Cheryl Sommer is a pastoral associate at a local Catholic Church and is chair of the Housing Taskforce for United Congregations of Metro-East.
I vividly remember my shock in 1980 when I learned about “sundown towns” close to where I lived. I was told that African-American people could come into the town to work the low-wage service jobs but couldn’t live there. They had to be out of town by sundown. I learned these sundown towns were not uncommon in southern Illinois. Towns were willing to accept people’s work during the day but didn’t want them living in their towns. I was happy when these workers no longer faced discrimination like this.
Unfortunately, as our faith-based community organizing group listened to concerns of people in our suburbs, we heard of another version of this situation. Now, let me be perfectly clear. No one was intentionally discriminating against anyone as in the sundown town days. Unfortunately, for many low wage workers the reality was similar, if not intended.
At a time when many suburban cities were adding a lot of businesses with low-wage jobs—banks, assisted living homes, hotels, restaurants, and other retail establishments—the housing added was for people with higher incomes. Overall, the houses added didn’t match the jobs that were added. People working these our low-wage jobs couldn’t afford to live in the cities where they contributed their labor. Teacher’s aides, beginning teachers, certified nursing assistants (CNAs), chefs, medical technicians, housekeepers, and retail clerks, were forced to travel long distances to work.
The time and money spent traveling to these jobs was challenging to household budgets. The long commutes created traffic congestion, more air pollution, and greater use of natural resources. Extra strain was placed on families when parents had long commutes and couldn’t be close to their children’s school or daycare.
As we spoke of this housing mismatch as a concern that cities should address, we were shocked to hear some of the responses. Some said including housing that was affordable for all local workers would cause property values to decline. To our suggestion that if a person was good enough to take care of grandma in assisted living or to be a daycare provider for our child, then they ought to be able to live in our community, some responded that just because you work in a city doesn’t give you the right to live there. They said people should work their way up to living in their city.
Fortunately, others understood the benefit of having housing that matched the affordability needs of all of a city’s workers. One grandmother told us of a mixed-income housing development where her daughter lived. Instead of putting all of the less expensive housing units in one area and the more expensive housing units in another area, they were all mixed together in an architectural design where all the units blended together in an aesthetically pleasing way. This allowed her daughter’s family to live in a more expensive home just a few doors from their nanny’s more affordable apartment. Because of the good initial design it was hard to tell which housing units were the expensive units and which ones had more affordable housing for the lower wage workers. Good property managers kept the entire housing project looking good.
Today, many business leaders are recognizing the benefits of mixed-income developments like this that enable their employees to live in the city where they work. Employees with less traveling time are more energetic. They are more likely to stay on as employees thus reducing costs for training of new employees. The same is true if employees can have their children going to school in the city where they work. These employees are more likely to do their shopping in the same city, thus helping the local economy and adding to the sales tax revenues. Employees who live in a town where they work are more invested in their workplace and the city because they have a stake in the city’s well-being.
Sundown towns are, hopefully, a thing of the past. The time is dawning when businesses, residents, and government leaders will realize the benefit of promoting mixed-income housing for all workers.
Articles in “From the Field” represent the opinions of the author only and do not represent the views of the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis or the University of Missouri- St. Louis.
