New credit program looks to revitalize tough south St. Louis neighborhoods, one homeowner at a time
Date Posted: December 4, 2019
Posted In: News, Organizations,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: For two years, community development organizations worked to help residents of three southeast city neighborhoods lay out a plan for their community’s future.
Now a financial services nonprofit, Prosperity Connection, is taking another step: Backed by credit-rating agency Equifax, Prosperity is aiming to boost the credit scores of the residents who make up some of the city’s most densely populated neighborhoods — northeast Dutchtown, Gravois Park and Benton Park West — and reinvigorate the area, one homeowner at a time.
“We want residents to really own the process of lifting up their community,” said Amanda Colón-Smith, executive director of the Dutchtown South Community Corporation, which led the development of the neighborhood plan adopted by the city last year.
Credit counseling is not new, and Prosperity Connection has been around for a decade. But the neighborhood approach to financial empowerment is relatively novel, modeled after a similar effort launched in 2017 in South Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood.
And the idea could change south St. Louis.
Much of city’s south side has stabilized, new investment reinvigorating many neighborhoods. Southeast city neighborhoods, however — known for several streets, some violent and rundown, named after U.S. states — have not seen the same level of attention. Some 39% of households in that area live in poverty.
Yet they’re some of the most densely populated and diverse areas of the city, and around 40% of residents in the area are children. Increasingly surrounded by strengthening neighborhoods, they could be well-poised to see the flow of investment increase in coming years.