Each neighborhood had a different racial and economic makeup. The Compton Heights neighborhood was the most middle-class area we served. Comprised primarily of white, middle and upper middle-class people, some low-income families found affordable rental housing on its outskirts and were able to move into a stable, safe neighborhood. We served several people with AIDS in this area. People lost their jobs because of the illness. They could not afford their mortgages or utilities. They asked for help as they waited for other types of income to begin.
Forest Park Southeast was the neighborhood where our offices were located. This neighborhood was very strange in terms of its politics. Most people in the area were low income. 60% of the neighborhood was African American. One section of the neighborhood was an area where a number of middle-class white families had settled. They thought of this as “their neighborhood”. Other residents had the same feelings. The differences in race and income created disconnection. This caused the neighborhood to become stagnant in its development.
Washington University Medical Center’s campus was just across Interstate Highway 64 from the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood. Washington University was very interested in how the people in this neighborhood affected the safety of the students and personnel on their campus. In the mid-90’s, the campus security office sent a letter to students and employees which warned them about parking. The letter told of safety concerns in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood and warned people not to park in that area. Later, Washington University Medical Redevelopment Corporation was placed in this neighborhood to facilitate changes benefiting the medical school and hospital campus.
The Fox Park neighborhood was on the far eastern end of our service area. It was a stable neighborhood made up of low and moderate income African American families who lived in affordable housing. Some of the housing was subsidized through Section 8, and the local public housing agency. I did a social work practicum in this neighborhood working on business and housing development. Very few buildings were unoccupied and fewer boarded over, in contrast to most of the other neighborhoods. The neighborhood association and Community Development Corporation worked to keep housing affordable.
The Gate District was a neighborhood of ongoing redevelopment. The Section 8 senior and family housing I formerly managed was in this neighborhood. There were moderate income homes, townhouses and condominiums. The neighborhood was filled with vacant lots for 15 years before this new housing was built. On the west end of this neighborhood St. Louis University’s Midtown Medical Redevelopment Corporation was continuing to buy up property to expand the university’s south campus. The demographics were African American people with low, moderate and middle-class incomes. This was a neighborhood where low income residents were displaced to build homes affordable to first time homebuyers. Although I agreed with the need for homes for people with incomes under the median, I did not agree or support the displacement of lower income families to make it happen.
McRee Town was one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city of St. Louis. It had been cut off from its original neighborhood when the interstate highway was built. It was surrounded by industrial parks, railroad tracks, the highway and a redeveloped low/moderate-income area. It was a place of last resort for low income families who might only have to pay the first month’s rent to move there—often no deposit was required. Women fleeing abuse, people evicted from other apartments and families wanting to move where they could afford the low rent came to this neighborhood. Absentee landlords owned most of the property. A management company, located in the Gate District neighborhood, owned a good deal of property. This company tried to create decent, affordable housing for low-income families. However, they were not very good at working with the families who lived in their apartments.
McRee Town had the only gang activity I experienced in our service area. One gang had split into two opposing groups. Sometimes, they would shoot at each other from opposite ends of McRee Ave. We would hear shots during the day time when we were delivering furniture to families. The surrounding neighborhoods blamed all of the crime and other problems in their neighborhoods on the people in McRee Town. Before its redevelopment, teens who came to our programs called it the “Dark Side” because all the street lights were out and the city never replaced them. 98% of the families living in this neighborhood were low-income and African American. Almost all of the families living in McRee Town had nothing to do with the violence and decay in their neighborhood.
The Shaw neighborhood was nearly evenly divided between middle/upper-middle-class white and low- income African American families. The white folks often told people how they lived in a “diverse” neighborhood. Most people did not relate to neighbors who were different. The white people in this area did not like African Americans sitting out on their front porches or washing their cars on the street. The people in Shaw blamed residents of McRee Town for any crime in their neighborhood.
I lived in the Shaw neighborhood for 19 years while I worked at MIDTOWN. I would often see neighbors who came to MIDTOWN walking down the street or on their porches. At Halloween, this neighborhood filled with children from all over mid-city. Parents knew residents could afford to pass out candy and it was safe.
The Southwest Garden neighborhood was just west of Shaw. It bordered the Missouri Botanical Garden on two sides. The fourth side of the neighborhood was a great city park called Tower Grove. This neighborhood was filled with rental housing. Homeowners lived on its north and south sides. Housing was in decent condition, although there were signs some properties were not being maintained by absentee landlords. It was a majority African American neighborhood. Most of the homeowners were white. The small group of middle-class families and their homes were on blocks separated from the low-to-moderate-income renters.
Tiffany was the neighborhood east of McRee Town. It was south of Cardinal Glennon Children’s and St. Louis University hospitals. It was developed responsibly by the Midtown Medical Redevelopment Corporation of St. Louis University. The people living in Tiffany had to move for the development to happen. When it was finished these same people were given first priority to return to new Section 8 housing. There were two and four family flats and larger buildings housing 8 or more families. People in this neighborhood would pay 30% of their income under the section 8 program, while people across the street in McRee Town, paid more than 50% of their income to rent much lower quality housing. Almost all of the residents of Tiffany were low- and moderate-income African Americans.
OUR FINANCES
Because I managed our finances well, income and expenses were almost always in balance. I prepared the budget for the first 20 years I was at the agency. The budget was included as part of our parent organization’s budget, but managed separately. I made certain we had multiple streams of funding. This included many grants from foundations and corporations. Grants were usually for specific programs or services. For example, one foundation provided a grant of $300,000 which allowed staff to evaluate how low-income families cope. We hoped to find evidence of what allowed some families with the same income to seem better off than others. We wanted to prove which issues related to poverty or family dynamics kept this from happening. At a foundation meeting where we were requesting other funding, the foundation Director who had approved the large grant, told the group considering our application, “They always have great outcomes”.
I prepared two mail solicitations per year—for Summer Day Camp scholarships and a Holiday Appeal. The former was dedicated to one of our larger annual programs, Summer Academy Day Camp. The other was an open appeal for support from donors during the holiday season. The Christmas “gifts” had no restriction as to how they could be spent. The scholarships were used to subsidize the cost of day camp for families. There were also several events and fundraisers each year. For more