New Use Tax Revenue Should Support Affordable Housing

By Chris Willcox, CBN Practicum Student

Housing is increasingly difficult to obtain for our nation’s poorest families. The federal government defines affordable housing as shelter that costs no more 30 percent of one’s income. In its 2017 Out of Reach report, the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NIHLC) tells us that in no county in the United States is a one-bedroom apartment affordable at fair market rent for someone who earns the minimum wage. The City of St. Louis is no exception. A person earning minimum wage would spend 67 percent of his or her income to rent a two-bedroom apartment at the fair market rent defined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

After the Missouri legislature stripped our cities of the ability to raise the minimum wage, St. Louis needs to find alternative policies to help put housing and a decent standard of living in reach for our most vulnerable. One of the most effective ways to do this is by investing in affordable housing. The passage of Proposition 1 gives St. Louis the opportunity to make that investment through the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

St. Louis’ Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF), funded by the Local Use Tax Fund, is the City’s primary means of providing loans and grants for affordable housing and related services. The fund finances home construction, home repair, homelessness prevention and shelter, and supportive services that stabilize communities, such as elder services that help people age in place. Flexible home repair dollars also help to build wealth in areas with low access to capital.

Homes funded by the AHTF reach our most vulnerable neighbors, as more than 40 percent of dollars allocated are set aside for projects that benefit people who earn 20 percent or less of the area median income. All homes created are also energy efficient, lead safe, and conform to universal design for maximum accessibility. The AHTF increases the stock of attractive homes that are available to residents with low and moderate incomes and people with disabilities.

In addition to putting quality housing within reach for people who need it, investing in affordable housing improves our community as a whole. A 2015 study from the Stanford Business School found that affordable housing construction in low-income communities improves home values, reduces crime and attracts a racially and income-diverse population. Research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City reported the same effect on home values, showing that home values within 500 feet of affordable housing projects built by local community development corporations (CDCs) rose by 11.8 percent. Higher property values means more tax revenues to support city services like our public schools. The projects the AHTF makes possible are key to revitalizing St. Louis neighborhoods.

Supporting affordable housing development is not only the right thing to do; it is a good investment for St. Louis. Every $1 spent by the AHTF on home construction and major rehabilitation is matched by $17 in public and private funds, making it an effective catalyst for community development. These projects also address vacancy by putting underutilized properties back into productive use. Expanding investment in the AHTF makes St. Louis more attractive for investment from outside the region, such as the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. Further, many AHTF loans to home developers and home buyers are repayable, replenishing funds that can be further reinvested to create more equitable and vibrant communities for St. Louis’ future.

Expanding St. Louis’ commitment to affordable housing and community services is especially vital in a world of diminishing federal funds. Since the AHTF was created in 2003, federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and HOME program funds awarded to the City of St. Louis have decreased from $40.2 million in annual awards to $18.8 million in 2016 (adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars), a total decline of 53 percent.

St. Louis should allocate half of the new Use Tax revenue from Proposition 1 in addition to the $5 million minimum required by local ordinance. This a local solution to increasing federal disinvestment.

As affordable housing moves further out of reach for many St. Louis residents, investing in the AHTF empowers our city to both provide for immediate housing needs and support the community over the long term. Projects and services funded by the AHTF have the potential to improve home values, reduce crime, and provide long-term solutions to homelessness. By choosing to invest in the AHTF, we make a commitment to care for our neighbors and provide for our economic future.

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Chris Willcox is a second-year Master of Social Work student with a specialization in leadership and social change at UMSL. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in history from Truman State University. Prior to starting his master’s, he worked as a direct support provider for people with developmental disabilities in St. Charles. He draws on this experience to connect public policy and nonprofit management to frontline service provision to improve the lives and protect the rights of vulnerable populations.

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

Across The Country, Some Neighborhoods Are Thriving And Some Struggling, But What About The Ones That Fall Somewhere In The Middle?

By Rep. Dwight Evans, U.S. Representative, Pennsylvania’s 2nd Congressional District and Paul C. Brophy, Principal, Brophy & Reilly LLC

This column was originally published in the Huffington Post.

Rep. Dwight Evans (above) and Paul Brophy

Researchers at Reinvestment Fund in Philadelphia report that 48 percent of city residents in the United States live in “middle neighborhoods.” These neighborhoods are generally affordable and functional, and they offer a reasonable quality of life, but many are in danger of decline.

A shrinking middle class, the suburbanization of jobs, obsolete housing styles, and dwindling homeownership rates cloud the future of these middle neighborhoods that serve as the lynchpin of success for most American cities and older suburbs.

Yet these areas—that provide a substantial portion of local property-tax revenue―are ignored by policymakers who have focused on the problems of concentrated poverty, gentrification, and the need for downtown revitalization.

In an environment of proposals to severely cut funds for cities, the federal government would be wise to allocate some small amount of funds to test approaches to prevent the decline of America’s middle neighborhoods.

There is not a one-size-fits-all approach for supporting middle neighborhoods. Something that works in one area of a city may not work in another due to a host of factors such as the average age of homeowners, the quality of housing stock, and other existing neighborhood assets. Targeted improvement strategies, like Philadelphia’s Rebuilding Together, are working to increase both homeowner and neighborhood value through low-cost, high-impact home improvement projects. Across the country, new middle neighborhood initiatives are working to strengthen neighborhood organizations and clubs that are working together to improve their middle neighborhoods. Some are building marketing programs to build stronger neighborhood cohesion and attract new residents.

Modest investments in a middle neighborhoods strategy could make a big impact on the quality of life of millions of people living in our nation’s major cities and older suburbs. Strengthening these middle neighborhoods has the practical outcome of helping modest-income homeowners build some wealth through home appreciation, and increases property taxes paid to cities and suburbs, enabling them to provide better services throughout their jurisdictions. Policymakers and city-builders should recognize the critical importance of middle neighborhoods and invest in them―as we already do in our very distressed neighborhoods and our downtowns―so that they can continue to serve their vital and historic role in American cities.

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Congressman Dwight Evans represents Pennsylvania’s Second Congressional District, which includes Northwest, West, North, parts of South and Center City Philadelphia, and the western suburbs of Narberth and Lower Merion Township. He serves on the House Agriculture Committee and House Small Business Committee. To learn more about Congressman Evans’ work in Congress, please visit his Facebook, Twitter, and congressional website.

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Paul C. Brophy is a principal with Brophy & Reilly LLC, a consulting firm specializing in economic development, and neighborhood improvement; the management of complex urban redevelopment projects; and the development of mixed-income housing communities. Brophy has been a Senior Advisor to the Center for Community Progress, a Senior Scholar at the George Warren Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, and a Senior Advisor to Enterprise Community Partners. He is currently an adjunct professor at School of Urban and Regional Planning, Georgetown University and a member of the Reinvestment Fund‘s Policy Advisory Board.

Mr. Brophy holds degrees from LaSalle University and the University of Pennsylvania. He is co-author or editor of four books: On the Edge: America’s Middle Neighborhoods(2016); Neighborhood Revitalization: Theory and Practice (1975); Housing and Local Government (1982), and A Guide to Careers in Community Development (2001).

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

The Many Factors That Lead to Lifelong Health

By Robert Hughes, President and CEO, Missouri Foundation for Health

This column was originally published on Missouri Foundation for Health’s website.

I don’t think I’m biased when I say that we at the Missouri Foundation for Health have an exceptional organizational mission—”to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities most in need”—to set as the North Star for our work. But how we think about the concepts of “health” and “well-being” greatly affects how we put this mission into action. These terms at first blush seem simple, but when looking at them through a broader lens we start to see how expansive they are. Health is more than just access to a doctor or hospital. By examining how the many elements that make up our lives affect our overall health and well-being, it becomes clear how broad our mission really is. Improving our health care system is certainly important to us, but so are issues like toxic stress, safe and stable housing, and food security. Our collective efforts are guided by the realization that the well-being of our communities can only truly be improved by also addressing the many underlying factors that shape our health over time.

For many, the terms health and well-being imply medical care—diagnosis and treatment of specific illnesses by health professionals. Yet a moment’s reflection reveals a deeper, more complex idea, one grounded in the accumulation of experiences during a lifetime. We recognize that numerous factors, including family circumstances, education, and community environs influence everyone’s health. They affect everything from our behavior (e.g., smoking, eating, and physical activity), to our ultimate cause and time of death. These factors are often referred to as social determinants of health, but I prefer to use the more inclusive term underlying determinants of health. Think of them as upstream or contributing factors that can be altered to increase the downstream chances for healthier and more meaningful lives.

Given the many factors that impact health and well-being, what roadmap do we use to chart our course to improve health in our communities? We begin with the understanding that medical care remains an important factor included in our work. That is reflected in the priority we give to helping people get health insurance coverage, increasing access to care, and strengthening behavioral health care as part of an integrated delivery system—three current focus areas. Indeed, many of our efforts are aimed at the goal of achieving universal access to affordable care, reflecting our view that our health care system is a crucial vehicle for improving health.

But research over the past few decades has demonstrated that other factors have a greater effect on health than medical care. These underlying determinants of health, from food security to adequate housing to early childhood education, are inequitably distributed across communities. We all don’t begin life at the same starting line or have the same circumstances moving forward, and that makes all the difference in our relative health and well-being. This is why, despite advances in medical technology, the gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor continues to widen. It is these circumstances that are the focus of our second goal—to reduce the inequities in underlying determinants of health. Our current and past work to promote healthy schools and healthy communities, strengthen our public health infrastructure, and reduce tobacco use all address underlying determinants of health. Efforts based on recommendations from the Ferguson Commission’s report on food insecurity and gun violence prevention reinforce the breadth of the Foundation’s work to reduce these inequities.

The two goals—universal access to affordable care and reducing inequities in underlying determinants of health—are interconnected. Strengthening health upstream reduces the needs of health care systems down the line. The Foundation’s work to strengthen leadership, advocacy, and policy apply to both goals. There are many fronts to work on improving health and well-being in Missouri, and our grantees’ work, whatever the specifics may be, contributes to our mission and these goals. Moving forward, we encourage our partners to think of health and well-being broadly, and to take advantage of our Opportunity Fund with these ideas in mind.

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ABOUT MISSOURI FOUNDATION FOR HEALTH

Missouri Foundation for Health is a resource for the region, working with communities and nonprofits to generate and accelerate positive changes in health. As a catalyst for change, the Foundation improves the health of Missourians through partnership, experience, knowledge, and funding.

To learn more please visit mffh.org.

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Before joining the Foundation as Chief Executive Officer in 2012, Bob Hughes was a visiting research professor in the Center for State Health Policy at Rutgers University and served in various leadership positions for more than 20 years at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in New Jersey. Since joining MFH, he has enhanced the strategic direction of the organization and positioned it to be a catalyst for change throughout the region. Under his leadership MFH focuses on fostering a culture of learning, exploration, and collaboration that promotes improvements in the health of underserved Missourians. A native of Illinois, Hughes received his doctorate in behavioral sciences from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. Hughes serves on the boards of Grantmakers in Health and on the Advisory Board of the Center for Effective Philanthropy.

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

How We Subsidize Spread-Out Places Via Utilities

By Richard Bose, Electrical Engineer and Vice President of St. Louis Strong

This column was originally published on NextSTL.com.

Take a look at your utility bills. Is there any charge related to the amount of infrastructure it takes to serve you? Does it take many or relatively few feet of wire to deliver electricity to you? What about water pipe? Sewer pipe? Does it take a pumping station to get your sewage out of a valley?

There is no frontage charge on our utility bills in St. Louis County. So for the same amount of electricity and water usage, households located closer together subsidize households located farther apart.

Let’s take a look at Missouri American Water, the company that supplies water to St. Louis County, with the exception of Kirkwood. Missouri American Water has 4,200 miles of water mains and 31,000 fire hydrants in St. Louis County. Bills are calculated with the sum of a minimum customer charge based on water meter diameter and usage (Missouri American Water rates).

Water Infrastructure Age (From the Our Aging Water Infrastructure report by the Metro Water Infrastructure Partnership)

Our water infrastructure is aging. Much of it was created to serve the spread-out places built after World War II and is now reaching end-of-life. Previous generations kicked the can down the road when they opted not to establish an infrastructure fund to finance its inevitable need for replacement. The development choices of the past are now coming home to roost.

Recognizing the need to replace old pipes, the Missouri Legislature authorized Missouri American Water to charge customers for infrastructure replacement in 2003. Missouri American Water added a fee to bills called the Infrastructure System Replacement Surcharge (ISRS). Since its inception, Missouri American Water has spent $445 million on improvements to water distribution and hydrant upgrades in St. Louis County. The rate is $0.7642 per 1,000 gallons of water.

Here, again, there is no attempt to charge based on the amount of infrastructure needed to serve a customer—even in the fee that’s paying to replace that infrastructure. ISRS is currently suspended due to the drop in St. Louis County population in the 2010 Census.

According to the Our Aging Water Infrastructure report by the Metro Water Infrastructure Partnership, the average St. Louis County household uses 84,000 gallons of water per year (“enough to fill over seven medium-sized swimming pools”). Most of this water—about 70 percent—is used indoors in showers, toilets, faucets, washers, cooking, and food preparation. The rest is used outdoors.

If most of a household’s water is being used indoors, then water usage is shaped more by household size than it is by a home’s lot size. The takeaway: an infrastructure fee based on water usage is a poor proxy for the cost of that infrastructure.

Our Aging Water Infrastructure says it costs $1 million per mile to replace water mains. Let’s do the math and see who the winners and losers are with the ISRS rate structure:

• $1 million per mile / 5,280 feet per mile = $189 per foot

• Divide that by 2, since there are usually homes on both sides of the street: $189 / 2 = $95 per foot

Based on this estimate, replacing water mains costs $95 per foot. Assume the pipes last 100 years. Missouri American Water says the typical customer is charged $3.09 per month for ISRS.

• $3.09 per month * 12 months per year * 100 years = $3,708

• $3,708 / $95 per foot = 39 feet

The typical user is paying for 39 feet of water main, which is near the low end of house frontage in St. Louis County. This means the rate is too low for average use.

If we also factor in homes that don’t have a neighbor across the street, pipes with no customers on either side, and the fact that a 100-year lifetime is on the high end for water pipes, the rate is likely much too low.

As our places have become increasingly auto-oriented, properties have continued to spread out. The following frontage examples from around the county reflect that pattern:

• 140 foot spacing in Chesterfield on Countryside Manor Court

• 100 foot spacing in Ballwin on Bentshire Court

• 89 foot spacing in Ellisville on La Dina Place

• 60 foot spacing in Crestwood on Greenview Drive

• 50 foot spacing in Rock Hill on Blossom Lane

• 40 foot spacing in Richmond Heights on Goff Avenue

• 30 foot spacing in University City on Plymouth Avenue

What might an ISRS rate based on frontage space (that doesn’t kick the infrastructure expense can to future generations) look like?

• $95 per foot / 100 years / 12 months = 7.9 cents per month, per foot

This rate of 7.9 cents per month, per foot should be indexed with inflation of water main replacement costs. At this rate, the household in Chesterfield would be paying $11.06 per month, and the household on Plymouth would be paying $2.37 per month.

With our current system, makers have little say in decisions to create more takers. When a city in our too-fragmented region zones for sparse land uses, they are forcing others in other municipalities with no say in the decision to subsidize their choices. This is yet another example of why what happens on the other side of our municipal borders does indeed affect us.

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Richard Bose is an Electrical Engineer by profession. He earned a BA in Physics and Economics and an MSEE from Washington University in St. Louis. Richard is a transplant from Central Illinois and has called St. Louis home since 1998. He is Vice President of St. Louis Strong, a board member of the Skinker DeBaliviere Community Housing Corporation, and contributor to NextSTL.com and The Times of Skinker DeBaliviere. He can be found on Twitter at @stlunite and contacted at richard@nextstl.com.

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

Fighting for Community Development

By U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill

Here in Missouri I’m proud to see the great work our citizens do to help one another and improve our communities. I see Missourians and their organizations ensuring our senior citizens remain an important part of their communities, providing safe after-school spaces for our children, mentoring young men and women, and developing our neighborhoods so that Missourians of all income levels have access to affordable housing and quality communities.

In the St. Louis area, groups like Beyond Housing are providing down payment assistance to help improve homeownership rates and build the wealth of working families, contributing to the financial empowerment of low-income communities. Prosperity Connection is helping individuals and families earn economic independence through financial education, community services, and low-cost banking. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri is providing mentoring services for at-risk youth. And the Carondelet Minor Home Repair Program, run by the Carondelet Community Betterment Federation, is allowing seniors to remain in their homes, promoting aging-in-place and supporting a sense of community.

While we all take pride in and appreciate the work St. Louis area organizations and volunteers do for their communities, many of us don’t realize where the critical resources that aid their missions come from. The truth is that many of these projects, including the work done by organizations in the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis, would not be as successful without funding from Community Development Block Grants (CDBG). These grants, administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and states like Missouri, help communities address a wide variety of needs, from providing affordable housing, to enriching the lives of our seniors, to providing nurturing spaces for our children and positive guidance for our young adults. Here in the St. Louis area, we see community-minded organizations, like the groups in the Community Builders Network, identifying community needs and creating solutions. Without these federal funds, many of these programs could not happen.

Unfortunately, the latest budget plan offered by the President’s administration cuts these grants completely. If these cuts were to become law, the Grace Hill Settlement House wouldn’t be able to run their elementary after-school program, depriving children of a safe and enriching environment. Eliminating these grants would hamper Urban Strategies, Inc.’s efforts to revitalize the Near North Side, where they are building and rehabilitating homes, providing homeownership assistance, and building public facilities. Cutting this funding would mean fewer homeless youth would be taken in by Covenant House Missouri’s Emergency Shelter Program.

I believe in using our tax dollars wisely. In the Senate I’ve made cutting wasteful spending a priority, and I share many of the same concerns about our national debt that many Missouri families do. It’s why I’ve launched investigations into wasteful defense contracting and led the charge to ban earmarks—which allowed certain members of Congress to use federal dollars for political purposes.

CDBG funding, however, targeted at communities in need, allows Missourians to focus on what’s important, and get a great return for the investment. Here in the Show Me State, these community programs show results. We see the results when families finally get into a quality home, or when a senior citizen gets to stay in theirs. We know these programs work when our kids have an enriching environment to spend time in after school, when mentoring leads to a college degree, when homeless youth are given shelter and support. We may not realize where their resources come from, but we see the programs helping our communities.

I’m supportive of these merit-based grants because I know the programs they support and I see firsthand good they do to help Missourians. I believe that Congress should continue to fully fund them. These competitive grants enable our great service organizations and their volunteers to make positive impacts in the St. Louis area and throughout the state of Missouri. We must continue to fight for and invest in our communities, because we see the results when we do.

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Claire McCaskill is Missouri’s senior U.S. Senator.

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

We invite readers to contribute to the civic conversation about community development in St. Louis by writing an op-ed for the Community Builders Exchange. Op-eds should be short (400-700 words) and provocative. If you have an idea for an op-ed, contact Todd Swanstrom at swanstromt@umsl.edu.

Bike Share is Coming to St. Louis—But it Needs Community Input

By Liza Farr, Associate Project Manager, Economic Development at Bi-State Development

Ever been stuck in traffic? Had trouble parking? Been too far away from your destination to take transit? If you’re thinking “yes” to at least one of these, I’ve got a solution that’ll solve all three issues at once. Two words: bike share.

Bike share is a network of shared bicycles available at stations throughout a city to check out, ride, and return to another station near your destination. Many of you have likely used bike share in other cities, as over 55 American cities have implemented bike share, from New York City and Chicago to Chattanooga, Tennessee and our neighbors in Kansas City.

Bike share is like the public library of transportation—you can check out a bike from any location throughout the city, use it for a short period of time, and return it to any location throughout the city, just like a library book. You get to enjoy the benefits of riding a bike without having to own one.

Cities with all types of weather, topography, size, and bike infrastructure have exceeded bike share ridership goals and received overwhelmingly positive feedback for their bike share programs. Potential benefits are multifold. The vast majority of bike share users have said that it has made their city a more enjoyable place to live. Because a large portion of bike share trips replace a car trip, they save millions of gallons of gasoline while generating positive environmental impacts.

Bike share has value as a first-mile connection and boost for transit ridership, too, since riders often use their bikes to access transit. Bike share users are more likely to spend money with businesses that sponsor bike share or are located near bike share stations.

Finally, bike share makes biking accessible and safe for all adults. Cities are striving to engage disadvantaged populations, potentially improving their access to public transit, saving them money, and improving their health.

But the biggest benefit—one that’s hard to survey or measure—is that people love bike share and have come to expect it in a city. It is especially loved by the talented professionals that companies in St. Louis are trying to attract, with its highest ridership in the 20- to 35-year-old category.

Here in St. Louis, we’ve been quietly plugging away on bike share while learning from all the cities that have implemented it before us. Great Rivers Greenway completed a bike share feasibility study in 2014 that concluded it would be a valuable asset in St. Louis.

Today, Bi-State Development is leading a group of stakeholders to plan, fundraise for, and implement a bike share program in St. Louis. We’ve submitted a grant application to fund the capital cost for the first phase, and we’re soliciting sponsors to support operational costs.

But we can’t do this alone. We need your help to decide where bike share should go in St. Louis. Do you think you’d use bike share? Take our survey and tell us why or why not. The survey will gather feedback on use of bike share, potential program barriers, and where you’d like to see bike share stations.

You are the customer, so we need to hear from you to create the best environment- and money-saving, health-improving, option-providing, access-granting, smile-inducing bike share system for St. Louis.

Please contact Liza Farr (ejfarr@bistatedev.org, 314-982-1400 x1736) with questions, or if you’d like paper copies of the survey.

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Liza moved to St. Louis in August 2016. She manages projects on transit-oriented development and bike/pedestrian planning for Bi-State Development, including leading the effort to bring bike share to St. Louis. Liza grew up in Lawrence, Kansas but comes to St. Louis from California, where she graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a B.A. in Environment, Economics, and Politics. She previously worked in the San Francisco Bay Area on environmental permitting, transit-oriented development, and bike/pedestrian planning.

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

Generational Poverty: We Can Do Something About It

By Neal Richardson, Assistant Vice President, Assistant Director of Asset Management at U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation

Like asthma, sickle cell, and diabetes, poverty has been passed down for generations in the African-American community. Unlike physical illnesses, we have failed to fully diagnose and treat the generational poverty that has plagued our economy and created inequities in wealth that will take at least 228 years to be corrected, based on an August 2016 study conducted by the Institute for Policy Studies and the Corporation For Economic Development.

The American Dream is based on the premise that opportunity for success and upward social mobility are within reach through hard work and perseverance. However, many families fall short of realizing that dream when met with the challenges of generational poverty. Those challenges are disproportionately woven into the social, economic, and political fabric of many African-American communities.

The Cost of Disinvestment

In 1986, my parents were steered toward purchasing a home in the Lewis Place neighborhood in the west end of St. Louis City—which is 99 percent African-American and 1 percent White—and away from the adjacent, more affluent Central West End neighborhood, with a 70 percent White population.

My parents paid $55,000 for their home in 1986. By the time I entered college in 2005, my parents’ four-bedroom, two-bath home was appraised at $14,400. Average home values in Lewis Place are only one-quarter of those in the Central West End.

During this time period, vacancy rates nearly tripled in Lewis Place and several poorly performing schools closed thanks to disinvestment of resources in the neighborhood. As a result, my parents were not able to leverage their largest asset to assist with college tuition payments. The college debt I incurred delayed the purchase of my first home and still hinders the liquidity I have available to build assets for my daughter. Discriminatory steering led to my parents’ inability to build wealth and had a detrimental effect on my financial wherewithal.

American Dream versus American Reality

Based on a study conducted in April 2017 by MIT economist Peter Temin, escaping poverty requires almost 20 years with nearly nothing going wrong.

While I was blessed to avoid many of the pitfalls to “making it out the hood,” many of my neighborhood friends were not as fortunate. Most of them lived with a single parent working 16-hour shifts earning minimum wage, mostly due to lack of education and access to additional opportunities. Only 5 percent of the population in Lewis Place has a bachelor’s degree, compared to 67 percent in the adjacent Central West End.

While my friends’ parents stressed the importance of education and hard work, they did not perceive these ethics having a positive impact on their future. Their reality was that their moms were working extremely hard and still struggling to make subsidized rent payments to an absent landlord. To afford a two-bedroom apartment while earning $7.25 an hour, someone would have to work nearly three full-time jobs, putting in 112 hours per week every single week of the year. My neighborhood friends returned from school to empty homes and no support system. Often, drug dealers and others profiting from illegal activities are the only people that provide youth with support and an opportunity to earn money—which leads to a life of crime, resulting in incarceration or premature death. The cycle then continues for another generation.

Taking Action

Combating generational poverty starts with educating, training, and mentoring youth to become self-sufficient, productive members of society. Missouri State Representative Bruce Franks understands that challenge. In April 2017, he successfully sponsored an amendment to restore funding of $6 million toward the state’s youth summer jobs programs in St. Louis and Kansas City, expanding opportunity for 2,700 youths to be productive.

This is a step toward ending generational poverty. But it’s only one step, and generational poverty is a deeply entrenched and complex problem in America. To break the cycle, we need constituents to hold government officials accountable to implementing aggressive policies with clear intentions on racial equity.

There is no neutral ground here—even inaction is a form of action that reinforces disparate outcomes. You can play a role in perpetuating racism or work to reverse it. Fortunately, in St. Louis, many nonprofits, educational institutions, private corporations, neighborhood organizations, and government officials are working to reverse racism. A Regional Task Force comprised of a partnership between City Garden Montessori School, Crossroads College Preparatory School, Forward through Ferguson, and U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation, in collaboration with Crossroads Anti-Racism Organizing and Training, are hosting Anti-Bias/Anti-Racism workshops that are open to the public, focused on dismantling racism and building anti-racist multicultural diversity within institutions and communities.

Motivated by my personal struggles, experiences, and frustrations seeing generational poverty perpetuated in my own community, I co-founded, with Michael Woods, Dream Builders 4 Equity to teach at-risk youth about financial literacy and empowerment through real estate development and investment in low-income communities. Students learn the value of saving and investing and receive the opportunity to build wealth by attaining financial equity in homes to pay college expenses.

Poverty knows no bounds, and people of all races struggle against its consequences. Due to policies that have given others incentive to discriminate, however, black kids are four times more likely to be living in poverty. It is this generation’s responsibility to reverse the wrongs of our forefathers and create a better tomorrow for our descendants. As the great Nelson Mandela stated, “Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery, it is man-made, and can be removed by the actions of human beings.”

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Neal Richardson is a product of the Lewis Place neighborhood, located in the City of St. Louis.

Neal earned his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in Finance from Webster University.

Neal has over 10 years of experience in the real estate finance industry. In his current role as Assistant Director of New Market & Historic Tax Credit Investments at U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corporation, Neal leads a team that manages over 300 tax credit financing investments ranging from  five to $50 million targeted for low-income communities.

His passion for improving the opportunities available to underprivileged youth and building stronger communities, coupled with his expertise in real estate finance, has motivated him to co-found Dream Builders 4 Equity. Dream Builders is a nonprofit organization that aims to build social equity through financial equity by teaching at-risk youth about real estate development and investing in low-income communities.

Neal is further involved in the broader issues of youth development and social justice as a member of the following organizations:

• City Garden Montessori School – Interim Chair of the Coalition of Neighborhood Diversity and Housing Justice

• Boys & Girls Club of Greater St. Louis – Friends Group

• InspireSTL – Mentor

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

Food Access in St. Louis: We Need Better Policies

By Melissa Vatterott, Chair, St. Louis Food Policy Coalition (STLFPC)

Over one-quarter of St. Louis City residents are food insecure: they face uncertain access to nutritious food. An even higher percentage face low food access, which means they lack grocery store options that are close to home or accessible given the transportation available to them.

Food insecurity and low food access in St. Louis stem from institutional problems related to government policies, race, economics, and transportation infrastructure that prevent residents from accessing nutritious foods. Local NGOs are working to address these problems, but we need our City government’s support.

We must prioritize better food policy in the St. Louis region, especially when it comes to food access for our most vulnerable residents. Living wages are crucial for nutritious food access, and a higher minimum wage in the City of St. Louis would empower more households to access and afford healthier foods. Improving public transit routes, adding more routes, and increasing service frequency would also increase city residents’ access to nutritious food.

Ultimately, though, we need policy that incentivizes bringing grocery stores back into disinvested communities. Without it, we cannot effectively fight obesity, diabetes, malnutrition, and other diet-related illnesses in our city. Given the health disparities between black and white city residents, this is especially critical from an equity standpoint.

The St. Louis MetroMarket, a St. Louis Food Policy Coalition (STLFPC) member organization, bypasses the barriers created by limited transportation and grocery store access with their converted Metrobus market, which brings fresh food directly to the JeffVanderLou neighborhood. They and other food access organizations recognize, though, that approaches like the MetroMarket are just temporary fixes, not long-term solutions. Communities need access to permanent healthy food outlets.

We recommend incentivizing the establishment of new grocery stores that provide fresh nutritious foods in food desert neighborhoods—perhaps through a partnership between the Mayor’s Office and IFF, which works with grocery stores to locate in neighborhoods like these, or by involving the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability in this environmental and social justice-focused concern.

There is another dimension to the issue of food access in St. Louis. While we work to invest more resources and infrastructure into underserved neighborhoods, the City must also empower residents to use vacant lots to feed themselves and to cultivate economic opportunities through food and farming enterprises.

The number of teen employment opportunities focused on food production is growing. Organizations like the St. Louis Green Teen Alliance, STL Youth Jobs, and the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment (SLATE) have capacity to employ more youth with increased funding. With the City’s financial and political support, these groups could foster a generation of St. Louis youth working in local food production and entrepreneurship.

We can use vacant lots as a tool to both employ youth seeking green jobs and meet regional demand for local sustainable food. The results of our 2016 urban agriculture survey—taken by 850 residents—indicated broad support for food growing activities. In fact, 97 percent of respondents supported using vacant lots in their neighborhood for urban agriculture and 77 percent of respondents would like the City to make it easier to acquire land for food production. If residents were incentivized to grow food on vacant lots, they could increase food access for themselves, their neighborhoods, and local organizations working on emergency food access. The Mayor’s Office should support the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) in developing a new process that makes it easier for residents to buy land for food production, with priority given to residents who live near the lot they want to purchase so that any food production movement is community-driven.

We also recommend that the Mayor’s Office appoint a cabinet member specifically tasked with advancing food system issues in St. Louis. STLFPC conducts outreach and community education on food system issues and has identified priorities for our city through engagement with stakeholders, aldermen, and City departments. STLFPC and other stakeholders should meet regularly with the City to improve food access policies.

At STLFPC, our goal is to create a thriving local, sustainable, and equitable food system for St. Louis. With the right policies and priorities in place, we’re confident we can get there.

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Melissa Vatterott is the Food and Farm Coordinator at Missouri Coalition for the Environment (MCE). Since writing MCE’s St. Louis Regional Food Study published in 2014, Melissa has worked to support environmentally responsible farming practices and healthy local food systems across the state, which includes directing the St. Louis Food Policy Coalition (STLFPC). STLFPC’s mission is to promote a thriving local food system that supports the health, community, environment, and economy of the Greater St. Louis area. Melissa received her law degree from Michigan State University College of Law with an emphasis in natural resource law and her B.S. in Environmental Science with an Agricultural Economics minor from the University of Missouri.

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

Trees—Yes, Trees—Are Part Of Community Building

By Chris Krehmeyer, President and CEO of Beyond Housing

This column was originally published on Chris’s blog.

When most folks think about community building, they think about housing, health, education, economic development, and jobs. Rarely do you hear anyone speak about trees. As a matter of fact, a number of the mayors in our 24:1 Initiative have long viewed trees as liabilities rather than assets. Those trees had the nerve to get sick, die, and then fall, and usually in an inconvenient place!

I will have to admit I never gave trees much thought as they related to helping make our community better. Rather than seeing the trees, I just saw the homes that needed to be demolished or rehabbed and the streets that needed repair. I was drawn to the abandoned commercial buildings that needed to be revitalized. Several years ago, however, we were approached by the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) and given a crash course about the value of trees in our community. MDC states that “the trees of a community are visible and valuable assets, and contribute greatly to the appearance and character of any town. They are a part of the public infrastructure and are just as important as the streets, sewers, and utilities. Often, trees do not receive the attention or care they deserve. Tree planting alone is commendable, but may have little long-term value without proper maintenance.”

Just as I am the evangelist for our work at Beyond Housing, I found my peer in the world of trees—Mark Grueber. Mark has opened our eyes to the great beauty and long-term benefits of healthy trees in our community. He made me realize that the most attractive and vibrant parts of our region feature trees as an integral part of their appeal. MDC has long wanted to create an urban forestry program in St. Louis, and once we became more educated on the issue, we wanted in as well! Fortunately, we proved to be good students and jumped into action, finding the right people and environment to support our work. With the encouragement of MDC, we applied for and received a five-year, $500,000 grant to hire a community forester for the 24:1 footprint in mid-2016.

“There’s great benefit in a healthy forest canopy in urban areas. Trees, parks and other green spaces increase property values, protect from soil erosion, and protect homes and streets from the harsh effects of the sun,” said Doug Seely, Community Forester with Beyond Housing. “Our initiatives in community forestry have helped to create vibrant green spaces for the 24:1 Community and show how important the forestry canopy is when building a community that can sustain generations of families.” Doug has become the most popular Beyond Housing staff person in the 24:1 Community and it kind of bothers me! His passion for the beauty and purpose of trees in our community is contagious.

I am proud to note that the Missouri Community Forestry Council and MDC have recognized Beyond Housing with the Missouri Arbor Award of Excellence for their work in community forestry. The award recognizes projects that demonstrate a sustained effort to care for the trees of Missouri. “Beyond Housing has achieved more success (in regards to community forestry) than some cities do,” said Daniel Moncheski, Community Forester with the Missouri Department of Conservation. “I work with cities that range in population from 200 to 80,000 people. The buy-in for trees by the mayors in the 24:1 rivals the largest cities I work with. I pinch myself when I help out here to make sure this is real.” Working with 12 municipalities, we have completed tree inventories, begun a tree trimming process, and will soon embark upon tree planting work. The leaders of our communities have grown enthusiastic about caring for their trees and, like me, see their great long-term value.

The next time you drive through our community or yours, stop for a moment and look at the trees—they matter.

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Chris Krehmeyer is the President and CEO of Beyond Housing, a NeighborWorks America organization in St. Louis. He has served in that capacity since 1993. Chris has sat or currently sits on a variety of boards, including Midwest Bank Centre and Midwest Bank Centre Holding Company, the United Way of Greater St. Louis Asset Building, both Washington University and the University of Missouri’s Not-For-Profit programs, and the National NeighborWorks Association Board. Chris has been an adjunct faculty member at Washington University teaching a class in social entrepreneurship. He is married with three children and has an undergraduate degree in Urban Studies from Washington University.

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

Public-Private Partnerships Make Good on Trump’s Housing Promises

By Vincent R. Bennett, President of McCormack Baron Salazar

This column was originally published by The Hill.

During his first address to Congress, President Donald Trump declared that “our neglected inner cities will see a rebirth of hope, safety, and opportunity.” That pledge is more achievable now than ever, if the administration plucks some low hanging policy fruit.

In such too-often-written-off cities as Memphis, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh, a pilot public/private neighborhood-turnaround program now called the Choice Neighborhood Initiative has produced major community improvements: a 40 percent increase in employment of public housing residents and 30 percent decrease in crime in Memphis; a 53 percent employment rate of the public housing residents in our mixed-income communities in New Orleans; and 60 percent of the middle and high school youth from Pittsburgh neighborhoods participating in enrichment programs that keep them on-track for college and employment.

The Initiative transforms neighborhoods. It replaces obsolete, deteriorating publicly owned housing that isolates poor residents with modern privately owned and managed mixed-income housing supported by coordinated private, philanthropic, and local neighborhood investments. It is designed to engage private developers and America’s top private-sector financial institutions to create a better model for housing, one with private market efficiencies and public accountability. According to my firm’s calculations, its projects have secured a 3:1 ratio of local and private investment for every HUD dollar spent.

To be selected for the program, communities must bring together local leaders, residents, housing authorities, educators, police, business owners, and nonprofit organizations to improve education and job training, economic development, commercial development, and job creation. These tie-ins encourage coordination with other federal investments, such as: the Justice Department’s Byrne Grants that address crime, safety and reentry and Department of Education’s Promise Neighborhoods that encourage school choice and school infrastructure, Treasury’s New Markets Tax Credits that support economic development and job creation, and Transportation and EPA programs for rehabilitating deteriorating infrastructure and public services.

The Initiative has already proven to be among the most successful uses of the IRS’ federal low income housing tax credits yet tested.

Since 1986, these credits have undergirded the financing of nearly three million apartments. In a typical year, credit-enabled projects create nearly 96,000 jobs, $3.5 billion in federal, state and local taxes paid, and $9.1 billion in wages and business income. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson, in his confirmation hearings, called housing credits an “excellent example” of incentives that bring the private sector into low-income housing.

In early March, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and committee member Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) reintroduced legislation with strong bipartisan support to increase the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit by 50 percent and make additional improvements to the program.

This suite of successful strategies has the capacity to catalyze a vast transformation to our nation’s biggest urban trouble spots.

The need is great. More than one in four American households spend 50 percent or more of their income on rent. There is a national shortage of 7.4 million homes affordable to the lowest-income families. Deferred maintenance on 100 percent publicly owned housing was estimated by HUD at $26 billion in 2010 and was growing by $3.4 billion each year. For every three units added to the overall rental stock between 1995 and 2005, two units were permanently removed from the inventory. Many of the new units targeted the higher end of the market and were unaffordable to those with more modest incomes. The housing boom-and-bust of the years that followed did little to improve the situation.

Today, a look through project submissions to HUD shows that public-private public housing transformation projects in 48 cities await federal support. In limbo is $5.7 billion in housing infrastructure investment, with most funding coming from private sources. Based on estimates by the National Association of Homebuilders, these projects would produce 26,000 tax-paying good wage construction jobs and 23,000 privately maintained, modern, healthy, low-impact apartments and homes for families, seniors and veterans. Equally important, formerly homeless veterans and others experiencing homelessness would be among those housed.

But to get these kinds of results, the Choice Neighborhood concept must go to scale. Past funding limited investment to $30 million per neighborhood. The number of awards allowed was kept at an average of three per year. Even when matched 3-to-1 by local and private investment, $30 million per award is not sufficient to achieve the intended impacts in places like Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Louisville.

With President Trump intensifying focus and demanding action on our nation’s crumbling infrastructure and distressed urban neighborhoods, expanding the public-private Choice Neighborhood model—supported by efforts such as the Cantwell-Hatch Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act of 2017— would be a strong, cost-effective step toward fulfilling the president’s promise to urban America.

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As President of McCormack Baron Salazar, Vincent Bennett is responsible for the overall performance of the development company, overseeing all aspects of operations and managing a talented multi-disciplinary team of design, construction, legal, finance, and project management staff across the country. He has particular expertise in the development of public housing transformations (though Choice Neighborhoods, HOPE VI and other public housing funding) and large-scale neighborhood master redevelopment efforts.

Mr. Bennett’s experience includes structuring and negotiating mixed-finance/mixed-income transactions that include Low- Income Housing Tax Credit equity, Community Development Block Grants, HOME, HOPE VI/Choice Neighborhoods, PHA Capital, foundation, corporate donations, grants, and conventional debt. He facilitates communication with local community organizations and elected officials, neighborhood residents, lenders, foundations, and state, local and federal agencies. Mr. Bennett has been a champion of the company’s sustainability efforts and has overseen three LEED-ND certifications and eight Enterprise Green Communities certifications.

Prior to joining the firm in 1993, Mr. Bennett managed commercial and economic development activities for a community development corporation in the City of Pittsburgh. He is a graduate of the University of California in Santa Cruz with degrees in Economics and Psychology, and received his master’s degree in Management and Public Policy with concentrations in Financial Management and Urban Development and Planning at Carnegie Mellon University. Mr. Bennett serves on the Board of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri.

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