Let’s Make Good Governance the Goal in Municipal Reform

By Chris Krehmeyer, President and CEO of Beyond Housing

As a region we have talked for many years about the number of municipalities in St. Louis County and how it just seems like too many. Ironically, one of the only issues that we have moved quickly to a degree of consensus on from the Michael Brown tragedy is municipal government reform. With the pushing of Better Together and the Arch City Defenders, our state legislature is moving quickly to change the rules on how municipal governments across the state must function.  For example, the Missouri Legislature passed a law limiting the amount of city budgets in St. Louis County that can come from traffic fines to 12.5 percent.  I will be the first to acknowledge that some reforms are needed to ensure efficient, just and fair delivery of all municipal services. But instead of telling municipalities what they can and cannot do, we should ask the citizens what they want and work with existing leaders for better governance.

What I have not heard from the many voices in this conversation is what actually constitutes good governance for our 91 municipalities in the County and all the other political jurisdictions across the state. Should not that be the goal of all this work? How can we debate the percentage of income from traffic fines and fees each municipal government shall be allowed to pull in if we do not have the accountability structure to determine how that jurisdiction runs its entire government? If the policing and court system is fair, just and does not disproportionally harm someone for a traffic violation, then does it matter what percentage of their total budgets are fees and fines?

The St. Louis County Municipal League already has a ten best practices list for municipal governments that covers financial soundness, municipal codes, and basic core services that are needed to accomplish good governance. We need to add a provision about policing and court systems to ensure that the abuses that have been brought to light never occur again. Let us have this conversation so that tax payers in these jurisdictions can fully understand and be part of deciding what is best for them.

If a municipality is unable to meet an agreed upon litmus test of good governance over a reasonable amount of time, then there needs to be an end game. Let us not, however, get blinded by the bright light of “fix Ferguson” and rashly make changes that will not bring us good governance. We should not be lulled into thinking that bigger is necessarily better. We also must remember that each municipality has an obligation to provide for the safety of its residents.

For years our region has believed that there are too many municipalities. This may or may not be true. What is important is to ask residents in these smaller communities what is important to them and whether they have been receiving these goods and services from their municipal governments. Ask the residents of these communities whether they would like to join with another municipality or become part of unincorporated St. Louis County. The broad-based assumption is that everyone living in these small, mostly African American communities is being treated terribly and is unable to change their political leadership. I do not believe this to be true.

In our rush to “fix Ferguson” let us not unintentionally disrespect the democratically elected leaders of many predominantly North County communities. Let’s fix the issues that need to be addressed. Let’s find the places where collaboration and sharing of services are possible. Let’s make sure we have good governance in every community in our region no matter its size. Let’s allow the people who live, pay taxes and raise their children in these communities to decide what is in their best interests.

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.

A Prescription for Adequate Housing and Comunity Development in Ferguson, St. Louis

By Jim Roos

In 1971 Jim Roos created Neighborhood Enterprises, Inc. to manage lower cost rental housing. In 1990 he created Sanctuary In The Ordinary, a nonprofit corporation that own affordable rental housing and advocates for supportive public policies.  

We need systemic change in strategy for adequate Housing and Community Development. The current process of gut rehab or new construction, fueled by tax credits, produces expensive units, at high subsidy, and often concentrates rental units in large complexes like Canfield Green in Ferguson.

In St. Louis the average cost per unit of gut rehab/new construction is about $185,000.  Two years ago Neighborhood Enterprise, Inc. participated in rehabbing four, large, 3-bedroom, 2-bath units for owner occupants where the average cost was $330,000 and average subsidy was $240,000.

Not only are many of these projects expensive per unit, but the tax credits are inefficient. Every $1 of tax credit produces only 43 cents of housing according to an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (3-3-14).

A better process would be:

1. Promote nonprofit corporations to repair, own, and manage lower cost rental housing. The apartments owned by nonprofit corporations should be affordable to people at 50 percent of are median income (AMI). For a family of four, maximum income would be about $33,550. Affordable means that the rent should not be more than 30 percent of family income. Maximum rent for 2-bedroom unit would be $839. Most 2-bedroom units would rent between $500 and $700. We should strive for a mixture of 75 percent market rate and 25 percent subsidized units.

2. We should focus on “selective rehab” as proposed by The Enterprise Foundation in its Cost Cuts Manual in 1987. When Neighborhood Enterprises utilizes selective rehab methods we produce “Sanctuary In The Ordinary”, that is, units that cost an average of $45,000 per unit, 1/4 of the cost for gut rehab, and we seldom displace people.

3. Government should provide 20 percent interest-free permanent financing and banks provide 70 percent for permanent affordable rental housing owned by nonprofits. There is currently little private or no public financing for ordinary rental housing. The government could also target housing choice vouchers to these permanently affordable units.

Having government provide funds for rental housing sounds crazy and is counter intuitive. Neighborhoods want home owners.  However, if we stabilize rental housing, homeowners will stay or want to move into the neighborhood without subsidy.  Just as important, when we focus on rental housing, fewer tenants will be displaced into distressed areas like Canfield Green in Ferguson.

Since 1970 I have lived and worked in the area just north of I-44 between Jefferson and Grand, now called the Gate District.  After I-44 was finished in 1970, this area rapidly declined.  Over 20 years more than half of the buildings were abandoned and demolished.

According to ST. Louis Post-Dispatch (10-29-02), between 1970 and 1990 four redevelopment plans were proposed for this area with little success.  Only in the mid 90’s could new homes be built and sold to owner occupants.  I closely observed in my neighborhood and in adjacent neighborhoods where Neighborhood Enterprises, Inc. managed property that after rental units were stabilized new home owners were again attracted—without subsidy.

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.

Everyday Fragmentation: Why service providers need to work across boundaries to better serve our communities

By Paul Sorenson

Paul Sorenson is the Director of Strategic Communications & Planning at Grace Hill Settlement House. He is on the organizing team for the Northside Service Provider Conference and works with Grace Hill on connecting families to resources across the City. You can reach him at psorenson@gracehillsettlement.org and register for the conference here.

St. Louis is grappling with substantial barriers that separate us from each other, those drawn in thick red lines — municipal boundaries, legal hurdles, and persistent systems of inequality and racism. But our fragmentation can persist even in individual neighborhoods, lines drawn in pencil that many are still hesitant to cross. These thin borders — between neighborhoods and wards, across thoroughfares and parks, between nonprofits and congregations and personalities — should be easy to erase, though many continue to define our work.

The good news? More and more people are crossing these lines, renewing a primary commitment to serve kids, families and communities wherever we are asked.

Over the past few years, many neighborhoods in North St. Louis City have recognized that service providers (loosely defined as organizations working to better their communities) need to collaborate for greater impact. From College Hill to O’Fallon, JeffVanderLou to Old North, The West End to The Ville, providers partner with residents to define and respond to critical issues. The building blocks for better educational outcomes, tackling health disparities, and connecting families to economic opportunity are crafted here — necessary first steps in shrinking larger regional barriers.

In my time at Grace Hill Settlement House, we have seen how such collaboration can work, and how much work it takes to accomplish. Our Water Tower Hub in the College Hill neighborhood assembles early childhood, banking, job training, supportive housing and community building efforts under one roof. Even so, making sure that neighbors knew about these efforts and could easily interact with them didn’t happen overnight. Neither did integrating staff and data systems so referrals were consistent and outcomes were shared. But through persistent efforts to collaborate, we know the families we serve have a much better chance to thrive.

If we can erase these lines at one address, we must also try across zip codes. While many service providers work on the nuts and bolts undergirding smaller communities, focusing on housing redevelopment, block-by-block organizing and family engagement, many of the resources they utilize are actually shared across neighborhoods. Financial empowerment, health and government services are equally accessible beyond ward boundaries. Community schools often share academic enrichment programs and can learn from each other. And with a decline in home ownership, it’s more likely that residents of one neighborhood this year will become residents of another the next. How do we tie everything together?

Bethany Johnson-Javois, Managing Director of the Ferguson Commission, will be the keynote speaker at the Northside Service Providers Conference, May 12th from 8am to noon at the O’Fallon Park YMCA Recreation Complex.

The first annual Northside Service Providers Conference aims to be the starting point in North St. Louis City, one of many areas that would benefit greatly from enhanced community collaboration. To date, over 90 people representing over 55 organizations have registered to attend this planning and resource sharing session at the O’Fallon Park YMCA Recreation Complex, 8am to noon on Tuesday, May 12th. The conference, organized by a grassroots team of northside community building organizations and sponsored by the Incarnate Word Foundation, features Bethany Johnson-Javois as its keynote speaker. As the Managing Director of the Ferguson Commission, Johnson-Javois can speak directly to the negative impact that service fragmentation has on low-income communities, and the positive impact that cross-provider collaboration can have on neighborhood progress.

The bulk of the morning will be interactive, beginning with a planning session centered around two questions: What are the pressing issues our communities? What could make our jobs easier?

The first question speaks directly to our missions, but that second question is equally as critical. Service providers need capacity — staff, money and expertise — to do our daily work well. This conference gives us the space to work with each other on overcoming capacity gaps, visit vendors that provide resources for service providers, and end the day with panel discussions around actionable fundraising, community engagement, and innovation tactics that participants can bring back to their neighborhoods.

True collaboration, however, is more than just another meeting. That’s why each attending organization will fill out a detailed survey outlining where they work, who they serve, the programs they run and what they need to grow. This information will be compiled and shared (online and in print) with participants and the communities they serve. Ultimately, we hope to follow up with additional planning sessions, events and other opportunities to ensure that service providers can support each other and share resources across neighborhoods.

The Northside Service Providers Conference is a first step in addressing the everyday fragmentation that makes it difficult for our communities to thrive. We need to come together on the ground, stepping across small lines, to be able to erase the big barriers that hold our region back. Will you join us?

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.

The Ferguson Moment: Putting our Foot on the Accelerator in Community and Economic Development

The following op-ed is an edited version of Hank Webber’s keynote address at the Community Builders Network Annual Awards Reception on March 19, 2015.

By Hank Webber

Hank Webber is Executive Vice Chancellor for Administration and Professor of Practice at Washington University in St. Louis. His career has focused on community development, universities and cities.

My topic tonight is community and economic development in St. Louis: what we have achieved and what we must do to achieve even more.

I want to begin with a story. Seven years ago my wife Christine Jacobs and I announced to our friends and colleagues that we were leaving Chicago and moving to St. Louis. When we said that I was joining Washington University in a senior leadership position, most people were very supportive. When we said we were moving to St. Louis they thought we were a bit crazy.

Our friends were wrong. Chris and I love living in St. Louis. We love living in the Central West End, walking down Euclid on a cold winter night, stopping in for an informal dinner. We love running and walking in Forest Park. We love the Tower Grove Farmers Market, watching adults doing yoga and the little kids playing in the fountain, and listening to the often not very good bands in the background. We love the fact that you can eat outdoors in St. Louis in months other than July and August.

It is a delight to live in St. Louis. And much of the reason for that delight is the work of the community development professionals and community leaders who have helped to rebuild urban neighborhoods, invested in critical community initiatives and revived the St. Louis economy. Thank you.

But for all of our many successes there are also challenges. Some of those challenges are long-standing. They are the challenges of the transition away from a manufacturing economy: the challenges of reviving neighborhoods whose economic base has been lost. This year however, we faced a new and potentially devastating challenge when on August 9, 2014, a date that many of us will remember for the rest of our lives, Michael Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson. Denny Coleman, the CEO of the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership, noted that in the first 52 days after Michael Brown’s death there were 100 billion media impressions of St. Louis. Most of those impressions of St. Louis, probably 98% of them, were very negative. I spent late August in Copenhagen, Berlin, and Amsterdam. St. Louis led the news in each city almost every day.

The question for every citizen of St. Louis and for every community leader is “What are we going to do in the wake of Ferguson?” Do we allow St. Louis to become an international symbol of the divides of race and class? Will we become to the next decades what Selma has been to the last fifty years? Or is this the time to do what we’ve done well in the past, but with the foot on the accelerator, with a new dedication to action. Are we going to build off the recent successes of CORTEX and T Rex and build a new economy for the twenty-first century? Are we going to extend the success we have had in revitalizing the Central West End, Botanical Heights, Forest Park Southeast and Soulard to fifteen more neighborhoods in the next ten years, including many of the neighborhoods north of Delmar? Are we going to face our Achilles heel, which is race?

That’s the choice we have to make. It’s a choice that New Orleans had to make after Hurricane Katrina. To me, and I expect to you, there’s only one acceptable answer. To go backward is to condemn our children and our grandchildren to a St. Louis that is not a place they want to live.

From my point of view the only option is to put the foot on the gas. And we will only succeed at that if we do it together. Community and economic development are team sports. You can’t succeed as an individual superstar. The deal that brought IKEA not to Chesterfield, not to O’Fallon, but to the City of St. Louis took two years. Success required the efforts of probably 20 people, all of whom were necessary and none of whom were sufficient in and of themselves. Almost everything that matters has that characteristic—success requires big diverse teams of people dedicated to working together.

So if we are going to put our foot on the gas, and if Ferguson becomes not a step toward decline, but a moment of positive transformation—if it becomes our Katrina—then what should we do? I offer three simple propositions.

First, we need to build a stronger and more collaborative community development system. In St. Louis, we work together predominantly through personal relationships. We have relatively few institutions that bring us together. We have a lot of great CDCs in town, but they tend to work independently. The Community Builders Network has produced a useful task force report on strengthening St. Louis neighborhoods. It makes a set of important points about how to build a community development system; about the need to focus on both the most distressed neighborhoods and middle neighborhoods; about the need to build capacity; and about the importance of collaboration in order to make progress.

Second, community development is not just about housing and retail development and parks, but it’s also about schools and safety. If we want to attract families to neighborhoods we must offer high quality school options and neighborhoods that people feel safe walking in. On the school side we are making progress, but we have a long way to go.

Finally, attitude matters. History is not destiny. The past is not the future. The first time Chris and I ever visited Seattle, which was in the early 1980s, there was a big billboard that said, “Will the last person that leaves Seattle turn out the lights?” Boeing was downsizing dramatically, just as McDonnell Douglas did in St. Louis. The future of Seattle was unclear. Now Seattle is one of the high tech hubs of the world. Twenty years ago everyone wanted to leave Brooklyn. Now Brooklyn is where our children want to live. Cities can transform themselves.

All cities go through cycles. Sometimes those cycles are longer than we would like, but after cities decline, they can experience tremendous rebirth. I have absolute confidence that by working together the 2020s can be the greatest decade in St. Louis’ history.

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.

Sustainable Transportation? Not Without a Land Use Policy

By Scott Ogilvie, 24th Ward Alderman, City of St. Louis

St. Louis has a transportation problem, but it may not be the one you think. The region doesn’t have enough people to continue paying for the transportation infrastructure we’ve already built. Fueled by a MoDOT spending binge over the last decade, the region expanded its road capacity to near the highest per capita in the nation.

While total miles driven within the region declined over a decade and population barely grew, we added capacity. Traffic congestion declined while commute times increased. How is that possible? Jobs are moving farther away from where people live. The region’s transportation and land use plans are woefully at odds.

It’s more accurate to say there is no regional land use plan. Hundreds of local governments in the eight-county region, and the counties themselves, control their own land use planning via tax policy, incentives, housing, and zoning regulations. Land use rarely dovetails with existing transportation infrastructure in a way that gets the most value out of what has already been built. Instead, the region built expensive new infrastructure to low-density areas. Our uncoordinated transportation and land use policies might best be characterized by the phrase, “Build and abandon.”

While we don’t like to admit it, in a region with very slow population and job growth, transportation projects are often a zero sum game. A project that helps one area often hurts another. The population growth in St. Charles County over the last two decades was driven by road and bridge investments across the Missouri River like the Page Ave. Extension and Highway 370. (Cost for all three phases of the Page Avenue Extension was $569.2 million.) But growth in St. Charles County came at the expense of population and job declines in north St. Louis County.

Sprawl may be inevitable in a region with population growth, but the paradigm is different in St. Louis. Our region has expanded in geographic size by 400% over 50 years while population grew only 50%. Families in areas with declining population have often seen their personal assets wiped out by declining property values. The depopulation in north St. Louis that began in 1950’s had taken hold in north St. Louis County by the 1990’s.

A study just published by the Brookings Institute of the 96 largest metro areas in the county puts St. Louis’ job and land use pattern in a stark light. Between 2000 and 2012, proximity to jobs in the region declined by 15%. That means the average resident has to travel farther to work than they did just a decade ago. In poor neighborhoods, proximity to jobs declined almost twice as much, by 28%. In both these scores St. Louis is near the bottom nationwide. Our transportation policy is making it harder for everyone to get to work, and particularly so for people who are already poor.

We need to better use the transportation system we’ve already built, directing residential and commercial development to areas where underutilized transportation infrastructure exists. Unfortunately, there’s currently no regional mechanism to achieve this. Hundreds of municipalities within the eight counties retain the ability to set their own priorities and pursue their own development practices, even when it undermines other parts of the region.

Absent a region-wide framework for land use planning, the most likely way to achieve a more sustainable transportation system is simply a reduction in transportation spending from the state. A fiscally restrained MoDOT will have no choice but to limit system expansions in the region. If system growth plateaus for long enough, underutilized areas stand a better chance of rebounding.

While there are no doubt better policy solutions to achieve a sustainable transportation funding and maintenance paradigm in St. Louis, one that merges transportation investment decisions with land use planning, our political climate and fragmentation means we aren’t likely to achieve them. Absent real reform, spending much less on system expansion is the most likely path to a financially sustainable system given the region’s sluggish population growth, low immigration, and aging population.

In addition, East West Gateway, MoDOT, and local governments throughout the region should work harder to determine how to reduce overall demand for transportation. How can jobs, services, and amenities be located where people already live and where we’ve already built infrastructure? “System Preservation”, is a concept already embedded in transportation planning, it should be expanded to include “Neighborhood Preservation.” We should carefully consider how new transportation projects may hurt existing communities. We have abundant data that we’ve overbuilt our highway system, now is the perfect chance to pivot to a more sustainable approach going forward.

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.

More Recommendations for Improving Police-Community Relations

By Terrell Carter

Terrell Carter is the Executive Director of the North Newstead Association in St. Louis, MO.  Prior to that, he served as a St. Louis City Police Officer for five years.  He is the author of the forthcoming book Walking the Blue Line: A Police Officer Turned Community Activist Provides Solutions to the Racial Divide.  You can learn more about the book at www.terrellcarter.net.

Much of the attention related to the current conversation about police-citizen interactions focuses on what law enforcement is not doing well.  Realizing that the current tensions that exist are not solely the fault of law enforcement, I offer the following suggestions for consideration by those who are concerned with how we all can work better together.

People who want to help officers do their jobs better can attend a local police department’s Citizen on Patrol Academy or Citizens Police Academy.  During these academies, citizens are given a glimpse into what it is like to be an officer, how a 911 call is dispatched, and what officers are looking for when they conduct their investigations.

Citizens can also learn what laws are relevant to their particular city, as well as gain a better understanding of the rights and responsibilities of both citizens and law enforcement.  If possible, I would also recommend that citizens participate in a ride along.  There is nothing like seeing and hearing a situation from an officer’s point of view inside a patrol car.

On a more practical level, citizens have the opportunity to teach each other how to properly interact with law enforcement.  We should remind each other that officers do have a certain level of authority at all times.  When a policeman gives a person an appropriate legal command, that command should be followed, not challenged.  Hopefully the reader noticed that I said “appropriate legal command”.  I do not advocate or defend officers who arrive on the scene and start out by busting heads and then asking questions.

Community members can also remind each other to always keep their hands where an officer can see them.  If people hide their hands, whether on purpose or accident, an officer will likely think that they are reaching for something to cause them bodily harm.

Realizing that, for various reasons, there are not enough officers patrolling neighborhoods and the officers who are on patrol can’t fix every problem in a neighborhood, citizens can participate in a local Neighborhood Ownership Model (NOM) Plan.  A NOM plan is a flexible, community-based approach for creating and implementing ideas that lead to significant and lasting crime reduction in neighborhoods.  It is volunteer driven and incorporates cooperation from various city departments.  In summary, a NOM plan consists of the following aspects:

• A Neighborhood Planning Team that leads the efforts to create and implement the plan.

• Citizen Patrol Units that are made of residents who volunteer to patrol streets in order to record and report crime.

• Regular Community Meetings that are organized by neighbors in order to provide education, information, and facilitate interaction between government agencies and the community.

• Neighborhood Victim Support Teams made up of trained neighbors that help victims of crimes to ensure they have the support they need to manage through the legal system and the emotional experience that follows.

More information about creating and implementing a NOM plan can be found at http://www.circuitattorney.org/NeighborhoodOwnershipModel.aspx.

Finally, as much as I appreciate those who report the news and willingly put themselves in harms’ way in order to make sure the rest of the world can get a glimpse into events that affect us all, in my estimation, sometimes media outlets are more interested in pushing an agenda or a controversial opinion as it relates to police and citizens than in providing accurate information about incidents that occur.

In the rush to be the first on the scene, or to get the first sound bite, or to capture the most dramatic image, media may move with less care than usual, and instead of giving correct information, they may engage in reporting that doesn’t give the full information that is needed.

As media outlets seek to participate in the process of healing racial and societal divides, they can practice reporting information that more clearly informs the general public instead of pushing sound bites that serve to separate and pit people against one another.  In practicing clearer journalistic reporting, the opportunity becomes available to cause less harm among groups that already have enough reasons to not work together.

Articles in “From the Field” represent the opinions of the author only and do not represent the view of the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis or the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Low-Income Renters Need Energy Efficient Housing

By Dana Gray

Dana Gray serves as the Community Outreach Coordinator for Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corp. She began her work in community development in 2005 with the Southwest Garden Neighborhood Association. Dana is an art consultant, location scout, beekeeper, and advocate for sustainability issues.  She routinely commutes by bicycle and has a keen interest in our built environment supporting active, healthy lifestyles.

Housing is expensive, not just the cost of the physical structure but also operating expenses.  Community Development Corporations often work to provide affordable housing to low-income families, but we need to give more consideration to energy costs and energy efficiency.  There is a collaborative effort underway to make utility energy efficiency programs more effective for affordable multi-family housing.  It is called Energy Efficiency for All – Missouri.

Missouri’s Energy Efficiency Investment Act (MEEIA) was enacted in 2009 with the passage of SB376.  The role of MEEIA is to require Missouri’s investor-owned electric utilities to capture all cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities.  Ameren MO launched a suite of customer programs beginning in 2013 as part of a 3-year program in response to MEEIA.  The Missouri Public Service Commission has proceedings underway to review and recommend improvements to Ameren Missouri’s energy efficiency programs.

Low-income households spend nearly 14 percent of their total annual income on energy costs. Other households spend only 3 percent of their annual income, on average, on energy costs.  According to Professor Gary Pivo, in rented multifamily units, energy expenditures run 37% higher per square foot than in owner-occupied multifamily units (i.e. condos), 41% higher than in renter-occupied single family detached units, and 76% higher than in owner-occupied single family detached units. (https://www.fanniemae.com/content/fact_sheet/energy-efficiency-rental-housing.pdf)  Current energy efficiency programs offered by Ameren Missouri are not addressing the needs of affordable multi-family housing.  In 2014, five stakeholder meetings took place to identify the needs of the affordable multi-family sector and how the utility could better meet those needs.

Energy Efficiency for All – Missouri is a collaboration among the National Housing Trust, the Natural Resource Defense Council, Renew Missouri, Tower Grove Neighborhoods CDC, and Kansas City-based Blue Hills Community Services.  Petitions were filed with the Missouri Public Service Commission (PSC) so collaborative members can speak at the MEEIA review proceedings.  The Community Outreach Coordinator of the Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation  (TGNCDC) is representing the affordable, multifamily housing sector.  TGNCDC filed a petition with the PSC to participate in the review of MEEIA, which will impact Ameren UE’s energy efficiency programs for 2016 – 2018.

To support this effort, urge Governor Nixon to work with the State Energy Office and other agencies to incorporate strategies into the forthcoming State Energy Plan that will lead to more energy efficient affordable housing. These actions should include:

• Encouraging the Public Service Commission to pro-actively collaborate with the state’s utilities to ensure the successful delivery of energy efficiency services to the affordable multifamily sector;

• Directing the Department of Natural Resources to include all cost-effective energy efficiency in complying with the federal clean power plan; and

• Leveraging limited public resources by encouraging collaboration and coordination among utilities and state agencies, especially the Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC).

According to a staff member at the Office of Public Counsel, this is the first time a petitioner has filed with the PSC advocating for the low-income population.  We need to expand our concepts of community development to include energy efficiency measures.  TGNCDC will report to the CBN membership on the PSC – MEEIA proceedings, seek feedback, and support for improved utility energy efficiency programs.

Articles in “From the Field” represent the opinions of the author only and do not represent the view of the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis or the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Community Development is a Good Investment Strategy

By Mary McMurtrey

Mary McMurtrey is currently the Director of Community Engagement for the Greater Saint Louis Community Foundation.  She previously served as President of the Gateway Center for Giving (formerly The Metropolitan Association for Philanthropy) for over six years.  Prior to joining The Center, she served as the Executive Director of Boys Hope Girls Hope St. Louis and before changing sectors to human services she served as the Executive Director of the Wildlife Rescue Center.  Before entering the field of nonprofit management, Mary was the communications officer for the Public Policy Research Center at the University of Missouri-St. Louis where she was recruited to create a new position within the PPRC and to direct the organization’s communications and marketing efforts as an established professional entity in the St. Louis policy arena with a focus on both regional and national issues.  Mary lives in Ladue with her husband Michael and their children, Sophia and Lyla.

Our region fundamentally lacks the community development infrastructure needed to incent local and national development dollars. This is deeply troubling, as it means we are leaving meaningful philanthropic dollars on the table. The community development initiatives we choose to support must make business sense, but they must also help improve the quality of life for the people who live in those communities.

Think about it. Services exist in a place.  A community.  As such, before allocating dollars to a worthy cause, as funders I believe we have an obligation to give equal weight to the quality of life for the people within those communities. We need to think beyond our funding niche, and also focus on community and economic development and give those issues the attention they deserve.

After all, none of us would invest in a for profit business without sustainable infrastructure, human capital, or a growing customer base, yet these are the very (essential) elements we often overlook when we do our grant-making.

All the education reform initiatives in the world can’t make children safer on their walks to school each day. Similarly, administering medicines on an ongoing basis works best when the patient’s basic needs are being met. It stands to reason, we as individuals begin and end each day in our place – our home, our schools, our churches, our workplaces. Our community. Shouldn’t we as funders help improve the societal infrastructure that supports and sustains us all?

I often hear funders describe themselves using statements like, “I’m an education funder,” or, “Our foundation supports the arts.”  While these “categories” define what we fund, I believe they also cause us to operate in silos. It’s no wonder that these silos tend to permeate the nonprofits we support, and ultimately help reinforce the divisions that plague our community.

To combat this problem, what if every philanthropist asked the following before making a grant: “Upon what foundation will my money be supported?  Is there a roof?  Are there sidewalks?  Streetlights?  Will my intervention help build upon a community of people, or will it accomplish a fraction of what it could, simply because we did not look at the problem comprehensively?

That said, our allocation of philanthropy dollars need to make good business sense, but they also must help improve the quality of life for people who live in those communities.  One cannot exist without the other.

I recognize funders can’t solve everything. Often we have limited dollars and must make difficult choices about what we are passionate about and how we give charitably. However, wouldn’t it be novel – and exciting — to tie our education dollars, for example, to other funders who are working to address issues associated with healthy seniors, and at the same time involve other initiatives that are trying to improve the physical conditions of the communities and neighborhoods we are trying to serve?

What if our belated New Year’s resolution was to challenge ourselves as funders and nonprofit leaders to build a little more “place” and “community” into our strategies in 2015?  Imagine how we could come together as a region, as funders, as doers, and really make a difference. I have no doubt the entire country – and those national foundations – would take note.

Articles in “From the Field” represent the opinions of the author only and do not represent the view of the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis or the University of Missouri-St. Louis. 

Four Recommendations for Improving Police-Community Relations

By Terrell Carter

Terrell Carter is the Executive Director of the North Newstead Association in St. Louis, MO.  Prior to that, he served as a St. Louis City Police Officer for five years.  He is the author of the forthcoming book Walking the Blue Line: A Police Officer Turned Community Activist Provides Solutions to the Racial Divide.  You can learn more about the book at www.terrellcarter.net.

The Michael Brown shooting and subsequent decision to not indict Officer Wilson has reinvigorated much needed dialogue about how law enforcement interacts with citizens and how to improve police and community relationships.

As a former police officer for the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, I offer the following suggestions that I believe will help both police officers and the communities they serve as we all try to find ways to live and work together for the greater good of all.

Being an officer is one of the most stressful jobs that anyone can have.  Local police departments have the opportunity to help officers locate and take advantage of mental health resources in order for them to better cope with the stresses of the job.  During my tenure on the department, the only time that mental and emotional health was discussed was during the academy.  During my five years of patrolling streets and interacting with people, I wasn’t encouraged to talk to anyone about anything that I experienced while on patrol.  Instead, the attitude was that I should get used to seeing bad things happen on a regular basis.

These departments can work to counteract the negative stigmas that are placed on officers who do eventually feel burned out by all that they experience on the streets.  Officers are taught that they are not a person but an extension of the law.  They have to be tough and strong at all times.  This does not mean that they do not feel pain on the inside.  This fact is born out through the high rates of divorce and suicide experienced by officers.

Second, police departments and academies can add or reinstitute cultural sensitivity training to their requirements for officers on the street and in training.  I patrolled the streets with white officers who didn’t understand anything about black culture because they literally had no black friends or acquaintances other than their fellow officers.  We could not be shocked when these policemen thought that all black people were animals because they only interacted with black people at their worst times.  The same was true for black officers who didn’t have white friends.

Third, law enforcement agencies can begin the practice of rewarding officers for making a positive tangible difference in the lives of citizens.  Currently, if an officer wants to be valued by his or her department, they have to make arrests for a variety of crimes and make sure that those arrested spend time in jail or prison.  Officers have to chase after arrest statistics.  Higher stats result in better treatment by commanding officers and increased possibility of promotion or transfer to a more desirable work assignment.

Consistently, Officer of the Year awards are given for drug busts and the successful execution of search warrants.  It is rare for officers to be acknowledged, let alone rewarded, with promotion or transfers to choice specialized units for taking time to help a family that is poor find resources to help them improve their lives.  They are not rewarded for being “Officer Friendly” who helps people and families work through personal issues and improve communication.  Officers who want to be promoted and move up in rank and influence will gravitate to doing the things that get them noticed, which usually includes high profile arrests.

Fourth, political officials and department commanders should invite regular everyday people from the community to serve in community-based leadership positions within departments instead of political appointees who are being rewarded for supporting politicians during election seasons.  When a person is appointed to a Citizen Review Board or Police Commission by a mayor or governor, citizens know that their best interests will not be served.  The only interests that will be served are those of the person who has been nominated.

If implemented, I believe that these few suggestions can help law enforcement officials not only fulfill their duties to protect and serve but also build bridges of good will with the communities that they are tasked with protecting.

Articles in “From the Field” represent the opinions of the author only and do not represent the view of the Community Builders Network or Metro St. Louis or the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

The Next Big Game Changer For St. Louis

By Eric Friedman

Eric Friedman is a co-founder of the TOD BroadBand Fiber Collaborative, LLC, and the President of Housing and Community Solutions, Inc., a community, economic development and affordable housing developer, a champion, catalyst and collaborator. He also co-founded the Missouri Historic Tax Credit Coalition and the Transit Alliance and is active in the REALTORS Commercial Information Exchange, Lift for Life Academy Charter School, and Central Reform Congregation.  Eric has lived in University City for the last 23 years.

As a student and practitioner of community and economic development for the past 40 years, I believe the next big game changer is gigabit high-speed broadband fiber at an affordable cost, like Google Fiber in Kansas City.   Having just attended the Gigabit City Summit in Kansas City with an 8-person St. Louis delegation and having  listened to a live-stream of President Obama in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and the eloquent words of Susan Crawford, author of Captive Audience and Responsive Cities and Blair Levin of the Brookings Institution, the issue is very clear.   High-speed fiber can raise all communities in an equitable manner.

High-speed fiber is an economic and community development accelerant. Cities that have installed it, like Cedar Falls, Chattanooga, Kansas City, Lafayette (Louisiana), Austin, and Highland (Ilinois), are experiencing economic growth with  new companies and job creation. For two years we have been researching and assembling the TOD Broadband  Fiber Collaborative to bring high-speed cable to the St. Louis region and in particular, Wellston, and Olive Boulevard in University City.  High-speed fiber accelerates economic development, and it is critical to advancing equity. By providing digital inclusion and social programs that benefit all citizens, it can help to bridge the digital divide.

I have had the honor and pleasure of working with many community development practitioners on great programs that have informed my opinion and helped to rebuild our community.  Let me connect the dots for the rebuilding of our community.  St. Louis is on the move and is ready for high-speed fiber.  Mechanic’s Illustrated just named St. Louis as the number one “Maker Space” in the United States. 

Having worked with Jerry Schlichter as a co-founder of the Missouri Historic Tax Credit Coalition, (Jerry also founded Arch Grants), I have watched the rebirth of our city and neighborhoods, creating a place in St. Louis where young people and knowledge workers want to live, work and play. St. Louis now as two of the “Great Streets in America”.  In Downtown St. Louis alone, 100 buildings have been renovated and we have 5,000 new residents. CEO’s for Cities said St. Louis had the highest percentage increase of college graduates in the Central Business District than any other City in the Country. 

The Wall Street Journal called Missouri’s Historic Tax Credit (HTC) program a “model for the nation.” The HTC created 43,000 jobs in Missouri according to the Missouri Growth Study.  The HTC program laid the foundation for the entrepreneurial explosion and development we are seeing from downtown to Cortex to Dutchtown.  Another dot to connect is the formation of the Transit Alliance, a broad-based coalition that successfully campaigned for passage of the sales tax increase for Metrolink, a foundation for community change.

As Cortex works to build a Metro station, and IKEA comes to Forest Park and Vandeventer, Cambridge Innovation Community (CIC) has also come to St. Louis from MIT. CIC, founded in 1999 in Cambridge, Massachusetts with a vision of “startups make the world much better,” is now the largest innovation center in the world. This the first time they have located operations outside of Boston and they, like IKEA, chose St. Louis.  

I know we can bring high-speed fiber optic service to St. Louis.  Let’s collaborate and make this happen. Besides the great opportunity that Ferguson has given us to address community issues, high-speed fiber can serve our community and all its citizens in a positive way.  High-speed fiber can become a reality that makes our communities safer for all citizens and also for our police who are here to serve the public.   Ferguson is a wake-up call!  Will we rise to the occasion?  Together, we can make these game changers a reality!

Articles in “From the Field” represent the opinions of the author only and do not represent the view of the Community Builders Network or Metro St. Louis or the University of Missouri-St. Louis..