Invest STL Pilot Program focused on keeping residents Rooted in the community
“This is not just a dream or something that is so far away that you can’t reach. This is happening in our community and it’s happening with people that are here.” – Star Stinson, West End resident and Rooted participant. Watch the Fox 2 story to learn more about Rooted: Cultivating Black Wealth in Place and how the new initiative from Invest STL is supporting residents’ ability to stay and grow in the place they call home.
Rooted initiative provides 20K to some city residents
The Rooted initiative hopes to create “a multi-generational approach to wealth building” by providing $20,000 to 50 participants that live in the city’s West End or Visitation Park neighborhoods who applied and qualified for the grant. Each participant will have access to free services including financial planning, credit counseling, and estate planning. Click here to read the whole article from the St. Louis American.
Can Wealth-Building Programs Both Prevent Displacement and Narrow the Racial Wealth Gap?
In recent years, the West End and Visitation Park neighborhoods of St. Louis have begun to see signs of gentrification. These historically Black communities are experiencing increased economic investment, rising rent and housing prices, and a growing white and higher-income population. Absent any intervention, these forces of economic development and chance could displace long-time Black residents.
However, one nonprofit community development intermediary and funder in St. Louis, Missouri, Invest STL, is piloting Rooted, Cultivating Black Wealth in Place, an initiative aimed at combating displacement in two historically Black neighborhoods. The Urban Institute is evaluating the program to assess its impact on displacement risk and wealth building. The analysis will also uncover financial planners’ role in helping beneficiaries pursue these outcomes. And if this pilot is successful, scaling it could help address the racial wealth gap more broadly. Click her to read the whole story from the Urban Institute’s blog Urban Wire.
To strengthen north St. Louis neighborhoods, program gives 50 families $20,000 each
“We entered this program to keep our home for our family,” Darius Franklin said. “We didn’t enter this program just so we could fix it up, make it look nice and get a check. This house is more than just monetary value to us.”
The 1906 home in the West End is owned by his grandfather and is home to multiple generations of family who see Rooted as an opportunity to protect and build upon their assets, to ensure that future generations can benefit from their family’s legacy and remain in their home on Oakley Place.
Rooted: Cultivating Black Wealth in Place is a new initiative developed through Invest STL’s work in policy design, activating and testing innovative approaches to longstanding challenges neighborhoods and residents face. Rooted is focused on helping West End and Visitation Park residents build wealth so that they can afford to stay and grow in their neighborhood. To learn more about Rooted and see pictures of the neighborhoods check out this article from STL Today – St. Louis Post-Dispatch, click here.
West End + Visitation Park Resident-led Neighborhood Plan Receives International Chart Award
WeCollab has been awarded the Congress for New Urbanism International Charter Award. WeCollab is a resident-led collaborative in the West End and Visitation Park neighborhoods, on the western edge of the city north of Forest Park and Delmar Blvd. Their top priority for the West End Plan is to ensure that it spurs equitable investment and action in the area.
Recognized for their authentic commitment to resident-led planning and supported by a community of partners including Invest STL, the City of St. Louis, Cornerstone Corporation, YARD & Company, @Acess, Lochmueller Group, BlackArc, and Vector Communications, WeCollab developed a focused yet comprehensive plan for the neighborhoods of the West End and Visitation Park.
The residents wrote the request for proposals, selected the consultant, managed the budget, and made decisions. Community members were compensated as part of the team and produced an engagement process, with more than 40 pop-up events in addition to standard community meetings. The jury noted, “This plan is likely to be executed because it was developed from within the community”.
Read the whole article from the Congress for New Urbanism at Public Square:
https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2023/05/08/community-led-plan-bottom-revitalization