Immigrants Can Help to Revitalize Inner Cities in the 21st Century

By Cyril D. Loum

Cyril D. Loum is the Executive Director of Caring Ministries, Inc. (CMI). He has been actively involved in working with the development of the St. Louis community since the beginning of 2011, after he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. In 2011, he served as a Federal Intern for the First District of St. Louis while attaining his second bachelor’s in Communication. In 2014, Cyril proceeded to earn a Master of Arts in Legal Studies and became a certified paralegal.

In recent years, many immigrants and refugees have been moving to the United States to be part of the American Dream. The American Dream that “every U.S. citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative” has changed our communities, especially our inner cities. Our inner cities now have large concentrations of immigrants who contribute to the success of many of the most economically vibrant U.S. cities. In response to this trend, Caring Ministries, Inc. (CMI) was established to reinforce the positive trends of immigrant influxes to revamp inner-city communities.

The process of establishing strong communities with immigrants and Americans starts with building strong relationships with various neighborhood leaders. Immigrants need to have conversations about the safety of neighborhoods and school systems. Other issues that the immigrant population faces are the necessary demands from extended family members living abroad and the fragmented family unit.

To build vibrant immigrant communities, you need a holistic approach that addresses social, spiritual, physical and economic needs. For immigrants, the social aspects include tight-knit neighborhood associations. Immigrants see these neighborhoods as a kind of extended family, which they can depend on for assistance in times of need. This social aspect helps the families relate to their community, while giving them the opportunity to build new relationships. Often coming out of an oral tradition, immigrants understand intuitively the idea that “it takes a village to raise a child.”

One of the ways these bonds are established is through shared faith. Regardless of origin country, immigrants entering the U.S. usually identify themselves as spiritual people. When dealing with the immigrant population, one difference from Americans is that they are open to talking about their faith. As we work on these communities, we have noticed that the sentimental feelings of spirituality within the immigrant population and community developers can build a sense of trust.

Next, when dealing with the physical nature of neighborhoods, we need to build communities where shopping centers and bus lines are in close in proximity to homes. This is important because most immigrants are accustomed to having local community grocery stores, schools, places of worship, parks, and other community amenities close to their homes. Many immigrants moving to the U.S. were already homeowners. The housing culture of immigrants is based on the idea that homeownership enables families to pass on tangible resources to the next generation. Immigrants are not commonly accustomed to apartments. Perhaps this is the cause of minor ghettos in St. Louis. Nevertheless, homeownership is difficult for immigrants in the United States, because they use a different method of homeownership from their country of origin. In the U.S., we use financing through banking institutions, and the approval of financing is based on credit scores. In their country of origin, immigrants often used the sole capital of an individual to either build or purchase their homes. However, when given the opportunity in the U.S., immigrants want to become homeowners.

Economically, immigrants want to live in communities where the job market is strong and homes are inexpensive. These two specifics give immigrants the opportunity to achieve the American Dream by using their willingness to work hard to achieve the necessary things that make them comfortable. Jobs are very important to this population. They are willing to put in the time and effort once their financial needs are met. Immigrants are generally frugal in their financial lifestyle. In fact, this population believes in saving and helping people in need, who then can turn around and assist them some day. Immigrants might be seen as a demographic that is struggling financially, but once acquainted with the financial system, they become some of the most financially secure people in our society. This is why some of the most vibrant inner cities are highly populated by immigrants.

I encourage individuals working in community development to think about immigrants as a valuable resource for building vibrant communities.

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.

Crystallizing A Multi-Faceted Approach To Community Development

By Sylvester Brown, Jr.

This column was originally published on the author’s blog.

Sylvester Brown, Jr. is a writer, community activist and the executive director of the Sweet Potato Project, a St. Louis-based program dedicated to teaching at-risk youth entrepreneurial skills through agriculture and product development. 

On Friday, September 9th, I was awarded the 2016 MLK Legacy Award for “Outstanding Service in the Community.” About four other individuals were also honored during Beloved Streets of America‘s first annual MLK Legacy Dinner. It’s always nice to be recognized for trying to do something positive, but for me, the true reward was the event itself and the realization that I am a part of a game-changing group with unrecognized potential.

I have to be honest: I’ve been besieged with doubt about the Sweet Potato Project (SPP). Our mission is basic but powerful. For the past five years, we’ve been working with at-risk teens to show them how to become self-sufficient and make money in their own neighborhoods. Students plant produce on vacant lots, and after harvesting they turn produce into products.

Simple, right?

Our bigger mission is to help low-income people gain access to vacant lots, grow food and develop ways to sell through farmer’s markets, direct delivery or by selling food-based products like our sweet potato cookies. If hundreds of poor folk are growing and thousands are buying from local urban farmers, we have a shot at creating a real economic engine in North St. Louis.

Powerful, right?

Well, not so much—at least not for SPP. Our funding has decreased significantly within the past two years. Our students made it through the summer, with the help of a few individuals who hosted fundraisers for us. However, it’s become painfully obvious that we can’t continue operating with a tiny staff and limited funds on a shoestring budget.

So that was the sort of funk I was in when I arrived at the MLK Legacy Dinner. The real reward that evening came in the form of inspiration through the activities of other awardees and some extraordinary ordinary people I know who are also striving to enact social and economic change in the black community.

My reward that night was the crystallization of a major multi-faceted approach to community development. After accepting my award, I asked the audience to dream with me. Imagine a vibrant and refurbished MLK (Beloved Streets of America), I said, where people own homes (Better Family Life); with dozens of black-owned storefronts (the Center for the Acceleration of African-American Business) in an area like the University City Loop where art and culture is part of the neighborhood’s fabric (Portfolio Gallery and Education Center); where economically empowered landowners grow food that supplies the entire region (the Sweet Potato Project).

I was also reminded of the five or so food-related entities already working in the Greater Ville area on or near MLK Boulevard. St. Louis University was recently awarded a USDA grant to help fund these agencies. SPP is a part of that collaborative. Project plans include a food market, industrial kitchen to develop “value-added” food products and more urban farms in the area. If more funds were directed to these entities and organizations recognized at the Beloved Streets event, we’d have a huge swath of MLK in North St. Louis dedicated to empowering low-income youth and adults, job creation, home and land ownership and small business growth—which can all lead to neighborhood safety and sustainability.

There are basically two obstacles that impede this grand vision. First, as Malik Ahmed noted after he and Deborah received their awards, black organizations must collaborate, strategize and go after funding as a collective. The second challenge is the lack of vision among politicians, city planners, nonprofit funders and corporations. St. Louis leaders seem to have one model for community development: “Let’s give these rich guys and powerful entities millions upon millions in state, local and federal tax breaks and public money and, hopefully, their success will trickle down to people in poor communities.”

Politicians have exuberantly signed off on developments such as the $16 million failed attempt to keep the Rams in St. Louis along with the billion dollars to build them a new football stadium. Then there’s Paul McKee’s Northside Regeneration project, which will receive up to $390 million in tax-increment financing. The estimated $2.1 billion Cortex District and the $1.75 billion National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s headquarters are all buoyed by tax incentives, deferred taxes and public money.

This is all well and good, I suppose, but if we’re leveraging the city’s tax base for the rich, implementing gentrification in North St. Louis and short-changing public schools dependent on tax dollars, shouldn’t a fraction of the public money go to sacrificing, struggling black organizations that are dedicated to empowering residents, educating young people and building businesses within the most disadvantaged and ignored areas of our city?

When it comes to sharing public money and investing in the black community, we’re up against a decades-old, stubborn, segregationist mindset in St. Louis. Still, I have hope. Can politicians—particularly black and progressive politicians—simply call for a time-out on doling out dollars to the rich and powerful? Can’t they insist on a little quid-pro-quo for their loyalty and demand that elitist city planners include black organizations in the mix? If those of us dedicated to enacting real, people-centered change worked together, perhaps we can help introduce a new template for development that actually empowers people to do-for-self economically.

These things and more are the fruits of an award that emphasized the potential rewards right here, today, within our midst.

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.

St. Louis Needs More Cross-Community Conversation

By Kevin McKinney

Kevin McKinney is the Executive Director of the St. Louis Association of Community Organizations (SLACO). He has eighteen years of experience in housing and urban development. Prior to joining SLACO, Kevin spent nine years as Mayor and a member of the Board of Aldermen in Jonesborough, Tennessee and three years serving in leadership roles for the Shaw Neighborhood Improvement Association in St. Louis. Since 2003, Kevin has been the owner of Housing 202 Ltd., serving as a consultant for faith-based and non-profit organizations in Missouri and nationwide. He has been involved with the development of eight senior housing facilities and two housing developments for persons with disabilities. Kevin has been named one of the St. Louis Business Journal’s “40 Under 40,” won the Centurion Award for Outstanding Contribution in Human Rights, and completed the FOCUS St. Louis Impact St. Louis Leadership Program. He and his wife Kimberly are residents of the Shaw neighborhood. Kevin is a board member of the South City YMCA and the Friends of Tower Grove Park and serves as the 1st Vice President of the Garden District Commission.

Could the contention and turmoil that surfaced as a result of Ferguson locally and in cities like Cincinnati and Dallas nationally result in opportunities to bridge the racial divide? In order to move forward and build a stronger community, I believe it is imperative that we learn to appreciate each other regardless of zip code.

Many have addressed the problems we have hearing and understanding each other across the St. Louis region’s many boundaries. St. Louis is highly segregated along race lines and fragmented in its sense of community identity. These barriers limit our access to common frameworks that might otherwise help us relate to each other and talk across community borders.

I believe a new program from the St. Louis Association of Community Organizations (SLACO), Neighborhoods United for Change, can help bridge these divides. SLACO has partnered with CREA (the Civil Rights Enforcement Agency of the City of St. Louis) and the City’s Neighborhood Stabilization Team to build a robust platform for discussing racial and social equity. Doug Bram, winner of the “250 Ways to Improve Your Neighborhood” contest (as voted by participants in the 2014 SLACO Regional Neighborhood Conference) originated this idea before it was advanced by then-Executive Director of SLACO, Nancy Thompson. SLACO has a history of inclusiveness—we specialize in providing opportunities for neighborhoods to learn from and network with each other to create a desirable urban environment. SLACO’s 30 member neighborhoods represent over 33 percent of the City’s population.

Neighborhoods United for Change will allow people to interact across invisible community lines. Participants from one SLACO community will tour another St. Louis neighborhood to gain insight about its strengths, successes, and challenges. Residents from one part of the city will have a chance to see how fellow St. Louisans from other neighborhoods live. The program provides a platform for members of our community to meet one another, visit the places they call home, learn about their everyday experiences firsthand, and grow to understand each other more completely. It creates an opportunity for people to connect based on similarities, while reinforcing mutual respect for differences.

The program’s kickoff events, which start this month, will pair two neighborhoods for tours, lunch, and conversation. SLACO member neighborhoods Princeton Heights, Forest Park Southeast, West End, Tower Grove East, Holly Hills, Lewis Place/Visitation Park, Fairground, West Pine/Laclede, Tower Grove Heights, and Shaw will be participating, along with non-SLACO member neighborhoods Bevo Mill, Jeff-Vander-Lou, College Hill, and Baden. Pairs of neighborhoods will plan and execute the events together with support from SLACO, CREA, and the Neighborhood Stabilization Team.

After the kickoff, SLACO, facilitators, and partners will support activities that broaden and build on the relationships developed by the paired neighborhoods. We aim to enrich recurring activities with a new element: the chance to see one’s own area through someone else’s eyes.

We need more programs that encourage this type of meaningful connection and tap into shared growth potential. At the end of the day, no matter where we live, we’re not that different from each other. We all want similar things for our community: the option to live in a welcoming, safe neighborhood; access to good jobs; high-quality schools for our children; and the chance to pursue opportunities and increase the standard of living for our families. Neighborhoods United for Change will encourage participants to form friendships along common lines like these. We can all help build a better St. Louis by cultivating more cross-community conversation.

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 REAL Rental Housing Issue

By Alan Mallach

This column was originally published in the National Housing Institute’s Rooflines blog.

Alan Mallach is a senior fellow at the Center for Community Progress in Washington, D.C. A city planner, advocate and writer, he is nationally known for his work on housing, economic development, and urban revitalization, and has worked with local governments and community organizations across the country to develop creative policies and strategies to rebuild their cities and neighborhoods. A former director of housing and economic development in Trenton, New Jersey, he currently teaches in the graduate city planning program at Pratt Institute in New York City. He has spoken on housing and urban issues in the United States, Europe, Israel, and Japan, and was a visiting scholar at the University of Nevada Las Vegas for the 2010-2011 academic year. His recent books include A Decent Home: Planning, Building and Preserving Affordable Housing and Bringing Buildings Back: From Vacant Properties to Community Assets, which has become a resource for thousands of planners, lawyers, public officials, and community leaders dealing with problem property and revitalization issues. He is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and holds a B.A. degree from Yale University.

We know a few things about the majority of very low-income renters: they live in private market housing, not tax credit projects or public housing. They receive no housing subsidies. They are paying far more than they can afford for what is too often substandard housing in distressed neighborhoods.

These statistics are well known, but we don’t think about them as much as we should, and often lose track of the human toll behind them.

Evicted by Harvard scholar Matthew Desmond tells that story. It’s a twofold issue: the most fundamental problem is that the economics of what poor people live on—from public assistance or low-wage jobs—are inadequate to afford what it costs to create or provide minimally decent housing. The 25th percentile rent in the United States—the low-end median rent, where one-fourth of the units rent for less and three-fourths rent for more—is $670 per month, which requires an income of $26,800 to afford. Even the most self-sacrificing landlord can’t pay off a mortgage, pay taxes and maintain a rental unit in decent shape for what a poor family can consistently afford to pay.

The second problem is that our political system has failed to address this issue in a meaningful way. Instead, we have a sort of lottery system in which only a lucky few get housing vouchers. Poor tenants, whose incomes are both low and highly unpredictable from one month to the next, live like refugees in a revolving door of substandard housing, dangerous neighborhoods, rent arrears, doubling up, evictions, and forced moves almost on a yearly basis.

Millions of people are evicted each year, and millions more move involuntarily without waiting for a formal eviction proceeding. Without a stable place to call home, these families live in a constant state of social and economic instability, with their children moving from school to school. This perpetuates the multigenerational poverty that characterizes many inner city neighborhoods and frustrates efforts by CDCs and others to build strong, cohesive neighborhood organizations and stable neighborhoods.

In response, the community development field tends to focus on building tax credit housing. But a recent HUD study has raised tough questions about what tax credit housing means in this context. Although tax credit rents are set at what a tenant at 50 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) can afford, most tenants have much lower incomes: 45 percent have incomes below 30 percent of AMI, and 19 percent between 30 and 40. Unlike public housing rents, LIHTC rents are not adjusted to family incomes. This means two things: first, many LIHTC tenants make ends meet by using a Section 8 Voucher to make living affordable. Although the HUD data is hard to interpret, at least 36 percent of all LIHTC tenants appear to have a voucher or some other form of rental assistance. An educated guess is that at least one out of every three vouchers in circulation is being used in a tax credit project.

Second, of LIHTC tenants who do not have a voucher, more than 60 percent are paying over 30 percent of their gross income in rent and suffering from precisely the cost burden that affordable housing is supposed to prevent. This probably represents a better option for most than private market housing—the quality of housing is likely to be higher, and in very high-cost areas, tenants’ cost burden may still be less than it would be on the private market. The point, though, is that LIHTC housing is not a solution. What can be done?

This should be the focus of national advocacy efforts. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has done great work, but it is not enough. Rather than advocating for more vouchers, we should look more closely at how to best fill the gap between what poor tenants can afford and what it costs for the private market to provide decent housing—and build a broad coalition around it.

How could we best meet these needs? Over 40 years ago, President Nixon proposed a guaranteed annual income for every American family. Would putting more money into people’s pockets help them find decent housing with fewer market distortions than the Section 8 program? Alternatively, could vouchers become more property- (not project-) based, with a competitive model in which landlords could compete for vouchers based on price and quality? I’m sure there are other models worth examining as well.

In the meantime, this is a critical issue for any organization trying to build stronger neighborhoods. Tenants in private market housing, most of them low- or very low-income, make up half or more of the residents of most lower urban neighborhoods. We must look at how the community development field can better support tenants in private market housing. We have a decent although patchy network of organizations to help homeowners keep their homes, but nothing I’m aware of to help renters keep their homes. Change is long overdue.

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.

Modern-Day Redlining in Communities of Color

By Elisabeth Risch and Jackie Hutchinson

This column was originally published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on August 18th, 2016. To view the original article, click here.

Elisabeth Risch

Elisabeth Risch is the Director of Research and Education at the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council. She is the Co-Chair of the St. Louis Equal Housing and Community Reinvestment Alliance (SLEHCRA), where she works directly with banks to increase investment and services to low-income communities and communities of color. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology from Calvin College and Master’s Degree in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis. She is a board member of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

Jacqueline Hutchinson is VP of Operations for People’s Community Action Corporation in St. Louis. She is actively involved in policy and advocacy issues that affect low-income consumers in the St. Louis region. Jackie is Co-Chair of SLEHCRA, where she works to increase investment in LMI communities; serves as board chair for Missouri Consumers Council; and is a member of the Unbanked Task Force. She has a Master’s Degree in Policy Analysis from Southern Illinois University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Business from Washington University in St. Louis.

Jackie Hutchinson

SLEHCRA is a coalition of non-profit and community based organizations working to increase investment in low- and moderate-income communities, regardless of race, and in minority communities, regardless of income. SLEHCRA ensures that banks are meeting their obligations under the Community Reinvestment Act and fair lending laws.

In St. Louis, it is harder to get a loan in communities of color. That’s what a new report by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) found. The report looks at mortgage lending data in the St. Louis region over the last few years and finds extensive disparities in communities of color.

The data and the maps in this report help to visualize what many of us already know and experience. Lending is concentrated in white areas and scarce in black neighborhoods. Certain neighborhoods have poor access to banking resources, and many households are unbanked or underbanked, particularly African-American households. In the entire St. Louis metropolitan area, median family income of the neighborhood is the best predictor of home loan activity. However, in the City of St. Louis, the racial composition of a neighborhood is also a strong predictor of mortgage activity. In hyper-segregated neighborhoods in which the population is over 75 percent black, less than one percent of homes received a home purchase loan in the 2012-2014 period. Most problematic: the lack of lending in high minority areas is not fully explained by income differences. Credit is still available to white neighborhoods with the same income level.

Isolation from financial services further concentrates poverty and perpetuates the cycle of disinvestment seen in black neighborhoods all around us. If our city hopes to rebuild and revitalize long-neglected neighborhoods, we must break this pattern that hurts individual homeowners, families and our entire region. Housing values have plummeted in those neighborhoods, and there are few comparable sales in the area to fuel the market. To find a cash buyer, families in black neighborhoods must often sell their homes for thousands less than if their neighborhood had equal access to credit. Homes sit vacant and fall into further disrepair. For many families, buying a home builds equity and increases wealth, plus will often cost less in the monthly mortgage than what they pay for rent in these same neighborhoods. Lack of credit access prevents families from building wealth in home equity and savings.

Since 2009, the St. Louis Equal Housing and Community Reinvestment Alliance (SLEHCRA) has worked with banks in our region to improve access to banking and improvements have been made. During this time, banks have opened new branches, created new products, and increased outreach and investment in communities of color. More banks are participating in collaborative efforts to address unbanked and underbanked households, as well as financial education programs.

But this report shows that we have a long way to go. Decades of discriminatory practices will take many years to reverse. We call for more banks to develop quality products—including innovative loan products and checking and savings accounts—and to actively seek opportunities to develop partnerships that create investment in communities of color. New partnerships can also lead to more bank branches opening in banking deserts. We ask banks to increase support to financial empowerment centers and nonprofits providing financial education. We ask banks to discontinue the practice of providing credit to those payday loan businesses whose interest rates are predatory debt traps that strip wealth from communities, especially communities of color.

We urge community members to join with SLEHCRA in our efforts assure equity in financial services in all communities; to support strong payday lending reforms proposed on a local, state and national level; and to support efforts to strengthen and update the Community Reinvestment Act to better reflect today’s financial system.

Finally, we echo the calls in the Ferguson Commission’s report to Build Equity through Enhanced Access to Banking and to Promote Asset Building. Ultimately, we must work collaboratively—as community members, organizations, banks, regulators, and local governments—to ensure that all neighborhoods, including black neighborhoods, have equal access to credit and the opportunity to build stable and healthy communities.

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.

5 Reasons Why CDCs Should Communicate the Health Impact of Their Work

This column was originally published by the National Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations (NACEDA) on June 5th, 2015. To view the original article, click here.

By Kavya Sekar

Kavya Sekar is Master of Public Policy Candidate at Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy. She recently served as the Mel King Institute (MKI) Program Coordinator with the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, coordinating trainings, forums and programs to boost skills, knowledge and leadership of community development professionals in Massachusetts. She is a 2013 graduate of UNC Chapel Hill with a double major in Biology and Anthropology. During college, she was extensively involved in social justice initiatives around homelessness and poverty as well as public health research on nutritional issues in the United States and India. Before working at MKI, Kavya served as a Fulbright-Nehru research student fellow in India, studying the health behavior and access of Type II diabetes patients among low-income and slum communities in Mumbai. In her recent role with the Mel King Institute, Kavya used her public health research background to boost community development and public health partnerships in Massachusetts by coordinating a training series, convening health and community development leaders, conducting research, and writing editorial content on health and community development.

When I started my role at MACDC back in September, one of the first events I attended was our Innovation Forum “How Can We Better Leverage the Health Impact of Community Development?” With my background in public health, I was excited to connect the dots between my previous work and my current role in community development. I decided to move away from public health, in part, to learn more about economic and structural inequalities, so it was important to be reminded that “a person’s zip code has a greater impact on a person’s health than his or her genetic code.”

With my background and interest in health, I am helping develop training programs on community development and health for The Mel King Institute. As a part of this process, I explored CDC websites to look for health related programs. What I found was somewhat disappointing: while CDCs are doing work that helps improve the health of their communities, very few are talking about it. Housing, economic development and community building all have a positive health impact and here’s why we should tell the world:

• It tells a compelling story: In a Rooflines blog post, Jonathan Reckford of Habitat for Humanity writes about how moving into a safe mold-free home helped stop a young boy’s asthmatic seizures. Stories like these can help the general public understand the real importance and urgency of providing safe and affordable housing to save lives.

• There is plenty of evidence to support your claims: In the recent “The Health Impact of the Community Investment Tax Credit” report, Health Resource in Action, MAPC and MADPH use evidence from the latest public health research to show how CDC activities are linked to better health outcomes. Using the conclusions from this report, community developers can confidently speak about the health impact of their work and reference research to support their claims.

• It could lead to new partners: Under a provision of the Affordable Care Act, nonprofit hospitals are now required to conduct Community Health Needs Assessments that “take into account input from persons who represent the broad interests of the community served by the hospital…including those with special knowledge of or expertise in public health, and is made widely available to the public.” Based on their findings, hospitals must adopt an implementation strategy to meet community public health needs at least once every three years. As community organizations, CDCs can play a major role in helping hospitals understand community needs, develop plans to meet those needs and implement solutions. Openly communicating your organization’s commitment to and impact on health can help hospitals see your organization as a potential partner.

• It could lead to new resources: As health-related funding agencies and organizations have become more aware of the social determinants of health, there is movement towards supporting healthy neighborhoods. For instance, Madison Park Community Development Corporation has a grant from the Boston Public Health Commission for programs to reduce youth violence. CDCs all over the state receive donations from hospitals and healthcare centers. Communicating the health impact of your work can help attract these sources of funding and, therefore, leverage your work to meet the mission of health organizations.

• It helps us move beyond our silos: Ultimately community development and health organizations have a common goal: to promote the overall well-being of people and communities. Poor health leads to poverty and poverty leads to poor health. By acknowledging this linkage and working together, we can move the needle on addressing the major health and economic inequalities in our society.

CDCs are already improving people’s health on a daily basis. By articulating the health impact of your organization, you can offer a more compelling story about your organization, access more resources, and ultimately have a bigger impact on the communities and families you serve.

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.

Augmented Reality and the Future of Community Development

By Gary Newcomer

Gary Newcomer is the newest addition to the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis (CBN). As a native of South St. Louis City, Gary has always had a passion for exploring and strengthening the rich fabric of neighborhoods in the St. Louis region. He graduated from Boston College and later received his Masters from Saint Louis University in Urban Planning and Development with a research focus on alleys in St. Louis City. Before starting at CBN, Gary worked on historic redevelopment projects in St. Louis and Davenport, Iowa and specialized in the historic tax credit program. His background in urban planning and historic real estate development have contributed to his approach to community development and made him a strong believer in place-based solutions for promoting vibrant and inclusive neighborhoods.

I spent Friday night playing Pokémon GO. I admit it. In fact, I downloaded the iPhone app on the first day it hit the market. But before you relegate the game or my op-ed to Millennial hogwash, consider that Pokémon GO has strong implications for the future of community development.

I intend to convert the nonbelievers, but first let me take a moment to initiate those unfamiliar with the game.

Pokémon GO works by scattering Pokémon monsters, Pokéstops, and Gyms across a street map not too different from what you find on Google. By commanding your smart phone’s GPS and pedometer, the game requires users to get out of the house and explore the neighborhood. Pokémon are all over (I caught a Rattata on a man’s lap outside of Cafe Mochi), but the Pokéstops and Gyms are actual landmarks. These range from churches to statues to that Chinese restaurant you’ve been meaning to try. My roommate and I took to the streets of Tower Grove South to test it out. We meandered up South Grand, holding our iPhones at arm’s length and attracting dozens of stares. What we discovered immediately, besides hordes of digital Pokémon bouncing across the sidewalk, was how much the game encourages social interactions.

Neighborhoods with a high density of businesses and landmarks have more Pokéstops, Gyms, and wild Pokémon. Essentially, St. Louis’s most walkable areas like South Grand and the Delmar Loop are packed full of Pokémon and, inevitably, young people playing Pokémon GO. Pokémon want to be around people, and the game ultimately rewards vibrant, community-oriented spaces.

Gyms are community gathering spots in the most organic sense. Pokémon GO manages to identify a community’s assets and amenities like a team of social workers. These locations are not just schools or parks or popular restaurants. On my block, the two gyms are a gay bar specializing in amateur drag and a Vietnamese restaurant. Both buildings are fairly nondescript and rarely attract the attention of those driving past. However, I can attest to the tightly-knit communities that frequent both.

The game is a success because it harnesses an aspect of community that too often gets neglected: a sense of place. Pokémon GO elevates the ordinary spaces where we conduct our lives by signaling an added importance. Users do not just catch imaginary Pokémon and battle in virtual Gyms, but explore the places they pass every day and even check out new neighborhoods altogether.

The joy of playing Pokémon GO is sharing an array of community spaces and, just as importantly, a common language to describe them and our experiences. My roommate and I had a reason to pause at Franz Park. We had a reason to walk around the block after dinner and, ultimately, bump into a few neighbors. We had a reason to engage with strangers and visit the Grey Fox Pub. I may have lost my Pokémon battle, but stayed for the cabaret. I have heard these stories countless times: people discovering local businesses through the game or noticing a historical marker or speaking to a neighbor for the first time.

Pokémon GO is an example of the role technology can play in community development, an aspect of 21st century engagement too often cast aside in favor of hands-on, boots-on-the-ground, by-the-sweat-of-our-brows community development. I know it is easy to scoff at a game where twenty-somethings catch virtual Japanese creatures. Naysayers are right to call it what it is: a fad. However, the future of augmented reality is not.

How can we bridge the virtual and physical world to better our communities? This question will define the field in the next decade. Imagine pointing a phone at a vacant lot and seeing a 3D architectural rendering rising from the street. Consider virtual markers identifying places in community history. Envision rewards for young people to vote, attend public meetings, or contact their local representatives. If these technologies seem farfetched or unattainable, talk to the child catching a Pikachu in Tower Grove Park. Pokémon GO showcases all of these tools with incredible success. We are cheating ourselves if we do not engage with them for the purpose of community development.

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 Public Sector’s Role in Community Development

By Stephen Acree

Stephen Acree has been with Rise Community Development (Rise) since 1999 and has been its President and Executive Director since late 2002. He brings over 25 years of experience in community development and considerable knowledge and experience in development finance, particularly with the structured financing of development in more difficult to develop areas. Mr. Acree received his undergraduate degree from The George Washington University and his Juris Doctorate from Washington University. In 1997 Mr. Acree was a Fannie Mae Foundation Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Mr. Acree is a former Director of the City of St. Louis Community Development Agency, responsible for the administration of the Federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME programs for the City, and is a former Chairman of the Greater St. Louis Regional Empowerment Zone. He has extensive knowledge of the Consolidated Plan, HOME and CDBG regulations, as well as the citizen participation, environmental review and other related requirements.

In May, the City of St. Louis Community Development Administration (CDA) solicited comments on its draft funding priorities for the 2017 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and Home Investment Partnerships (HOME) programs. The funding priorities will shape Request for Proposals that CDA issues for funding CDBG-eligible activities throughout the City of St. Louis in 2017.

This is a continuation of the revised citizen review and funding application processes initiated by the City with the development of its Five Year (2015-2019) Consolidated Plan. Rise is proud of the role it played as a member of the consulting team that worked with the City on the Consolidated Plan. Through public meetings, focus groups, and surveys, we involved thousands of City residents in the process, far more than the small handful that participated in recent years. As a part of this process, with assistance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a group of consultants completed a Market Value Analysis (MVA), or Residential Market Analysis, that established a baseline of information and a way to organize thinking about different residential market types throughout the City.

After years of administering an opaque funding system that allowed little room for competition and made it difficult to fund new or improved programs, CDA and its staff are to be congratulated for negotiating this difficult but important transition period.  I am now concerned, however, that the MVA may be becoming a “catch all” way to designate geographic target areas for various non-housing community development activities in ways that do not make sense.

The MVA compares the residential market strength of different areas throughout the City and classifies them by type.  It is a useful tool for analyzing what residential development strategies or—in some cases—commercial development strategies might be best suited to different market types. It is not designed to determine where different types of social services or public facilities are most needed.

It is difficult to understand why CDA proposes to prioritize funding for early childhood centers, street and sidewalk improvements, child care, crime prevention, financial literacy and counseling, health services, neighborhood clean-ups and beautification, resident leadership training and development, and youth services in MVA clusters D, E, F and G (Target Area 2) and clusters H and I (Target Area 3). There is no rational relationship that suggests a higher need for these services in the selected MVA clusters. Furthermore, this method does not necessarily target services at all: Target Area 2 contains 45 percent and Area 3 contains 22 percent of all block groups in the City, leaving just 34 percent of the City outside one of these general “target areas.” This can hardly be considered “geographic targeting.”

Another curious aspect of the City’s proposed 2017 CDBG and HOME funding priorities is that they fail to prioritize programs and projects in the Promise Zone. The Promise Zone is a City-County collaboration through which an area that includes most of North St. Louis City and a large section of North St. Louis County has been designated by the federal government for funding preferences under a variety of federal programs. It has a total population of 200,000, distributed roughly evenly between the City and County. The area has high unemployment, crime, mortality, and homelessness rates, as well as many vacant lots and abandoned buildings. We encourage the City to take full advantage of the Promise Zone designation by supporting local CDBG and HOME funding proposals that seek additional funding under direct competitive grant programs for projects within the Promise Zone area.

By developing the current Consolidated Plan and implementing administrative changes to processes for assigning CDBG and HOME funds the City has taken the first important steps in a longer term evolution toward a better place-based community development planning and funding system. Objective evaluation that uses data collection and citizen input to explore gaps in services and facilities should drive the solicitation of proposals for CDBG funding. We will not see the real leveraging and benefits that consolidated planning can achieve until we start to develop more targeted, coordinated strategies behind residential and commercial development, public facilities, the delivery of employment training, child care, youth development, and other services.

We need this targeting and coordination to more effectively attract foundation and other funding that can leverage the City’s community development efforts. We should all encourage and help the City to continue to build on its progress and shape a more sustainable community development planning and funding system. Rise encourages others to participate in the process by providing feedback on CDA’s proposed 2017 funding priorities and 2017 Annual Action Plan and by taking part in other ongoing opportunities for input into the local community development planning and funding system.

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.

Our Responsibility to the Neighbors of North St. Louis City

By Claire Wolff

Claire Wolff is the Director of Community Development at Grace Hill Settlement House and a board member at Old North St. Louis Restoration Group and Perennial. She previously served as the Community Engagement Specialist at Old North St. Louis Restoration Group and Program Manager at St. Louis ArtWorks. She received her MSW from the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis in 2009. Claire is a North City resident.

New resources, institutions and leadership will undoubtedly emerge in North St. Louis City over the next few years as a result of the National Geospatial Agency’s relocation, an application submitted for a Choice Neighborhood grant, designation as part of the Promise Zone and local elections in 2016 and 2017. Yet residents in the community indicate a deep-seated skepticism toward the potential of these developments to result in economic mobility and opportunity for their families.

Community development professionals and organizations must take on the responsibility of working across silos and alongside residents in surrounding North City communities, and especially with those on the lowest end of the income distribution, to ensure that they actually experience an increase in economic well-being, health, and quality of life as a result of the new investment.

Our field has always known that place matters, but there is new data surrounding the relationship between poverty and place that makes the case even stronger—and it doesn’t look good for those growing up in North City. According to Harvard economist Raj Chetty, for children in households in the bottom 25th percentile of income distribution, each additional year spent in St. Louis City reduces income in adulthood by 0.83 percent, while each additional year spent in Calhoun, IL increases income by 1.33 percent.

This disturbing data indicates that poor families would have more economic opportunity living elsewhere. In 63106, home to much of this impending North City investment, a whopping 72.9 percent of children under 18 live in poverty, according to ACS data.

However, with this unique confluence of attention and investment in North St. Louis City, we must take steps now, even before the development groundbreakings or the elections, to lay a foundation that spurs successful development and economic mobility down the road.

First, we should advocate for robust resident voice in civic process while investing in community engagement staff to make sure residents are informed, included, and heard. Residents are our most prized and valuable assets and we must treat them as such.

Second, we should take a long-term comprehensive planning approach to economic mobility that incorporates best practices from across the country while encouraging innovative, creative solutions on every level.

Finally, we need to demand local political representation that prioritizes equity and empathy and has vision that inspires a better North City. Elected officials in St. Louis have much work to do in order to prove themselves to constituents as partners in success of strong neighborhoods.

Simply put, we must think about economic outcomes for residents when we strive for strong communities on the North Side. We can no longer tolerate a system where families are better off moving out of the neighborhood.

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.

City Should Meet Legal Requirement to Fund Affordable Housing

By Dr. Molly Metzger

Dr. Molly Metzger is an assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University and a board member at the Metro St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council. She received her B.A. in Women’s Studies from Carleton College in 2001 and her Ph.D. in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University in 2012. Prior to her doctoral training, she worked in low-income housing in Chicago as a social services coordinator. As a researcher, her current work focuses on housing policy in the United States. Specifically, she seeks to understand how housing policies create and reproduce segregation and inequality, such that these programs might be improved. Dr. Metzger’s major projects have included a community action project on public housing preservation in Chicago, a national analysis of the Section 8 housing voucher program, and most recently a collaboration with the St. Louis Housing Authority, in which she interviewed Section 8 renters in North St. Louis City and County about their housing options and preferences. Her research also extends into other areas of social welfare, including early childhood health and education.

Many St. Louisans are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. Among households earning less than $35,000 annually, one out of five are spending more than 30% of their earnings on their housing, making them “housing cost burdened.” We have a need for more quality affordable housing. The City of St. Louis’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF) is intended to help address that need.

For at least the last four years, the City of St. Louis has funded the AHTF at $500,000 below the legally mandated minimum. This year is shaping up to be no different. If the City sticks with its preliminary budget decision, City residents and neighborhoods will miss out on a half million dollars in housing investment. How did we get to the point where the City has underfunded our commitment to affordable housing by around $2 million over the past four years?

In 2001, the City passed a Use Tax of which 50% was to be “dedicated to providing for the development and preservation of affordable and accessible housing.” After revenue generated by the Use Tax beat expectations, the City passed a new ordinance in 2002 establishing minimum allocations of $5 million to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, $5 million to the Health Care Trust Fund, and $3 million to the Use Tax Demolition Fund. Under the new ordinance, the only way the City of St. Louis could fund the AHTF below $5 million is if the Use Tax raised less than $10 million. With the Use Tax raising $30.15 million on average over the past 4 years, the city has no good reason to underfund affordable housing.

A great gap exists between where we are today and where we would be if the original 2001 law had been implemented. If the 2001 ordinance was in place today, roughly $15 million would be invested in affordable housing in the City of St. Louis this year. If the City of St. Louis simply made up for the lost investment over the past four years under the 2002 law, roughly $7 million would be invested this year.

Alas, if the City of St. Louis simply followed its own legal requirements this year, $5 million dollars would be invested in bringing quality affordable housing in our communities, for our neighbors. Unfortunately, the City of St. Louis is yet again planning to fund the Affordable Housing Trust Fund below its legally mandated minimum despite calls from the Ferguson Commission and housing advocates to increase investment.

If you believe in providing quality affordable housing for all St. Louisans; if you believe in reinvesting in our buildings; if you have witnessed a child performing better in school because her family’s new affordable home allowed them not to move every month, call your alderperson, call the mayor’s office, and tell a friend that the City should allocate at least $5 million to affordable housing this year.

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.