Esther Shin has taken the helm of Urban Strategies Inc., a leading nonprofit agency for neighborhood revitalization, at a monumental time for St. Louis city.
Urban Strategies, based in downtown St. Louis, paved the way for the City of St. Louis to land a $29.5 million federal Choice Neighborhoods Implementation grant to transform the Near North Side. This seed money is expected to leverage more than $2.6 billion in other public, private and philanthropic support to revitalize a part of North city which has long been neglected – bringing new housing, infrastructure, economic opportunities and supportive services to the neighborhood.
The city’s Near North Side Choice Neighborhood Initiative encompasses Carr and Columbus Square neighborhoods, along with portions of Old North, St. Louis Place and the $1.75 billion Next National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) West intelligence new facility.
The strength that Urban Strategies brings to the table in this project is their ability to keep residents at the center, Shin said.
“Without strong community engagement, this is not going to work,” Shin said. “In five years from now, we want residents to be able to speak to how this has improved their lives. This is not an exercise in expending $29.5 million. We don’t want this to be a plan that sits on the shelf.”
One part of the transformation is revitalizing more than 340 subsidized housing units in Preservation Square. That means the families living in these units will be displaced for a time, and that’s where Urban Strategies comes in. They have already hired three case managers who will serve each household in Preservation Square – about 625 currently and that number will grow, Shin said.
“We obviously hope they come back,” Shin said. “If they choose to move into a different location, we will facilitate that.”
Last year, several families were forced out of their homes through eminent domain to make room for the NGA building, which will be just north of the former Pruitt-Igoe housing project footprint. While many residents in the Near North are optimistic about potential improvements, they are also unsure about how they can remain in the area with plans for high-cost housing, led by developer Paul McKee Jr., going up around them.
“We have not been involved in that [eminent domain] process, but we are really sensitive to it,” Shin said.
The Choice Neighborhoods grant is “not going to be a panacea,” she said. But she does have a message for families who have been once living in the north side and want to return.
“The volume of housing is going to increase and there are going to be affordable housing within the Choice neighborhoods area both on rental and home owning side,” Shin said.
They are also are partnering with the nonprofit development group Rise to offer affordable homeownership opportunities, as well as fix up existing homes. There’s $4.5 million budgeted for this work.
Getting results
On Jan 1, Shin became president of Urban Strategies, succeeding the group’s longtime leader Sandra Moore. Shin has been with the organization since 2000 and has served in several capacities. Urban Strategies has been involved in neighborhood revitalization efforts in 24 cities and more than 30 neighborhoods across the country, while serving more than 20,000 families.
Shin said the group has been a national leader in their field, particularly around serving low-income families.
“I think what we’ve done a great job of stabilizing communities,” Shin said. “What I would like to focus on is not just stabilizing households and families, but also move them towards thriving.”
She said it’s great when a community transforms and there’s brand new housing and landscaping.
“But if inside that household, that family is still making less than $10,000 a year, then the family is stable but not really thriving,” Shin said. “That’s where I’m really focusing on in terms of the programmatic work.”
In her 17 years of experience at Urban, she said they have looked at results in terms of “counting the number of bodies” that earn employment or go to job training or enroll their children in an enrichment program. Shin’s goal as president is to re-envision the “results framework.”
The trick is to balance between “tailoring and standardizing” practices in each of the communities where they work. What they can bring into every community is financial empowerment, she said.
“Not just financial literacy but financial empowerment,” Shin said.
That means making sure families are increasing credit scores by 100 points and getting one-on-one financial coaching, she said.
Years ago, Urban Strategies led the application process and was the grantee for a federal Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant. Without this, the city couldn’t have applied for the implementation grant for the Near North Side.
There are about 11,800 people living in the Near North Side – 966 residents live in the Preservation Square multifamily housing development, according to the Near North Side Transformation Plan. About 82 percent of them are black and 31.6 percent are children. Shin said that the “race equity piece” is critical to Urban’s work.
“Many of the families we serve are people of color – and that’s not by accident,” Shin said. “The system in place doesn’t favor the families we serve. I’ve been really trying to elevate that in discussions. The system is what it is for a reason.”
