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6
*
Expand Homeownership
and Affordable Housing Opportunities
*
Empower the Poor through
Resident Management and Homesteading
*
Enforce Fair Housing for All
*
Help Make Public Housing Drug Free
*
Help End the Tragedy of Homelessness
*
Create Jobs and Economic
Development through Enterprise Zones
*
Expand Homeownership
and Affordable Housing Opportunities
*
Empower the Poor through
Resident Management and Homesteading
*
Enforce Fair Housing for All
*
Help Make Public Housing Drug Free
U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development
*
Help End the Tragedy of Homelessness
*
Create Jobs and Economic
Development through Enterprise Zones
*
Expand Homeownership
and Affordable Housing Opportunities
*
Empower the Poor through
Resident Management and Homesteading
*
Enforce Fair Housing for All
*
Help Make Public Housing Drug Free
*
Help End the Tragedy of Homelessness
*
Create Jobs and Economic
Development through Enterprise Zones
*
Expand Homeownership
and Affordable Housing Opportunities
Jack Kemp
Cochran Gardens
St. Louis, Missouri
Vital Statistics: Constructed in 1952; high-rise, 704 units,
3,250 residents; management contract negotiated in 1976
The Cochran Gardens Tenant Management Corporation, born
out of a rent strike to protest slum conditions, is a classic example
of how a previously untapped source of limitless talent and imagi-
nation can bring a community back to life. A wide array of self-help
social programs and a succession of bold economic schemes that put
people to work changed the attitudes and behavior of a community
pushed into near-oblivion by years of managerial neglect and dis-
interest.
In November 1969, the St. Louis Housing Authority (SHA) com-
mitted a final outrage by raising rents at Cochran Gardens. Resi-
dents who had been living in an atmosphere that perpetuated violent
crime, prostitution, drugs, and other negatives that caused fear,
frustration, and resentment, finally rebelled. A year-long rent strike
ensued that resulted in the drastic reduction of the housing au-
thority's control over Cochran Garden policy and operations. An
elected on-site Tenant Affairs Board was created that could appoint
two of its members to the SHA Board of Commissioners. These ap-
pointees had the power to veto the selection of others on the board
if it was felt the individual would not promote the interests of public
housing residents.
Concurrent with this power gain, during the period from 1969
to 1975, a private, community-based management corporation was
administering on-the-job management training to Cochran Gardens
residents whose organizational expertise made the rent strike suc-
cessful. Residents learned about rent collection, tenant selection,
lease and grievance procedures, maintenance and custodial require-
ments, and security. At the time a management contract was ne-
gotiated in 1976, a resident management team was already in place
and ready to function.
Cochran Gardens never looked back. It established a five-person
board of directors, electable every three years. The board makes
policy; provides planning direction; and oversees all management
programs, including personnel employment, social services, and ten-
ant complaints. Each board member chairs one of five resident man-
agement committees-maintenance, security, social services,
recreation, and economic development.
47
Wasting no time in tackling their problems, the resident man-
In 1986, the Cochran Gardens TMC was awarded a contract for
agers tapped into training programs that were utilized for providing
the installation of cable television equipment into the homes of pub-
employment opportunities for the community's hard-core unem-
lic housing residents citywide.
ployed youths.
In late 1987, plans were initiated for Cochran TMC to become
As trained, skilled workers, young men and women were hired
a 50 percent owner of a shopping mall adjacent to the Cochran
to renovate the same unoccupied apartments many of them had
Gardens complex. It will contain 20 to 25 business establishments
broken into and vandalized when they were aimless and without
that will include a supermarket, restaurant, dry cleaner, movie thea-
direction. After inheriting some 250 vandalized vacant apartments,
ter, drugstore, hardware store, and a beauty shop.
Cochran TMC, through its efforts with these youngsters, was able
Cochran Gardens, in a relatively short period of time, has be-
to renovate and rent 150 vacant units within its first year of oper-
come a community that generates jobs, businesses, talent, creative
ation.
ideas, and a solid home-base for residents who have begun to lead
Involving the young also resulted in the design and building of
productive lives.
the Malcolm X Community Center, which sponsors athletic events,
talent shows, field trips, and employment-related activities. Its fa-
cilities include a gymnasium, boxing facilities, and meeting rooms.
A successful day care program is also operated at the facility.
Economic development is the primary driving force and the
major funding source for program growth at Cochran Gardens. Busi-
ness enterprises established by the Cochran Gardens resident man-
agers have resulted in 330 new jobs for community residents.
In 1978, the city's Community Development Agency provided
a block grant for Cochran TMC to develop a comprehensive reha-
bilitation and modernization plan. The plan was eventually funded
by a $21 million HUD renovation grant, which opened the door to
private sector joint ventures in real estate activities.
Cochran's first joint venture, with McCormack, Baron and As-
sociates, involved the construction of 675 units of low and moderate
income housing units. A second project, Cochran Plaza, established
100 new units of low-rise housing. A third project converted an old
school building into a 40 unit complex for senior citizens.
As part of its welfare reform "back-to-work" package, Cochran
has created a janitorial company employing 45 former welfare re-
cipients and a catering company that is responsible for providing
650 meals a day to a large number of the city's senior citizens
Another component of the Cochran welfare reform program will be
the establishment of a factory to train and employ 300 welfare re
cipients. Cochran TMC is negotiating with the State of Missouri to
purchase the factory while Cochran residents will renovate it as
?
part of a women's employment training effort. The Cochran Gardens
TMC is also negotiating production contracts with three major na.
tional industries.
48
Profile of Carr Square Village
Tenant Management Corporation
St. Louis, Missouri
Carr Square Village was the first public housing development in St.
Louis, built in 1942. It is comprised of 658 units of low-rise townhouses.
The leadership of Carr Square along with Cochran Gardens in St. Louis
served as the initial catalyst for the then unprecedented public housing rent
strike in 1969 due to deplorable living conditions at the sites. The rent
strike and subsequent tenant organizing activities ultimately resulted in the
creation of a tenant management program in March, 1983, which was supported by
the Ford Foundation and the housing authority.
As a result, Cochran TMC and the housing authority jointly developed new
rental and occupancy policies, several new leases, a tenant security program,
a Title XX Social Services Program, several T.P.P. and Modernization Programs.
Residents have developed rules and regulations that are regularly enforced by
the TMC staff and its five member board of directors.
Board members are elected by the residents of Carr Square, 16 years and
older, in staggered terms every three years. The board of directors are
responsible for all contracts pertaining to Carr Square, and maintain opera-
tional functions in four areas: maintenance, social services, security and
development.
The experience of Carr Square TMC suggests that residents will respond
affirmatively to self-imposed standards, once the process of developing and
enforcing those standards is created by the residents themselves. The quality
of life in the development is much improved, and vandalism has substantially
decreased along with the rate of serious crimes.
Carr Square Tenant Management Corporation has developed and sponsored a
variety of social, educational, recreational and employment programs to in-
crease the effectiveness of resident management efforts. New programs which
have been created include: Mary McElroy Day Care Center, In-Home Service
Program (staff trained by St. Louis Comprehensive Health Center), and an on-
site recreational room (open from 5:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily). Through the
Carr Square Youth Community Conservation Improvement Project, the TMC received
HUD demonstration funding to train 193 youth in carpentry, painting and
landscaping. Tenant management experience at Carr Square suggests that the
"hard" and "soft" aspects of management and community development must be in-
tegrated with social services to effectively upgrade the quality of life
within public housing.
The housing and community development programs of the TMC represent a
significant expansion of TMC organizational development. Carr Square has par-
ticipated as a co-developer of 810 units of new low and moderate income hous-
ing provision with the Cochran Tenant Management Corporation.
Home Spr.
FROM THE FRONT LINES
From
the
st. louis
front
Cochran Gardens Tenant Man-
modernization plan, which was later
agement Corporation
funded by a $21 million renovation
lines:
Self-help social programs and busi-
grant from HUD.
ness ventures have reformed atti-
These funds opened the door to
tudes and united this community.
other real estate opportunities, in-
Cochran Gardens Tenant Manage-
cluding ownership or investment in:
"From the Front Lines' is a
ment Corporation (TMC) is an ex-
regular feature of Home Front
cellent example of what cooperation,
Construction of 675 low- and
It highlights efforts of PHAS and
hard work, and determination can do
moderate-income housing units.
resident groups around the
for a community.
Cochran Plaza, made up of 100
country 10 fight drugs and
In 1976, the Cochran Gardens TMC
low-rise housing units.
improve the quality of life in
was incorporated and assumed man-
Conversion of an old school
public and assisted housing
agement responsibilities from the St.
building into a 40-unit complex for
This edition features programs
Louis Housing Authority. For the
senior citizens.
in the District of Columbia
previous 6 years, residents had
St Louis, Missouri, and
honed their management skills by
A 25-store shopping mall to be
Chicago, Illinois
working with the housing authority
built adjacent to the original neigh-
and a private management company
borhood.
in on-the-job training.
These and other economic develop-
By the time it assumed control, the
ment projects aimed at keeping the
Who is
TMC Board of Directors had set firm
community safe and drug-free by
goals and was ready to work on its
redirecting residents' lives have
making a
top priorities-ridding the neighbor-
created more than 300 jobs, each
hood of drugs and drug-related crime
filled by a former welfare recipient.
difference
and creating job opportunities for
Current business ventures include:
residents. The directors felt these
in your
goals could be met simultaneously
Daycare centers, located within
and identified job training opportuni-
the community and staffed by 75
ties for the community's unem-
residents.
community?
ployed young people. Most were
A catering business that delivers
placed in construction trades and
nearly 700 meals to senior citizens.
began rehabilitating the commu-
Do you know someone
nity's 250 vacant apartments-the
Housing management services
whose volunteer activities
same apartments they had previously
contracting to provide management
have made a difference in
vandalized. By 1978, the crew had
services to Cochran Gardens and
his or her public or assisted
refurbished 150 of these apartments,
other PHA facilities.
housing community? If so,
and the TMC was able to rent them
we would like to hear from
out to families.
Property development.
you so we can recognize
Cable TV installation.
With this success, the TMC moved
their hard work. Please
on to other economic development
For more information on Cochran
send names, along with a
options, largely focusing on property
Gardens Tenant Management Cor-
brief description of what
dévelopment. In 1978, Cochran Gar-
poration, contact Bertha Gilkey,
the person has done, to:
dens received a Community Devel-
Chairperson, Cochran Gardens Ten-
opment Block Grant from the St.
ant Management Corporation, 1112
HUD Drug Information &
Louis Housing Authority to develop
North Ninth Street, St. Louis, MO
Strategy Clearinghouse,
a comprehensive rehabilitation and
63101.
P.O. Box 6424, Rockville,
MD 20850.
THE NCNE ST. LOUIS TOUR:
"GATEWAY TO HOPE"
By Robert L. Woodson
President, National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise
On a Sunday evening three years ago, millions of
Americans viewing "60 Minutes" witnessed the miracle of
Cochran Gardens in St. Louis. The segment, appropriately titled
"Tenant Power," depicted the phoenix-like rise of a public
housing project once the equal in squalor and crime of the
infamous Pruitt-Igoe development, which stood just 10 blocks
away on the city's near North Side before its widely publicized
demolition became a national symbol of the crisis in public
housing.
Cochran was slated for removal from the urban war zone
in much the same way. Residents recall that the main building
was dubbed "Little "Nam," as gangs roamed freely and
terrorized residents; snipers perched on the upper floors fired
at pedestrians; drug sales flourished in illegally occupied rooms;
and vandalism was so rampant that the authorities even balked
at installing a coin laundry.
When stop signs around Cochran were removed to
protect motorists at the expense of the lives of playing children
and other residents of the area, the nightmare of living in a
Housing Authority-run property that had become blacker and
poorer through the years was laid bare. It was said that even
the police avoided the project except with guns drawn in hot
pursuit. But while agency officials were getting the dynamite
ready, one woman who had lived in Cochran since childhood
served notice that she and other concerned tenants were not
about to roll over and join Pruitt-Igoe as a public housing
statistic.
The "miracle worker" at Cochran was Bertha Gilkey, a
feisty, flamboyant mother of two. For over a decade, Bertha
has headed the Cochran Tenant Management Corp., which
earns its substantial yearly management fee from the Housing
Authority by consistently maintaining uncompromising standards
and the stability of the complex. Her dynamic grassroots
leadership was also the catalyst for the $27 million federal
rehab grant which handily fulfilled her lifelong dream of
transforming the 800-unit complex into "a neighborhood, not
a project" for all of its residents, including her own family.
3
But Bertha Gilkey's dream of self-sufficiency for her
community does not end there. Plans for tenant purchase of
Cochran under special federal legislation are on the drawing
board. And Bertha's group promotes economic empowerment
by operating successful community-wide enterprises including
a catering service, daycare centers, a cable television installation
service for low-income neighborhoods, a reverse commute
transportation service for workers, and a limited partnership in
several private housing complexes nearby.
Bertha's innovative Cochran Gardens People's Factory
is being developed to provide training and at least 300 jobs in
manufacturing, construction and computer work for unemployed
residents. A full plate, to be sure, but typical of the response of
grassroots leaders to the needs of the community that they
know best -- their own.
The media exposure given to the Cochran Gardens story
on the network telecast was particularly gratifying for those of
us at the National Center. In our ongoing efforts to identify and
lend technical assistance to local self-help groups pursuing
enterprise development, we fought vigorously for the resident
management concept in the urban public housing trenches
alongside courageous activists including Bertha and Loretta
Hall of Carr Square Village in St. Louis and Kimi Gray of
Kenilworth-Parkside in Washington, D.C.
But the viability of resident management rising out of
strong grassroots leadership -- as confirmed initially by the
successes in these two cities -- was winning powerful converts
even before the "60 Minutes" coup. Among them was Rep. Jack
Kemp, then an influential Congressman from New York. When
Kemp was later named Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development, he brought his sensitivity to the strengths of
indigenous leadership in public housing management, ownership
and economic empowerment to the Department and to the
Administration.
As the Secretary acknowledged in his address last March
to the National Convention on Resident Management and
Urban Homesteading, the desire to control their own destinies
exemplified by the efforts of Bertha Gilkey, Loretta Hall, Kimi
Gray and Mildred Hailey, among others, "reminds us of what
America was meant to be."
So it is particularly appropriate that St. Louis -- the base
of operation of two of the outstanding public housing activists
4
cited by Secretary Kemp -- has been chosen to inaugurate a
three-city national tour sponsored by the National Center to
spotlight community-based implementation of President Bush's
HOPE (Homeownership and Opportunity for People
Everywhere) initiative. It expands upon the comprehensive
agency reforms introduced by the Secretary last October. There
are few, if any, urban areas which offer more compelling
examples of grassroots-led efforts consistent with HOPE's
housing and inner city job creation strategy than this heartland
city whose majestic arch symbolizes its historic role as the
"Gateway to the West."
The American tradition of boldly proceeding to new
frontiers of independence and self-sufficiency are indeed alive
and well today in Cochran Gardens and Carr Square Village.
I encourage each of the tour participants to absorb fully the
myth-shattering reality of what has been accomplished because
it is the cornerstone of a new strategy to combat poverty.
At Cochran, for example, the capacity of poor people
to move beyond the shackles of social service client dependency
to self-management and economic empowerment has been
demonstrated impressively. Here is a textbook case of what
grassroots people in a disinvested community can achieve if
given the opportunity and resources (e.g., incentives,
information, capital, and technical assistance) to control their
own lives. Cochran is also a classic example of how public and
private sector partnerships can be forged successfully.
In the past, we believed and acted upon the principle
that if the system were changed, people will respond. A greater
influx of money became the panacea for all urban ills, including
public housing, even when the evidence clearly showed that
spending on people whose attitudes are not rehabilitated is of
no consequence. As Bertha Gilkey explained to Morley Safer
on "60 Minutes," "We changed the thinking of the people," and
in the process, kindled in them the belief that they could
achieve and take advantage of the available opportunities.
Item: American business will continue to require a
disciplined workforce if it is to compete successfully in the
world economy. Increasingly, workers will be drawn from groups
in crisis such as public housing residents. Cochran/HOPE offers
a comprehensive solution.
In addition to having been cited by an influential
national publication as "a showcase of urban ingenuity,"
Cochran enjoys a distinction shared by few, if any, public
5
housing developments: the presence of market rate housing in
the immediate vicinity. A major supermarket chain, too, has
displayed its confidence in the stability of the area by opening
up a store next to Cochran after others had moved out because
of the high crime rate.
The NCNE tour will also provide an opportunity for
participants to observe firsthand the stark contrast between the
legacy of the Public Housing Authority-managed past and the
resident-managed future. At Darst Webbe, a decaying high-
rise complex in a St. Louis slum, the cumulative effect of
decades of poor maintenance and management are dramatically
illustrated. It is typical of the PHA's pattern of neglect, which
exacts a human toll in the "spiral of decline," where the
individual abandons his self-respect and dignity. Neither PHA
contractors nor managers are responsive to residents, who
become dispirited because their needs are constantly submerged
into the priorities of others.
But the calculus of the downward spiral is changed when
residents are given the opportunity to improve themselves and
the quality of their lives. As it turns upward, you get more of
what you reward; less of what you punish. Community
improvement is thus a response/reward for changed behavior.
Like the HOPE initiative, the concepts of
homeownership and economic empowerment implemented so
successfully at Cochran Gardens and other resident
management corporations, including Carr Square Village, were
developed from the bottom up, as opposed to the top down.
When you plant seeds of HOPE by encouraging low-
income people to take the self-help route and provide the
resources to mobilize and reward their efforts, the results are
bound to be positive. Cochran/HOPE is indeed a microcosm
of these exciting possibilities -- a prototype of what can happen
when we change our mindsets and approaches to dealing with
poor people and maximize the strengths that exist within their
own communities. The Bertha Gilkeys, Loretta Halls and Kimi
Grays are both the inspiration and keepers of the flame for this
national initiative which can and should enhance their
groundbreaking work in the empowerment of poor people.
Accordingly, NCNE reaffirms its commitment to work
closely with Secretary Kemp to carry his message of HOPE to
the American public. We will continue to identify and expose
potential private sector partners to those grassroots
communities which can offer the greatest opportunities for their
investment in the future of this country.
Welcome to St. Louis -- NCNE's "Gateway to HOPE"!
6
AMOURDAN DEPARTMENT * DEVELOPMENT of *
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
FACT SHEET
on
Resident Management and Homeownership
There are currently over 100 resident management entities under development. In April
1990, Secretary Jack Kemp announced a new round of $2.4 million in technical
assistance training grants for 37 grassroots resident organizations. There are 13 Resident
Management Corporations under contract with a Public Housing Authority with
responsibility for project management functions (maintenance, security, rent collection).
The Department expects the number of resident groups and homeownership projects to
more than double with expanded funding proposed in President Bush's $2.1 billion
Homeownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere (HOPE) grants legislation.
Positive social and management benefits have been recognized through resident
management of public housing -- job creation, reduction of crime and welfare
dependency, development of new social services, enhancement of community services
and overall improvement in the quality of life. Resident Management Corporations
have also incubated new enterprises such as small grocery stores, laundromats, beauty
salons, catering and janitorial businesses and transportation services.
Resident management groups have been in existence since the early 1970's, beginning
at Bromley-Heath in Boston; Cochran Gardens and Carr Square Village in St. Louis,
Missouri. Resident involvement is crucial to making public housing work.
"The Housing and Community Development Act of 1987" authorized HUD to promote
resident management and homeownership in public housing, and to provide technical
assistance funding to resident groups. HUD regulations were revised in 1988.
{OVER}
A new Office of Resident Initiatives (ORI) was created by Secretary Jack Kemp to
promote resident management and homeownership. Field staffingincludes a Resident
Initiative Coordinator (RIC) in each HUD Regional and Field Office.
Resident managed homeownership projects underway include Kenilworth-Parkside in
Washington, D. C. and Carr Square Village in St. Louis, Missouri. A study by the
accounting firm of Laventhol and Horwath shows positive results regarding economic
feasibility for Kenilworth-Parkside, which could save the Federal government $6 million
over 10 years; $11 million over 15 years; and $26 million over 40 years.
Homeownership opportunities include conversions of public housing units under section
5(h) of the Housing Act of 1937 and the Department's Turnkey III program. In 1990,
HUD-assisted multi-family housing properties will be included in the homesteading
program.
It is the Department's belief that resident management and homeownership instills pride,
improves neighborhoods, enhances independence, and encourages stable and intact
families. After gaining control of their property, through the successful application of
the principles of resident management, self-help, and job training, residents of federally
assisted and public housing deserve the full opportunity to achieve the American dream
--to own a home of their own.
For further information regarding the benefits of resident management or the purchase of public
housing for homeownership, please contact the local Resident Initiatives Coordinator (RIC) in your local
HUD office.
PREPARED BY:
Office of Resident Initiatives
Office of Public and Indian Housing
U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 Seventh Street, S. W.
Washington, D. C. 20410
RESIDENT MANAGEMENT
HOMEOWNERSHIP
(202) 708-3611
(202) 708-4233
From Squalor to Showcase:
How a Group of Tenants Won Out
By ISABEL WILKERSON
The corporation employs 250 people,
They began with a modest wish list.
most of them Cochran residents, and
They wanted clean, well-kept buildings
Special to The New Yerk Times
ST. LOUIS A decade ago the Co-
hopes within the next year to open a
that had front and back doors, which
factory across the street that will hire
had been torn down by drug dealers
chran Gardens public housing develop-
hundreds more.
who wanted quick access to hiding
ment here was a squalid den for nar-
places. They scheduled a cleanup day,
cotics dealers. There were bullet holes
A Long List of Rules
brought soap and water, and scrubbed
in the walls and pools of urine in the
The tenants' leaders run Cochran
the floors and walls themselves. They
hallways. The tenants, most of them
Gardens like the military, with almost
bought new paint, and every family
welfare recipients, were virtual pris-
as many rules and with their own hier-
painted its own hallways. They sold
oners of the 12-building complex, and
archy. Below the board of directors are
pig's feet and chicken wings to get the
the city wanted to tear it down.
floor and building captains who, in
money to replace the doors.
Now Cochran Gardens is a showcase
monitoring residents' behavior, are not
Early successes helped the tenants
of urban ingenuity. Where once there
above searching through garbage to
convince the local and national govern-
was only dirt, there are now azaleas
find out who violated one of the com-
ments that they could run the complex,
and "keep off the grass" signs. Tenants
plex's strictures.
and in 1976 they signed a management
sweep the hallways every day and dare
At Cochran Gardens, h is forbidden
contract with the St. Louis Housing Au-
not mark the freshly painted walls.
to hang wash outdoors, throw garbage
thority that provided them a fee of
The development, with 1,900 resi-
out the windows, speak discourteously
$69,000 a year. Today that fee is
dents, has been transformed since the
to managers, put old furniture on the
$858,000, more than 95 percent of the
tenants began managing the buildings
balconies, let the corridors go unswept
$895,000 in publicly subsidized annual
in a movement that is spreading across
or have pets, even goldfish.
rents paid by the residents.
the country. Fifteen years ago there
Prospective tenants must sign a two-
were just two such tenant management
page list of these and other regulations
Morgan Doughton, a senior domestic
groups; now there are 15, and dozens
before they move in, and are given
policy analyst at the White House, says
more are being formed in Cleveland,
periodic updates in the form of frankly
the group has surprised even its sup-
Chicago, Philadelphia, New Haven and
written fliers. A recent edict warned,
porters.
other cities.
"Anyone caught spitting or urinating
"It turned into an all-purpose urgani-
In most such cases, the tenants,
zation that had earned the right to
though they hire building janitors, also
on the elevator, incinerator or any-
manage its own housing," Mr. Dough-
perform cleaning and minor mainte-
where in the building will be evicted."
ton said. "It's more than collecting rent
nance work themselves, and they apply
That the development could vastly
and making sure broken windows get
peer pressure to insure that the devel-
upgrade itself was first envisioned by
repaired. It makes residents feel they
opment stays well kept. They collect
Bertha Gilkey, the 39-year-old head of
are part of the community."
rent for the local housing authority,
which pays them a fee for their man-
the board, who founded the tenant man-
To work, the system relies in part on
agement services.
agement group. She remembers mov-
people like Nellie Moore, a building
In so doing, they not only gain a new
ing there as a child, with her parents
captain who tracks her charges like a
sense of independence but also deal ef-
and 14 brothers and sisters, from a St.
private investigator. "If somebody
fectively with their own housing prob-
Louis tenement that had dirt floors. Co-
leaves a bag of trash in the rubbish
lems, whose solutions often escaped
chran Gardens then was landscaped
room, I go through the trash to find out
seemingly distant bureaucracies.
and clean, and she thought it was uto-
who they are," Mrs. Moore said. "If
you look long enough, you usually find a
Next Step Is Ownership
pia.
By the late 1960's, though, the devel-
bill in there with their name on It."
-Now some tenant management
opment had begun to change. Drug
Mrs. Moore does her "building
groups are seeking total control: they
dealers became the uncfficial man-
check" every day, making sure that
want to buy their complexes from their
agers, setting up shop in vacant apart-
the floors, walls and baseboards are
local governments under legislation,
ments, stealing tenants' checks from
cleaned and that there are no cobwebs
signed into law by President Reagan
the mailboxes and barricading the
in the stairwells.
last February, that allows tenants to
street. Drivers forced to stop at the
buy public housing at a small fraction
barricades were robbed.
"We run Cochran like a real estate
of the market price.
Many tenants moved away, and the
manager would, not like a social pro-
At least two such groups - the one at
buildings fell into disrepair. The com-
gram," Mrs. Gilkey said. "The build-
Cochran Gardens here and another in
plex, once racially mixed, had become
ings aren't writing graffiti on them-
Washington are now drafting pur-
predominantly black and predomi-
selves. They're not tearing themselves
chase proposals to be submitted to the
nantly poor, most of its households
down. There are consequences for that
Department of Housing and Urban
headed by women. Despair set in, Mrs.
kind of behavior, and the consequence
Development. They hope to reach
Gilkey recalls, and many residents
here is that we're going to put you out."
tentative agreements with the depart-
ment by the end of this summer.
gave up hope and caring.
Mrs. Gilkey herself has now risen to
Already, though, the tenants at Co-
The Abnormal Became Normal'
international prominence as a leader in
chran Gardens, organized into the Co-
"People threw garbage out of the
the tenants' rights movement. She has
citran Tenant Management Corpora-
windows, and the hallways were lined
traveled to Europe, Africa and the Mid-
tion, have been astonishingly™ success-
with garbage bags stuffed with month-
die East, training low-income residents
ful. Using foundation grants as well as
old food and mice jumping out of the
and preaching the gospel of tenant
the hundreds of thousands of dollars in
trash," Mrs. Gilkey said. "The abnor-
management.
management fees they receive, they
mal became normal."
have built a community-wide empire:
By the mid-1970's, Mrs. Gilkey and
At the same time, her group's busi-
ness ventures have expanded rapidly.
a $400,000-a-year catering business,
several other outspoken tenants were
five day-care centers, a cable-televison
fed up. "We decided things didn't have
When the complex received $22 million
installation service for low-income
to be this way," she said. "We wanted
for renovations from the Department
to build accountability and standards
of Housing and Urban Development,
néighborhoods and a limited partner-
the tenants decided to reduce the num-
ship in several private housing com-
and self-esteem."
ber of residents in each of the build-
piexes nearby.
One day Bertha
Gilkey decided
she wouldn't take
it anymore.
ings. They enlarged the old apart-
ments, built a complex of town houses
for the displaced residents and then
sold the town houses back to the hous-
ing authority, at a profit of about
$10,000.
And when Mrs. Gilkey heard that
some cable television companies were
afraid to send crews to low-income
neighborhoods, the Cochran Gardens
group trained its residents in installa-
tion. Now the group receives from the
cable company 10 percent of the reve-
nues from each household the group
serves. "What becomes a problem for
other folks becomes a market for us,"
Mrs. Gilkey said.
The successes of the Cochran and
similar tenant management groups
have put pressure on local housing au-
thorities to either Improve their man-
agement or allow more tenants to run
their own complexes. "This is one of
the best ways to make the public sector
more efficient," said Mr. Doughton
said, the White House aide.
Thomas Costello, who as SL Louis
housing director handed management
of Cochran Gardens to the tenants in
1976, agreed. Tenant management "is
not necessarily a panacea" for all the
problems confronting public housing,
he said. "But if properly nurtured, it's
the best of both worlds."
The New York Times/Dan Miller
Bertha Gilkey, head of the tenant management group at Cochran Gar-
dens, with Lenora Williams, president of the Harrison Tenant Council
Association, outside the Harrison Plaza development in Philadelphia.
Memorandum For: Scott Reed, Chief of Staff
From: David Caprara, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Resident
Initiatives
Subj: St. Louis Event Concept
Date: April 2, 1991
This is to recommend the Cochran Gardens Tenant Management
Corporation, St. Louis, Missouri, for a White House site visit
opportunity with the Secretary. The event could combine a
highlight of one of the most powerful success stories behind the
President's HOPE initiative, with a call for Congressional action
in support of FY'92 HOPE funding as well as enactment of
Enterprise Zone legislation.
Cochran Gardens, led by the dynamic Bertha Gilkey, has
been effectively tenant managed since the mid-1970's. The
residents have transformed a former hellhole (once nicknamed
"Little Nam") into an oasis of entrepreneurial enterprises
including child care, UMTA reverse commute transit firm,
catering company, youth renovation crews, and joint ventures
with the private sector which produced hundreds of new units
of affordable housing.
President Bush mentioned this success story during the
Presidential campaign, while emphasizing his commitment to
strategies that empower tenants with choice and opportunity as
opposed to perpetuation of failed bureaucratic approaches.
Not far from Cochran Gardens is the former Pruit-Igo
site, a monument to failed welfare/public housing policies
of the past that was imploded in the early 1970's. The
Pruit-Igo site still stands empty today: it is a large tract of
valuable urban land potential that could be utilized for an urban
enterprise zone. HUD has conditioned the final disposition of
the property with the development of a job creation plan.
Cochran has been featured twice on CBS "Sixty Minutes,"
and news publications throughout the country. Ms. Gilkey, as you
know, has trained other emerging tenant management groups from
St. Petersburg to Cabrini-Green in Chicago and East L.A. As
head of the National Tenant Union, she recently sponsored a
political action conference which supported the Administration's
HOPE funding proposals.
The two Republican Senators from Missouri, Kit Bond and
John Danforth, were among only five GOP senators who failed to
vote for the 1991 HOPE supplemental. A site visit to Cochran, in
addition to making a national statement for the Administration's
HOPE and Enterprise Zone policies, could also serve to shore
up Congressional votes on the '92 HOPE budget.
In sum, this event at Cochran Gardens, juxtaposed with the
failed policies of the past and future Enterprise Zone potential
at Pruit-Igo, would provide a dramatic and visual expression of
the President's commitment to a new urban renaissance.
Memorandum For: Scott Reed, Chief of Staff
From: David Caprara, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Resident
Initiatives
Subj: St. Louis Event Concept
Date: April 2, 1991
This is to recommend the Cochran Gardens Tenant Management
Corporation, St. Louis, Missouri, for a White House site visit
opportunity with the Secretary. The event could combine a
highlight of one of the most powerful success stories behind the
President's HOPE initiative, with a call for Congressional action
in support of FY'92 HOPE funding as well as enactment of
Enterprise Zone legislation.
Cochran Gardens, led by the dynamic Bertha Gilkey, has
been effectively tenant managed since the mid-1970's. The
residents have transformed a former hellhole (once nicknamed
"Little Nam") into an oasis of entrepreneurial enterprises
including child care, UMTA reverse commute transit firm,
catering company, youth renovation crews, and joint ventures
with the private sector which produced hundreds of new units
of affordable housing.
President Bush mentioned this success story during the
Presidential campaign, while emphasizing his commitment to
strategies that empower tenants with choice and opportunity as
opposed to perpetuation of failed bureaucratic approaches.
Not far from Cochran Gardens is the former Pruit-Igo
site, a monument to failed welfare/public housing policies
of the past that was imploded in the early 1970's. The
Pruit-Igo site still stands empty today: it is a large tract of
valuable urban land potential that could be utilized for an urban
enterprise zone. HUD has conditioned the final disposition of
the property with the development of a job creation plan.
Cochran has been featured twice on CBS "Sixty Minutes,"
and news publications throughout the country. Ms. Gilkey, as you
know, has trained other emerging tenant management groups from
St. Petersburg to Cabrini-Green in Chicago and East L.A. As
head of the National Tenant Union, she recently sponsored a
political action conference which supported the Administration's
HOPE funding proposals.
The two Republican Senators from Missouri, Kit Bond and
John Danforth, were among only five GOP senators who failed to
vote for the 1991 HOPE supplemental. A site visit to Cochran, in
addition to making a national statement for the Administration's
HOPE and Enterprise Zone policies, could also serve to shore
up Congressional votes on the '92 HOPE budget.
In sum, this event at Cochran Gardens, juxtaposed with the
failed policies of the past and future Enterprise Zone potential
at Pruit-Igo, would provide a dramatic and visual expression of
the President's commitment to a new urban renaissance.
Bond of Missouri. Both Bond and Kemp are advocates for low-income housing tenants to own
their own housing complexes with financial assistance from the federal government.
Photos by Bob Williams.
Republicans Determined To Make Home Ownership
A Reality For Low-Income Tenants
After the tour of public hous-
determine if the proposal to
housing complexes on the poor.
ing units by Jack F. Kemp,
make the aging public housing
Clay says the federal govern-
complex (Carr Square) one of
ment is trying to get out of the
U.S. Secretary of Housing and
the first in the nation to be sold
low income housing business.
Urban Development, along
to its tenants. His assessment -
with powerful Republican U.S.
of the proposal to sell Carr
This is the second trip for
Senator 'Kit' Bond, both gen-
Senator Bond to Carr Square
tlemen agreed that now is the
Square was good, and he said
to talk with the tenants. Sen-
that his critics "are flawed in
time for the federal govern-
ator Bond has introduced leg-
ment to make owning a piece
their thinking, they' re wrong."
islation that will enable low
of the Ame ican Dreamra real-
He was referring to Con-
ity.
gressman William L. Clay,
income tenants to purchase
who has been very critical of
public housing complexes with
Kemp's trip to St. Louis was
the Bush administrations at-
the assistance of the federal
basically a fact finding one to
tempt to unload expensive
government.
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
WEDNESDAY, JULY 6, 1988
Housing Authority May Sell
658 Units To Tenant Group
By Cynthia Todd
Of the Post-Dispatch Staff
The St. Louis Housing Authority is
considering a proposal to sell 658 units
of public housing at Carr Square Vil-
lage in north St. Louis to the devel-
opment's tenant-management associ-
ation. housing officials said Tuesday.
Charles Poole. a spokesman for the
authority, said the agency was negoti-
ating to turn over the ownership of the
project to the tenant group.
The group is applying through the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Dev elopment to buy the complex. at
1521 Carr Street. An amendment to the
Community Development Act. passed
in December. allows such sales.
If the application is approved. Carr
Square would be one of the first public
housing developments in the country
to be sold to tenants.
The Department of Housing and
Urban Development also is consider-
ing the sale of another public-housing
development. Kenilworth-Parkside in
Washington. to its tenant-management
association.
"This has always been our objective
- to buy the development." said Lor-
etta Hall. the manager of Carr Square
and a member of the tenant-manage-
ment group. which is 15 years old.
Hall said the group hoped to form a
cooperative to let tenants buy stock in
the complex and to eliminate all sub-
sidized housing in the development for
any tenant who is not elderly.
The group proposes to buy the devel-
opment from the Housing Authority for
$1. Once the sale is completed, the group
Wayne Crosslin/Post-Dispatch
plans to enter into a joint venture with
Loretta Hall, manager of Carr Square Village,
the development firm of McCormack.
Baron & Associates of St. Louis to ren-
ovate the development. Hall said.
or private industry.
problem of low-income housing.
She estimated that the first phase of
The proposal would preserve the
In St. Louis. officials estimate that
the project would cost about $235,000.
development for low-income families.
3.700 people are on the Housing
The modernization project could be paid
It also provides that any resale of prop-
Authority's waiting list for public hous-
for with bonds, through investments
erty in the development must be made
ing and another 6.300 people are wait-
from individuals or through a grant from
to people who have low incomes.
ing for Section 8 subsidized housing.
a foundation. Hall said.
Michael W. Jones. executive direc-
"We see this as a tremendous cycle
She said that the group had contacted
tor of the housing authority here. was
to generate new housing." Caprara said.
the Ford Foundation and that "pros-
unavailable for comment. Sources said
He is the director of economic devel-
peets look good. But the first thing we
several city officials supported the pro-
opment for center.
have to get is the ownership."
posal.
First
the city will have replace-
The proposal also provides that the
David Caprara. of the National Cen-
ment housing to improve the quality of
658 units of public housing lost through
ter for Neighborhood Enterprise in
life." Caprara said. Second. Carr
the sale would be replaced by:
Washington. said the application was
Square is contiguous to the Pruitt-Igoe
Making vacant public housing in
being reviewed. The center helped the
site, and this will enhance the value and
the city livable.
tenant group develop the proposar.
accessibility of the site."
Buying or building new units of
Caprara said officials at the depart-
The city has proposed a $25 million
public housing.
ment already had given the plan prelim-
redevelopment of the old Pruitt-Igoe
Developing more public housing
inary approval. He hailed the proposal
site. where 33 buildings of public hous-
through a partnership with government
as a visionary method to tackle the
ing for 12,000 people once stood.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1989
Shuttles Help Workers Commute To Suburbs
By Jerri Strond
Joel Manker, assistant manager of
Of the Post-Dispatch Staff
the Red Roof Inn, said that without the
With most jobs, it's the worker's
"The
real goal is to get our West County stores
van, he would have to pick workers up
responsibility to get to work.
at a bus stop more than a mile from
But when the jobs and workers are
fully staffed. It's a problem for everyone in that
the hotel. Buses "don't come any-
miles apart, the jobs can go begging if
area, particularly for the part-time positions. "
where near us," Manker said. Almost
workers can't get there.
every business in me area that hires
Schnuck Markets Inc. last week be-
hourly employees has hung out a ban-
SUE GIBSON, Schnucks spokeswoman.
gan a shuttle service in a bid to fill
ner to attract job applicants, he said.
jobs at its West County stores. Another
The hotel has hired only house-
shuttle service sponsored by the Coch-
keeping workers through Willis so far,
ran Gardens Tenant Management
cruiting entry-level workers, particu-
The Washington-based neighbor-
Manker said. The project is helping
Corp. has been taking workers from
larly in affluent areas of St. Louis
hood center oversees the "reverse
the hotei develop a core group of loyal
the central city to jobs in Maryland
County.
commute" projects as one way for
workers who use the van, he said. The
Heights since February.
The county's unemployment rate
low-income communities to help
combination of transportation and
Both the Schnucks and Cochran
themselves. Stakley said. All the pro-
day care offered in the Cochran Gar-
was a low 3.7 percent in September;
Gardens shuttles are aimed at bridg-
whereas the city's rate was 8.1 per-
jects are aimed at getting unemployed
dens project makes it easier for peo-
ing the gap between surplus jobs in
cent, according to the Missouri Divi-
inner city residents to suburban jobs.
ple to take the jobs, he said.
suburban areas and unemployed
Willis said the $150,000 grant to
Willis has recruited 60 people for
sion of Employment Security. The ar-
workers in the city and inner suburbs.
Cochran Gardens pays only for ad-
jobs in the nine months since Febru-
ea's average unemployment rate was
"The real goal is to get our West
5.2 percent in September.
ministrative staff - herself, a job
ary. Only 10 people are riding the
County stores fully staffed." said Sue
But the employment statistics are
counselor and a transportation coordi-
shuttle regularly now, partly because
Gibson, a Schnucks spokeswoman.
only part of the story. Entry-level
nator. The $3:10 round-trip fare for
there is a high turnover in the entry-
"It's a problem for everyone in that
the shuttle pays for the driver and gas.
level positions she tries to fill. Some
workers often must depend on public
area, particularly for the part-time
transportation to reach their jobs. Un-
Cochran Gardens Tenant Manage-
workers have found better jobs, she
positions."
ment, which owns the van, is paying
said. Others have been unable to keep
less a suburban employer is near a bus
Patricia Ferguson Willis, executive
route. just getting to work can be SO
for insurance, she said.
their jobs for a variety of reasons.
director of Cochran Gardens Trans-
difficult that the workers are reluc-
"The goal is to get local funding,"
Only a handful of workers were rid-
portation, says her main goal is to help
Willis said. Employers pay nothing for
ing the Schnucks shuttle last week. But
tant to take the jobs.
welfare mothers become self-suffi-
the service so far. Willis says it's im-
Gibson said she expects between 50
The Cochran Gardens project is one
cient. The Cochran Gardens group
of eight nationwide that received
portant in the beginning to show em-
and 60 riders by the end of the week.
provides day care as well as transpor-
ployers that the program can provide
Many of the new workers were in
start-up grants from the U.S. Urban
tation for the mothers it recruits for
the workers needed for entry-level
training last week, she said.
Mass Transit Administration. So far,
jobs.
only three of the projects have gotten
jobs.
The Schnucks shuttle provides
Unemployment rates for specific
beyond the planning stage, said Syd-
So far, Willis has worked mainly
twice-daily runs to stores in Kirk-
neighborhoods are hard to come by,
ney Stakley. a senior research asso-
with two hotels in the Westport area of
wood, Des Peres, Town and Country,
but suburban employers frequently
ciate for the National Center for
Maryland Heights. The Red Roof Inn
Ballwin and Chesterfield. The shuttle
complain about the difficulty of re-
at 11837 Lackland Avenue has hired
Neighborhood Enterprise.
leaves either from the company's
most of the workers Willis has
store at 5055 Arsenal Street in south
recruited.
St. Louis or the company's training
center at Northland Shopping Center.
The shuttle costs $1 for a round trip.
Gibson said shuttle schedules may
change as Schnucks attempts to match
shifts at its stores with workers' needs.
Ann Arbor News 3/25/90
NEWS PHOTO ROBERT CHASE
Bertha Gilkey, an advocate for public housing tenants,
liscusses the national public housing situation during a
eminar Saturday in the Michigan Union.
Federal housing aid
is improving under
By JUDSON BRANAM
applying for federal improvement
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
grants.
However, since that rule has
Kemp, activist says
While federal assistance for pub-
lic housing remains shrunken from
been lightly enforced for years.
Gilkey said, tenants must make
years of budget cuts through the
1980s, the administration of Hous-
sure they have real input on grant
ing Director Jack Kemp offers
applications or complain to HUD
hope for the future, a national ten-
officials.
ants' rights activist said Saturday.
Despite the recent improve-
Bertha Gilkey of St. Louis, active
ments, Gilkey said tenants still
in public housing issues for nearly
face "built-in bureaucracy" when
a decade, said Kemp has shown a
trying to improve their complexes,
commitment to improving the fed-
and must work toward creating
eral Department of Housing and
their own management coopera-
Urban Development that was ab-
tives and maintenance staffs.
sent during the administration of
his predecessor, Samuel Pierce.
One program that can help ten-
ants move toward self-manage-
"We have made more headway
ment is HUD's Resident Initiative
under the Kemp administration
Program, said Joann Inglis, who
than we have under any under Re-
administers the program through
publican administration," said Gil-
HUD's Detroit office. That pro-
key, though she added that condi-
gram offers assistance in resident
tions
still
need
major
involvement, home ownership.
improvements.
drug elimination and economic de-
One positive move by Kemp was
velopment.
the recent suggestion of a $250-mil-
Gilkey spoke during a day-long
lion "HOPE" bill that would fund
seminar at the Michigan Union or-
housing rehabilitation, tenant man-
ganized by UNITY, a local tenants'
agement programs, actions for the
organization. The session, called
homeless and home-ownership pro-
"No Place to Go: The Struggle for
grams. She said that bill is pending
Affordable Housing in Ann Arbor,"
before the House and Senate bank-
offered talks by about 90 public
ing committees.
housing activists from around the
Gilkey said that while a number
state, guidance on tenants' rights,
of laws give rights to public hous-
organizing strategies, action for
ing tenants, it is the responsibility
the homeless and welfare rights.
of residents to make sure those
UNITY is a year-old alliance of
rights are followed by local offi-
local tenants' groups formed to im-
clals. As an example, she said local
prove the conditions and availabil-
housing authorities are required to
ity of public bousing, said spokes-
consult with tenants groups before
woman Elmira Collins.
THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, FEBRUARY 24, 1991
Associated Press/MARK ELIAS
Sharon Gipson (right), resident manager of LeClaire Courts, a Chicago low-income housing project, walks
through the snow outside the project recently with Irene Johnson, head of the resident management board.
"Empowered" poor taking control
of how their housing is managed
By SHARON COHEN
The Associated Press
bf.Low-income people are taking
their destiny in their own hands,"
"They better understand the
said John McKnight, director of
problems of their own community."
JCHICAGO - In five years,
Sharon Gipson became an expert on
community studies at Northwestern
said Justin Milberg, of the Washing-
the many indignities of public hous-
University's Center for Urban
ton-based National Center for Neigh-
ing: leaky roofs, stopped-up sewers,
Affairs and Policy Research. "People
borhood Enterprise. "They enjoy the
are concluding if they don't do it, no
trust of their own community.
shoddy service, bloated bureaucra-
one else will."
They're a permanent solution.
cy:That was as a tenant.
Now she's determined to make big
*It's happening in other arenas,
They're not going to leave as fund-
changes - as manager.
ted. In Milwaukee, some poor chil-
ing runs out."
Gipson juggles both lives at
drien choose their own private
The poor aren't the only cham-
pions of choice.
LeClaire Courts, a housing project
schools. In Detroit, low-income resi-
in which low-income folks make
dents buy, renovate and sell build-
Housing and Urban Development
high-powered decisions about their
ings. In Denver and Omaha, fathers
Secretary Jack Kemp has made it a
neighbors, their needs and the fate
are crime-fighters.
cornerstone of his agenda, establish-
ing the Office of Resident Initiatives
oftheir Southwest Side community.
25:
Trend spreading
in 1989 and training public housing
Power to the poor. Across the
21
nation, public housing residents are
"We cannot look to government to
tenants to become managers.
taking charge of multimillion-dollar
do, things for us," said Charlene
buildings, collecting rent, screening
Johnson, president of Reach, a De-
new tenants, evicting drug dealers
troit-based community group. "We
must do for ourselves."
and deciding how to spend govern-
ment dollars. Some even own prop-
That's what's happening in cities
erty.
such as St. Louis, Boston, Jersey
City, N.J., and Washington, where
tenants, not professionals, are the
power brokers in public housing. It's
a shift some say is logical and long
overdue.
About 15 resident management
es, including a catering company, a
corporations are operating nation-
screen door repair service and, at
wide; more than 100 others are in
LeClaire, a reverse commuter shut-
training stages.
tle to the suburbs.
President Bush is another boost-
"It instills pride and hope," he
er. In signing a housing bill in
said. "It restores a sense of commu-
November, he declared: "When the
nity control."
people who live in public housing
That shift didn't come quickly or
are in charge, the results are
easily at LeClaire, a community of
remarkable: More people pay their
about 4,000 people living in modest
rent, maintenance improves
and
red-brick row houses in the shadow
neighborhoods spring back to life.'
of Midway Airport.
In the first four years of tenant
"When we started out, we were
management at Kenilworth-Park-
ignored," said Irene Johnson, head
side, a public housing project in
of the resident management board.
Washington, rent collections rose by
"They (local officials) thought we
77 percent and hundreds of drug
were a joke."
dealers were forced out, a report
said.
LeClaire gets good review
A 1989 study said converting Ken-
But the residents persisted and,
ilworth-Parkside to tenant owner-
after working side-by-side for a year
ship could save the government $26
with the Chicago Housing Author-
million over 40 years.
ity, took over in 1989. So far, the re-
But not everyone is enamored of
views are good.
the idea. Last year, Budget Director
Caprara calls LeClaire "a good
Richard Darman called "The New
case study in all the right ingre-
Paradigm" - the label a presiden-
dients for success."
tial aide gave to self-help programs
CHA Chairman Vincent Lane
- pretentious and a rehash of failed
adds: "The management out there is
'60s ideas.
doing at least as good a job or proba-
Programs no panacea
bly better than the management
under CHA."
Even boosters say empowering
A paid staff of about 30, mostly
the poor is no magic wand.
LeClaire residents, manages the
"I don't think it's going to wipe
day-to-day business, processing and
out all problems with the exception
completing repairs, balancing the
of tooth decay," said Robert Rigby,
books and deciding, with the CHA,
director of the Jersey City, N.J.,
on bids for major projects.
Housing Authority. "In many quar-
Since 1989, new windows have
ters, it's seen as a panacea. I don't
been installed for everyone. Most
think in any way it represents that."
tenants have new storm doors and
In Jersey City, one tenant-man-
about half of the 600-plus row houses
agement plan fizzled - high turn-
have received new stoves and refrig-
over of residents and community
erators.
leaders were blamed - but in three
Longtime resident Joselyn Pughs-
others, vacancy rates and delin-
ley sees other changes: Repairs that
quent rent payments have fallen
once took months now take days.
sharply.
That doesn't surprise her.
Though empowerment is a new
buzzword, the idea is not. Since the
"When you live in a place and
'60s, a long line of committed public
you're working there, you're going
housing activists, often black
to do a better job, you're going to
women, have preached the gospel of
want the best for your children," she
self-help.
said. "You're going to take care of
But in recent years, there has
where you live and
what you con-
been a "growth from a cottage
sider yours much better."
industry to a major grass-roots
Yet expectations can be too high.
movement," said David Caprara of
"They think we can perform
HUD's resident initiatives office. "It
miracles," said Gipson, the resident-
has just spread like wildfire."
manager, who has lived at LeClaire
There also are new strategies. In
since 1984. "They think it's
Atlanta, for example, dozens of grad-
'Bewitched,' twist your nose and it's
uate students from a black universi-
fine."
ty will move into a project this
There are painful decisions, too -
spring, operate programs and serve
especially evictions. There have
as role models.
been about 10.
Resident management, Caprara
"The first eviction
I cried all
said, already has been a boon to
day and night. I didn't sleep a week,"
communities, creating jobs in areas
Johnson said. "But you've got a
where unemployment is chronically
business to run. You sign on the bot-
high and leading to spinoff business-
tom line of the contract.
'You are coming into a neighborhood'
Jordan Park has been in the
litter. She heard residents say they stayed
grip of poverty, crime and fear
inside at night with the porch light off,
because the burning lights quickly got shot
for years. But one woman is
out. They told her they were afraid to
teaching the public housing
venture into the dark, too, for fear of being
shot.
complex to take control.
She says, "We can change these
things." She had done it in St. Louis, in New
By WILMA NORTON
York, in Chicago, in Philadelphia. So the St.
Times Staff Writer
Petersburg Housing Authority hired her to
ST. PETERSBURG - Jordan Park sits
bring her message of change here.
in isolation on Ninth Avenue S, the inter-
Her mission, she says, is to help the
state and a high concrete wall blocking it
people of Jordan Park regain their self-es-
from the public's view.
teem. Stand up for their neighborhood. Let
Not so long ago, the residents of the
the troublemakers know they aren't wel-
50-year-old public housing complex felt iso-
come any more. Bring some of the old ways
lated themselves as, plagued by crime and
back to the neighborhood, when Jordan
poverty, they retreated into their homes to
Park offered some of the finest housing
watch and wait.
available to black families in a segregated
Then an outsider with a mission arrived
city.
to bring them out of their homes.
Gilkey is training residents to organize a
Bertha Gilkey saw the problems. She
business, to feel better about themselves
Times photo - JIM STEM
Bertha Gilkey says her mission is to help the residents of Jordan
stepped over gamblers on the sidewalks.
and to take charge of their neighborhood.
She saw the drug dealers, the graffiti and
Park to regain their self-esteem.
the vandalism. She walked through the
Please see NEIGHBORHOOD Page 3
Times photo - JIM STEM
Jordan Park residents once feared to leave their homes, but today children move freely through the rejuvenated neighborhood.
Neighborhood
from Page. 1
resident to stand up and speak at each meeting.
They talked at a recent meeting about improve-
"I teach them to look within themselves, not
ments they have seen in Jordan Park.
to look outside to somebody else to do for me,"
Ms. Shaw says asking residents to clean up
she says. "What the training does is says you are
their yards never used to bring a response. If
somebody and that you possess skills. You're
they don't clean it up when asked now, they can
unique. You're special. You are bright. You are
be fined $25.
articulate. You are all of the things people say
"I have people now who, when they see me
poor people are not. The problem is you lack the
coming, they send their kids in the house to get a
training."
rake so by the time I get there, the yard is
When she imparts that message to people
clean," she says.
who have been poor all their lives, she finds a
Wilbert Shack says, "I had someone tell me
change, Gilkey says. "You find a stronger, more
the other day they can sit out on their porch at
informed, more crime-free, more employed and
night and not be afraid of shooting."
productive community. You bring back the
"A lot of the traffic has ceased," Johnnie
old-fashioned American dream."
Jones says.
"More people are taking more pride in the
Watch Bertha Gilkey in action, and it's easy
Jordan Park area," says Alberta Quarterman,
to believe she can deliver her promise.
vice president of the association. "More people
She's a striking, charismatic woman.
are more concerned about what's happening
As she guides the residents through the
with their lives. We're learning a whole lot. You
evening, she is part coach, part cheerleader,
learn a lot about yourself and what your ability
part evangelist.
is. The biggest thing I've learned is that I can get
She gathers the dozen or so residents into a
in front of a group and talk and not have to be
circle to sing, changing the words of Kum Ba
ashamed."
Yah to include "Stop the drugs, my lord, come
Even having the residents stand up and give
by here," and "Save Jordan Park, my lord, come
their names is progress, Gilkey says.
by here."
"I can see the sureness in them. When they
Every time a resident offers a comment, she
first came, many of these women that spoke
claps and praises.
today wouldn't even speak. Johnnie wouldn't
Sometimes, though, she is harsh in her
speak. When I used to call on her, she would run.
criticism.
Vernadean and Alberta would put their heads
Speaking about young, unwed mothers, Gilk-
down; they wouldn't even Gilkey says. " A
ey says: "Some of these young mothers should
lot of this is not money. It's just making people
not be given apartments. They are not mature
feel like they are somebody."
enough. Give them a unit, and all they use it for
is to get more babies. They end up getting
Gilkey grew up in St. Louis in the Cochran
caught up in crime, drugs, abused and killed.
public housing development (She rejects the
They become victims."
term housing project as derisive). She still lives
She is just as adamant on the topic of people
there.
who think public housing should take anyone
She talks to residents in a way others
who applies.
couldn't get away with, she says, because she is
one of them.
"We want to make sure they understand that
Jordan Park is no longer a dumping place,"
She got her start as a public housing advo-
Gilkey says. "You're not coming into a project.
cate in the 1970s when the St. Louis Housing
You are coming into a neighborhood."
Authority, frustrated with conditions there,
The Jordan Park Residents Association
turned the running of Cochran over to the
meets with Gilkey three nights a month. The
residents. They turned the development around
group already has incorporated. Its committees
and now own several small companies.
stage cleanups, maintain playground equipment
Next year they plan to buy Cochran from the
and monitor security. Members also plan to open
Housing Authority.
a child-care center they will own and operate.
Jordan Park could get there eventually, too,
Gilkey says. The first step to resident manage-
The group also is putting together a screen-
ment is the training she gives them. The next
ing committee of residents and St. Petersburg
step will be management - having a say in who
Housing Authority staff members who will ap-
gets into the complex, how money is spent, who
prove new residents.
is hired.
Those gathered for the meeting go over
The third step is economic development.
screening guidelines. There are rules on super-
Jordan Park's residents are planning to open
vising children and housekeeping. People who
a day-care center. They have hired a cook to
use drugs and create disturbances will be kicked
cater training sessions, but hope to expand that
out.
enterprise. They are raising money for several
Speaking in support of the screening com-
other projects.
mittee, Vernadean Shaw says, "We're working
"They've got to have other income so that
hard to clean up Jordan Park.
We might get
when the (federal) dollars are cut, the housing
drug fiends, crack heads, drunks and people who
stock doesn't suffer," Gilkey says.
are violent. We want to clean it up and keep it
With this framework in place, the residents
clean."
can move on to social service programs, job
Part of Gilkey's process is getting each
training, education. Only then could they think of
owning the development, she says.
The Housing Authority also is committed to
making Jordan Park a better place to live, says
Edward White Jr., the authority's executive
director. In recent years, the authority has spent
about $10,000 per apartment on renovations,
White says, and it has added police patrols and
security equipment.
Gilkey and White say they want to see Jordan
Park become the well-respected, sought-after
housing it was in the '40, '50s and '60s. "It
would have then been viewed as a real mecca. A
lot of people fought to get into Jordan Park,"
White says.
"Today, all too many people look at Jordan
Park as housing of last resort," White says.
"The people who lived in Jordan Park 25 years
ago felt differently about themselves."
Back then, most of the residents were tradi-
tional families - husband, wife and children -
who worked. They saw Jordan Park as a tempo-
rary home until they could buy their own home.
But as society and social programs have
changed, so have the tenants. Almost all of the
446 apartments are occupied by women raising
children alone. Few can work.
"We've moved from working class poor to
subsistency poor," White says. "A preponder-
ance of people (in Jordan Park) do not work, and
they're on welfare.
They are trapped in the
poverty cycle.
"People don't really take charge of their own
communities and their own lives when you have
a welfare system, White says. "We're trying to
change that. We're trying to empower people so
that they will once again take charge of their
lives, and they will move from a subsistence in
the poverty cycle to the mainstream."
The Housing Authority has a federal grant
for $299,000 it is using to pay Gilkey, buy the
site for the child-care center and pay other
program expenses.
But Gilkey. says the money isn't the main
source of change.
"Eventually, we need money, but the begin-
ning of it, before you change physical designs of
the buildings through massive amounts of HUD
or federal subsidies, you've got to change the
people, and that's what this program does. It
changes the people. It changes the thinking of
the people."
Eleanor Cooper, who has managed Jordan
Park for 18 years, was doubtful at first, but is
now a believer in Gilkey's gospel.
"I first felt 'Why are they bringing that
woman here to take my job from me,' but I don't
feel that way anymore," Cooper says. "I am real
happy about the progress we've made here. I
know it's going to work. I know it's going to
work."
Gilkey heard doubts from others, too.
"When I came to Jordan Park, people said,
"This is not St. Louis. You can't change these
people,' Gilkey says. "Now I've got the same
people telling me, 'I can sit on my porch at
night.' We've got a long way to go, but we've
came a long way.
"And these changes, it amazes people. But it
doesn't amaze me."
000
Women Who Make a Difference
By Olga Wickerhauser
A Miracle Worker Saves
Public Housing
Bertha surrounded by ten-
ants at Miller Homes. "The
majority who live here are
good, handworking people. "
to turn Miller Homes
around, and failed," re-
calls Martin Hillman, the
executive director of
leaning day
Trenton's housing au-
falls on a cool, drizzly
thority. "As soon as a
Saturday morning, and a
door or window was re-
handful of tenants at
placed, it would be
Miller Homes-a Tren-
smashed again."
ton, New Jersey, public-
Hillman realized mon-
housing complex-turns
ey alone wasn't the an-
out to help sweep the
swer. The only way the
parking lots, scrub the
development could sur-
hallway floors and re-
vive was to change the
paint the entrance.
environment and the
"They used to call us
outlook of the tenants—
Killer Homes,' recalls
256 poor families.
Alberta Williams, who is
This time, in addition
currently president of
to approximately $2 mil-
the Miller Homes Ten-
lion in Federal moneys
ants Association.
"I make people believe in
to renovate the two
"Crackheads were ev-
high-rise buildings and
erywhere. They were
selling drugs in the hall-
themselves."
an $80,000 state grant
to begin round-the-clock
ways, on the stairs, and
police protection, Hill-
urinating all over the place. My God, it was just awful."
man brought in Bertha Gilkey, a woman who has never
Muggings were epidemic. Gunshots rang out night and
been afraid to get her hands dirty.
day, and tenants were afraid to leave their apartments. In
fact, the housing complex was so drug- and crime-infested
CLEANING UP
that the mayor of Trenton had suggested that the only
Grabbing a broom and a plastic garbage bag, Bertha be-
way to clean up Miller Homes was to tear it down.
gins sweeping the litter of bottle caps, candy wrappers
Then a kind of miracle happened. In the eyes of Alberta
and cigarette butts into neat little piles. Then she picks up
Williams and other tenants here, that miracle is a petite,
the trash with her bare hands-without regard for her
40-year-old one-woman dynamo. "Since Bertha Gilkey
perfect, long red fingernails-and begins filling one gar-
came, has it changed!" says Williams.
bage bag after another until the parking lot is spotless.
For more than a decade Bertha, herself a child of the
A group of children runs up to report that the paint-
shums, has been teaching tenants of dangerous, drug-
brushes Bertha provided have disappeared. (Continued)
infested public housing how to transform their environ-
ments into safe, decent places to live.
FC's "Women Who Make a Difference" is featured on
!!!!
"We had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying
HOME, weekday mornings on ABC-TV.
9/26/89 Family Circle 15
Women Who Make
Homes are good, hardworking peo-
Bertha listens to tenants' com-
ple," she continues. "The problem is
plaints about broken elevators and
A Difference
that public housing is used as a dump-
washing machines, and helps to set-
ing ground for dope pushers, the
the disputes between neighbors.
continued from page 15
have-nots and want-nots. You have
"We're not going to live with peo-
to deal with the bad ones already
ple who urinate in the elevators and
She pulls crumpled bills from her
here and stop more bad ones from
mug and kill and rape," she shouts at
pocket and hands them to the oldest
moving in."
one point. "This is the rebirth of
to buy more.
Miller Homes!"
"You can't change people over-
IMPROVING lives
The tenants are mesmerized.
night," Bertha says later. "It takes
At least three evenings a month,
Many shout "Amen" and "Right on."
time for people to start thinking of
Bertha meets with Miller Homes
She asks thein to stand and, fists
public housing as their home, to start
tenants. These sessions are a combi-
thrust in the air, shout: "We're tired
thinking they can change how it is.
nation religious revival, condomini-
of it. We're not taking it anymore."
"The majority who live at Miller
um meeting and civics class.
Bertha has taught residents how
to read a lease sentence by sen-
tence, and helped organize an effec-
tive tenants association. Floor
captains patrol the halls to make sure
there are no graffiti, that the garbage
is taken out, that children don't run
23456789
around late at night.
A joint tenant/housing authority
committee has been formed to
screen new tenants. From now on,
anyone who wants to move into
Miller Homes will have to pass a
background check and an orientation.
"We're going to teach them
they've got to be accountable and re-
sponsible," says Bertha, "and if they
are not, they're going to be evicted."
In addition, she finds grant money
to set up services designed to make
inally pantyhoseshat won't
residents' lives more manageable
and hopeful.
Ifdestructineyerydaycombat.
An on-site day-care center has
been opened so mothers can find
jobs and get off welfare. Retired car-
penters have been recruited to teach
skills to unemployed high-school
dropouts who then will be hired to
renovate the buildings. There is an
after-school tutoring program, a Cub
Scout troop, even a girls' drill team.
"I make people believe in them-
selves," Bertha explains. "What's
wrong with the government is that
they work on the buildings. I work on
the people first. Once you give peo-
ple back their pride and dignity, then
the buildings are easy."
TAKING CHARGE
nonsense
Bertha was born Bertha Knox, the
second of 15 children, and grew up in
pontynose
a St. Louis tenement. Her early
years were defined by sexual abuse
and neglect, but despite a hellish
home life, Bertha managed to gradu-
Pantyhose No nonsense
ate from high school. (Continued)
16 Family Circle 9/26/89
Women Who Make
When she wasn't working or
STAYING PUT
studying, she was leading other ten-
While Bertha started as a volunteer,
A Difference
ants in their struggle to improve life
for the past three years she has
at Cochran Gardens. They scrubbed
drawn a modest salary. Most of the
continued from page 15
the walls and floors, and badgered
money she earns-including the
the housing authority to replace
$77,000 fee from Miller Homes—
"I was determined not to let what
missing lights. With Federal and pri-
goes to Urban Women, Inc., the
happened to me as a child ruin my
vate grants she secured, Bertha set
nonprofit organization she started six
whole life."
up a day-care center and businesses
years ago to pay the salaries of three
At 17, she married Emmett Gil-
to create jobs for tenants.
assistants and dozens of "interns"-
key, a middle-class college student
Eventually, in 1976 the Cochran
tenants she trains to carry on her
whom she had met at church. They
Tenant Management Corp., with
programs after she leaves.
had two children in three years, but
Bertha as president, took over the
When not traveling, which is only
the marriage ended when the youn-
buildings' management. Today, it re-
about five days a month, she returns
ger child was 9 months old.
mains a model of what public housing
to the apartment in Cochran Gardens
Bertha worked, raised her chil-
can be-crime-free, clean and quiet.
that she shares with her son and
dren and went to college. From 4
She has the same goals for Miller
daughter, both college students.
A.M. until noon she pressed clothes
Homes-tenant management. "I be-
Now that she has made something
at a dry cleaner's, and at night she
lieve that the only way public housing
of her life, she says many people
took classes for an associate degree
will work for low-income people is if
urge her to leave the "projects."
in early-childhood education.
they take charge of it themselves."
"That's why my marriage broke
Back then, as today, she lived in
Bertha's success at Cochran Gar-
up," she says. "My husband wanted
Cochran Gardens, a public housing
dens earned her national attention.
to save me, to buy a house in the
development in St. Louis. In the late
After she appeared on 60 Minutes in
suburbs with a two-car garage. But I
60's, the complex was known as Lit-
1986, officials from many cities asked
wanted the same for my neighbor in
tle Nam, because of the routine drug
her to help save their worst public
public housing. If she couldn't have
killings, muggings and burglaries. "I
housing. So she has worked in Phila-
it, then I didn't want it either."
just got fed up," she says. "I decided
delphia, Camden, Chicago, Louisville
this was my home, and I didn't have
and Cleveland, as well as in Trenton,
Olga Wickerhauser is a freelance
to live this way."
and she lectures worldwide.
writer who lives in New Jersey.
REMARKS PREPARED FOR
JACK KEMP
SECRETARY
DEPARTMEN AND U.S. * DEVELOPMENTS OF HOUSMS
URBAN
for
HOPE EVENT AT DALLAS HOUSING AUTHORITY
DALLAS, TEXAS
APRIL 4, 1991
Thank you all very much. It's great to be back in Dallas.
You're fortunate to have one of the very best public housing
authority directors in the Nation, Al[fonso] Jackson. As Mr.
Lincoln said of General Grant, "I cannot spare this man, he
fights." And he has been guided by the ready advice of Dale
Kessler, the Chair of the Dallas Housing Authority. I'm also
very happy that we are joined here today by Mayor [Annette]
Strauss, the Reverend M. L. Curry and Mrs. Tilley Baylor.
They all have courageous Dallas residents helping them, like
Jesse Toles of Rhoades Terrace. President Bush praised Jesse
publicly for her special brand of "take-charge leadership." As
I've said before, Dallas is setting the standard for the Nation.
Twenty-five years ago, almost to the day, Lyndon Baines
Johnson, a great Texan with vast Texas-sized dreams, stood before
the National League of Cities and said, "I believe that future
generations will look back on our era as the dawn of the Golden
Age of urban living."
But by 1972, the Brookings Institution, lodestar of the
liberal establishment, ruefully confirmed that Johnson's Great
Society had failed.
America's best and brightest, the technocratic whiz kids who
came to Washington with John Kennedy, heeded LBJ's call for an
America free from want and hunger. Yet poverty only got worse,
despair only deepened, and for millions of low-income Americans,
hope receded into memory.
Disenchantment did not bring dismantlement of the Great
Society. Almost twenty years after its epitaph was written, the
first war on poverty and its antecedents still boast a legacy of
100 Federally-funded programs costing more than $150 billion a
year. But their patent failure -- having consumed some $2.5
trillion since 1966 -- to do anything more than cushion the blows
of poverty has enervated the American conscience and deadened our
will to resist -- just witness the devastation we have tolerated
in West Dallas for all these many years.
Abraham Lincoln said the process by which a poor man in
America can raise himself up and out of poverty and then hire
someone else to repeat the same feat "is the great purpose for
which this government was formed." Lincoln founded a political
party on that faith. Today, those who would disregard the poor,
those who would steer past the ghettos and the barrios and abide
a permanent, static underclass, attack the very marrow of the
American idea. For if poverty in America is now permanent and
pathological -- if sometime in the last two or three decades
America adopted the fixed and fated class structure of the Old
World -- then a great divide has been passed and Lincoln's
America is no more.
Wouldn't it be tragic if -- just as diverse and distant
peoples adopted the American example of free government -- we
here in the New World were to give up on making democratic
capitalism work, as Lincoln said, for "all peoples of all colors
everywhere"?
The truth is, we have no reason to shy away from the bold,
categorical rhetoric of the first war on poverty. We have every
2
reason to believe the war can be won.
This time we will fight smarter
this time we will keep
our army bureaucratically lean
this time we will rely on
proven principles which have kept the American Dream alive for
the overwhelming majority of Americans and which still today draw
millions of immigrants to our shores.
The syndicated columnist, William Raspberry, who writes
often and well about poverty, asks the question: "Is there
something about poor people themselves that impels them toward
and keeps them in poverty
Or is there something about the way
the society at large treats the poor that perpetuates their
poverty?" Consider that in the two decades before the Great
Society began in earnest, poverty dropped steadily. Between 1950
and 1968, for example, the number of Americans living below the
poverty line decreased from 45 million to 25 million. But since
then, the number has actually increased to roughly 32 million.
Why the abrupt reversal in trend? Why did poverty suddenly
become an inescapable quagmire for so many millions of our fellow
citizens?
Simply put, our paternalistic -- albeit well-meaning --
welfare system severed the just link between effort and reward
-- risk and achievement -- for low-income families. We created
in our inner cities a shadow economy alienated from the economic
mainstream -- an Alice-in-Wonderland second economy where crime
pays and honest labor does not. The welfare mother who takes a
job loses her government benefits and is liable to make less
3
money working than she did while on the public dole -- she is,
paradoxically, ensnared in the safety net.
And some of the worst neighborhoods in America are owned by
the Federal Government, many of our public housing communities
having become breeding grounds for crime, drugs, and despair.
The Bush Administration is committed to making them staging
grounds for a new war on poverty through HOPE -- that's
Homeownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere -- the
centerpiece of our empowerment agenda.
Homeownership has always been a chief pathway to the
American Dream. Mr. Lincoln drew on this tradition when he
introduced the Homestead Act of 1862, which transferred
government lands to the poor and became the most successful anti-
poverty program in American history. Fifty years later, when the
great Russian Prime Minister, Pyotr Stolypin, brought
homesteading to Siberia, he asked, "What, if not the
individualism of small farm ownership, brought America so quickly
to the fore?" Others, too, emulate our Lincolnian example. A
free Czechoslovakia is on the verge of privatizing $130 billion
in government assets. And the Mayor of Moscow, Russia's latter-
day Stolypin, wants to create millions of new homeowners by
giving away all of Moscow's state-owned homes.
Today, President Bush is moving to bring the power of
homesteading to the American inner city, by empowering public
housing residents to manage and ultimately own their own homes.
The President is seeking $855 million in fiscal 1992 to fund
4
our HOPE initiative, which would create 26,000 new homeowners in
public housing and start an additional 50,000 families on their
way toward homeownership. Of some 300 resident groups which have
sought HUD's assistance in becoming resident managers, funds have
been available to support only 100. Responding to the
groundswell of interest in HOPE, the President asked Congress to
provide an immediate infusion of $155 million in fiscal 1991.
Congress refused, preferring instead to provide huge increases
for some of the discredited programs of the past.
Congress also balked at funding our $500 million
supplemental request for the new HOME Grants initiative. HOME
would house five times as many people, at least twice as fast, by
emphasizing cost-effective vouchers and housing rehabilitation.
So the President has requested $1 billion in HOME funding for
fiscal 1992.
But even with the limited funds Congress has made available
up to this point, we are implementing our strategy to give low-
income families access to assets and homeownership.
It is happening right here in Dallas. At Rhoades Terrace,
in South Dallas, residents are about to begin sharing management
responsibilities with the Dallas Housing Authority. In a year,
they will assume complete, unilateral control -- the prelude to
full homeownership.
In her important and radical book, The Death and Life of
Great American Cities, the author, Jane Jacobs, tells how
complaints about the lawn at an East Harlem public housing
5
community used to mystify the local social workers. Who could
complain about a neatly trimmed lawn, right?
One of the residents finally explained it to her this way:
"Nobody cared what we wanted when they built this place. They
threw our houses down and pushed us here and pushed our friends
someplace else. We don't have a place around here to get a cup
of coffee or a newspaper even, or borrow fifty cents. Nobody
cared what we need. But the big men come and look at the grass
and say, 'Isn't it wonderful! Now the poor have everything!"
That says it all. It says that bricks and mortar do not
make a community. It says that the residents neither want nor
need masters -- to succeed, they must be free to fail. It says,
in their own homes, they must be king.
And as for that cup of coffee in Jane Jacobs' story
I
defy the Dallas Housing Authority -- I defy even my resourceful
and talented friend Al Jackson -- to build a corner coffee shop
with the look and feel of one run by a genuine resident
entrepreneur. Not that it hasn't been tried. There are stories
about overzealous urban planners who blocked out space at regular
intervals for corner groceries and bars, as if "neighborhood"
were a fungible commodity which government could procure as it
would a new water main or sidewalk.
Resident management restores to low-income families and
communities their rightful independence. But real economic
empowerment requires more than simple sovereignty -- it requires
ownership of assets, homeownership. Today, American welfare
6
policy emphasizes income transfers. But a subsistence-level
paycheck is here today, gone tomorrow, while assets appreciate
over time, creating new wealth. Assets provide a buffer during
lean years and a basis for risk-taking at opportune moments.
They reduce the cost of failure. An asset -- a house -- is pure
potential. It is a piece of the future.
The acquisition of private property, the accumulation of
wealth, the putting down of roots
these are the simple
building blocks of prosperity in America. Why should it be any
different for the poor than for the middle class?
The black scholar John Sibley Butler of the University of
Texas at Austin has shown that accumulation of assets and
entrepreneurial experience are vital to the economic vitality of
a community. His work focuses on the blacks of Durham, North
Carolina, which -- even amid the injustice of Jim Crow -- was
once known as the "Black Wall Street." He found that 63 percent
of third-generation black college graduates in Durham are
descended from these first black entrepreneurs.
Today, 40,000 blacks in Durham control more wealth than a
million blacks in Chicago -- indeed, more wealth than any other
black community in America. There's no great hidden secret
behind that statistic -- only the time-honored American truth
that entrepreneurship is a ticket out of poverty. A poor man or
woman starts a business, earns a living, builds a nest egg,
passes it on to the next generation so that his or her children
can go on to college.
7
Our great challenge, in these last tumultuous years of the
twentieth century, is to revive this classic American success
story
to restore in our inner cities this dynamic system. We
can make it happen in Dallas -- not by destroying the slums and
building shopping malls in their place, not by massive World
Bank-style interventions, but by shattering the barriers to
entrepreneurship and growth.
In his fiscal 1992 budget, President Bush has asked Congress
to authorize 50 Enterprise Zones in the most depressed urban and
rural neighborhoods. Thirty-eight states have established some
1,300 Enterprise Zones, and they have proven their worth. In New
Jersey, the state's Enterprise Zone program generated 15,700 new
jobs and $1.5 billion in added investment in under five years.
But the state Enterprise Zones are necessarily junior varsity
imitations of what could be achieved at the Federal level. Only
the Federal Government can eliminate the capital gains tax
entirely in Enterprise Zones and properly reward investors who
provide new capital to inner city entrepreneurs.
Some people look at West Dallas and see only problems. I
see possibilities. In many ways, it is a natural habitat for the
urban entrepreneur. Traditionally, the urban small businessman
can't afford glitzy Park Avenue commercial real estate. He wants
an old, maybe even run-down building where his overhead will be
low
he wants Brooklyn, not Park Avenue. Sure, IBM isn't
going to find West Dallas very appealing. But West Dallas
doesn't need IBM, it needs Joe's Grocery, Millie's Bar and Grill,
8
laundromats, shoe repair shops, newsstands. Viewed from this
perspective, West Dallas is not a desert but a fertile field of
opportunity. It is like the thick primordial soup before a new
world is born. Our recipe for growth is simple: Add a dash of
cheap capital and stir.
What we have here in Dallas is an army of would-be
capitalists -- without the capital. Enterprise Zones, the
resident management revolution in public housing, and public-
private partnerships can combine to open up the flow of capital
and create a surge of new jobs and new businesses.
We must have faith that the residents themselves will
rebuild West Dallas, if we open to them the full universe of
American opportunity. This is a simple faith, born of our
centuries-old encounter with the American Dream. "We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable
rights
"
Where life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
are concerned, we assume as an article of faith that all are
equally endowed to be the architects of their own self-creation.
So today, with the Declaration of Independence in mind, we
declare a new war on poverty and inaugurate the West Dallas
front. The whole Nation is watching. Success here will be felt
from East Harlem to East L.A. And, in a still larger sense, as a
step on the road to eliminating poverty in America, it will stand
as a beacon of hope and encouragement for all the world.
Thank you very much.
9
OUTLINE
DALLAS HOPE EVENT
APRIL 4, 1991
I. OPENING.
*
Thank Al[fonso] Jackson [DHA Director], Dale Kessler
[Chair, DHA], Dallas Mayor Annette Strauss, Rev.
M.L. Curry, Mrs. Tilley Baylor, Mrs. Jesse Toles.
II. FIRST WAR ON POVERTY FAILED.
*
25 years ago, LBJ said, "I believe that future
generations will look back on our era as the dawn of
the Golden Age of urban living."
*
1972: Brookings Institution said Great Society failed.
*
Today, still have 100 Federal anti-poverty programs
costing $150 billion-plus per year.
*
Between 1950 and 1968, poverty dropped from 45
million people to 25 million. Since 1968, it's gone up
to about 32 million. Why?
*
William Rasberry: "Is there something about poor
people themselves that impels them toward and
keeps them in poverty. Or is there something about
the way the society at large treats the poor that
perpetuates their poverty?"
*
Second economy is the problem.
1
III. HOPE.
*
Homeownership is key escape route from poverty.
*
President requested $855 million for fiscal 1992 for
HOPE, Homeownership and Opportunity for People
Everywhere.
HOPE funds would create 26,000 new homeowners in
public housing and start an additional 50,000 on their
way to homeownership.
*
Some 300 resident groups have sought HUD
assistance in resident management. Funds have
allowed us to help only 100 so far.
*
President also wants $1 billion for HOME Grants
program, which helps states and localities provide
affordable housing -- favors vouchers and rehab.
/
*
Congress rejected our FY '91 supplemental request
for $155 million for HOPE and $500 million for HOME.
2
IV. ASSETS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP.
*
Assets, not cash income transfers, help the poor
escape poverty.
*
Assets allow risk-taking, provide a buffer during hard
times, provide something to pass on to children.
*
John Sibley Butler, scholar at University of Texas,
studies Durham, NC, which used to be called "the
Black Wall Street."
*
Butler found that 40,000 Durham blacks control more
wealth than 1 million blacks in Chicago, or any other
black community. Why? Because they come from
entrepreneurial families.
V. ENTERPRISE ZONES.
*
President wants 50 EZ's.
*
38 states have established some 1,300 EZ's.
*
In NJ, the EZ program created 15,700 new jobs and
$1.5 billion in new investment.
*
West Dallas is perfect place for an EZ.
3
VI. CLOSING.
*
Here today to inaugurate the West Dallas front.
*
Dallas can be an example for the Nation.
4
The Resident Management Revolution in Public Housing
By the Honorable Jack Kemp
Last November, President Bush signed the National Affordable
Housing Act, the most sweeping revision of Federal housing policy
in two decades. Its centerpiece is a groundbreaking new
initiative called HOPE, Homeownership and Opportunity for People
Everywhere. HOPE makes a radical break with government
paternalism by enabling public housing residents to manage and
ultimately own their own homes.
At the Kenilworth-Parkside public housing community in
Washington, D.C., the independent accounting firm, Coopers and
Lybrand, estimates that resident management reduced operating
costs by 45 percent, welfare dependency by 70 percent, and crime
by fully 75 percent. All across the Nation, from Bromley Heath
in Boston and Cabrini-Green in Chicago to Rhoades Terrace in
Dallas, similar resident initiatives are rebuilding devastated
neighborhoods.
This contrasts sharply with public housing's dismal record.
In 1972, for example, the City of St. Louis demolished all 43
buildings of the Pruitt-Igoe public housing community. Pruitt-
Igoe had become a vast, bleak, crime-ridden ghetto, and its ruins
stood as grim testimony to the bankruptcy of Federal housing
policy.
Nearly two decades later, some of the worst neighborhoods in
America are still owned and operated by the United States
Government. It is no coincidence. Government welfare policies
discourage work and reward dependency, creating a socialistic
shadow economy in our inner cities. The 3 million Americans
1
living in public housing are alienated from the real world's
linkage of effort and reward, risk and achievement.
Homeownership has always been the chief pathway to the
American Dream. Abraham Lincoln drew on this tradition in
introducing the Homestead Act of 1862, which transferred
government lands to the poor and became the most successful anti-
poverty program in American history.
Today, President Bush is moving to bring the power of
homesteading to the inner cities by empowering low-income
Americans with the same freedom of opportunity the rest of
America enjoys. In his State of the Union Address, the President
said, "Freedom and the power to choose should not be the
privilege of wealth. They are the birthright of every American.'
While so many of our welfare policies reflect the premise
that poverty is permanent and pathological, HOPE's urban
homesteading is grounded in the common sense faith that all
Americans -- rich and poor, black and white -- share the same
dream of a better life for themselves and their children. The
American Dream is class and color blind.
At the start of the Bush Administration, there were 13
resident groups training to become resident managers. Today
there are 100. Two hundred more groups have applied for training
but been turned away for lack of funding. Yet amid this
groundswell of interest in resident management and homeownership,
Congress recently rejected the Administration's request for $155
million to implement HOPE in fiscal year 1991. Instead, it chose
to bolster the discredited programs of the past.
The President is determined not to disappoint the thousands
2
of low-income families who have staked their dreams on HOPE. He
is seeking $855 million in fiscal year 1992 to dramatically
expand this initiative. The Administration's full funding
request for HOPE would start 40,000 residents in some 400 public
housing communities on their way toward homeownership by the end
of 1992.
The first War on Poverty failed not because it aimed too
high but because it did not aim high enough. Its architects
doubted the continuing power and validity of the American system.
This time around, we will rely on the classic American formula
for escaping poverty by empowering the poor to freely pursue
their dreams.
A new generation of homesteaders is climbing the ladder of
opportunity. America is watching and taking heart.
I can only hope Congress is watching, too.
3
MISSOURI ENTERPRISE ZONE PROGRAM
MISSOURI
Program Status
Legislation approved in 1982. Program became operational in 1983.
Number of Zones
A maximum of 33 zones are authorized. As of July 1988, all 33 zones had
been designated. Legislation in 1989 and 1990 authorized 41 zones, 37 of
which have been designated and 2 more are pending. This year the
legislature may create additional zones.
Eligibility Criteria
Population:
*
Within an MSA, at least 4,000 but not more than 32,000.
Outside an MSA, 1,000 to 20,000.
Areas of pervasive poverty, unemployment, and general distress.
Meets UDAG criteria.
All of the following must be present:
65% of the population below 80% of the median income for the State.
Unemployment 50% above the aveerage rate of unemployment for the
state.
Cooperation from the localities.
Incentives for Qualified Businesses
Tax Credits:
*
If 30% of the new employees are zone residents or are considered
"difficult to employ", tax credits are available for 10% of the
first $10,000 in investments, 5% of the next $90,000 and 2% of
the remaining qualifying investment.
Up to $1,200 in tax credits for each new hire:
*
For each new job, regardless of the time of year started, $400 in
tax credits,
For each 3 months the new hire lives in the enterprise zone, $100
in tax credits, and
For each 3 months that a "difficult to employ" person works on
the job, $100 in tax credits.
Up to $400 in training credits for training other than JTPA or state
training program.
State income tax exemption of 50% for 10 years to be earned by a zone
business if 30% of the firm's employees are zone residents or have
exhausted their benefits.
Unused tax credits will be refunded at a rate of 40% or up to $50,000
for the first year, and 25% or up to $25,000 for the second year.
A minimum 50% exemption from local ad valorem property taxes for at
least the first 10 years for improvements to real property. This may
run for 25 years depending upon the decision of the local government.
A tax increment financing law became operational in 1985.
A direct loan program for qualifying Missouri businesses became
effective in 1983,
Infrastructure improvements are required as part of the competitive
enterprise zone program.
Highlights of Zone Activity
significant emphasis is placed on creation of new jobs for residents
residing in the Enterprise Zone. Many of the tax incentive programs are
geared towards that concept.
Data available from 1983 through December 1990#
Jobs created:
11,702
Total investments:
$541 million
Petteen:
Contact person:
William O. Green
Coordinator, Enterprise Zone Program
Department of Economic Development
P.O. Box 118
Jefferson city, Missouri 65102
(314) 751-6835
State of Missouri
MOCCCXA
John Ashcroft, Governor
Department of Economic Development
Carl M. Koupal, Jr., Director
Economic Development Programs
P.O. Box 118
Jefferson City, Missouri 65102
February 23, 1991
Mr. Michael McMahon
Director, Enterprise Zone Staff
Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 7th Street S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20410
Dear Mr. McMahon:
I am pleased to respond to your inquiry regarding new
development in the Missouri enterprise zone program during the
preceding year. Major changes are occurring in the number of
zones authorized and designated. I also have an update on the
number of jobs created, as well as the amount of investment
placed in service since the program became operational.
As a result of legislation adopted in 1989 and 1990, the
Missouri Department of Economic Development now has legislative
authorization to designate a total of 41 enterprise zones, of
which 37 have been designated as of this date. Two applications
for designation are in the process of being prepared and
submitted to the Department. We would anticipate designations in
both of these communities within the next 4-6 weeks.
Additionally, legislation is pending in the current session of
the Missouri General Assembly which, if passed and signed by the
Governor, would create additional zones. The session concludes
on or about May 15, 1991.
Our verified statistics reflect an aggregate of 11,702 new
jobs created since the program's inception in 1983. We also can
document the creation of capital investment totalling in excess
of $541 million since 1983.
The remainder of the information included in the last update
is unchanged. Thank you for your interest in the Missouri
program. Please let me know if I may be able to provide
additional information.
Sincerely,
William O. Green
Enterprise Zone Coordinator
WOG/vmk
LOS ANGELES TIMES
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1990
Residents of Public Housing Will
Learn How to Manage Themselves
Nickerson Gardens: HUD Secretary Kemp presides
$93,000 HUD grant, one of five
over official opening of yearlong training program seen
such grants given to Los Angeles
public housing projects. The others
as one answer to problems of crime and vandalism.
will go to the Estrada Courts,
Jordan Downs, Normont Terrace
By BETTINA BOXALL
housing projects.
and Pico Aliso projects.
TIMES STAFF WRITER
"[We] want to make sure that
Nickerson has hired Bertha
every resident of public housing in
Gilkey to run the sessions, which
Some of the thousands of people
the United States of America from
will be held three times a month
who live in Nickerson Gardens will
Watts to East Los Angeles to the
for the next year. Gilkey, a seem-
start going to class this week for
South Bronx to East Harlem has
ingly irrepressible advocate of ten-
lessons in how to take over their
the opportunity to manage their
ant rights, is known nationally for
housing project, the largest in Los
own public housing and someday to
helping notoriously bad housing
Angeles and one of the most trou-
own it if that's their dream," Jack
projects, such as Cochran Gardens
bled.
Kemp, U.S. secretary of housing
in St. Louis, clean up by putting the
About 50 Nickerson Gardens
and urban development, said Tues-
people who live there in charge.
residents are expected to show up
day before a crowd that filled a
"I say to the 6 million people in
for the beginning of a yearlong
gymnasium at Nickerson Gardens
public housing in this country
series of training sessions intended
to mark the official start of the
it is time to challenge the sys-
to help them form a management
training program.
tem.
Who can better manage
corporation that would gradually
Kemp shared the stage with
us than us?" Gilkey said.
replace the Los Angeles Housing
several other dignitaries, including
Kemp also announced that the
Authority in running the Watts
Mayor Tom Bradley and Assem-
housing project.
Los Angeles Housing Authority
blywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los
The program is one of many
will get $18 million this fiscal year
Angeles), all of whom praised the
to make improvements at its hous-
being launched in public housing
trend toward tenant management
ing projects. Last year the authori-
projects around the country as the
as the beginning of a new era in
Bush Administration promotes
ty received nearly $15 million for
public housing. "Nickerson is
repairs and improvements, but
tenant management and even
ready," declared Waters.
housing officials say it would take
ownership as answers to the fes-
The management training-
more than $200 million to do all the
tering problems of crime and van-
open to all adult Nickerson resi-
improvement work they would like
dalism that riddle many public
dents-is being paid for by a
to do.