Missouri group revitalizes neighborhoods with mixed-income housing and urban orchards

When we hear about declining downtown districts beginning to become trendy again, it’s good news. But there’s usually a downside: As property values shoot up, affordable housing becomes scarce and low-income residents are pushed out.

That’s the challenge faced by Kansas City, MO. And the Westside Housing Organization – a NeighborWorks member celebrating the 40th anniversary of its founding this year – is determined to assure that affordable housing remains central to the downtown community’s identity.

Westside serves a primarily Latino population, a demographic that first began making its way to the city in the 1920s and ‘30s for jobs with the railroad, explains Executive Director Gloria Ortiz Fisher, whose own family emigrated from Mexico. The organization was founded in 1973 to lead residents’ fight against the loss of their homes to two new highways. Although they lost that struggle, Westside (named for the neighborhood on the west side of the city’s downtown district) developed into a strong local advocate for residents, and is today the only community development corporation in Kansas City for which a significant focus is Latinos.

As the railroad declined, so did the town’s economy, with the West Side’s working-class residents finding employment in restaurants, hotels and similar, small, service-based businesses. However, that all changed in 2009 when the Sprint Center – an indoor arena for concerts and other entertainment -- was built downtown, followed by a host of other attractions.

“The West Side is now a desirable place to live again,” says Fisher. “There are new businesses coming in and lots of creative artist types. Our focus is to make sure affordable, multi-family housing remains in the mix.”

Westside is headquartered
in a renovated firehouse,
rehabbed to green
standards.

Westside has long been in the business of developing affordable housing to nurture mixed-income neighborhoods. In the 1980s, Westside Housing began acquiring and rehabbing older apartment buildings in the neighborhood, and now has a portfolio of 165 rental units. The organization also facilitated the development of 120 new, affordable houses. Today, it is accelerating that work and hopes to double its rental units to 300. Meanwhile, Westside is eying an old high school, long since closed as young families left the urban core, which it would like to acquire for housing as well as community space. Energy-efficiency is emphasized during construction, both to keep residents’ utility bills low and continue its leadership role. (In December 2012, Westside was recognized as a NeighborWorks America Green Organization.)

“We operate with an average 98 percent occupancy,” says Fisher. “There is always a waiting list.”

Still, it’s a challenge, and many working-class families from the West Side neighborhood are moving to less-expensive homes to the historic northeast district. So, Westside has expanded to serve them, since an older community development corporation in that neighborhood had closed down.

Two residents of the neighborhood water
one of the orchard's trees.

“You can get a house there for $35,000, but there is a lot of crime, and 25 percent of the buildings are abandoned or vacant,” says Fisher. “It’s a good place for fearful immigrants to stay under the radar.”

To help prevent crime through greater community engagement, Westside is recruiting resident leaders to organize clean-ups, advocating for sidewalk construction, starting community gardens and partnering with the police department to implement a program called “Crime Prevention through Environmental Design,” including window repairs and the trimming of shrubs and trees that can hide illicit activity.

One of its more creative projects is an urban orchard designed to accomplish several goals – increase resident engagement (and thus discourage crime), encourage sustainable living and alleviate the “food desert” the area had become. In partnership with SkillsUSA (a nonprofit that trains students in vital job and leadership skills) and TimberlandPro (a footwear manufacturer), and with the help of neighborhood volunteers, Westside Housing planted a 2.5-acre orchard in an empty grass lot behind a community center. Nearly two years later, the orchard is home to more than 200 fruit trees and berry bushes. The trees and shrubbery help improve the poor urban air quality and mitigate storm water runoff, and Westside offers the fruit free for all residents.

“I don’t see broken windows when I walk through a community,” says Fisher. “I see opportunities.”

If you'd like to see for yourself the good work Westside Housing is doing, attend the NeighborWorks Training Institute in Kansas City, MO! At the Dec. 11 symposium, "Real-World Solutions for Community Transformation," one of the "mobile workshops" will be held at its facility.

Written by Pam Bailey, communications writer for NeighborWorks America. 

Wisconsin group to transform old armory to indoor farm staffed by returning vets

When NeighborWorks Green Bay (WI) bought 815 Chicago St. in 2002, the organization assumed it would rehabilitate the building, like the others it purchased, into multi-unit housing. What wasn’t known at the time, however, was that the building, an old armory that long ago served the needs of local military families, had 14-inch-thick cement slab floors that made the cost of redevelopment prohibitively expensive. So the building sat vacant, waiting for the day when it would be demolished.

Workers clear debris from the old armory.

Today, after the better part of a decade spent in a holding pattern, there is budding hope that the old armory will get its long-deserved rebirth. As part of a partnership between NeighborWorks Green Bay and local green agro-businesses, the old armory is being assessed for its potential as Green Bay’s first indoor farm. The idea sprouted after Noel Halvorsen, executive director of NeighborWorks Green Bay, participated in a local social-innovation leadership program and learned about creative urban farming projects around the country. Shortly thereafter, Halvorsen was contacted by local hydroponics specialists who also saw potential in the armory.

Research now is underway to
determine what crops would
grow best in the "Farmory."

When completed, the “Farmory” – as it has come to be known – will not only supply food locally throughout the year but will also operate as an agricultural learning center with a focus on training returning veterans.

“We think converting the armory back into service as a training center for military folks returning from overseas would be a great life for the building and an asset for the neighborhood,” Halvorsen says.. The project is undergoing rigorous business planning and analysis to test its feasibility and the results to date are promising. NeighborWorks Green Bay hopes in the next few months to have a full business plan and training curriculum in place, with construction well underway in 2014.

It is this kind of creative thinking that characterizes NeighborWorks Green Bay’s success in the northeast region of Wisconsin it serves. The organization, which is celebrating its 20th year as a member of the NeighborWorks network, started out as a small-scale local initiative that offered tool lending, homeownership preservation and small “scrape-and-paint” projects. Over the years, the geography it serves has grown, as has its local partnerships and programming.

For example, another creative local project that NeighborWorks Green Bay is spearheading is a volunteer time bank.  The time bank, led by a team that the organization sent to NeighborWorks America’s Community Leadership Institute two years ago, is an online system for recording and rewarding volunteer exchanges, enabling local “Samaritans” to capitalize on their skills. For example, one person can exchange an hour earned walking a neighbor’s dogs to get his or her home repainted. The plan received initial support from a CLI planning grant and is in a test phase this winter to evaluate the software platform. Next February, NeighborWorks Green Bay plans to launch it publicly in select neighborhoods before hopefully introducing it community-wide in the summer.

By bringing together unique local assets through innovative projects and programs, NeighborWorks Green Bay is building a better community.

Written by Lydia Wileden, program specialist for community stabilization at NeighborWorks America. 

Forty-five years after founding, Pennsylvania group helps future homebuyers achieve ‘financial freedom’

When visitors walk into the NeighborWorks America offices in DC, one of the first images they see is a floor-to-ceiling painting of Dorothy Mae Richardson, along with the quote, “I believe people get their roots down when they own their own houses….take pride in them. That, in turn, is good for the whole city.”

Dorothy Mae Richardson

These wise words can be generalized to cities everywhere, but in 1968, Richardson – the “founding mother” of NeighborWorks America -- was speaking specifically about Pittsburgh, where she enlisted bankers and government officials to support her block club’s efforts to improve her neighborhood. Together, they persuaded 16 financial institutions and a local foundation to put up the loans needed to create opportunities for affordable homeownership. They named the program Neighborhood Housing Services, and it served as the model for other programs that followed -- today known as NeighborWorks organizations.

Forty-five years later, the NeighborWorks network encompasses more than 240 such organizations, and the group founded by Richardson is still going strong, known as NeighborWorks Western Pennsylvania. The dynamics of the community, however, along with the services needed by residents, have changed – and the organization has adapted along with it.

“More people own their own homes here now, thanks to our efforts,” says Margie Howard, education specialist with NeighborWorks Western Pennsylvania. “But we’ve realized that more than homeownership education and counseling are needed.  Residents also need help keeping their homes in good shape, staying out of foreclosure and managing their budgets to make it all affordable. In particular, we are serving a growing number of low-income, single heads of household. Race isn’t the issue here; economics is.”

While the organization has offered financial education for youth for the past five years, recent support from the Heinz Endowments has made it possible to expand its efforts to include the entire family, combating generational poverty.

 “We saw that parents weren’t teaching their children about money management – mainly because they themselves didn’t learn it,” Howard explains. “You see lots of instances of a mom spending $300 on shoes for her child, yet there’s a shortage of food in the house, or maybe the family is about to be evicted. It’s not just about teaching parents how to budget; it’s about changing attitudes and behavior around money.”

Youth don’t get financial education in the schools either, says Howard. “Schools are test- rather than life-skills-oriented.”

One of the youth financial-education classes

The organization’s youth financial-education program enrolls participants as young as 14 up through age 25, with instruction provided in four, one-hour classes. The program’s practical approach encourages participants to analyze real-life spending choices, such as getting ready for prom.

“The average girl realizes it will cost about $3,000 for a one-day event; for boys, it’s more like $1,000.  Many are okay with these figures when it’s their parents who foot the bill,” explains Howard. “But then they are asked what will happen if their mom has been laid off, or is working a minimum-wage job. How will she afford that while keeping up with the bills? Some of the students find ways to cut back like having a friend style their hair or using a parent’s car instead of renting a fancy one. Others decide to skip the prom altogether. The goal is to teach them to analyze their wants vs.  their needs. We see how their thinking changes when they realize they might have to pay for things themselves.”

The key, says Howard, is to separate spending from emotional triggers, starting with tracking where the money is going with a daily log. Ideally, major spending decisions should be made collectively, by the entire family.  Although teenagers typically prefer to attend workshops with youth from their own age group, family members from different generations are encouraged to come to one of the workshops together. Howard recalls one time when a 10-year-old girl came with her mother to a class because she didn’t want to go to the gym with her brother. After the workshop, the little girl went up to the instructor and proudly reported that she had her own bank account. The teacher asked what the girl would do with the savings, and she replied, “I want to have a princess birthday party.”

“A 10-year-old is breaking the cycle by planning ahead to make sure she has the money she needs to meet her goals,” says Howard. “We’ve created a saver!”

Long-term results from the financial-capability workshops are still being assessed, but the anecdotes are promising. One recent evening, for instance, Howard was approached at a community event by Essence Howze, who completed the organization’s financial-education program five years before, when she was just 16. Always ambitious, Howze first began earning money at age 9, manning a refreshment stand in front of her home. “I would sell iced tea and lemonade to joggers,” she laughs.

Essence Howze

However, self-teaching could get her only so far. When she was in 10th grade, Howze saw a flyer on a bulletin board, promoting NeighborWorks Western Pennsylvania’s youth financial-education program. Howze enrolled, and the practical skills she learned, she says, enabled her to open her own savings account and enter community college, where today she is a sophomore studying business management. Always ambitious, she has supplemented her studies with extracurricular activities such as an internship with The Salvation Army’s Career Development Center, and recently started her own business -- which she calls “Silver Linings,” through which she helps others overcome personal barriers like those she faced during a troubled family life.

“Taking the NeighborWorks financial-education course gave me my financial freedom. It helped me avoid so many mistakes, and now I’m helping others,” Howze says, recalling how she showed her college roommate how to read the “fine print” when a credit card company tried to sign her up. “I refer back to the materials I got in those workshops all the time. It wasn’t just financial management I learned..it was empowerment.”

Written by Pam Bailey, communications writer for NeighborWorks America. 

Youth in San Francisco's Chinatown transform historic alleyways

Youth lead a tour through San Francisco's Chinatown
alleyways.

Step off the main roads of San Francisco’s Chinatown neighborhood and you’ll find yourself in a labyrinth of alleyways.  At each turn there is history: opium dens, a barbershop where Frank Sinatra used to get the perfect cut and thousands of other, untold stories from one of America’s oldest ethnic villages.  You’ll also see something you wouldn’t expect: teenagers leading tours with expert proficiency, sharing their story of how they cleaned up these neglected public spaces.

Back in 1991, Norman Fong, executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center (which is celebrating its fifth year as a NeighborWorks network member), reached out

to local youth and asked them how they could help the community.  Their response was simple: Clean up the local alleyways that had been neglected by both the city and the community.  Chinatown’s historic alleyways are not considered public infrastructure, so the city would not take responsibility for their care; over time, they began to overflow with refuse and waste from the restaurants and businesses that filled the area.  Since traditional open space is limited, these students immediately saw an opportunity to improve the lives of their fellow citizens and went to work.

Students clean the alleyways. (Photo
by James Ng)

Fong’s inaugural group of eight Galloway High School students in the “Adopt-An-Alleyway Youth Empowerment Project”  started by grading the alleyways just as they were in school, with marks of A, B, C, D or F.  They worked to have a local newspaper publish the grades, alerting the public to the dire state of their own space.   Then they got to work: washing walls and roads and sweeping away dirt and debris. Soon the community took notice.  Individuals began walking the alleyways again and local restaurants that had been dumping oil and refuse into the alleys began to take care of their waste properly.

A few years later, Fong set up a meeting at the city’s department of public works bureau of street use and mapping to discuss the alleyways.  Although the city had spent the previous several decades dodging the work of cleaning these alleys, the amazing progress of the students could not be ignored. The city commissioned its own master plan allowing the students an opportunity to expand their work and partner with the local government. Jointly, Chinatown CDC and the student volunteers worked to develop a master plan for the city’s entire network of 41 alleyways, describing the current state and the work needed to make them a place the community could use again.  They went door to door visiting with local businesses and residents to make the case for their plan, and in 1998 the city adopted the guidelines authored by students.

Murals now beautify many of the alleyways.

The students’ master plan went beyond cleaning the alleyways to include initiatives to reduce illegal parking, improve pedestrian safety and access for the disabled, add green features and include more beautification efforts like murals.  Since adoption of the plan, five phases featuring the renovation of 11 alleyways have been completed.  The public space transformed by the work of these youth benefits the community overall, including more commerce for local businesses that rely on the millions of tourists who visit each year.

Beyond their work creating clean and safe public spaces the youths have also started a small business that leads tours of the alleys.

Fong believes that the youth of a community are more than the future, but also very much the present. “The youth know what needs to be done like everyone else, but they took on the responsibility to do it and the results speak for themselves,” he says.

Written by Jason Powers, national public affairs and communications adviser for NeighborWorks America.

Atlanta group helps homebuyers save ‘green’ with green housing

Whether housing is affordable is determined by so much more than its purchase price or monthly rent. High energy costs also can be a heavy financial burden on families whose incomes already are stretched. According to the national Green & Healthy Homes Initiative, low-income households typically spend 14 percent of their total income on energy costs, compared with 3.5 percent for other households.

Resources for Residents and Communities (RRC) in Atlanta, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a NeighborWorks network member this year, hopes to help homeowners reduce their costs by incorporating an array of green features in its new single-family development, Legacy Pointe.

Legacy Pointe will be a small subdivision within Atlanta’s Reynoldstown community consisting of eco-friendly, pre-fabricated homes for purchase.

“The uniqueness is the development will be mixed-income,” says Jill Arrington, CEO of RRC. “The [homes] that will be affordable will be held in a community land trust to keep them perpetually affordable.”

To earn its “eco-friendly” label, Legacy Pointe will feature energy-efficient LED lighting in the common areas, pervious concrete (highly porous material that allows precipitation to pass through and re-charge ground water levels) in the parking  lot and landscaping that requires very little watering.  Each home also will include separate lines for hot and cold water (thus reducing waste) and temperature controls that reduce reliance on the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system.

“We didn’t have to turn on the HVAC unit in our model home at all this summer,” Arrington says. “Even last winter, we never had to turn on the heat.”

The first model home in Legacy Pointe was assembled so
quickly it was like "magic."

With such features, it’s no wonder the Reynoldstown community is already abuzz about the new development.  Arrington recounts the day in 2010 that New World Home, a national green home builder and RRC’s partner in this effort, built the first house that inspired the idea of Legacy Pointe.

“They rolled everything in at 7 that morning, [put] the structure in place, and by 5 p.m. that day they locked it with a key,” recalls Arrington with a laugh. Reynoldstown residents were slightly surprised by a house that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.  “If you left early that morning, you saw a vacant lot.  So when you got home later that night and saw a house sitting there, it would have freaked you out.”

Reynoldstown, which sits less than 10 minutes east of downtown Atlanta, began experiencing growth in its housing market after RRC redeveloped the community in the late 1990s.  Mitchell Brown, RRC’s COO, notes that homes in the community are in high demand.

 “Reynoldstown is now one of the hottest neighborhoods in Atlanta. The average house is priced at $225,000 to $250,000, but they’re selling for around $300, 000,” he says.  “RRC has helped turn the neighborhood around to be a place where people want to live.”

Zach and Anastasia (shown with their daughter, Penelope)
purchased the first model home in Legacy Pointe.

This probably explains why the first model home for Legacy Pointe sold before the actual development is even complete.  The lucky homebuyer?  A client in RRC’s homebuyer education class.

 “The fact that we can provide a quality home for a relatively affordable price to clients in our homebuyer education classes is a win-win,” says Arrington.

As Reynoldstown continues to grow, RRC remains committed to ensuring its residents can stay in the community, in homes that are affordable.

“One of the goals of our founding CEO, Young Hughley Jr., was to provide units of permanent affordability,” explains Arrington. “Legacy Pointe is just one of the projects we have in the works to do this.”

Written by Constance Troutman, public relations specialist for NeighborWorks America.