Moving Forward in Ferguson

By Hazel Erby, First District Councilwoman for St. Louis County

Hazel Erby became the first African American woman to serve on the St. Louis County Council when she was elected in 2004. She is currently serving her third, consecutive term. As a Council member, she held leadership positions as Chair of the County Council and the Committee of the Whole, while Chairman of the Justice, Health and Welfare Committee.

Councilwoman Erby has a long record of improving the quality of life for St. Louis County and the people and businesses she serves. She has been a resident of University City for over 40 years and has a deep understanding of the community she represents. She sponsored and passed foreclosure mediation legislation in St. Louis County.

Ferguson is America coming to terms with issues it has long ignored: an educational system underfunded and under resourced, the flight of big business and the degradation of small ones. Years of social unrest that has spawned a mental health epidemic that has buried families and communities alike. Over the last month, we’ve seen more than just tear gas and smoke bombs, we’ve witnessed America’s commitment to a first-rate sustainable future come into question.

As we move forward, we must take an honest account of our community. The engagement forward must be one that is held on two fronts. Our passion must always remain stead fast at terminating the actions of the unjust, serving as activists for awareness and education.

The path ahead must also create a new order of fiscal parity and employment opportunities.  We must utilize our current passion to fix the current mental health state of traumatized communities. This plan must call on leaders in the tech and financial sphere, to do more than just donate funds, but invest in a generation that has been long ignored. If we are going to enact the appropriate change in response to this tragedy, the plan forward must be more concise and systematic than the antagonists that wish to undermine it.

It is going to require more than generosity of time and money to right the wrongs of years of social decay. There must be a true investment with resources, education and substantial job training to restore faith in our disenfranchised youth. Over the last few weeks, this young generation has witnessed the public indict Mike Brown as being responsible for his own untimely demise. How do you raise the prospects of hope for a large group of youth that has been deemed as unworthy in death as they were in life? If we are to regain the trust of the youth, and the parents and guardians tasked in their upbringing, it is going to take a unique and committed coalition to make it happen.

We need a collective approach to rooting out the ills that are impairing the productive growth of these communities. Without a coalition of the willing and able, this fight will not only be ineffective, but in vain.

It is time that our renowned compassion cultivates not only these downtrodden spirits, but elevates the minds of those we’ve left behind. This is a call to strike down the apathy of political dogma and ignite a cause that brings all ideologies to the table to solve this great American crisis.

As the First District Councilwoman for St. Louis County, I stand ready to apply all of the resources at my disposal to be part of this collective effort.  We cannot all go off in different directions and try to fix the same problem, as we all have seen.  Ferguson is fixable, if we work together toward the same goal.  No self-appointed leaders, just people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and go to work.  We can do this!  There is an old African proverb that states, “Together the ants ate the elephant”.  Let’s go to work!

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.

Urban Homesteading in St. Louis

By Paul Dribin of Dribin Consulting

For 30 years Paul Dribin worked with the Department of Housing and Urban Development in which he assumed leadership positions in the fields of Public Housing, Housing Management, Housing Development, and Section 8 housing.  While working for HUD in St. Louis, his most notable projects included the Chase Park Plaza, the demolition and redevelopment of the Laclede Town area, the Darst Webbe Hope VI project, and the Vaughn-Murphy Park mixed income development. Since retiring from HUD, Mr. Dribin has led Dribin Consulting, a company specializing in providing FHA and other financing for multifamily projects.  Dribin Consulting also performs grant writing, provides services to troubled multifamily housing, and participates as a member of a team administering the State of Missouri Neighborhood Stabilization Program.  Mr. Dribin is married, the father of two adult children, and resides in Webster Groves.

There is a program that would positively improve the quality of life in St. Louis City neighborhoods and place working families in homeownership.

The idea is really quite simple.  Properties in certain neighborhoods would be provided to selected homebuyers.  The properties would be provided from the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) inventory or other sources.  The homebuyers would be households who are employed and need not be low- or moderate-income.  These households could not presently own a residential home in the city.

The purchaser would be provided with a low acquisition price and receive up to $25,000 toward the rehabilitation in the form of a forgivable loan.  The family would need to live in the property for at least five years for the loan to be forgiven.

The rehabilitation would be done by a qualified list of contractors provided by the City.  To insure high quality, sweat equity would not be allowed to substitute for professional rehabilitation.

The neighborhood, property, and homebuyers need to be carefully selected.  Properties should be in good enough condition to be repaired at a reasonable price and should be located in neighborhoods with other urban development activities going on that strengthen the area.  Homebuyers must be employed and able to qualify for the loan amount they have requested.  The rehab loan of up to $25,000 would be in the form of a soft second mortgage requiring repayment upon sale.  After five years the loan would be forgiven

Initial funding should come from donations by banks, civic groups, unions and other interested parties.   Because urban homesteading would create jobs in the homebuilding industry, construction unions may be interested in helping to fund it.  Some of the funding would be repaid.

This program can be a major tool to attract young working families to the cities, stabilize neighborhoods, and provide jobs for the construction industry.

There are several important advantages to an urban homesteading program.  First, it brings middle-income tax paying households into the city.  Several important efforts are already underway trying to do just that; this adds to the mix.  Second, it will help revitalize neighborhoods and provide the needed stabilization to add other redevelopment efforts.  Third, it will improve the tax base of the city.  Finally, the effort will help provide jobs to workers in the construction industry.

New York City has operated an urban homesteading program for years that has encouraged people to occupy and fix up vacant properties.  Cities across the country are offering incentives to retain college-educated people.  The Urban Homesteading Program is one tool that can help achieve that goal.

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. 

Collaboration: Promises and Pitfalls

By Dana M. Malkus, Attorney and Assistant Clinical Professor at the St. Louis University School of Law

Dana M. Malkus is a lawyer and assistant clinical professor at Saint Louis University School of Law where she supervises students in the Community & Economic Development Clinic and teaches a transactional drafting course.  In the Clinic, Dana and her students represent both nonprofit organizations and small business entrepreneurs on a range of transactional matters including structuring and formation, operational issues, contract drafting and review, loan document review, regulatory compliance issues, and real estate matters.  Prior to her current position, she worked as an associate at Lewis, Rice & Fingersh and as a law clerk for the Honorable E. Richard Webber in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Simply put, collaboration refers to two or more organizations coming together to accomplish a specific goal.  It is helpful to think of collaboration as a spectrum: Collaborations range from informal arrangements (e.g., a committee, a task force, a joint initiative, information sharing, joint purchasing arrangements, co-locating arrangements, or program coordination) to more formal arrangements (e.g., the creation of a new entity).

Common reasons for collaborations include

• greater access to certain funding or grant streams;

• access to the expertise of the collaborating organization;

• an ability to increase the human resources that can be devoted to an event or cause;

• access to an established infrastructure or positive reputation; and

• an ability to accomplish more than the organization would otherwise be able to accomplish.

Collaborations tend to work best among participating organizations that understand and trust each other and that have closely aligned missions, goals, and core values.

While there may be benefits to collaborating, it is essential to recognize that collaboration is rarely cost-free.  For example, logistical and relational issues in the collaboration can eat up significant time and other resources (including money and reputation).  Or, the potential collaborative partner may be one who does not “play well” with others, frustrating the effort at every major step along the way.  Additionally, the collaborating organization may turn out to have less expertise or fewer resources than originally perceived.  Moreover, if the potential benefit of the collaboration is unclear—or if the collaboration is simply an end in itself (and not a means to an end)—these downsides are likely to be magnified.

The Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis (CBN) is facilitating collaboration among CDCs in St. Louis.  Among other activities, CBN provides logistical support for potential collaborations.  Such support includes arranging and facilitating meetings, generating problem-solving options when a collaborative group gets “stuck,” and compiling and distributing meeting minutes.  CBN also makes mini-grants available to help collaborative groups pay for professional assistance (e.g., technical support, funding identification support) related to the group’s common goals.

CBN has worked to facilitate relationships among three small nonprofits working in a particular disadvantaged neighborhood in St. Louis city.  All three organizations have very small staffs and find it difficult to devote any time to thinking about or otherwise exploring potential collaborative opportunities.  At the same time, the organizations’ missions have some degree of overlap, and they believe that they share similar desires and goals for the neighborhood.  After some preliminary discussions facilitated by CBN, it was clear that all three organizations recognized the neighborhood’s need for:

• strategic commercial development and increased employment opportunities;

• increased and coordinated residential real estate development;

• greater attention to neighborhood clean-up and beautification projects; and

• more coordination among nonprofits serving the neighborhood to take advantage of opportunities for coordinated programming.

Each organization recognized that its limited resources do not allow it to respond to these needs on its own on the kind of scale needed to make a lasting impact in the neighborhood.  The three CDCs decided that the next logical step was to explore whether there may be ways of working together to address these commonly shared concerns.  With logistical support from CBN, these organizations have been meeting on a regular basis for just this purpose.

The early stage planning meetings among the three organizations might or might not have led to on-the-ground-collaboration.  In the early stage meetings, the CDCs simply committed to exploring collaboration possibilities in a strategic and organized way.  After significant discussion, the CDCs have determined that some level of collaboration makes sense and are now working to memorialize their agreement in a memorandum of understanding to set out the roles and responsibilities of each organization.  Each CDC intends to remain a separately incorporated entity under the control of its own board of directors.

This potential collaboration brings with it the possibility of the three CDCs making a much larger total community impact than what any of the organizations could accomplish on its own.  In addition, the collaboration could give the organizations access to new funding streams.  Importantly, this example illustrates that, while collaboration is not cost-free, collaboration can sometimes be less “costly” when some of the logistical and relational costs are borne by another person or entity (e.g., an organization such as CBN).

The following resources provide more in-depth explanations of the information presented in this op-ed and may be useful to both community-based nonprofits and the lawyers advising them:

• Foundation Center’s Nonprofit Collaboration Resources: http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/collaboration/;jsessionid=KRV5FZ4ZYEVWZLAQBQ4CGXD5AAAACI2F

• Managing Collaboration Risks: https://www.niac.org/AMSCentral/ResourceDocuments.cfm?var_PageAction=View&var_ID=63

• Cautions: http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_reality_underneath_the_buzz_of_partnerships/

• Frameworks: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ocs/partnerships.pdf

• MOUs: http://www.nonprofitrisk.org/library/enews/2007/enews052307.htm

• Collaborative Checklist of Questions to Consider: http://dongriesmannsnonprofitblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/nonprofit-collaborative-or-partnership.html

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 Build a Stronger Community Economic Development System in St. Louis County

By Todd Swanstrom, Des Lee Professor of Community Collaboration and Public Policy, University of Missouri St. Louis and Author of recently released Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-First Century (3rd edition); and Karl Guenther, Community Development Specialist, University of Missouri St. Louis

The shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed young black man, by a white police officer ignited the turmoil in Ferguson.  But the fuel that is sustaining the peaceful protests and violent outbursts was produced by longstanding racial and economic inequalities that have plagued Ferguson and many other communities in North St. Louis County for decades.  St. Louis County needs to do more to create neighborhoods of opportunity and connection for all.  To build better neighborhoods, St. Louis County needs to build a stronger community economic development system.

Clearly, race played a crucial role in the events in Ferguson but place also played a role.  Poverty is increasing rapidly across North St. Louis County and Ferguson is one of the communities where poverty is concentrating (see map).  In 2012, more than one in four residents of Ferguson were below the poverty level, more than twice the County’s poverty rate.  In some parts of Ferguson, such as the apartment complexes on the eastern side where the shooting occurred, the poverty rate is as high as 33 percent.  Concentrated poverty worsens the effects of individual poverty, undermining school performance, health, safety, and economic mobility.  Racial and economic disenfranchisement, once considered almost exclusively an urban issue, is growing in the suburbs.

The Spread of Concentrated Poverty Into St. Louis County

Compared to St. Louis City, however, St. Louis County does not have as many institutions and policies in place to revitalize distressed neighborhoods.  We work with the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis, a coalition of community-based nonprofits.  Only six out of our twenty-eight members work in the County and only three have place-based initiatives in the County.

St. Louis County does not necessarily need more CDCs but it does need institutions with the capacity to convene the community for genuine dialogue to devise and implement neighborhood plans with the following necessary ingredients:

1. The plan must grow out of an extensive process of civic engagement so that all major stakeholders in the community accept its goals and so the plan is rooted in local knowledge.

2. The plan must simultaneously address the deficits and problems in the community at the same time that it leverages the assets of the area in a market savvy fashion.

3. The plan must have the support of public, private, and nonprofit organizations, inside and outside the community, with sufficient resources to accomplish the major objectives and sustain itself over the long term.

The best example of a comprehensive community plan in St. Louis County is 24:1.  Beyond Housing is doing innovative work fostering collective action on community goals under trying conditions in the Normandy School District.  However, Beyond Housing has the advantage of an anonymous funder who has funded the staff to develop the plan as well as money to implement it.  We need many more 24:1’s in St. Louis County but where is the funding going to come from?

To its credit, St. Louis County and the Economic Partnership recently supported the formation of a new community development corporation (CDC) in Spanish Lake, an unincorporated community in far north St. Louis County.  This is a start but we need more resources and more supportive public policies if we are going to address the needs of all disadvantaged communities.

Here are a few supportive public policies St. Louis County should consider:

1. Community Development Challenge Grants: Presently, the County spends a significant portion of its CDBG funds on small housing rehabilitation grants spread out over 70 plus municipalities. The County should pool some of its CDBG funds into Community Development Challenge Grants to fund comprehensive revitalization initiatives.

2. Partnership with Banks: Instead of funding 100 percent of home repair projects with public funds, the County should partner with a consortium of area banks. Participating banks would fund the part of the rehab loan that homeowners would normally qualify for and public funds would pay for the rest. Potentially, this could expand public funds for housing rehab many times over and banks could get CRA credit for their lending.

3. Land Bank: The County should establish a land bank to accept abandoned properties, clear their titles, and potentially deed properties over to qualified community-based nonprofits. The land bank should have a dedicated source of revenue, such as the penalties and interest on delinquent taxes that are used to fund the land bank in Cleveland.

4. Align Current Spending with Revitalization Plans: We calculate that direct spending on community development in the County is only between $9 and $16 million annually, while County spending that could be coordinated with community development is over $255 million. Instead of simply repaving streets, for example, the County could coordinate with communities on complete streets projects. (Montgomery County in Maryland has developed such a program.

The St. Louis County Strategic Plan (Imagining Tomorrow for St. Louis County, 2013) recognizes the problem of declining suburban communities but, unfortunately, there are few active constituencies pressuring for more progressive community economic development policies.   Recent events in Ferguson have focused the public’s attention on race, police practices, and disadvantaged suburban communities.  We need to channel the passion rising out of the turmoil in Ferguson toward justice in the death of Michael Brown but also toward progressive public policies that help bring disadvantaged suburban communities back into the economic and political mainstream.

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.

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