawings, putting together a budget and getting enough funding.

“We have quite a ways to go,” Peters said.

The Bontemps Apartments project last month was awarded federal low-income housing tax credits through the city of Chicago. The award was part of a broader $300 million investment from the city going toward 15 affordable housing developments.

Bontemps Elementary was among the nearly 50 schools hit by CPS mass school closures in 2013 that primarily affected schools on the South and West sides. A decade after the closings, many former school buildings remained vacant or unused and had become a point of frustration for surrounding community members, WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times found.

“Englewood is a very difficult place to develop in because there has been so much disinvestment in that area,” Peters said. “It was a lot of pieces coming together at the right time for this to work.”

Peters said she took over the project from a business partner who began work about five years ago. Peters said an increased focus on redeveloping the shuttered schools, along with the development of the Englewood Nature Trail, made the timing for the project better. 

Training the Next Generation of Affordable Housing Developers

Rendering of the Bontemps Apartments in West Englewood. (Courtesy of Devereaux Peters)

Peters is a participant of the statewide Next Generation Capacity Building Initiative, or Next Gen, led by the Illinois Housing Development Authority and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation. The Next Gen program aims to prepare emerging affordable housing developers to move projects from concept to construction.

Illinois has a shortage of about 142,000 housing units and needs to build more than 225,000 housing units in five years to meet demand, according to state officials.

The Next Gen program, which had its first cohort in 2024, was created to help bridge the gap for the lack of young and diverse developers applying for federal low-income housing tax credits, according to Karen Davis, deputy executive director at the Illinois Housing Department Authority.

“We understood that one-on-one coaching was very important, that it costs a lot of money to get into affordable housing, particularly if you’re gonna use tax credits,” Davis said. “So we wanted to come to the table to make sure that we had taken away all of the barriers.”

The low-income housing tax credits aim to offer an incentive for more private investors to help finance affordable housing. The tax credits account for the majority — nearly 90% — of all affordable rental housing created in the U.S., according to IHDA’s website.

Peters said the program helped her fill technical knowledge gaps while also helping her connect with other developers in the industry. 

So far, more than 50 people have participated in the Next Gen program. 

“The piece that I find exciting about this industry is that, I was an athlete, so that kind of competition is exciting for me,” said Peters, who began her pivot into real estate in 2019. “I’m the type that’s like, ‘I’m gonna prove to you I can do this because I’m very competitive and I want to show that we can get this done.’”

Earlier this year, Peters broke ground on a 57-unit mixed-use affordable housing development in South Bend, Indiana. Peters said it took about six years for the South Bend project to finalize before the start of construction. She is applying the lessons she learned from that experience to the Bontemps Apartments development project in West Englewood.

“The thing about these projects is, the longer it takes, the more expensive they’re gonna be,” Peters said. “Speed is kind of the name of the game, and getting things done, and so I wanted to do everything possible to set this up in a way that we can move things along quickly.”

Local Initiatives Support Corporation Senior Executive Director Meghan Harte said part of addressing the housing shortage in Illinois is making financing and investment more available to those “mission-minded people” who want to create housing that’s affordable. Through the Next Gen program, LISC awarded pre-development funds to the West Englewood affordable housing development, which Peters said will help speed up the project.

Another issue is that wages haven’t gone up with the cost of living, Harte said.

“Both things need to be addressed,” Harte said. “Focus on wages and focus on supporting the building of housing that is more affordable to create and more affordable for people to access.”

Note: This article has been updated to correct Meghan Harte’s title.

Contact Eunice Alpasan: [email protected]

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