Applying a Racial Equity Framework to Ending Homelessness in Illinois
Kristin Ginger, Communications Manager, Housing Action Illinois
Bob Palmer, Policy Director, Housing Action Illinois
This column was originally published on the Metropolitan Planning Council’s website.
Kristin Ginger
Black Illinoisans are eight times more likely to experience homelessness than White Illinoisans.
This startling statistic comes from a recently published policy brief by Housing Action Illinois, Black and White Disparities in Homelessness, which analyzes newly available federal data released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Bob Palmer
Although we knew before examining the data that Black people experience homelessness more than White people, it was important to us to find out the severity of the disparity and its geographic scope in order to develop policy responses. We discovered that even among those living in poverty, Black Illinoisans are disproportionately more likely to experience homelessness than White Illinoisans. Black Illinoisans make up 14% of our state population, but 30% of residents experiencing poverty and 59% of residents experiencing homelessness.
The Black-White racial disparity is evident throughout Illinois—in urban, suburban, and rural communities, as well as in communities where few Black people live or where many Black people live. By calculating racial equity severity scores for each region of Illinois, our policy brief contextualizes the HUD data on a state level. Chicago has by far the highest severity of Black-White racial inequity, as it has a high overall rate of homelessness compared to other areas of the state, and those people experiencing homelessness are disproportionately Black. There are other areas with greater rates of racial inequity in homelessness than Chicago, such as northwestern Illinois, but with relatively low rates of homelessness.
While considering data on homelessness, it is important to acknowledge the difficulty of obtaining accurate numbers; it is very hard to know how many people in Illinois are experiencing homelessness at any given moment. There are various definitions of homelessness in use, and understandably, there are people who do not want to share that they lack housing. For our policy brief, we relied on HUD data from federally mandated Point-in-Time counts, a census of sheltered and unsheltered people on a single night.
Although definitions and numbers get muddy, some things are clear: no one should have to experience homelessness, and systemic inequities have led to a large Black-White racial gap in those who do. Decades of segregation and discrimination, as well as a history of vastly unequal government investments, are part of what have brought us to this point. To redress past wrongs, there are steps we can take to dismantle these systems and make progress in ending racial disparities related to homelessness—a necessary step toward ending all homelessness.
To start, we can adopt a racial equity framework for housing initiatives and implementation of services to analyze where policies are impacted by implicit and explicit bias, as well as individual, institutional, and structural racism. Designing policies and targeting spending to promote racial equity in housing is another key component of such a framework.
For example, Illinois’ recent $200 million investment in affordable housing in our state’s first major capital budget in a decade provides an opportunity to put these values into practice. As they determine how to spend these resources, decision-makers should consider the impact on promoting racial equity, including addressing racial disparities in homelessness. One way to do this would be to prioritize these resources for extremely low-income households that need supportive housing (housing combined with additional supportive services) to end their homelessness.
Another key part of using a racial equity framework in an affordable housing context is looking more closely at the impact of the income eligibility guidelines that determine who is able to live in subsidized housing. “Affordable housing” means different things to different people, and common definitions actually have a wide range of affordability. Most programs define affordability based on a certain percentage of the area median family income. For example, serving people who earn 60% of the median family income for the Chicago metropolitan area is a common standard for rental housing programs, including the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and Chicago’s Affordable Rental Ordinance (ARO).
However, because the median family income for Black households is generally around half that of White households, available resources do not go as far as they could to address racial inequities. According to recent U.S. Census data, the median family income in the Chicago metropolitan area in 2017 was $83,053.* However, for White families, this figure was $95,446. For Black households, the median family income was $48,047, while the median family income for Hispanic or Latino households was $53,217. Therefore, a significantly lower percentage of families of color can afford the homes created by these programs compared to White households.
The income gap based on race is even starker if one looks just at the City of Chicago. For example, the median family income in Chicago in 2017 was $61,618. For White families in Chicago it was $85,344 and for Black families it was $39,572. There isn’t easily accessible data for the median family income of Black renter families, but undoubtedly it’s even lower. There are programs that are designed to serve families who are extremely low income, such as federal Housing Choice Vouchers, but the resources for those programs fall very short of the need.
Because creating quality affordable housing requires a significant public and private investment, and people with the lowest incomes can afford to pay relatively little rent to contribute to the operating costs of rental housing, addressing racial inequities will be very challenging. If spent with a racial equity framework in mind, Illinois’ recent $200 million capital budget investment will be an important step in the right direction, though a small step within the context of the overall need. We need to look at reprioritizing existing resources within a racial equity framework and ensure that new resources and policies do their best to change a landscape where Black Illinoisans are eight times more likely to experience homelessness than White Illinoisans.
*Data for median family income in the past 12 months (in 2017 inflation-adjusted dollars) from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. Data for the Chicago metropolitan area only includes Illinois population. The calculations for subsidized housing income eligibility use somewhat different formulas based on special tabulations by HUD.
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Kristin Ginger joined Housing Action Illinois in 2016 as Communications Manager. She is passionate about making housing policy and programs understandable through storytelling. Previously, she worked in communications and marketing at Women Employed, a Chicago-based advocacy nonprofit that fights to expand employment and educational opportunities for working women. She has also worked in family literacy at a Head Start school, taught ESL classes, and written creative copy for Groupon. She first joined the nonprofit world as an AmeriCorps VISTA at a refugee resettlement agency; during her service year, she interviewed nearly 20 refugees and asylees and compiled their stories for publication in the book This Much I Can Tell You.
Kristin earned her B.A. from Carleton College and completed her M.F.A. in Creative Fiction at Boston University. She is currently a facilitator for the Community Writing Project, an Ambassador for All Chicago, and on the Community Council of the Marjorie Kovler Center.
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Bob Palmer, Policy Director for Housing Action Illinois, has almost 30 years experience in housing organizing, advocacy, training, and finance. He joined Housing Action in September 2002. He has spearheaded successful campaigns to create and fund a state rental subsidy program for extremely low-income households, secure money for affordable housing in Illinois’ capital budget for the first time, pass state legislation protecting homeowners and renters during the foreclosure process, and protect state funding for homeless service providers. Recent wins include new rules protecting children in Illinois from lead poisoning and state law protections for homebuyers considering rent-to-own contracts.
Prior to his work at Housing Action Illinois, Bob served as a Policy Specialist with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, where he led a budget campaign and outreach efforts to address youth homelessness. He also previously worked with Chicago Mutual Housing Network, where he provided training and technical assistance to members of limited equity housing cooperatives.
Bob joined the board of the National Low Income Housing Coalition in 2013. He holds a certificate in Urban Housing Development and a Masters Degree in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He earned his B.A. in Psychology from Beloit College.
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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.
We invite readers to contribute to the civic conversation about community development in St. Louis by writing an op-ed for the Community Builders Exchange. Op-eds should be short (400-700 words) and provocative. If you have an idea for an op-ed, contact Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.
We Should Strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act
Charlene Crowell, Communications Deputy Director, Center for Responsible Lending
This column was originally published in The St. Louis American.
For more than 40 years, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) has served as a mechanism for the federal government to hold banks and other depository institutions accountable for meeting the credit needs of low and moderate income (LMI) neighborhoods. Enacted in 1977, the CRA has the power to influence applications for bank mergers, charters, acquisitions, and branch openings.
On October 4, a bicameral group of Capitol Hill lawmakers wrote a letter to federal regulators, making clear the need for CRA to be strengthened—not weakened—under the guise of modernization. The letter also requests hearings on the issue in both the House Financial Services Committee and in the Senate Banking Committee.
Although the lawmakers acknowledged how banking, like so many other industries, has changed over several decades, the thrust of their letter was that any modernization must also reflect CRA’s original intent: to serve all communities with “the types of credit and investment those communities need.”
“Regulators cannot determine how a bank is serving the needs of its local community by relying on a simple ratio or dollar volume metric”, wrote 21 Members of Congress and 8 U.S. Senators. “Instead examiners should review whether banks are reaching the borrowers and neighborhoods that CRA was intended to serve.”
“While it is important that, in the face of new technologies and products, we appropriately assess lenders’ efforts to serve all communities with the types of credit and investment those communities need, it is even more essential that the original purpose of the law not be undermined,” added the lawmakers.
The lawmakers’ concerns are reinforced by worsening income inequality and the growing and persistent racial wealth gap.
For example, a 2018 joint report by the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program and Gallup found that when it comes to race, the economic playing field is far from equal. The Devaluation of Assets in Black Neighborhoods, published last November, zeroed in on homeownership, often the building block for financial stability, wealth accumulation, and how well the credit needs, i.e. mortgages, of a community are being met. This report’s key finding was that owner-occupied homes in Black neighborhoods are undervalued by $48,000 per home on average, a cumulative loss of $156 billion.
“Laws have changed, but the value of assets—buildings, schools, leadership, and land itself—are inextricably linked to the perceptions of Black people, states the Brookings report. “And those negative perceptions persist.”
More recently and this spring, the Roosevelt Institute, the nonprofit partner to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum and the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society collaborated with the Ford Foundation in a multi-phased project on the nation’s nagging racial wealth gap (RWG). Their report states in part, “The research illustrated how solutions that were long assumed to lessen economic inequality—such as equalizing wages and educational opportunities and outcomes—will not actually close the RWG.”
One of the key conclusions reached in the Ford-sponsored research was “[t]he problem is structural and historical, not individual”.
In other words, systemic, long-term approaches—not quick fixes—are essential to achieving racial economic parity. Just as the full faith and credit of the United States backs deposits of these institutions, it seems fair to hold them accountable to serve the entire public—especially consumers and communities that include low-to-moderate income households.
At the same time, it is equally important that federal financial regulators speak and act with a united voice, dedicated to equity and fairness. The Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, more commonly known as FDIC, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) must speak and act in unison with financial equity as their ultimate goal. If financial policies can lay the groundwork for broad and sustained economic progress, they will well serve the nation, and begin to address the persistent racial wealth gap.
“Now is the time for consumers, communities, small businesses and others to remind our leaders that CRA is a vital part of our collective economic futures,” said Nikitra Bailey, an EVP with the Center for Responsible Lending. “Access to mortgages, small business loans, and community development capital are just as much a part of CRA as preserving full-service bank branches.”
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In a career that spans posts in three state capitols and major markets in the Midwest and Southwest, Charlene is an articulate spokesperson and seasoned journalist. As a Smart Growth lobbyist, she has championed affordable housing, land use and transportation. As a communicator, she has served as press secretary to both a state attorney general and mayor, managing strategic and crisis communications over a broad range of public policy developments.
Honored by the Texas Publishers Association and twice by the National Newspaper Publishers Association for her feature and editorial writing, she currently writes a weekly commentary on consumer finance as a standing assignment with the Center for Responsible Lending.
The Charlene M. Crowell Collection, housed at the Calumet Regional Archives at Indiana University Northwest, makes available to scholars and researchers many of her noteworthy government and journalism papers.
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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.
We invite readers to contribute to the civic conversation about community development in St. Louis by writing an op-ed for the Community Builders Exchange. Op-eds should be short (400-700 words) and provocative. If you have an idea for an op-ed, contact Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.
Segregation and a Path Forward to Inclusion in St. Louis
Henry S. Webber, Executive Vice Chancellor & Chief Administrative Officer and Professor of Practice at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work and the School of Architecture & Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis
The original version of this article was published on Washington University in St. Louis’ website.
Editor’s note: Segregation and a Path Forward to Inclusion in St. Louis is adapted from an address given during Facing Segregation: Building Strategies in Every Neighborhood, the 2019 annual conference of the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council, on April 12, 2019, at Central Baptist Church, St. Louis, Missouri. This Perspective is presented here through a partnership between the Center for Social Development and the council.
A little over 50 years ago, America declared war on segregation. We’ve learned much during that time. We are now very clear about the negative effects of segregation on those who live in low-income neighborhoods of highly concentrated poverty. In the 1950s and 1960s, we believed that segregation was bad for kids. Now, it is an established fact.
The policy tools available to fight segregation are much better than they were 50 years ago. We now know how to implement policies like inclusionary zoning, how to design community land trusts, and how to ensure fair housing. We have not solved all of the problems of policy design. We need much better tools to promote equitable development in very disadvantaged communities, but we have made progress.
Unfortunately, we have also learned that human psychology makes segregation difficult to solve. As my colleague Jason Purnell notes, we are hard wired to form tribes and to be more comfortable with those like us. We all need to work against our prejudices.
The bad news is that, despite knowing more about segregation now, including that segregation is wrong for America, we have made much less progress in reducing segregation than we would hope and want. We increasingly live in areas where everyone is much like us.
There are many reasons for this lack of progress. Federal public policy has promoted segregation, our own preference to live near people like us is a challenge, and local control of land use, an American norm, makes reform difficult. Land use decisions in the United States are, in almost all cases, made by local communities, regardless of the greater good. Suburban communities across the nation can and do set minimum lot sizes that only allow the building of single-family homes. These are often the communities that also tend to have the best school districts. The result is very little affordable housing and continued segregation of educational opportunity.
But the real problem is public will. We and our allies have not done our job of moving public opinion, nor have we done the political work needed. I have been involved in public policy issues for over 30 years. What I have painfully learned is that politics is more important than policy because, without good politics, there is no room for good policy. National Section 8 policy is made by Congress and the executive branch of the U.S. government. Elections and advocacy determine these decisions. The decision on whether St. Louis City has inclusionary zoning is made by the city’s Board of Aldermen. They work for us.
In stressing how much politics matter, I do not suggest that deciding what to do is easy. People with strong social values and great competence will disagree. Choosing the best tactical approach to engagement is hard. But it is what we must do.
I have one request for all of us today: that we ask three questions about all public policy proposals:
Does the proposed policy reduce segregation?
If the policy does not reduce segregation, can it be revised to reduce segregation?
What can I do to make the proposals I believe in become a reality?
I am realistic; sometimes there will be good reasons to support proposals that do not reduce segregation; reducing segregation cannot be our only goal, but the question should always be asked.
We need to face facts: The St. Louis region has not achieved what it should have achieved in the last 50 years.
We each have our own ways to define success. My criteria for regional success are growth in population, growth in per-capita income, and reductions in the Black–White income gap. On all of these criteria, we are behind most large American cities. We are not at the bottom, but we are below the mean.
But we have made some progress in the last decade. The Cortex Innovation District has become a national model, and the Central Corridor of the City of St. Louis has strengthened considerably. LaunchCode and programs like it are opening the door of the new economy to diverse populations, and we have focused on important and productive ways to advance racial equity. But we are still not where we need to be.
Let me end with a dream for St. Louis. We can move mountains if we, all of us, decide that is what we must do. What if St. Louis dedicated itself to becoming the national model for inclusive growth, growth that benefits all of us: White, Black, and Brown, rich and poor? What if the region put the same efforts into this that we put into building sports stadiums or the interstate highway system? Let us commit together to a nation without segregation and a city of equal opportunity.
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Henry (Hank) Webber is Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Administrative Officer and a Professor of Practice at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work and the School of Architecture and Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis.
Mr. Webber oversees a wide variety of administrative and external affairs functions including on and off campus University real estate and facilities, human resources, University operations, information technology and security, with combined operating and capital budgets of over $500M annually and over 1,600 University and contracted staff. He has joint responsibility with the Provost for information technology and the Chancellor for external affairs. He also chairs the University’s administrative cabinet.
Since coming to Washington University in 2008, Mr. Webber has led the development of the University’s real estate and sustainability master plans, long-term housing strategy and leads, along with the Provost and Chief Financial Officer, the University budget process. He lead “Campus Next: Enhancing the East End of the Danforth Campus,” the largest capital project in the history of Washington University. He has played a key role in the development of CORTEX, a 200-acre urban biotech redevelopment effort with 6,000 jobs and over 400 companies.
Outside of his administrative functions at the University, he is Chair of the Board of Directors of Invest STL, the St. Louis region’s community development effort, the Washington University Medical Center Redevelopment Corporation and CORTEX and on the Boards of Directors of The Downtown Partnership, Provident, RISE, and the Jewish Federation of St. Louis.
Mr. Webber obtained has a Master's degree in Public Policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
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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.
We invite readers to contribute to the civic conversation about community development in St. Louis by writing an op-ed for the Community Builders Exchange. Op-eds should be short (400-700 words) and provocative. If you have an idea for an op-ed, contact Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.
Refugee Resettlement and Community Building Go Hand-in-Hand
Diego Abente, President, International Institute Community Development Corporation
The United Nations High Commission on Refugees estimates that more than 70 million people are currently forcibly displaced. Today, there are 25.9 million refugees (up from 22.5 million in 2016) who have fled their homelands due to a well-founded fear of persecution; are vetted; and have, in some cases, waited decades for a bona fide resettlement opportunity.
In 2016, the White House administration, recognizing the unprecedented global humanitarian crises the world faced, increased the refugee resettlement ceiling to 115,000. Many of the folks who arrived in the U.S. thanks to this increase are now contributing to our economy as loyal employees and budding entrepreneurs, and helping our communities grow stronger as engaged neighbors and close friends.
The refugee crisis is on a world-wide scale, but the contributions refugees make are local and significant. The International Institute of St. Louis, our region’s leading refugee resettlement organization, has helped more than 24,000 families restart their lives here. These proud new Americans are doing their part to move our region forward and helping our community thrive. They are exemplary entrepreneurs, hardworking employees, professors, doctors, and community members. They strengthen our neighborhoods and make St. Louis a better place to live. Data from the St. Louis Regional Chamber shows that the 600 refugee and immigrant-owned businesses we have helped to start or expand since 1999 have contributed to more than $180 million in positive regional economic impact. In addition, in 2017 alone, refugee job placements by the International Institute resulted in $45 million in labor income and $250 million in economic output.
Unfortunately, these important contributions appear to have been overlooked by the current White House administration, which reduced the annual refugee resettlement cap to 45,000 in 2018 and to 30,000 in 2019. These cuts in resettlement numbers have put the lives of thousands of vulnerable people around the world at risk, including religious and ethnic minorities, Afghan and Iraqi allies, and victims of torture.
The administration is now in the process of setting refugee admissions for 2020 and early reports suggest the administration will propose effectively ending the refugee program by setting the number of refugees admitted to zero.
This is a mistake. Refugees share with us the most important of our cultural values: love of country and family; hope for a better life for our children; desire for a home and a community where we can grow up free and safe. Supporting the refugee program strengthens these values and secures America for future generations.
The International Institute stands strong with other resettlement agencies across the nation, elected officials, and concerned community members in opposition to any further reductions in refugee resettlement. We urge the administration to set a robust resettlement goal. Our economy is strengthened by the presence of refugee communities. Our neighborhoods are more vibrant and resilient when many stories, perspectives, and life experiences are gathered around our shared tables. Our national security is heightened by honoring our international obligations. Our foreign policy options are broadened with resettlement as a tool. The ceiling for refugee admissions should be raised.
We hope that St. Louisans will raise their voices for the voiceless and advocate for the preservation of the U.S.'s time-tested humanitarian refugee resettlement program.
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Diego Abente is Vice President of Economic Development of the International Institute and President of the International Institute CDC. In his capacities with the Institute he plans, monitors and evaluates the agency’s economic development services, including a micro-lending fund, small business development, Individual Development Accounts, and an urban farm.
Diego also leads the International Institute Business Solutions Center (IIBSC), which provides interpretation and translation services, as well as cultural competency trainings. Diego regularly speaks to and trains community members in the corporate, non-profit, and government space to identify, learn from, and leverage the rich cultural diversity of our society.
Diego has a degree in Law, a Masters in Governance and International Development, and an Executive Masters in Business Administration from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to joining IISTL, he spent several years managing non-profit programs in Africa and Washington D.C.
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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.
We invite readers to contribute to the civic conversation about community development in St. Louis by writing an op-ed for the Community Builders Exchange. Op-eds should be short (400-700 words) and provocative. If you have an idea for an op-ed, contact Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.
Hard-to-Count Neighborhoods: Let's Do Something!
Katie Kaufmann, Director, Ready By 21 St. Louis
Census 2020 is back in the news with the recent Supreme Court ruling on the potential inclusion of a citizenship question. We’re still nine months away from the official start of the count in April 2020, but it’s not too early to start planning for how we can really make this census work for the region.
Based on census estimates, 43% of residents of the City of St. Louis live in “hard-to-count” neighborhoods, defined as census tracts where almost a quarter or more households did not mail back their census questionnaires in 2010 and required an in-person visit during the “nonresponse follow-up operation,” during which census workers go door-to-door. The majority of these hard-to-count neighborhoods are north of Delmar and are home to residents who are predominantly African-American and have suffered decades of disinvestment in their neighborhoods.
Census 2020 offers an opportunity to do something about disinvestment in communities and the people who live in them. One tangible investment in our future that Census 2020 will impact is child wellbeing, which in Missouri is largely funded by the federal government. The census data will help allocate over $800 billion per year in federal funds. Many of those funds support programs that both serve children and benefit communities as a whole, including:
Health insurance programs like Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance program
Education programs like Title I funding to schools in low-income communities and IDEA special education funding for children with disabilities
Programs that keep children safe, like foster care
Programs that help children learn while their parents work by helping to pay for quality child care and after school programs
Compounding the challenges of counting some specific neighborhoods, children are at risk of being missed in census counts everywhere: in 2010, an estimated one in five children were missed in the census count because their family did not return the form, and an estimated four in five children lived in families that returned the form but didn’t include the young child on it. While a complete count won’t solve issues related to community disinvestment on its own, a complete count will ensure that we don’t leave any potential federal dollars “on the table.” These funds have real implications for St. Louis residents’ access to health and education and our community’s stability.
It’s important for advocates to know that children are more likely to be missed in a census if:
They live in large and complex households.
They live with single parents or young parents between the ages of 18-29.
They are not the biological or adopted child of the householder.
They live with their grandparents, aunts and uncles, or other family members.
They live in families that do not speak English or their family includes immigrants.
They live in poor families.
Their families rent rather than own their home.
Let’s make sure in 2020 we Count All Kids in Missouri. As an advocate for children and communities, you can help by:
Working with other advocates to engage with Governor Parson’s Complete Count Committee and make sure they pay special attention to counting young children and hard to count neighborhoods like North St. Louis City.
Sign up to learn when outreach materials become available, then download and distribute them to families and individuals you work with.
Share #CountAllKids social media materials when they become available to increase outreach.
Since Census 2020 will be the first to encourage online responses, offer opportunities for families or individuals you work with to respond to the Census using your organization’s internet access.
We each have a role to play to ensuring that our region’s population is accurately counted, allowing all St. Louisans access to the full complement of resources to which we are entitled by the federal government. Our kids, our neighborhoods, and our region need us all to pull together on this.
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Katie Kaufmann is the Director of Ready by 21 St. Louis, a collective impact initiative focused on aligning efforts and improving outcomes for children and youth across St. Louis City, St. Louis County and St. Charles County. Katie is a product of public K-12 education and began her career as a middle school math teacher in St. Louis City. Prior to Ready by 21 St. Louis, Katie worked in the non-profit world looking at systemic issues of quality and access to opportunities. Katie earned her BA in American Studies and Math from Wells College in Aurora, NY and has certificates in 5-9 Math and Nonprofit Leadership and Management from UMSL. Katie is a wife and mother to a three-year-old and a soon-to-be born baby, who will both be counted in the 2020 census, and serves as an elected member of the Maplewood Richmond Heights School Board.
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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.
We invite readers to contribute to the civic conversation about community development in St. Louis by writing an op-ed for the Community Builders Exchange. Op-eds should be short (400-700 words) and provocative. If you have an idea for an op-ed, contact Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.
Open letter on Wellston housing crisis: St. Louis must break the cycle of systemic neglect and disinvestment
David Dwight IV, Lead Strategy Catalyst at Forward Through Ferguson
Karishma Furtado, Research & Data Catalyst at Forward Through Ferguson
This column was originally published on Medium.
David Dwight
The proposed demolition of the Wellston Housing Authority, a public housing development that serves almost entirely Black St. Louisans, paired with an insufficient plan for maintaining the Wellston community repeats a troubling pattern of disinvestment in historic Black neighborhoods. We call on HUD to Radically Listen to the communities and individuals that will be devastated by those actions, apply a Racial Equity Lens to its plans, and lean into its position as a key Policy and Systems actor with the potential to help heal and restore a community as opposed to throwing it away.
Karishma Furtado
Across the last century, St. Louis has regrettably seen the destruction and redevelopment of many historic Black neighborhoods including Mill Creek Valley, Evans-Howard Place, Pershing-Waterman, Clayton, and Kinloch. Often, the rationales given to the communities pointed to the substandard condition of the existing housing, the potential for urban renewal, and the need for new infrastructure. These rationales ignore the history of neglect and disinvestment by governmental, financial, and private institutions that have created the substandard conditions. The proposed actions by HUD place Wellston dangerously on the edge of joining this list of decimated Black neighborhoods.
A principle of the Ferguson Commission that we feel is critical to all of our work is Radical Listening. This consists of taking the time to hear what the communities we intend to serve have to say, trusting them to be the experts on their experiences, and then formulating plans and taking action accordingly. It is clear: the community of Wellston was not properly consulted and does not want this course of action. They do not want to fall prey to the toxic pattern of discarding Black communities in the name of urban renewal intended to benefit others. They want to enjoy the baseline of investment and optimism that so many other neighborhoods in our region experience and expect.
The Ferguson Commission—after their comprehensive, regional study, which included over 3,000 St. Louis community members—next encourages us to judiciously apply a Racial Equity Lens. This means asking ourselves for any given action, program, or policy being considered:
Whom does this benefit?
Will this differentially impact racial and ethnic groups?
And, what is missing that will intentionally decrease or eliminate racial disparities?
The answers to these questions undoubtedly show that the destruction of the Wellston Housing Authority would be a shock felt almost entirely by a low-income Black community. 99% of Wellston is Black compared with 24% of St. Louis County. The disparate impact is clear and egregious.
The third principle of the Commission calls on us to recognize the historical treatment of Black neighborhoods in our solutions by prioritizing a Policy and Systems Approach. This technique enables us to understand how disparate outcomes are the product of the way our institutions, practices, policies, and laws were built and how they continue to impact community health today. It calls us to reach beyond reaction to symptoms—a neglected public housing complex—and to instead implement solutions that address the root causes of inequities.
This means situating the lack of opportunities to thrive for so many of our Black neighbors and communities—reflected in many indicators of access and wellbeing—within the broader context of local, state, and national systems and policies that not only passively fail to serve them but actively damage them. It also means acknowledging that weakening neighborhoods and destroying low-income housing when affordable housing is already exceedingly scarce goes on to have profound impacts across the lives of those whose homes and communities are lost. Dr. Jason Purnell of Health Equity Works at Washington University in St. Louis reminds us of this saying, a child who can’t hear, can’t see, hasn’t slept, can’t breathe, has been traumatized, hasn’t eaten, and doesn’t know where they’re going to sleep, doesn’t have the opportunity to learn. The planned actions of HUD will have profound and adverse ripple effects across the lives of those displaced.
Similarly, when tasked with examining the underlying causes of the civil unrest after the death of Michael Brown, the Ferguson Commission identified a long-standing history of disinvestment in Black communities as one of many interrelated factors that feed our persistent racial disparities across most life outcomes. It called for investment in more and better affordable housing and policy-based commitments to help predominantly Black neighborhoods thrive.
Forward Through Ferguson lends its voice to those calling for the proposed demolition of the Wellston Housing Authority to halt until HUD and local partners have taken the vital first steps to apply a Racial Equity Lens, Radically Listen to affected community members, and commit to a Systems and Policy approach. We must ensure that Wellston does not join the list of Black St. Louis neighborhoods lost to history due to systemic neglect and redevelopment.
*Note: This letter was sent to HUD and the Housing Authority of St. Louis County. It was submitted during the public comment period; a decision was later made Thursday, May 23rd to move forward with the “demolition and disposition” plan.
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David Dwight IV serves as Lead Strategy Catalyst and Karishma Furtado serves as Research & Data Catalyst with Forward Through Ferguson.
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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.
We invite readers to contribute to the civic conversation about community development in St. Louis by writing an op-ed for the Community Builders Exchange. Op-eds should be short (400-700 words) and provocative. If you have an idea for an op-ed, contact Todd Swanstrom at swanstromt@umsl.edu.
Don’t relocate Wellston’s public housing tenants—develop an alternative plan using selective rehab and nonprofit ownership
Jim Roos, former Executive Director of Sanctuary in the Ordinary
For six months, HUD and St. Louis County Housing Authority need to reconsider their plan to issue Section 8 vouchers and relocate 500 people from 201 public housing units in Wellston.
Relocating all Wellston tenants will ultimately be no improvement for most tenants. We have seen this approach fail in other neighborhoods before.
For example, in 2003 St. Louis City allowed a developer to use eminent domain to take and demolish six entire blocks just north of Interstate 44, west of 39th Street. The area was then called McRee Town and is now called Botanical Heights. Neighborhood Enterprises managed 40 buildings with 120 rental units in the general area. Half of them were taken and demolished. The area was distressed, but we knew it was recovering: between 1995 and 2000 our vacancy list had dropped from over 15 to almost zero, and the average rent for 3 and 4 room apartments had increased from $175 to $225.
Some relocated tenants were moved to Ferguson, Wellston, and other distressed areas, which made their situations worse. By contrast, one tenant who lived in a section of McRee that was not taken called me last month to say her husband was dying. She said they had rented from us for 31 years. They had raised all their children in our apartments, and she was grateful for the housing and for the relationship. I visited her husband in the hospital and attended his funeral.
When units are vacated with no immediate plan to repair and re-rent, they will be vandalized, demolished, and forever lost as existing or potentially decent lower-cost housing. In Wellston, there are currently 155 occupied and 46 vacant public housing units. I have driven or biked by most of them. I haven’t seen the interiors, but I suspect that many of the units could be adequately rehabilitated with the selective rehab strategy I used for 45 years.
Wellston Mayor Nate Griffin, City Administrator Janice Trigg, and Chris Krehmeyer of Beyond Housing are working on an alternative to the HUD proposed relocation, which would likely end in demolition. I believe they have support from county, state, and federal elected officials, St. Augustine Church and Archdiocese, bankers, and Audubon Associates LLC. Give them some time to develop an alternative plan!
Grand Scale Development is often shortsighted or unrealistic. The Wellston “Choice Neighborhoods Transformation Plan” in November 2015 produced no results. The 1947 “large scale” development plan proposed by the St. Louis Plan Commission declared that all areas around the central business district were “obsolete” and “must be cleared and reconstructed.” If the city had completed the plan, Soulard and Lafayette Square would have also been demolished.
Let’s remember St. Louis City’s Neighborhood Stabilization Team’s motto: “You don’t have to move to live in a better neighborhood.” Use selective rehab principles and work around existing tenants.
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Jim Roos is currently retired after 47 years with Neighborhood Enterprises (NE) and Sanctuary in the Ordinary (SITO). NE repaired and managed—and SITO owned—lower cost rental housing.
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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.
We invite readers to contribute to the civic conversation about community development in St. Louis by writing an op-ed for the Community Builders Exchange. Op-eds should be short (400-700 words) and provocative. If you have an idea for an op-ed, contact Todd Swanstrom at swanstromt@umsl.edu.
Missouri Towns: Places for Building Health
Bob Hughes, Ph.D., President & CEO of Missouri Foundation for Health
This column was originally published in Bob Hughes’ blog on the Missouri Foundation for Health website, where he regularly writes about improving the health and well-being of individuals and communities most in need.
Our default view of health is to think in terms of individuals—a specific disease or disability or how long a person will live. But a perspective that focuses only on one person omits a crucial, indispensable component of health: the well-being of people collectively.
When we talk about the health of a family, a neighborhood, or a city, we understand that health occurs at multiple levels, and these are mutually reinforcing. A healthy town produces healthy people, healthy people produce healthy towns. That is why Missouri Foundation for Health’s mission is to improve the health of people and communities.
This has important implications for all of us. It means that we are interdependent; the health of your neighborhood influences your health and vice-versa. The obvious example is how communicable diseases spread, but many other factors that influence health—from toxic stress to adequate shelter to access to education and healthy food—are our collective responsibility.
A principle site for this collective responsibility to take place is in our towns. Their importance to health is captured in the phrase, “Your ZIP code is more important to your health than your genetic code.” Towns are where we can take direct action to improve our lives—to create healthy environments, start businesses, find meaningful work, raise families, and help each other so that together we build community well-being.
Towns are the principle locations of—to use De Toqueville’s phrase that captured our nation’s unique character—”associations.” These are the organizations formed when citizens came together and took action to respond to community needs. The result is a diverse nonprofit sector that includes health clinics, day cares, places of worship, food pantries, senior centers—the institutions that support us and our fellow residents when we need help. And the people who work in these institutions know that their work is meaningful for the people they work with, for themselves, and ultimately for the entire community.
De Toqueville’s famous 1837 tour of the United States now has a contemporary companion – “Our Towns” by James and Deborah Fallows. The Fallows travelled more than 100,000 miles over five years to visit dozens of towns across America to examine the civic, economic, and social renewal of areas outside major metropolises and under the radar of national media. They found stories of growth, challenge, and creativity in the ongoing renewal and rebuilding of these towns.
I could not help thinking of Missouri’s smaller communities as I read this book, and the progress underway across our state. The Fallows note the value of “big plans” in successful towns, which they define as a plan that sets a reasonable time horizon of around 20 years to deliver results. #STL2039 is the year Forward Through Ferguson chose as an indicator of when generational change in STL racial equity should be achieved; these are the kind of big plans we need.
During their travels, the Fallows came to understand that “public-private partnerships” are an important ingredient in successful towns. I immediately thought of Springfield, Missouri, and the myriad community-wide public-private partnerships, such as the Healthy Living Alliance, a network of people and organizations working together to advocate for healthy policies and encourage healthy, active living. It also brought to mind the work of Bootheel Babies and Families, a key partner in our Infant Mortality Reduction Initiative, and how it is joining together with public and private entities to address a tragic issue that puts an emotional and economic burden on everyone in their region.
In successful towns, the Fallows also found that “people work together on practical local possibilities, rather than allowing bitter disagreements about national politics to keep them apart.” This is an important reminder for us all. In these politically divisive times, there remains so much more that ties us together than what separates us. The health of our very communities relies on our ability to work together and use our differences as an advantage, not an obstacle that prevents us from moving forward.
In many ways the Fallows’ findings shouldn’t be too surprising, but it’s an excellent reminder that the towns that are successfully reinventing themselves are doing so by thinking big, creating new partnerships, and by taking care of their residents. At their heart, these are lessons that communities of any size can benefit from.
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Bob Hughes is president and CEO of Missouri Foundation for Health. In his blog, he regularly writes about improving the health and well-being of individuals and communities most in need.
Before joining the Foundation as chief executive officer in 2012, Bob was a visiting research professor in the Center for State Health Policy at Rutgers University and served in various leadership positions for more than 20 years at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in New Jersey. Since joining MFH, he has enhanced the strategic direction of the organization and positioned it to be a catalyst for change throughout the region. Under his leadership MFH focuses on fostering a culture of learning, exploration, and collaboration that promotes improvements in the health of underserved Missourians. A native of Illinois, Hughes received his doctorate in behavioral sciences from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. Hughes serves on the boards of Grantmakers in Health and the St. Louis Regional Chamber of Commerce, as well as on the Advisory Board of Center for Effective Philanthropy.
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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.
We invite readers to contribute to the civic conversation about community development in St. Louis by writing an op-ed for the Community Builders Exchange. Op-eds should be short (400-700 words) and provocative. If you have an idea for an op-ed, contact Todd Swanstrom at swanstromt@umsl.edu.
