Midland States Bank and Invest STL, a regional community-development initiative, are doing an experiment. They want to see what a little seed money from a private bank can do to accelerate neighborhood revitalization in the St. Louis region.
On March 9, Midland States Bank gave out five $10,000 checks to neighborhood and community organizations for their projects, which included new affordable-housing construction, home-repair programs and intensive financial literacy services. If these pilot projects do well, then Invest STL hopes to use these successes to launch its campaign to raise $3 million by June and fund similar projects across the region. Invest STL is an initiative at the St. Louis Community Foundation and is a collaboration born out of conversations between banks and community development corporations.
“For us, it was a chance to look at strategically investing dollars in a concept that we truly believe in,” said David Noble, a community development officer at Midland States Bank. “The only way to test it was to actually do it.”
The award ceremony for the grant recipients took place at the Northside Community Housing Inc. office in North City, where the recipients spoke briefly about their projects.
Cornerstone, an organization that provides affordable housing, will put the money towards covering a portion of $100,000 in development costs for acquisition and rehab of a house on the 6000 block of Suburban in the city’s West End neighborhood. The group already has 11 properties and a total of 29 rental units.
The newest property will allow them to house two more families. The group has been able to house a homeless single mother caring for six children, as well as Syrian refugees with no other place to go.
“Why we are very important is because we literally provide housing opportunities to families who would probably be undesirable to anyone else,” said Keaira Anderson, Cornerstone’s executive director.
National Housing Support Corporation, which focuses on revitalizing neighborhoods, will use the funding to cover a portion of a proposed $60,000 neighborhood planning project in the College Hill neighborhood. Part of the plan includes new construction, but the group didn’t believe the plan would be successful without a crime-prevention program, said Fred Kimbrough, the corporation’s director of projects and lending.
For the past few years, the group has worked with neighborhood leaders, the 6th District police station and service providers to change the trajectory of crime in the area.
“There has not been a murder in the College Hill neighborhood in more than 16 months,” Kimbrough said. “In order for us to really revitalize this neighborhood, we knew that we had to reduce crime. Because if you don’t do that, who is going to want to buy a new house?”
Community Renewal and Development Inc. will use the funds to cover a portion of the administrative costs for managing a $1,510,000 home repair and down payment assistance program. It will be part of the city’s Choice Neighborhoods initiative in near North St. Louis, which includes the upcoming National Geospatial Agency facility.
“A lot of the existing neighbors who have stayed in the neighborhood through decades of disinvestment have said, ‘What about us? How will Choice Neighborhoods benefit us?’” said Sal Martinez, executive director of Community Renewal and Development. “We are very excited that there will be home repair dollars to assist those families.”
The seed money will help Northside Community Housing, Inc. run a $15,000 financial counseling and shared savings program for residents in their housing development who want to go from renting to owning a home. Northside Community Housing has worked in the historic Ville neighborhood in St. Louis city for 40 years.
From executive director Jessica Eiland’s experience, the biggest need for residents to become homeowners was education around credit and building credit, she said. While they do offer classes for the residents, the funding will help them go a step further in helping people navigate through the “nitty gritty process” of building credit, Eiland said.
Spanish Lake CDC, a community development nonprofit, will use the funds to seed a revolving acquisition fund for the organization’s affordable housing development program. Executive director Angela Pinex said the nonprofit is still in its “infancy stage.”
“The core of what our residents view as community development is being able to take back control of our housing stock,” Pinex said.
The community wants to preserve their “awesome housing style,” and in order to do that, they need to be able to complete with investors.
The partnership between Midland States Bank and Invest STL began in 2016 when the bank supported the Community Builders Network of Metro St. Louis, Rise Community Development, and the St. Louis Community Foundation to run a capacity-building initiative for community development nonprofits and lenders. The seed money initiative built off that program, and Invest STL aims to work with other banks in the same way.
Invest STL is built upon banks, community organizations and good thought leadership, said Bob Herleth, director of Invest STL.
He said, “The big idea represents maybe another evolution of community development, where philanthropy can be organized to help stimulate community revitalization in the region and work with all the players who exist today.”
