There is scarce room for bystanders when there are neighborhoods to build, communities to shore up and scales of opportunity to balance.
Roderick Jones, the 38-year-old CEO of the Grace Hill Settlement House, has been on the job six months and is a proponent of equitable participation.
Jones said, “Fundamentally, I believe that we have to be careful about how we conduct ourselves in business to make sure that everybody can participate as equitably as possible.”
That means providing support for child care, Head Start, food/materials assistance, senior programs and neighbors helping neighbors.
“The nature of settlements is not a handout, it’s a hand up,” he said.
“It’s not just child care for child care’s sake, it’s how child care undergirds employment, and how housing works together with employment so that families are stable and grown and an active part of making change in the community.”
The Grace Hill Settlement House has a $15 million budget, 179 employees and 20 Americorps workers. Along with Grace Hill Community Health Centers, the 105-year-old organization stands as a significant employer in the city.
“Last year we had about 1,400 neighbors that provided services to other neighbors for 22,000 man hours. That’s almost a work force by itself, which we didn’t have to go out to funders to ask for money or get from individual donors,” Jones said.
Skip the “honeymoon period” for the new exec n Jones has already had to make some tough decisions.
“Some of that has meant staff restructuring, increasing the level of demand for output for staff, and really being aggressive about improving the quality of our services,” Jones said. “And unfortunately, this really comes at a time when our employees and their families and our neighbors are more stressed than they’ve been since the Depression.”
To improve service and stabilization for families and communities, the Settlement House is tightening in around a few 30,000 sq. ft. one-stop multi-service centers.
“We’ll focus on 30 blocks all and around their centers and be concentrated more so we can affect more of the outcomes that matter n mediating income, crime, the number of kids who graduate,” Jones said.
Four-fifths of the Settlement House budget is federal dollars. For Jones, that is too many eggs in one basket.
“Four-fifths from any one source is way too much,” Jones said. “One of my quick goals is to diversify this. That’s got to happen in my first year. It’s too risky.”
Brooklyn-born
Jones, a Brooklyn, N.Y. native, previously served as CEO of The Community Place of Greater Rochester, Inc. He has a master’s in public administration from Brockport College and a bachelor’s degree in economic crime investigation from Syracuse University. On January 5, he will defend his dissertation to earn his doctorate in education leadership from St. John Fisher College.
His wife Karen is a corporate diversity officer and they have three children, Kiara, a college sophomore, Rod, a high school freshman, and Payeton, an eighth grader.
Jones is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and has earned awards for his work and serves on several boards, including the National Healthy Start Association and United Neighborhood Centers of America.
Although Jones said the Settlement house has a few fairly active African Americans on its board, he aims to increase diversity on boards and on advisory councils not set by charter.
There are two endeavors used to groom leadership within the ranks of the Settlement House, Young Professionals and Windows in to Grace, which introduces participants to corporate settings and culture.
“Mentoring them through service and helping them understand the not-for-profit arena will net us a real gold mine, because it will dig up the other young people of color ultimately ready for leadership,” Jones said.
Jones is also a strong proponent of Downtown living and says its redevelopment may be St. Louis’ best chance at capturing or retaining some of its brain trust.
“I think Downtown is one of the shining symbols of hope of retaining young people, and young people of color,” Jones said.
“The people who have decided that they are going to make a unified life in partnership with other people have gone a long way to linking that whole corridor between Downtown to Pershing as a great place.”
Although Jones admits Missouri was not on his list of destination places when he was recruited to come to St. Louis, he was attracted by its potential, including dormant areas like North City.
He said, “I thought, ‘What an opportunity to make great things happen.’”
He certainly sees opportunity to make better things happen around the issue of race.
“St. Louis is very segregated—unlike any other city that I have been to n and it is race segregation even more than class,” Jones said.
“And for the number of African Americans that are here, I get concerned that there is an ongoing perpetuation of that level of separation.”
