Nonprofit Aims to Rebuild South St. Louis Neighborhoods One House at a Time
Date Posted: December 15, 2019
Posted In: Organizations, Projects,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The Estrada-Mendoza family wanted the first holiday in their new home to be memorable. So, for Thanksgiving this year, the family of six roasted a turkey and a ham. They said grace around a steam pan full of green beans, a mountain of stuffing, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream.
At this time last year, Maria Aguilar-Bernal and Dany Estrada-Mendoza were searching for a way to get their children — three girls and a boy, ages 5 to 18 — out of their tiny Dutchtown apartment and into a home of their own.
“It’s an American dream,” said Estrada-Mendoza, a forklift operator who immigrated with his wife to the United States from Mexico 18 years ago. “You get your house, you give your kids an education.”
But their budget was tight. Nothing was panning out.
Then they heard about a place just a few blocks away on South Grand Boulevard. It had fallen into disrepair, but landed in good hands: the St. Joseph Housing Initiative. The faith-based nonprofit has begun buying and renovating run-down homes in and around the Dutchtown neighborhood, aiming to change the trajectory of St. Louis families and revitalize neighborhoods, one homeowner at a time.
More than one-fourth of Missouri’s low-income families can’t find an affordable home, according to data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. In St. Louis, the deficit is even bigger — there are only 70 affordable homes for every 100 households.
Though the rooms were unfinished when Maria Aguilar-Bernal and her husband Dany Estrada-Mendoza toured the house on South Grand on the edge of Dutchtown, they knew it was the one they would buy. The couple purchased their first home at the edge of Dutchtown with help from the St. Joseph Housing Initiative. Photo by Robert Cohen, rcohen@post-dispatch.com.
Several local agencies are targeting the Dutchtown area with low-income rental units, down-payment assistance and financial literacy courses, among other programs. They see a corridor of the city dense with residents, full of good housing stock, and near up-and-coming neighborhoods.
St. Joseph’s, one of the newest and smallest of those groups, started last year, focusing on an area anchored by St. Mary’s High School and five Catholic parishes.
In July, the Estrada-Mendozas became St. Joseph’s first homebuyers.
“This is a vibrant area, but we want to make sure the neighborhoods are stabilized,” said Bridget Flood, the executive director of Incarnate Word Foundation, a religious ministry with an anti-poverty mission.
Flood, along with St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson, founded St. Joseph’s two years ago. They were in a meeting, discussing the Ferguson Commission’s report, which includes a section on “optimizing existing housing support.”
“You ought to think about doing houses,” the archbishop told her.
It was just the opening she had been waiting for. Flood pulled a map out of her bag. She had already outlined an area, loosely bracketed from east to west by Broadway and Gravois Avenue, and from north to south by Meramec and Bates streets.
It is one of the most densely populated parts of the city, with a high concentration of young people. And it’s diverse: In Dutchtown, the nexus of St. Joseph’s focus area, about a quarter of residents are white. Half are black, and 11% are Hispanic.