Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation Exemplifies Benefits of Consolidation

By Sean Spencer, Executive Director of the Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation

Over the last 5 years, Sean has facilitated the development of over 60 properties, cataloged vacant and abandoned properties, developed housing related community initiatives and promoted Tower Grove Neighborhoods as the premier place to live in St. Louis.  

Community Development Block Grant funding (CDBG), as a business model for community development organizations, is dead. In 2013, the world of community development in the City of Saint Louis changed. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Community Development Administration (CDA), who administer HUD CDBG funding, made it clear that the process to obtain funding would be more competitive and that output and outcome expectations would be higher than ever.

Leaders from Shaw Neighborhood Housing Corporation (Shaw neighborhood), Grand Oak Hill Community Corporation (Tower Grove South neighborhood) and Southwest Garden Housing Corp (Southwest Gardens neighborhood) saw these changes as an opportunity. Combining a larger service area with increased staff capacity able to leverage CDBG funding with other income sources could create a community development corporation not-for-profit built for long term success. Over a six month period and through a series of meetings at the individual organization board level and as a combined group, the three organizations worked to develop a way forward together. The result was the creation of Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation.

The successful consolidation is directly related to the cooperation between organizations and across ward boundaries. Where there is a need, there is a way. The organizations have serviced the area for 80 years combined and our presence is critical to the continued growth and stability of vital south city neighborhoods. It was widely believed funding for each neighborhood CDC in 2014 would not be obtained individually which emphasized the need for a “better together” consolidated approach. Further, the additional benefits for consolidating are:

1. 28,000 residents are represented in the three neighborhoods
2. Service area increased to over 3 sq. miles
3. Increased population representation and larger geographic service area created better funding opportunities for grants and donations from public and private foundations, individual donors
4. A broader area strategy, including infrastructure planning, is more effective at the new scale
5. Increased financial stability by combining assets
6. More collaboration opportunities with neighborhood associations, business district organizations and other not for profit companies.

While there are plenty of benefits, there are also many challenges. Real estate assets need to be evaluated and addressed for continued operation or for a potential sale. Completing maintenance issues including deferred maintenance can be expensive and time consuming. Property management from the outset drained our capacity. Corporate liabilities such as financial audits and other accounting issues needed to be cleaned up. Equal representation for each neighborhood was, and always will, be a top priority and is a discussion point at board meetings.

The 5 board members for each neighborhood help the organizational balance and operation. The future of the organization is still being discussed. A neighborhood visioning process launched in 2014 with consultant H3 studio will help inform the board of the needs of our community from our community. This process will help us determine our strategic plan. The work completed in 2013 by the boards of Shaw Neighborhood Housing Corporation, South West Garden Housing Corporation and Grand Oak Hill Community Corporation to create the higher capacity Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation will continue to benefit City neighborhoods and the City of Saint Louis for years to come. Thanks to all the board members (present and past) for their volunteer hours devoted to making these neighborhoods the most desirable places to live in the region.

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. 

Building community … one butterfly at a time

By Catherine L. Werner, JD, LEED AP Sustainability Director, City of St. Louis

On Earth Day, April 22, 2014, City of St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay launched a new initiative to foster the connection between people and nature.  Milkweeds for Monarchs: The St. Louis Butterfly Project is an initiative designed to advance the Mayor’s Sustainability Action Agenda by increasing the chance of experiencing monarch butterflies where people live, work and play in the urban core.

For 2014, Mayor Slay has committed to planting 50 monarch gardens in public areas, such as at City parks, fire stations and City Hall.  He has challenged residents, businesses and community groups to plant another 200 monarch gardens in private or public spaces.  Together we can create 250 monarch gardens to celebrate the City’s 250th birthday, but we need the help of individuals and community groups to reach our goal.

Why worry about butterflies and their habitat?  Monarchs are unique in that they are the only butterfly species to migrate between Canada, the US and Mexico each year. Monarchs are dependent on one very special kind of plant: the milkweed. Without milkweeds, monarchs have no place to lay their eggs or food to feed their caterpillar larvae.  Monarchs also need nectar plants to help sustain them on their migration journey. So, the Milkweeds for Monarchs gardens will provide critically important habitat for the monarchs, whose population has plummeted across the continent.  Equally as important for the City of St. Louis, monarch gardens will create opportunities for community growth and enhance people’s well-being. 

Nature is a vital component of our City. Trees, parks and greenery help create a sense of place. Having access to nature often reduces stress and can improve mental clarity. Additionally, studies have shown many health benefits associated with nature.  For example, one study showed that hospitalized surgery patients with a natural view from their window stayed in the hospital for less time post-surgery, took fewer pain medications, and experienced fewer post-surgical complications when compared with similar surgery patients with different window views.  Another study found that being in nature for certain periods of time worked just as well, if not better, than medication for children with ADHD.  For more information on the health and well-being benefits of nature, check out the Biophilic Cities website.

In public spaces, the monarch gardens may serve as a living medium for community growth.  When a community plants a garden in a place that is accessible to all, it creates opportunity for people to accomplish something together for their neighborhood.  Once the garden is planted, people can continue to use it as a vehicle for community engagement by maintaining it as a group, holding events, and educating each other about the wildlife it brings.  It can also bring pride to a neighborhood as something that was accomplished communally and adds beauty to the neighborhood.

The City of St. Louis is working with several regional partners to advance the Milkweeds for Monarchs initiative. There are several resources on the City’s website to assist in the creation and care of monarch gardens, including the recommended STL Monarch Mix of plants, a list of local nurseries where plants can be sourced, instructions on how to plant a garden, and tips on plant care. Additionally, the City has partnered with Brightside St. Louis and their Neighbors Naturescaping grant program to offer materials for a 24-square-foot monarch garden in a public space to one neighborhood group in each of the City’s 28 wards. Interested organizations are encouraged to contact theirNeighborhood Stabilization Officer for more information on how to take advantage of this opportunity.  Groups may also apply to theNeighbors Naturescaping grant program directly; please note the August 15th grant deadline.

All it takes is one square meter and nine special plants.  For an investment of less than $50 and a couple hours of work, you can help people, plants and pollinators. We hope you will create a monarch garden and register it here to be added to the City’s Milkweeds for Monarchs map. Please help us by planting monarch gardens and spreading the word about Milkweeds for Monarchs.  Help us beautify our City, bring nature back to people, support the monarch population, and bring people together.

Schools Remain Separate And Unequal: Not by Legal Mandate But by Conditions in Our Neighborhoods

Chris Krehmeyer, President and CEO, Beyond Housing

What progress can this country point to since the 1954 decision in Brown v Board of Education? It gave rise to the Civil Rights Movement, and that, ironically, has had greater success in parts of society such as housing integration and voting rights than it has in education. Today, we still have separate and unequal schools — not by legal mandate but by other de facto conditions in our neighborhoods. The trials and tribulations in the Normandy schools this past year have helped illuminate the stark contrasts in our public education system.

Now all those involved need to rethink their roles in living up to the promise of the Brown ruling to allow every child access the highest quality education possible.

As of today, the future of the school system serving the children living in the current boundaries of the Normandy School District is still in question even though the next school year starts in about two months.

How can this be? We have a “transfer fix” passed by the state Legislature. The governor has said he will veto it. While that could have some bearing on Normandy’s future, it would not fix the financial bleeding for struggling, unaccredited schools.

DESE has ruled that — as of June 30 — the current Normandy School District will lapse and will be replaced by a new Normandy Schools Collaborative District. This new entity will have a new governing board and the State Board is requiring all contracts to be terminated and all employees to reapply for their jobs.

It is a mess and my fear is that yet one more time the children of this community will suffer. This chaos would not happen in Clayton or Ladue. We are still separate and unequal.

If we truly care about the education of all of our children here are things we should implement right away:

• Significantly increase state funding to provide the highest quality pre-K to all low-income children in the state. Missouri’s ranks near the bottom nationally in the amount of resources it sends to providers of pre-K for low-income children.

• Increase state funding to school districts in which more than 50 percent of the student population receives free and reduced lunch. This would help provide resources to support their academic success. These resources must create intentionally integrated wrap-around services that are available and easily accessible by any child and his or her family.

• Expand Medicaid in Missouri. Healthy children with healthy parents perform better academically. There is no plausible reason other than politics to not accept federal funds to make our citizens healthy.

• Create a robust and vibrant partnership in communities with unaccredited schools that includes DESE, the local school district, community leaders, students and parents. We must create an accountability structure for each party that has regular metrics to report on and the ability to work with each other on any challenges that occur.

• Give preference in state funding for housing, social services, senior services, economic development and other programs to communities that have a comprehensive plan to regain full accreditation of their school district.

• Create accountability structures for school districts that engage local community members and require regular community feedback on status of schools in an open forum outside of regular school board meetings.

After 60 years we should be celebrating the historic Brown v. Board decision as a landmark in ensuring equal access to a quality education. We cannot. If we are serious about making Brown a reality, we must have the courage to do so.

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 Need to Re-Think Closing Streets

By Richard Bose, an Electrical Engineer by profession. He earned a BA in Physics and Economics and an MSEE from Washington University in St. Louis.

St. Louis needs a more formalized process for opening and closing streets. Closed streets should be reviewed periodically or at least by request, and closing them in the first place should take more than asking the alderman and passing a bill via aldermanic courtesy. Closing a street could work like a liquor license requiring a certain number of signatures from residents and property owners within some distance of the blockage. Perhaps they should reopen by default after a set time unless reauthorized.

The streets belong to the whole city; we all pay for them. They don’t belong just to the block they front. There are much better ways to calm traffic. The blockages make traffic worse overall; they don’t just move it elsewhere because they force people to drive further. They also make it harder for emergency responders to reach their destination. In the case of large fire trucks it would be best if they could reach a site from two directions.

One closed street, the Thurman underpass, where Thurman Avenue passes under Interstate 44, has spawned a design competition. Despite some creative talent and time put into the project, it remains closed. Hopefully its days are numbered as the closure now divides two relatively prosperous neighborhoods, and the old prejudices may fail to keep barricades in place. As with many street closures in the city, this one can be easily undone.

Too Many of our streets have been cut off and the street grid interrupted.

• Some for highways

• Some for parking

• Some for roads

• Some for failed housing projects

• Some for new developments

• Some for pedestrian areas

• Some for universities

• Some for parks

• Some for stadiums

• Some for a national monument

The most frustrating are the ones that block otherwise passable streets.

• Some are pretty

• Some are bollards

• Some are Jersey barriers

• Some are Schoemehl pots, named after the mayor in the 80s.

Most of them are in neighborhoods. They came to be out of fear and desperation. Fear of thru traffic. Fear of scarce parking. Fear of crime. Fear of outsiders, fear of the next block over. The street grid best absorbs and distributes traffic. It best supports multimodal transportation. It creates the best platform for wealth creation. It provides the most eyes on the street. It permits the most flexibility in adjacent land use. It evolved over the centuries all over the world for these reasons.

The hierarchical street structure developed in order to make car-oriented places. The cul-de-sacking of St. Louis hasn’t solved our problems. It’s given us the worst of both worlds- streets that don’t go thru and roads that can’t handle peak traffic volumes all at a high cost. Removing most of them just takes courage and choosing to have an open city. Let’s heal the grid.

A grid doesn’t necessarily mean an all right angle Cartesian sort of street network, rather a highly connected street network. So while a city like Boston has a messy street system it is still stronger than a hierarchical network of cul-de-sacs, collectors, and arterials. The hierarchical network reinforces single-use land use, while the flexibility and accessibility of the grid offers higher utility per unit of infrastructure. In other words a community gets more for its money if it has a street grid. Our ancestors innately knew this. As we continue to degrade our highly interconnected street network though blockages and vacations, we diminish these strengths.

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

Breaking the Zip Code Connection to Health

Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, MPH is an assistant professor in the Brown School at Washington University. He is lead investigator on For the Sake of All: A Report on the Health and Well-Being of African Americans.

Despite the exciting advances in genetic research that are constantly in the news, it is now widely accepted among public health professionals that your zip code is more important than your genetic code in determining your health.  When you think about all that a zip code means, it is easy to see why.  Your zip code often determines your access to resources like healthy foods and safe, green spaces for recreation and physical activity.

Less obvious, but also linked to health, are factors like the quality of schools, the availability of jobs, and the affordability of housing in any given zip code.  Resources like these are not evenly distributed in our community, and that has serious consequences for health.  Indeed, it can determine how long the average resident of a particular zip code can expect to live. 

Drawing these connections between where and how we live and the health of our community has been the topic of a 14-month project called For the Sake of All: A Report on the Health and Well-Being of African Americans in St. Louis.  With funding from the Missouri Foundation for Health, my colleagues from Washington University and Saint Louis University and I have examined a wide range of topics, including poverty, education, mental health, residential segregation, and chronic disease in a series of briefs released between August and December of last year. 

We have been aided by a Community Partner Group with representation from health care and public health, but also education, business, media, and community and economic development, and we have sought the input of community members through our project web site and at a Community Feedback Forum held in March.  The For the Sake of All project will culminate with release of a final report at a Community Conference on May 30 at the Missouri History Museum.  To find out more and register for the conference go to the project website:  forthesakeofall.org. 

Throughout this project we have tried to highlight both persistent disparities and promising responses here in St. Louis and in other parts of the country.  We have also suggested a set of evidence-based and community-informed policy and programmatic recommendations for improving community health, not just for African Americans but for everyone.  Because health is about much more than our genetic codes, the recommendations range from focusing on high quality early childhood development to ensuring that every neighborhood in the St. Louis region supports the health of its residents. 

Of course, these are just words without the commitment of actors across multiple sectors in our region.  It will take broad engagement of our community to ensure health and well-being for the sake of all.

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

Checks and Balances with Low Income Housing Tax Credits

By Stephen Acree, president and executive director of Rise (formerly RHCDA) and Chris Krehmeyer, president and CEO of Beyond Housing

The great omission in debates about Missouri’s low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) program is the children, seniors and disabled Missourians that call the units produced home. A family must make almost twice the minimum wage to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment in Missouri, and it is estimated that Missouri is 133,000 affordable units short of the number necessary to meet existing needs. Sadly, seniors are the fastest-growing segment of ill-housed citizens, causing nearly a third to forgo necessities such as medicine, utilities or food.

A safe, decent home is the foundation for a child’s development. According to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, a decent home provides a reliable place to do homework and allows long-term residency in one school district, increasing a child’s chances to excel.

Missouri’s LIHTC program is modeled after the federal program and designed to leverage federal investments. The program provides a 10-year stream of tax credits once projects are 100-percent occupied. This stream of tax credits incentivizes investor groups with large projected tax liabilities to invest up-front cash  into the development, reducing the need for bank loans or other public funding. Since ongoing costs of loans and rental operations are borne by rent payments, investor equity enables significantly lower rents — $288 lower per month according to the Missouri’s Department of Economic Development.

Additionally, since the tax credit awards are made only after a grueling competitive review, and since all LIHTC projects are subject to more stringent standards than are high-quality market rate projects, the final housing product is a major long-term asset to any community — all in addition to providing much-needed housing for citizens.

Most believe that reasonable returns should accompany hard work and risk. The low-income housing tax credit industry is no exception. That investors should receive market-appropriate yields on up-front investments with ongoing risks and long-delayed returns (typically, 13 years with zero return for the first 3 years) is not only proper, but is based on fundamental imperatives that drive our economy. It is misleading to use the 2014 value of an investment, when the actual cost to the state will not be fully realized until at least 2027, and only if the project is 100 percent successful in serving low-income tenants.

Rather than creating opportunities for windfalls, the incentives allow affordable housing developments to compete in local markets in spite of their significantly lower monthly rental incomes. In tax credit developments fees to developers, contractors, architects, etc. are regulated at or below market-established percentages. There are many checks and balances in the system — and we can tell you that Missouri’s tax credit program is the envy of many state housing agencies.

This article originally appeared in the St. Louis Business Journal (March 21, 2014)

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

Keeping Healthy Suburban Communities Out of the Poverty Trap

Laura Kinsell-Baer is a Senior Planner with St. Louis County government. Her background is in urban planning with a focus on forecasting as it relates to public policy, research, and urban data management and communication.

As Brooks Goedeker pointed out in last month’s op-ed, neighborhoods in our region are contending with shrinking coffers and dwindling resources. I would extend this to say that certain neighborhoods, especially those that do not have the means to tax themselves, are contending with dwindling resources, while others are doing okay. And those neighborhoods require a “piling on” of our region’s best creative solutions and resources in order to stop or reverse current downward trends.

Studies of inequality often focus on people-based variables, such as educational attainment and income, discounting the effects of neighborhoods on families living in poverty. And yet, as sociologist Patrick Sharkey writes in his book Stuck in Place, the effects of neighborhood disadvantage are deeply entrenched and persist for generations. The effects on children of exposure to violence, hunger, and unemployment do not disappear as they become adults, but continue to affect mental and physical health, educational attainment, and economic opportunities. The cycle of poverty that results from these challenges as well as the stigmatization of high-poverty neighborhoods is exacerbated by structural forces.  

In St. Louis County, as elsewhere around the country, a combination of forces has caused a palpable shift in previously-stable low-middle-income suburban neighborhoods. In the 1990s, federal investment in our most economically distressed families, especially single mothers and their children, dramatically decreased with President Clinton’s welfare reform. More recently, the Great Recession hit hardest in neighborhoods that were the target of subprime lending, and many people lost their jobs, their homes or both, leaving behind large concentrations of vacancies and families in or near crisis. As a result, many suburban communities are now struggling to cope with issues associated with the mortgage crisis, unemployment, and poverty – issues that were previously understood as mainly affecting inner cities or rural areas.

Over the last two years, many of St. Louis County’s leaders in government, the nonprofit sector, and school districts have sought to re-evaluate the structure of local investment both in our youth and in our most distressed neighborhoods, make the changes needed to break the multi-generational cycle of poverty, and halt struggling communities from slipping into the poverty trap. One vehicle for achieving this is the county-wide strategic plan, Imagining Tomorrow for St. Louis County, which is mandated by the county charter every five years and was passed by the St. Louis County Council in October 2013. Once more of a land use plan, the plan has evolved into a broad strategy for addressing changing demographics and economics in a largely built-out county.

Imagining Tomorrow marks the start of a new era whereby St. Louis County seeks to work with partners to try new approaches to community development in a more physically-dispersed, suburban context. More specifically, the policy directives and tactics in the plan are meant to build bridges with our 90 municipalities and 23 school districts to test approaches that we know have worked for other urban counties, develop and test some of our own, and pile on the resources that are available to us.

In that vein, we have joined with partners at Beyond Housing, University of Missouri St. Louis, and the OneSTL team at East-West Gateway Council of Governments to host a policy forum on this topic for anyone who is inspired to contribute their energy and ideas. The event will be held at The MET Center in Wellston, itself a success story in adaptive reuse of a manufacturing facility to a job training center. Next door, an early childhood center is currently under construction as part of a “two-generation” initiative for the young children of students who are in training at the MET Center.

We hope you can join us for this important discussion, where we’ll hear from two nationally-known experts on changing trends in poverty and innovative approaches to community development. Elizabeth Kneebone, fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution and coauthor of Confronting Suburban Poverty in America, will speak on her research on urban and suburban poverty, metropolitan demographics, and policies that support low-income workers and communities. David Erickson, director of the Center for Community Investments at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and senior editor of Investing in What Works for America’s Communities, will speak on innovation in community development around the country by local governments and nonprofits.

A panel of local officials and Q&A session will follow. May 29th, 1-4 p.m., The MET Center, 6347 Plymouth Avenue, Wellston, Missouri 63133.

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

Historic Preservation Means Economic Growth

By Andrew Weil

Andrew Weil is the executive director of the Landmarks Association of St. Louis.

As the Missouri legislature debates the future of the state’s historic rehabilitation tax credit program, I would like to consider the meaning of the term “historic preservation” in the context of economic development.

In this context, historic preservation simply means the repair and reuse of high quality existing buildings.

This building on Cherokee Street was recognized by Landmarks as an endangered property that had been enhanced.

Credit File photos | Provided by Landmarks

Large numbers of useful buildings in town centers and urban areas across the region are under-performing as economic assets because they need to be repaired and brought back into productive service.

These buildings represent a vast untapped economic resource. Consider that the materials in a historic building have already been extracted, refined, transported and assembled. The land has already been prepared for construction, the infrastructure and services are already in place and the vast majority of energy required to create a useful finished product has already been expended. All they really need is large amounts of skilled local tradespeople to put them back in order. These are all important considerations for a society that desperately needs jobs and is increasingly concerned with sustainable practice and rising energy costs.

While it has been well documented that investment in the urban core and in small town main streets can be enormously valuable, this type of growth frequently requires a catalyst.

With an eye toward revitalizing existing, but underutilized buildings, the Missouri legislature approved a new economic development program in 1997; the State Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit.

The program was designed to create jobs, attract private investment, and grow the tax base by providing incentives that helped to put buildings back into productive use.

The experiment worked. According to studies by Saint Louis University, Rutgers University and the Missouri Department of Economic Development, the program has produced more than 43,000 jobs, leveraged nearly $7 billion in direct private investment, and returns $1.50 in tax revenue for every dollar the state invests.

The program is literally the most effective economic development initiative in the history of the state. Despite all this, the state auditor’s office recently characterized the performance of the program as merely “fair” as if there were other programs that had put up comparable numbers. He also pointed out some reasonable ways to make the program more efficient. Good, let’s do that. Let’s make a great program even better.

“No” say some in the legislature, let’s make it worse. Right now, the cap on the amount of money the state allocates to the program annually is larger than the amount redeemed. This means that people who want to use the program can build it into their financing packages and have confidence in their project budgets. This is a good thing.

Unfortunately, some of our representatives are trying lower the cap to an amount that is less than what is typically redeemed. This means that every year some people will get to use the program, and others will not. If you build the credits into your financing package, you will be rolling the dice. This uncertainty will lead to paralysis. This is a bad thing.

If the state legislature is serious about creating jobs for Missourians, why is it trying to cripple a program that creates thousands of jobs? If it is serious about cutting taxes, why would it kill a program that grows the tax base? If it is serious about increasing funding for important things like education, why would it kill a program that generates a substantial return on its investments?

Lowering the cap on the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit Program will chase jobs and investment out of Missouri. Show me how that makes economic sense.

Reprinted with the permission of the author.

 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

Special Taxing District and the St. Louis Region

By Brooks Goedeker, Executive Director, Park Central Development ( Mr. Goedeker is the gentleman in the center of the photo wearing a red polo shirt)

Neighborhoods in St. Louis and across America are struggling with the harsh reality of shrinking coffers, dwindling resources and diminished public services.  Each and every day, communities must accept the fact that competition for municipal services is getting tougher and the traditional image of clean and safe streets is no longer a given.  

This revelation isn’t something new.  Neighborhoods have always had to deal with local governments altering their services, priorities and mindsets.  A City is a living organism, shifting and changing every day.  Because of this, some neighborhoods experience stagnation or a slow decline, while others battle through and find ways to become self-sustaining.

To make up for the lack of services many areas establish subscription campaigns, asking each property owner to contribute money to pay for someone to pick up litter and debris, shovel snow, or provide security.  Unfortunately, the success of these campaigns are often hard to maintain and often short lived, because not everyone contributes and some property owners are left footing the bill, while others simply reap the benefits.

In the 1970s, a new mechanism for raising revenues in neighborhoods was developed.   In Toronto, property owners came together and created the business improvement district model (the same as today’s Community Improvement Districts in Missouri).  This approach required property owners (if approved by a majority) within a defined “district” to contribute equally to services.  In short, these property owners took matters into their own hands.

Today, many neighborhoods in St. Louis have learned from this example and have chosen to tax themselves in order to provide services at a level which local municipalities may no longer be able to provide.  In St. Louis, there are almost 200 special taxing districts, such as Community Improvement Districts (CIDs) and Special Business Districts (SBDs).  These special taxing districts allow property owners to capture property and/ or sales taxes within an area, and ensure that the funds collected are invested in the area, and only in that defined area.  This revenue helps fund initiatives to keep streets clear of trash and graffiti, repair sidewalks, market the area, hold special events, create works of art, manage parking, install pedestrian lighting and hire additional police patrols.  These services in turn help to increase property values and improve public perception of an area.

While most areas are drawn towards special taxing districts for financial reasons, the organizational aspect that comes along with CIDS and SBDs may end up being one of the most beneficial aspects.  Funds collected in the special taxing district must be controlled and allocated by a board of directors made up of residents, businesses, and property owners.  There are strict requirements for reporting and transparency with the City and State, forcing districts to become highly organized.  District meetings, committees and special events encourage stakeholders to come together, exchange ideas and hopefully create a shared vision for an area’s future.  Any neighborhood can organize at their freewill, but special taxing districts can help guide the process.

If created and administered correctly, special taxing districts can be a lifeline for struggling communities and a boon to areas being revitalized.  They can and should be part of the puzzle to make many areas of St. Louis great again.  At Park Central Development we have been a part of helping to educate, organize, and administer special taxing districts throughout St. Louis.  We, as well as the participating residents, business and property owners, see firsthand the positive elements that are derived from these districts, including rising property values, decreased crime, and the creation of a shared vision and plan for an area. 

As a way to compound their redevelopment efforts, Downtown, the Loop, South Grand, the Grove, Grand Center, Maplewood, Soulard, and the Central West End have all adopted special taxing districts.  Areas such as Cherokee Street, the Hill, and Lafayette Square are in talks to establish their own.  Logically Midtown Alley, Morgan Ford Business District, Old North, Bevo, and the Macklind Business District could be next.  Hopefully your favorite neighborhood or business district will soon be on that list.

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

Why We Need Workforce Housing in the Suburbs

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.