Disinvestment and Crime Have Common Cure — Community

Dana Malkus, J.D., Professor and Associate Dean for Experiential Education with Saint Louis University School of Law and Director of the Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic

This column was originally published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

On March 2, St. Louis residents will decide which two mayoral primary candidates will make the final ballot for the April 6 election. All of the candidates say that reducing our city’s violent crime will be a priority of their administration. The question voters are asking, of course, is how exactly they plan to do that.

Crime concerns are often met with the same familiar proposals focusing on the police, prosecutors and court systems — usually beginning and ending there.

Many have pointed to the breakdown in trust between communities and the police. But the lack of trust is not limited to the police. Our city’s legacy of racism, segregation and disinvestment has sown resentment and distrust of local government systems by the residents such systems should serve.

What if these dual problems of crime and distrust have a common cure? Research suggests they do.

Patrick Sharkey’s “Uneasy Peace: The Great Crime Decline, the Renewal of City Life, and the Next War on Violence” demonstrates that the dramatic decline in crime rates across the U.S. beginning in the 1990s occurred in large part thanks to community organizations (i.e., neighborhood associations, community development corporations, and other local nonprofits addressing crime prevention, neighborhood development, substance abuse, workforce development and youth). These organizations are the eyes and ears of neighborhoods and provide the communal space for residents to share concerns, build relationships and collectively direct police and policymakers to their most immediate needs.

Unsurprisingly, neighborhoods with robust community engagement are safer. Unfortunately, St. Louis has invested relatively little in community organizations compared to police, prosecutors and courts.

One way to rebuild trust and strengthen the community organizations that are essential to combating crime is to invest in community-led planning. Neighborhood planning helps residents, city agencies and elected officials make decisions that leverage community assets while simultaneously addressing community problems. For example, shoring up a neighborhood in danger of decline by leveraging its assets (e.g., investments in local retail, home repair programs, attractive green spaces) can prevent the kind of housing vacancy and abandonment that, research shows, is directly related to crime.

Strong community organizations are key not only for planning efforts but also for plan implementation. Plan implementation is as important as the plan’s creation and helps the neighborhood leverage other public and private resources over the long term — a process that necessarily continues well beyond any elected official’s tenure. Trust is built when the decisions the city makes about development, demolition, permitting and infrastructure follow the approved plan.

Here is the good news: As mayor, the winning candidate will inherit an ecosystem that already has many of the pieces needed to make strong community organizations and inclusive planning a reality in our city. For example:

• The city’s Planning and Urban Design Agency is increasing its capacity to facilitate more neighborhood planning, and other city departments have knowledge, relationships and resources that the next mayor can coordinate with and align to make a real impact.

• Invest STL, an emerging local funder, is investing in neighborhood leaders and neighborhood-led organizations that the mayor can work with to drive equitable development.

• The Community Builders Network, the St. Louis Association of Community Organizations and the Neighborhood Leadership Academy are providing technical assistance and training to community organizations and resident leaders. They support a rich network of community organizations across the city that the mayor can empower to drive change.

• Neighborhood leaders — several of whom have been highlighted in this newspaper — are accomplishing a great deal with limited resources. These leaders are the glue holding an increasingly tattered social fabric together, maintaining hope in the face of historic white flight, disinvestment, increased violence, and more recent middle-class Black flight. The next mayor can increase effectiveness by ensuring that departments partner with these leaders in a neighborhood-centered approach that focuses on neighborhood needs and priorities.

Community organizations are not only an effective way to address crime; they are also an essential link between local government and its residents. Rebuilding trust in our neighborhoods begins with strategic investments that empower residents to develop a shared vision for their neighborhoods and our entire city.

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Dana Malkus is a clinical professor at Saint Louis University School of Law where she supervises students in the Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic and serves as Associate Dean for Experiential Education. In the Clinic, Dana and her students represent community groups, nonprofits, and small business entrepreneurs on a range of transactional matters including structuring and formation, operational issues, contract drafting and review, regulatory compliance issues, and real estate matters.

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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 Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.

Some Opportunities We Found for Anti-Bias, Anti-Racism Trainings

Recently, CBN has had more people in our network ask us about Anti-Bias, Anti-Racism (ABAR) training opportunities.

CBN is interested in collectively promoting these opportunities as a network and sharing those that local community development leaders have found most meaningful.

We aren’t experts on ABAR trainings, but we can share an incomplete list of what we do know. Below is a growing list of opportunities we pulled together internally that you can explore:

• Crossroads Antiracism Training: The CBN staff team went through one of Crossroads' 2.5-day trainings in 2019 and thought it was excellent. They're currently offering their workshops virtually via Zoom. Click here for a list of upcoming workshops and registration.

• Forward Through Ferguson: FTF started offering several different workshops on racial equity capacity building last year. One of our staff members participated in the half-day Systems Change Primer in May 2020 and found it meaningful.

• Move to End Violence: An antiracism trainer we recently connected with shared the Racial Equity and Liberation Virtual Learning Series. (We have this on our watch list, but haven’t gone through it yet.)

• Better Allies: Not a training, but the 5 Ally Actions Newsletter is a great weekly email that a CBN member shared with us in our network’s Racial Equity Workgroup. It comes out every Friday and usually has some great food for thought. Plus, it's super digestible and actionable.

• Racial Equity tag on our Community Calendar: We've been posting events and trainings focused on advancing racial equity under the Racial Equity tag on our website's Community Calendar, so that’s something you can watch in the future.

• Asian Americans Advancing Justice: Bystander intervention trainings and resources when witnessing race-based harassment.

These are just a few places to start, since there are so many great resources available, especially online.

Let us know about other opportunities so we can grow this list of resources and promote them on the CBN Community Calendar!

Parson Must Protect Health by Implementing a Shut-Off Moratorium

Michelle Witthaus, Manager of Policy and Advocacy with Generate Health

This column was originally published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

It is up to Gov. Mike Parson to protect the health and safety of Missourians. Thousands of Missouri families are suffering financial hardships because of the pandemic and are struggling to meet their basic needs for food, rent and utilities. To protect Missouri families and slow the spread of the virus, it is imperative that Parson implement a statewide utility disconnection moratorium that lasts through the current state of emergency.

In November, the governor issued an order extending Missouri’s state of emergency for the pandemic until March 31. The order followed the advice of state health officials and noted that action by the state is “needed to combat the public health threat caused by COVID-19 and to aid in Missouri’s recovery to this emergency.”

However, the effectiveness of the order is hamstrung without a utility shutoff moratorium. Without a moratorium, Missourians who are financially impacted by the pandemic may face utility disconnection during the most brutal winter months. With utilities shut off, families lack access to basic needs such as water, which is imperative to slowing the spread of the coronavirus. Without electricity or heat, many families will have no option but to temporarily seek shelter with relatives or friends, thus potentially exposing themselves to the virus. In some cases, utility disconnection can lead to eviction and homelessness.

At its meeting on Dec. 16, the Missouri Public Service Commission declined to implement a moratorium, stating it lacked authority under state law. Now only an order from the governor can provide relief to thousands of Missourians facing a worsening health crisis that has already claimed the lives of more than 6,000 Missourians. Only the governor can resolve this dire situation in time to alleviate the harm Missourians are facing.

State regulators have refused to act, and a voluntary disconnection moratorium by utility companies is insufficient. Only one Missouri utility, Evergy, has voluntarily implemented a moratorium on disconnections long enough (through March 1) to provide some relief to Missourians. Ameren implemented a moratorium that expired on Jan. 5, and Spire’s moratorium expired on Jan. 1, just after the holiday season. These expirations occurred while coronavirus cases were on the rise, hospitals were at or near capacity, and temperatures were dropping.

The governor can save lives by taking action now. A study recently published by Duke University documented how “electricity and water utility moratoria have played an important role in containing the COVID-19 pandemic,” and that they could help reduce the growth rate of the pandemic by as much as 5.7%. This is an extremely significant margin as the virus has infected more than 450,000 people in Missouri and more than 18 million across the country.

Missouri’s unemployment rate has not fully rebounded to pre-pandemic rates, thus creating an obvious need for additional interventions this winter season. Since declaration of the pandemic emergency, the United Way has fielded 31,000 calls from the St. Louis region requesting housing assistance — a 50% increase over last year and 26,000 requests for utility assistance.

A moratorium on utility shut-offs is essential to helping Missouri families get through this crucial moment when cold temperatures make heating and electricity necessary to shelter in place, a recommendation the governor and state agencies have stressed is key to slowing the spread of the virus. While assistance programs such as Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and federal funding are helping to ease the burden, they are insufficient. A halt to utility disconnections is a quick, proactive measure that will immediately provide relief for impacted Missourians.

On Nov. 3, over 1.7 million Missourians voted to keep Gov. Parson in office. Those voters did so believing that he would act in the best interest of all Missourians and lead us out of this troubling time. Now is the time for Parson to show us the leadership that Missourians expect and to use the power he holds in office to keep families safe this winter and slow the spread of the coronavirus.

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Michelle Witthaus is the Manager of Policy and Advocacy at Generate Health where she focuses on implementing policy and advocacy strategies that advance Generate Health’s mission of advancing racial equity in pregnancy outcomes, family well-being and community health. In Michelle’s previous role as the Program Manager for Health Equity Works, she helped lead the project’s strategic partnerships and community-centered initiatives with an emphasis on creating systemic change. Michelle has a diverse background in education, community organizing, and philanthropy. In 2013, Michelle launched an initiative called Participatory Budgeting–St. Louis, which aimed to bring about a more democratic way of spending public money in the 6th ward. At the time of inception, St. Louis was the fourth city in the United States to implement this inclusive process. Michelle is a proud City resident and has called St. Louis home for the last 25 years.

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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 Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.

De Facto Or De Jure Housing Inequities: The Outcomes Are The Same

Glenn Burleigh, Community Engagement Specialist, Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council

This column was originally published on NCRC’s blog.

As the COVID-19 crisis unfolded in St. Louis, the maps of the infections looked very familiar to those of us who work to promote integrated and inclusive communities. Unsurprisingly, it was having a greater toll on the city’s majority-Black neighborhoods, where maps already showed elevated rates of asthma and lead poisoning. These are obviously health issues that could make the virus more lethal. The infection maps also followed other maps, but not ones that would seem to be connected at first glance — ones showing low to non-existent residential mortgage activity. For advocates that work to expand equitable capital access and an end to modern day redlining, it wasn’t surprising, as we have long been acutely aware of the connections between health and housing.

We also knew that the conditions that made these racial disparities in COVID-19 infection and death rates possible were part of a pattern that goes back to the Home Ownership Loan Corporation (HOLC) redlining maps and decades of federal, state and local policies meant to enforce segregation. These maps cemented patterns of racial segregation and disparities in capital access that are still with us, almost a hundred years later. While the COVID-19 pandemic has brought this connection between race, housing and health outcomes into greater focus, this crisis at the nexus of housing and health has been festering for many decades and has already been impacting our region’s communities of color for many generations. As the Segregation in St. Louis: Dismantling The Divide report chronicled, the active promotion of residential segregation is deeply ingrained in our city’s history.

Home Purchase Loans in St. Louis (2018-2019)

Home purchase loan originations overlaid on CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) and Life Expectancy at the Census tract level. (Source: Home Mortgage Disclosure Act 2018-2019, CDC Life Expectancy 2010-2015, and CDC SVI 2018, via NCRC)

The lack of home mortgage financing provides an underpinning for environmental racism and health disparities that aren’t limited just to those who live closer to polluting industries. It is also tied to growing up with poor indoor air quality, as the housing stock in our region’s majority-Black neighborhoods are unsurprisingly located in areas without real lending activity. This means that families can’t access home equity to keep up with the kind of regular maintenance necessary to provide safe and healthy air inside their households. Access to capital for maintenance is a necessary part of long-term, successful homeownership, yet this basic part of the housing financing is largely unavailable to significant portions of the metropolitan area. This means that even with identical credit scores and income, homeowners in majority-Black neighborhoods are denied access to an essential part of the financial system that our nation has developed to retain value in real estate assets. This dooms whole neighborhoods to decay and all of the negative impacts on quality of life that come with living in neighborhoods filled with vacant, crumbling buildings. It also means that many renters live in substandard conditions, as their units are owned by landlords who buy properties at the discount made available to them via this cash-only market. These landlords tend to make the absolute minimum investment necessary to pass occupancy inspections, leaving mold and other indoor air quality issues untreated. To add insult to injury, if many of the tenants were able to access home purchase and rehab financing, they would end up paying less on their monthly housing bills, while simultaneously building equity. These inequities in capital access, based on the complexion of neighborhood residents, have essentially predetermined that this isn’t an option for those who wish to live in the city’s majority-Black neighborhoods. Already the daily reality in these St. Louis neighborhoods prior to COVID-19’s emergence, now these same families face even greater danger as these pre-existing socially-determined conditions have left them further vulnerable.

All of this puts the need for any “new normal” to include changes to housing policies (and how our economy is structured) in stark relief. If we’re to have a #JustEconomy, then we will need to take this opportunity to reimagine how these systems work. If we don’t fundamentally change how housing and capital access are distributed, then we face an America that comes out of this crisis more segregated and with levels of inequality that exceed already historic pre-COVID highs. If we are to create a healthier society, both physically and financially, then we will need to take a hard look at the lessons of this period and take intentional steps to create a “new normal” that doesn’t recreate the racial inequities of the “old normal.”

If we are to approach recovery with an eye towards building a more racially equitable nation, then it is necessary to center these lessons. The price that thousands of families are now paying is simply too dear to have been paid without lessons learned. If we know that: 

1. The current housing system creates conditions that make people more vulnerable to respiratory health problems.

2. These issues increase the chances of someone dying from easily communicable diseases.

3. These burdens fall disproportionately on our city’s Black neighborhoods.

Then it is clear that we have a public health obligation to center these impacted communities in our response to the pandemic. If we are to avoid repeating the mistakes that have led up to this racist outcome, then we must come to the reality that race is key to this conversation. If we do that, then there is no other option than creating policies that remedy these long-standing issues that are leading to such a heavy toll in the Black community. As we look #BeyondRecovery and at how to create a #JustEconomy, we will have to stop doing things the way that we have been going about them. We need to formulate new ways of approaching housing and capital access that allows for true fairness and will lead to better health outcomes for Black families in our region and communities of color across the nation. This will mean understanding what we are doing wrong, if we really hope to build something closer to the Beloved Community. In housing and finance, we can already see so many of the things we are doing wrong. On one hand, the pandemic shows that the inequities in housing are so extreme that one doesn’t need to look very hard. On the other hand, these glaring problems provide us clear signposts pointing us in the direction of the necessary work ahead.

Housing advocates in St. Louis (and elsewhere) need to seize the opportunity that the public attention around COVID-19 has brought to the intersection of health and housing. As more and more people come to believe that #HousingIsHealthcare, it will be up to us to help turn that awareness into action and that action into results. Let’s get to work.

Maps of the original HOLC grading, divisions of census tracts into quartiles by the historic redlining score, life expectancy at birth and social vulnerability by quartiles. (Source: Mapping Inequality Project, Univ. of Richmond; author’s calculation of historic redlining score; CDC life expectancy 2010-2015, and CDC SVI 2018, via NCRC)

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Glenn Burleigh has been EHOC’s Community Engagement Specialist since 2015. Glenn was born in Pine Bluff, AR, and he came to live in St. Louis in 1997, while attending Saint Louis University. Since 2004, Glenn has been an active part of the Missouri progressive movement. Glenn spent many years working for progressive organizations, such as The Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition, SEIU, CWA, and ACORN. Glenn’s focus at EHOC is raising awareness of Fair Housing laws and the services EHOC offers to their clients. Glenn also staffs the St. Louis Equal Housing and Reinvestment Coalition (SLEHCRA), St. Louis’ Community Reinvestment Act coalition, of which EHOC was a founding member organization.

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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 Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.

Welcome to CBN’s Newest Board Member, Kathy Siddens

CBN is excited to be welcoming Kathy Siddens to our Board of Directors in January 2021!

When the CBN Board of Directors has a vacant seat, it appoints a Board Nominations Subcommittee to oversee the nominations process. During fall 2020, this committee evaluated current Board strengths and gaps, created a scoring tool based on identified priority areas, solicited nominations, scored and evaluated finalists, and made a recommendation to the full Board in December.

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Kathy Siddens
U.S. Bank
Vice President and Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility – Community Affairs

Katherine (Kathy) D. Siddens is Vice President and Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility – Community Affairs with U.S. Bank. Located in St. Louis, Missouri, she manages the St. Louis area and manages a team of Community Affairs Managers in nine states. She began working with U.S. Bank in February of 2003.

In this capacity, Kathy is responsible for representing the bank in community and economic development initiatives focusing on developing and maintaining strategic alliances with governmental agencies, community groups, and other organizations representing diverse interests of the Community Reinvestment Act and Corporate Social Responsibility.

Kathy is a graduate of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri and completed a graduate fellowship with the CORO Midwestern Center in St. Louis. She is a member of the Dana Brown Charitable Trust allocations committee, a board member of the St. Joseph Housing Initiative, and a member of the United Way Financial Stabilities Initiative Advisory Board. In addition, she is a member of the NeighborWorks Training Institute faculty.

Kathy has served on CBN’s Fund Development Committee since 2019 and has long been a trusted source of guidance and support for CBN staff and many members of the CBN network.

Eviction Prevention Flyer Available in Multiple Languages

The Centers for Disease Control has issued a national eviction moratorium that’s effective through December 31, 2020. To be eligible for coverage under the order, renters are required to complete a declaration form & provide it to their landlord or property manager.

The flyers below share more information about the order in 6 different languages:

• Eviction Prevention Flyer - English

• Eviction Prevention Flyer - Spanish

• Eviction Prevention Flyer - Arabic

• Eviction Prevention Flyer - Bosnian

• Eviction Prevention Flyer - Swahili

• Eviction Prevention Flyer - Vietnamese

From Sentiment to Structure: Institutionalize Resident Voice in Development

Amanda Colón-Smith, Executive Director, Dutchtown South Community Corporation

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For community development practitioners, 2020 was a year of unveiling, re-witnessing, and digesting disparities in health, policing, and other facets of community life that we work to undo daily. The visibility of acute pain in contrast to chronic issues should be embraced as a reflection and inflection point for our field. It is a call to action to move from sympathetic sentiment to bold and intentional redesign of systems and structures that uphold inequity.

In the realm of real estate development, there is abundant opportunity for redesign work that could result in the dismantling of the racial wealth gap. A new decade of strategic efforts is upon us. While frameworks such as Opportunity Mapping are being enhanced with the power of data, an old adage stands firm in how we implement tactics: “Nothing About Us, Without Us, Is For Us”.

In South St. Louis City, Dutchtown South Community Corporation is on a mission to advance neighborhood vitality through community empowerment, housing stabilization, and real estate development. In a recent comprehensive neighborhood planning effort, the Gravois Jefferson Historic Neighborhoods Plan was adopted by the City of St. Louis Planning Commission in May 2018. DSCC has recently formed a 13-seat Development Review Committee for the plan area, with nine seats for residents/stakeholders and four for local CIDs and neighborhood associations. Almost every resident who applied participated in a previous leadership training session or were active and known in this community. Each applicant had an interview with staff from the DSCC team and a guest reviewer from the local community development field. Guest reviewers included: Cristina Garmendia, Jenny Connelly-Bowen, Gary Newcomer, Catherine Hammacher, Jonathan Roper, Claire Ripple, Dwayne James, Jessica Payne, and Jay Watson.

Processes and tools for the committee were modeled on structure from other development committees in the St. Louis region. We also looked outside of St. Louis to develop a new tool to use in the development review process; the Neighborhood Plan Scorecard was modeled from a coalition in Twin Cities, MN. The scorecard outlines the most relevant and priority recommendations from the Gravois Jefferson Plan and will be used to measure alignment of projects to the overall community vision. With the plan document itself over 300 pages, this tool will make it easier for developers to understand plan priorities in a snapshot that’s just under 20 pages. We hope this tool can be the basis for development of concentrated geographies done differently—an approach of relationship-based development, where shared interests are explored and cultivated.

The development context of communities like those of the Gravois Jefferson Plan includes histories of extraction and exploitation. For example, our plan area has a 29% vacancy rate for residential units, a standout statistic, alongside being a community that is over 74% people of color with 39% of households living in poverty. For comprehensive neighborhood planning to be effective, it requires careful implementation, especially in terms of guiding the pace and quality of private real estate development. This work has an inherent racial equity overlap: disinvestment was not accomplished through race-neutral policy, and reinvestment cannot happen in a color-blind manner either. Resident review of proposed projects will allow for a focused analysis of who will preferentially benefit or be negatively impacted.

The equitable future we want, the one in 2039, not so far off from the untimely death of Michael Brown, will require intentional steps. As we build toward closing the racial wealth gap, the processes of private reinvestment into neglected communities must be refashioned. Processes that center the voices and decisions of residents most impacted must be central to creating this future. The next several years will bring pivotal moments, from a mayoral race to ward reduction in the City of St. Louis and redistricting based on Census outcomes. While these larger systems shift, we must ensure that housing and development systems also take up the responsibility to change how business is done.

A question worth asking ourselves: If you could change the ground rules of development, what would you change? It is time to transform the real estate development systems that do not serve us and build new ones that do. Communities not only deserve a seat at the table, they deserve to build those tables and set the agenda.

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Amanda Colón-Smith is the Executive Director of Dutchtown South Community Corporation in South St. Louis City. She works with residents, partners and stakeholders in the Dutchtown, Gravois Park, Marine Villa and Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods. The organization focuses on Housing Development and Stabilization as well as Community Empowerment. Through activities such as comprehensive planning, improving parks, and tenant rights education, the organization seeks to advance neighborhood vitality through resident-led activities. She is a graduate of the Regional Arts Commission’s Community Arts Training program and holds a certificate from NeighborWorks as a Certified Housing Asset Manager. She holds a BA from Cornell University in Africana Studies, a MS in Special Education from City College, CUNY and is currently completing an MS in Geography at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.

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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 Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.

Housing Mobility Programs are an Important Piece of Equitable Community Development

Jenna Hampton, Graduate Student at Washington University in St. Louis & Practicum Student with the Social Policy Institute

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Despite its name, the Housing Choice Voucher (or Section 8) program does not always offer families much choice in where to live. Research from Opportunity Insights found that out of the 2.2 million households who receive vouchers, the majority live in high-poverty neighborhoods. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains that families with vouchers are often unable to access low-poverty, high-opportunity neighborhoods due to a number of barriers, including:

• Lack of support services from public housing agencies

• Shortage of information on available housing options for voucher-holders

• Landlords who are unfamiliar with the Housing Choice Voucher program

Outright discrimination is also a barrier. In St. Louis City, a “Source of Income” law prevents landlords from refusing to rent to someone due to their use of a housing voucher. Still, the Metro St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council (EHOC) identified over 100 rental ads in St. Louis indicating that a landlord would not rent to anyone using a voucher. Last October, a local news story reported an instance in which a Central West End landlord turned down a woman named Phoenix after learning about her source of rental income. Phoenix reflected,

“It made me feel very belittled as well, like I wasn’t equal. There was no sense of equity in the situation at all.”

Housing mobility programs are gaining traction around the U.S. as a potential solution to these barriers. The 25 public housing agencies (PHAs) that currently manage housing mobility programs provide counseling, landlord outreach, and administrative support to help families access housing units in a broader range of neighborhoods.

This summer, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) opened an application for the Housing Choice Voucher Mobility Demonstration. Congress authorized $50 million to support new housing mobility programs around the country as part of the demonstration. PHAs that participate in the demonstration will test a variety of support services and outreach strategies to identify which elements of housing mobility programs are most effective.

Ascend STL Inc manages the only housing mobility program in St. Louis. In 2017, Ascend partnered with the St. Louis City and County housing authorities to create the Mobility Connection program*, which “provides families with opportunities and resources to connect with quality housing in communities of their choice.”

Ascend helps families with Housing Choice Vouchers move to high-opportunity areas (HOA) in the St. Louis region—defined as having a poverty rate and concentration of subsidized housing at or below 10%. The image below shows Ascend’s map of HOAs as of 2018.

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Source: Ascend STL, Inc. 2018 Annual Report

Last year, as part of an evaluation by the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis, I surveyed 20 Mobility Connection participants about their experiences. Though one might think that economic concerns would be the primary motivation for moving to a HOA, our survey found that most participants were motivated to move by factors related to the safety and general well-being of their families. These included a desire for lower crime rates (95%), better housing (90%) and school quality (80%), and more amenities such as grocery stores and parks in their neighborhoods (75%). One parent explained her motivation for moving as:

“You want your children to feel safe, you want them to have a good education, you want them to be successful in life. One of my main reasons for wanting to relocate in a better neighborhood is my children more so than myself.”

While it is not practical to move every low-income family in St. Louis to HOAs, mobility programs offer families an opportunity to proactively choose their neighborhoods. Many families do not want to let their children’s futures hang in the balance as they wait for the promised “someday” of community improvements. Another parent from my survey explained her sense of urgency for moving out of her old neighborhood:

“My house was broken into and then my car was broken into… there was a shooting up the street from the house, so I just didn’t feel safe… I don’t feel safe with [my son] being home by himself in that neighborhood.”

Every family deserves to feel safe and happy in their neighborhood. Housing mobility programs like Mobility Connection help put the choice back into the Housing Choice Voucher program. Landlords and developers are a critical piece of that change. When community developers focus solely on place-based development, they miss an opportunity to promote equity through mobility-based strategies.

As the housing and community development field works together to create safe, high-opportunity neighborhoods throughout St. Louis, we should also expand the choices available to families who want the best for themselves and their children. Here are some actions we can take together to strengthen housing mobility in our region:

• Pass a Source of Income law for all of St. Louis County

• Develop better enforcement mechanisms to monitor Source of Income discrimination

• Encourage more landlords to participate in Mobility Connection and to accept Housing Choice Vouchers in general

• Re-evaluate zoning laws that prevent multi-family developments in HOAs (families with vouchers cannot access HOAs if there are not enough units in their price range)

• Make HOAs more welcoming for low-income families who move there by encouraging more service providers to open offices in the area, working with schools on anti-bias trainings, etc.

• Communicate with families who use Housing Choice Vouchers to learn more about their motivations, their hopes, their frustrations, and how we can help

* The original Mobility Connection program officially ended in March of this year. However, MDRC and Opportunity Insights will help Ascend re-launch the program as part of a broader study on housing mobility programs.

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Jenna Hampton is a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis. In December 2020, she will complete her Master of Social Work and Master of Social Policy degrees. In addition to classes, Jenna works part-time for the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO) and is a practicum student for the Social Policy Institute (SPI). While in St. Louis, Jenna has been an active member of CBN’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund Coalition (AHTFC). Originally from Oklahoma City, she became passionate about public and affordable housing policy when she worked as an intern for the Waco Housing Authority in Waco, Texas. Jenna hopes to continue working in the housing and community development field following her upcoming graduation. She believes that quality, affordable housing is a foundational need that should be guaranteed for all.

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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 Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.

The Most We Can Do: A National Mandate for Housing Justice

Tony Pickett, Chief Executive Officer, Grounded Solutions Network

Robert Burns, Senior Vice President, Citi Community Investing & Development

This column was originally published in Shelterforce.

Tony Pickett

Americans are experiencing an unparalleled and historic series of crises, in many ways defying words to capture the magnitude of the damage.  Beyond the grave health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, our nation is tragically divided by a human rights crisis. Due to a long and painful history of institutional racism and the lack of responsive action by many elected leaders, Black Americans are disproportionately suffering once again. Police brutality, acts of inhumane cruelty, and widespread neglect are perpetrated daily in our streets.

Robert Burns

Serious policy reforms targeting the elimination of racism within law enforcement agencies and judicial systems are long overdue. However, there is also an urgent simultaneous need for the elimination of racial bias and barriers in our education, health, and housing policies. Anti-Black racism means Black American families are not only at higher risk for homelessness and eviction, making it difficult to shelter in place, they also often remain either excluded outright or acutely disadvantaged in fairly accessing, maintaining (especially during economic crises), and building wealth through homeownership.

Since COVID-19 is affecting Black Americans harder in terms of both health outcomes and employment outcomes, the housing stability of current Black homeowners and the ability of Black households to access homeownership after the pandemic should be top concerns. In 2016, the average net worth of a white family was already nearly 10 times greater than that of a Black family. Without sweeping and radical federal action on housing, this growing racial wealth gap will not only not be reduced, but it will also get substantially worse.

Focusing public and philanthropic resources on shared-equity homeownership models that include active stewardship is one way to advance racial equity in housing in the current moment.

Shared Equity and Stewardship

Shared-equity homeownership is a self-sustaining model that takes a one-time public investment to make a home affordable for a lower-income family and then restricts the home’s sale price each time it is sold to keep it affordable for subsequent low-income families who purchase the home. The model balances wealth-building for families who would otherwise be unable to afford to own a home with preserving the community’s investment.

One notable model of shared-equity homeownership is the community land trust (CLT), an enduring legacy of the civil rights movement, stemming from the struggle of Black leaders in Albany, Georgia, to combat anti-Black racism during the late 1960s. CLTs are nonprofit, community-based organizations created to safeguard collective community stewardship of land. CLT real estate development activities may include commercial and retail, but the model is most often used to ensure long-term housing affordability. A CLT typically acquires land and maintains ownership of it permanently. Homes on that land are sold to prospective homeowners, who all agree to a long-term, renewable lease for use of CLT land, dividing ownership of the home and land instead of a traditional sale. CLTs also sometimes develop rental housing. Because CLTs are community-led, CLT homeowners, tenants, and neighborhood residents have an active role in their governance and decision making. A well-functioning CLT that serves Black households can strengthen Black families, communities, and networks of partners by helping them attain housing justice and withstand the multiple major shocks of an increasingly uncertain world.

Affordable housing stewardship is a unique set of specialized practices that shared-equity programs use, designed to help households generate wealth while balancing long-term protection of local housing subsidy investments. Stewarded affordable homeownership programs work with buyers both before and after they purchase their homes to ensure that they are well-prepared for homeownership, financially responsible, and able to maintain the property. Stewarded programs also protect the subsidy investment by monitoring the physical asset, intervening to support homeowners experiencing financial distress and enforcing program requirements over the long term.

Shared-equity programs are increasingly intentionally serving communities of color, with new large-scale CLTs being inspired, created, and led  by leaders of color in locations such as Houston, Texas, and Washington, D.C. Grounded Solutions Network (GSN) is supporting a nationwide effort to accelerate the scale of shared-equity homeownership production.

Why Shared Equity, Why Now?

Stability—A 2011 study of CLT shared-equity homeownership performance during the Great Recession found that conventional homeowners were 10 times more likely to be in foreclosure proceedings than CLT homeowners at the end of 2010 (respectively 4.63 percent in the conventional market versus 0.46 percent in mortgages held by CLT homeowners). The results were based on 3,143 mortgage holders in 62 CLTs across 29 states. Over 200 GSN members today are committed to replicating that outcome by protecting their COVID-affected tenants from eviction; recording and tracking mortgage forbearance agreements; providing anti-eviction housing counseling efforts; proactively exploring the use of shared-equity mortgage refinance options to cure delinquencies for homeowners who have faced a financial or life crisis; and distributing targeted public financial support to keep families in homes using proactive stewardship.

Efficient use of investment—State and municipal governments are reeling from significant losses in revenue and increased spending, and the economic effects of the pandemic are likely to continue for a long time. This means we must choose affordable housing investments that will make the most of each dollar invested. Shared-equity models such as community land trusts and limited-equity co-ops do this. They retain and even grow the effect of the one-time initial public or philanthropic investment through resale price restriction and equity-sharing legal agreements that enable homes to retain their affordability in perpetuity. Shared-equity homes allow multiple families over many years to potentially become first-time homeowners, benefiting from ownership of the same perpetually affordable home without ongoing additional subsidy investments.

Wealth Creation Results—CLTs are highly effective in building wealth for families of color. The share of families of color living in a sample of over 4,000 shared-equity homes (73 percent of which were CLT homes) increased substantially from 13 percent during 1985-2000 to 43 percent during 2013-2018. Shared-equity homeownership performance data from a 2019 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy study, collected over that same period, shows that the majority of lower-income families who participated in shared-equity homeownership were able to use it as a stepping stone to purchasing traditional market-rate homes within a 5- to 7-year period. The data also shows that the median investment made to purchase a shared-equity home was $1,875 and that 6 out of 10 families accumulated at least $14,000 in earned equity upon the sale of their home. Notably, shared-equity sellers are accumulating wealth and experiencing smaller decreases in home values than market-rate sellers during housing market downturns, something that has historically caused large equity losses for Black households in particular.

Black Americans specifically are suffering daily from traumatic emotional, physical, and economic hardships stemming from arguably the most extensive series of crisis events experienced in our nation’s history. Like the admittedly flawed, but nonetheless powerful initiatives of the 1933-39 New Deal, which responded to the Great Depression, an equitable COVID-19 recovery urgently demands national public policies and major financial investments. But we need to make them using a racial equity lens. A new and targeted “Better Deal” must be launched, with a multifaceted federal policy relief initiative centered on the Black community, including a $2 billion to $3 billion investment to expand the availability of shared-equity housing with lasting affordability as a means to close the racial wealth gap. We estimate—using the methodology employed by the National Association of Home Builders—that creating 1 million new homes with lasting affordability over the next decade would generate over $45 billion in annual economic activity and would support 619,000 jobs. Only then will we be able to simultaneously strengthen our economic, health, and housing systems to intentionally benefit Black American families for the first time in history.

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Tony Pickett is the Chief Executive Officer of Grounded Solutions Network. Prior to serving as Chief Executive Officer for the Grounded Solutions Network, Tony was the Senior V.P. of Master Site Development for the Urban Land Conservancy, leading efforts to plan, finance and construct multiple equitable transit oriented development initiatives, complementing the $7.2B Denver FasTracks regional transit system. ULC’s Master Site Development work led by Tony has been described by collaborators as innovative; thinking about and achieving equitable outcomes in a comprehensive and cross-disciplinary manner.

Prior to joining ULC, Tony worked as the founding Executive Director of the Atlanta Land Trust Collaborative; a non-profit Community Land Trust entity focused on achieving equitable development outcomes as part of the Atlanta Beltline transit oriented development initiative. The Atlanta Beltline vision included the creation of 5,600 permanently affordable housing units over a 25 year period, in order to mitigate potential displacement and gentrification impacts in existing underserved communities along a 22 mile transit oriented development corridor. Prior to that Tony served as the Atlanta Housing Authority’s Director of Real Estate Strategy and Development; successfully creating multiple new mixed-income communities using innovative financing and public/private partnerships. Tony’s experience includes planning, creating and using local tax increment financing districts to leverage private investments in combination with additional federal and state funding sources to revitalize distressed communities.

Tony is a graduate of the Cornell University School of Architecture, Art and Planning and a strong advocate for holistic and equitable neighborhood development efforts.

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Robert Burns is the Senior VP of Community Development with Citibank. Prior to this position, he was President and CEO of City First Homes, a DC-based nonprofit developer of committed affordable properties, specializing in locations and projects identified as areas needing community development in “hard to develop” census tracks. Robert has also served as Director of Local Government Solutions for IBTS, a leading service provider in the building environment to all levels of government, community and industry worldwide. Robert enjoyed a long career as Director of Field Operations for NeighborWorks America, a national nonprofit organization created by Congress to provide financial support, technical assistance, and training for community-based revitalization efforts. Robert also has served as City Manager and Assistant City Manager in Ferguson, Missouri. He also serves on the board of the National Community Land Trust Network. Robert is the AHDC Board Vice President; he joined the Board in 2004.

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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 Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.

Federal Housing Assistance Falls Short of Meeting COVID-19 Needs

Charlene Crowell, Senior Fellow, Center for Responsible Lending

This column was originally published in The St. Louis American.

As the nation’s double dose of health and economic crises continue, many consumers believe that federal assistance to make ends meet has virtually disappeared.   

While the $600 weekly federal supplement to augment state unemployment benefits expired July 31. And the Paycheck Protection Program again stopped accepting applications on August 8.   

A recent policy analysis developed for the Brookings Institution suggests that the wages and earnings of economically vulnerable workers left little—if any—funds for regular household savings.   

“Unemployed respondents, on average, report a household income of $33,000 which is well below the U.S. median household income of $78,500 and less than 130% of the federal poverty line for a family of four,” wrote authors Jevay Grooms (Howard University), Alberto Ortega (Indiana University), and Joaquin Alfredo-Angel Rubalcaba (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).   

“While all unemployed Americans are facing significant economic challenges, these findings suggest that unemployed Black workers are less likely to receive unemployment benefits and are disproportionately experiencing delays in receiving critical benefits designed to mitigate economic hardship,” wrote the professors. “These findings indicate that our society has failed to address many of the socioeconomic inequities faced by racial and ethnic minorities that were brought to light during the Great Recession.”    

Additionally, a three-part consumer survey by Morning Consult, a DC-based global intelligence firm, determined that by the end of this August, 5.4 million consumers who lost $600 per week in unemployment insurance will also lose their ability to pay for daily living needs like housing, health care, food and clothing. By the end of September, the same survey found that an additional 9.2 million consumers will be in the same financial dilemma should Congress fail enact new or extended aid.    

Despite COVID-19’s ongoing disruption to the economic health of many Americans, our lawmakers have not taken steps to alleviate all the resulting strain, including housing.  

In late May, the U.S. House passed legislation to continue vital federal assistance as the pandemic continues. Entitled the HEROES Act, it would extend the CARES Act’s previous moratorium on evictions and foreclosures. But it would also provide new housing assistance including $100 billion in emergency rental assistance, $75 billion for homeowner assistance, $11.5 billion in homeless grants and expand Section 8 vouchers with a $1 billion revenue infusion.  Together, these measures could help shore up housing, a major pillar in the nation’s economy.   

In the ensuing three months, the Senate never considered this proposal and instead put forth a much smaller package this August that provided nearly nothing to assist homeowners and renters. This approach garnered little support and now the upper chamber is not expected to return to work until after the Labor Day holiday.  

Likely as a result of one of four recent executive orders, HUD extended the moratorium on evictions and foreclosures on homes with FHA-backed mortgages. As reported by Politico, an estimated 8.1 million single-family homeowners will now be protected until 2021. Omitted in this new development are mortgages that originated with other government-sponsored mortgages like VA and USDA, as well as those backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And no assistance in this action addresses the needs of many renters who do not live in FHA-backed housing. It is estimated that these renters already owe up to $25 billion in back rent, and could reach $70 billion by year’s end and no way to pay.     

By contrast, the CARES Act included limited forbearance, a postponement—not forgiveness—of monthly payments for financially-challenged homeowners with an FHA, VA, or USDA loans. These mortgage borrowers can request a suspension for up to 180 days plus an additional 180 days if needed. Thirty days before the end of forbearance, mortgage servicers should contact these homeowners to discuss available options.  Repayment options will also depend upon the type of loan held.   

Fannie Mae’s most recent annual housing survey shows that one-fifth of Americans are unaware that this assistance is available. Mortgage servicers should do more to notify borrowers of these options.   

Many homeowners sought to take advantage of lower mortgage interest rates, and filed applications to refinance their loans, in hopes of lowering their monthly payments.   

But beginning September 1, a new surcharge fee will be added to refinance applications with both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the other GSE with a large share of the mortgage market. A 0.5 percent fee on refinanced capital will be charged directly to lenders and then be passed on to consumers making applications. This new fee adds an upfront, estimated $1,400 to the mortgage cost, and as a result may eliminate any savings that might have been possible.   

In reaction, outraged housing stakeholders are demanding that the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA), that oversees both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, reverse this new and harmful fee. Their stance is based on the facts that housing accounts for almost 20% of the nation’s overall economy, and further that the fee undercuts the Federal Reserve efforts to support an ailing economy.     

“It doesn’t make sense,” Bob Broeksmit, president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association, told MarketWatch. “The implementation timeline is intentionally punitive and absurd.”  

"This is harming American families," says Mike Calhoun, president of the nonprofit Center for Responsible Lending. "It's absolutely the wrong thing to be doing now… We should be doing more to help people refinance," he says. "And this is going in the opposite direction."   

Most reasonable people would agree that now is the worst time to add home costs. And for Black America—already reeling from disproportionate unemployment, COVID-19 diagnoses, and far less wealth—any increase in costs will be harder to absorb.   

Some online resources provide additional information: 

• An online Look-Up Tool enables consumers to enter information and learn whether their home or landlord’s mortgage is held by Fannie Mae; 

• Fannie Mae renter assistance information is available online at: https://www.fanniemae.com/heretohelp/renters/; and 

• Access to live personalized assistance from HUD-approved housing counselors is available through its Mortgage Help Network or the Disaster Response Network.  

What lawmakers, regulators and corporate decision-makers must remember during these terrible times is that everyone deserves a future full of hope and genuine opportunity. It’s time our lawmakers got back to work. Every consumer should be afforded an equal opportunity to survive this pandemic and achieve financial prosperity. 

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In a career that spans posts in three state capitols and major markets in the Midwest and Southwest, Charlene is an articulate spokesperson and seasoned journalist. As a Smart Growth lobbyist, she has championed affordable housing, land use and transportation. As a communicator, she has served as press secretary to both a state attorney general and mayor, managing strategic and crisis communications over a broad range of public policy developments.

Honored by the Texas Publishers Association and twice by the National Newspaper Publishers Association for her feature and editorial writing, she currently writes twice-monthly commentary on consumer finance as a standing assignment with the Center for Responsible Lending.

The Charlene M. Crowell Collection, housed at the Calumet Regional Archives at Indiana University Northwest, makes available to scholars and researchers many of her noteworthy government and journalism papers.

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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 Jenny Connelly-Bowen at jenny@communitybuildersstl.org.