2000 Best Practice Awards

Best Practice: Bristol Place (previously Murphy Blair Townhouses)

Local Developer Transforms Run Down City Housing Through Community Partnerships

St. Louis. Kohner Properties turned a crime-infested, dilapidated property in St. Louis, Missouri, into a thriving, affordable apartment building. More than 50 percent of the neighborhood in which Bristol Place is located was owned by the city because of tax foreclosures. Kohner Properties purchased the 100-unit apartment complex at a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) foreclosure sale for $640,000 and adopted a substantial amount of surrounding abandoned property from the city in exchange for removing trash and dead trees. The developer worked closely with police to arrest and/or evict tenants and visitors responsible for drug trafficking. The apartments were then remodeled: new roofs, windows and doors were installed, modern kitchens replaced old ones, and walls were demolished to enlarge the size of rooms. Kohner Properties obtained $1,861,004 in privately-financed renovation costs and a 10-year tax abatement from the city. Through partnership, innovation and dedication, Kohner Properties changed the environment of the eight city blocks, by not only improving their properties, but also by adding attractive fencing, signage, and renovating two playgrounds, making the area safer and economically stable, and promoting interest from other developers.

Contact: Jon Pyzyk, Phone: (314) 862-8916
Tracking Number: 1512
Winning Category: Geographical

Best Practice: Economic Growth Group Microenterprise Creation and Development

Partnership Assists Start-Ups and Existing Businesses with Technical Support

Kansas City. The Economic Growth Group (EGG) Program helps individuals start a business and existing business owners enhance their skills and managerial expertise in businesses located in the Kansas City CDBG service area. Participants enter into a five-year partnership with the program. The program uses a case management model to provide professional technical support in the form of financial analysis, cash management, marketing and operational systems evaluation. These business creation and development supports are supplemented with affordable business space and business services including bulk mailing, faxing, computer training, business resource library, Internet access, telephone answering and copier services. The program uses traditional and non-traditional lending sources and serves as a loan packager and intermediary for financing. The program offers participants a stipend to offset the cost of securing outside professional services. EGG relies on existing city services and programs to prevent duplication of business support. A citywide network of development specialists assists participants. The EGG has created 179 new jobs and retained 169. In addition, 40 loans have been closed for a total investment of $1,209,000.

Contact: Donna Colding, Phone: (816) 274-2301
Tracking Number: 2378
Winning Category: Program (Community Builder)

Best Practice: Fair Housing Faith and Community Fair

Fair Educates Residents on Civil Rights and Fair Housing

Kansas City. Led by the Metropolitan Baptist Church, a coalition of church leaders, federal agencies, schools and colleges sponsored an all-day fair housing and civil rights fair. The U.S. Department of Justice, HUD, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and a variety of other federal agencies joined with private sector organizations to educate approximately 500 people on issues ranging from how to obtain food stamps to how to fight for fair housing. These efforts substantially raised the level of community awareness regarding how government and private sector resources can be used to protect their rights.

Contact: Wallace Hartsfield, Phone: (816) 923-3689
Tracking Number: 52
Winning Category: Geographical

Best Practice: The Housing Authority of the City of Noel, MO (NHA)

Housing Authority Develops Homeownership Plan for Public Housing Residents

Noel. The Noel Housing Authority (NHA) is comprised of 100 units. The complex is located in McDonald County, which is one of the poorest counties in the state. The waiting lists for subsidized housing in this area is extremely long. In an effort to improve the situation, the NHA Board of Commissioners decided to improve the properties throughout the community, and a Homeownership plan was devised. The Public Housing Authority (PHA) has been successful in enhancing the lives of public housing residents by stabilizing them in the community. The Homeownership Plan builds residents’ self-sufficiency and self-esteem by allowing them to feel like an integral part of the community. Run down properties in the community were improved, renters became interested in purchasing homes, transient work force became more stable and the property tax base improved. To date, two homes have been purchased and prospective buyer sessions have yielded a list of thirty-six interested homebuyers.

Contact: Joyce Short, Phone: (417) 475-3195
Tracking Number: 2946
Winning Category: Geographical

Best Practice: Northeast Community Action Agency Corporation Affordable Housing Initiative

Agency Establishes Housing Consortium for Increase Homeownership

St. Charles County. The Northeast Community Action Agency Corporation Affordable Housing Initiative used a host of innovative tools to address the lack of affordable housing in St. Charles County, Missouri. The corporation established a network of public and nonprofit housing and service providers to consolidate scarce resources while matching the needs of individual homebuyers with existing state and local programs. Focus groups developed to examine topics such as recruitment, housing counseling, financing, and follow-on supportive services are another means by which the corporation helps to smooth the often difficult path to homeownership in the St. Charles County area. Forty-five applicants have submitted pre-qualification applications to qualify for a mortgage.

Contact: Carla Potts and Denise Liebel, Phone: (573) 324-6622
Tracking Number: 2231
Winning Category: Program (Housing - Single Family)

Best Practice: Marketing Historic Properties

Partnership Encourages Restoration of Historic Homes

St. Joseph. To address the problem of deteriorated vacant housing in the city’s core neighborhoods, the City of St. Joseph, Missouri, in partnership with nonprofit groups, launched an aggressive real estate marketing campaign to attract private reinvestment for endangered historic properties. The concept was to aggressively identify distressed properties and establish contact with the owners in an effort to encourage rehabilitation or offer assistance in placing the house on the real estate market, and locate preservation-sensitive buyers who would complete the rehabilitation. Historic properties available for sale and restoration are published in The St. Joseph Historic Properties Emporium, a quarterly listing. The publication has generated more than 2,000 inquiries about historic properties since its inception and it has helped find buyers for 17 distressed properties. New owners are encouraged to take advantage of local incentive programs, including the city’s U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-funded Low Interest Loan Rehabilitation Program and the Residential Historic Preservation Loan Program.

Contact: Greg Sekula, Phone: (816) 271-4648
Tracking Number: 486
Winning Category: Program (Community Planning and Development)

Best Practice: College Hill Apartments

Neighborhood Networks Center Provides Community Resources for Single Moms

St. Louis. The College Hill Neighborhood Networks Center provides motivation and self-confidence to the residents of College Hill Apartments, a 178-unit, scattered site Section 221(d) (4) project located within four crime-ridden, economically depressed city blocks of North St. Louis, Missouri. Residents are mostly single mothers who receive welfare assistance. A variety of partnerships with community organizations have been created to provide services to all generations of the complex’s resident families, including day care, after-school programs, drug and alcohol counseling, and support for women leaving prison. The center also provides educational materials (e.g., literacy, pre-GED, GED) and access to the Internet, a fax machine, a copy machine, and e-mail—not only for apartment residents but also for disadvantaged members of the surrounding community. In the last two years, 375 residents received services from the center and 160 were placed in unsubsidized employment.

Contact: Eileen Donvan, Phone: (314) 534-4143
Tracking Number: 2109
Winning Category: Program (Housing - Multifamily)

Best Practice: Support Services Provision Program

Program Offers Housing Assistance and Community Support for Families

St. Louis. The Support Services Provision Program of Beyond Housing of St. Louis provides a combination of permanent housing for needy families and comprehensive, individualized assistance to enable those families to reach their goals of self-sufficiency. Families are selected by income eligibility and willingness to achieve self-sufficiency. Case workers focus on identifying and meeting the needs of each individual in the family. The families are required to set and keep records of both short- and long-term goals, and the records are reviewed quarterly with case workers. The organization operates 215 homes in the St. Louis area and serves 875 needy people, including 570 children. Services provided include training for homeownership, parenting skills, employment counseling, childcare assistance, transportation and vocational assistance, money management training, tuition for post-secondary education, books, GED educational support, job readiness activities, training and education. Youth services include classes in life skills and leadership development, computer access and training, tutoring and exposure to post-high school possibilities.

Contact: Chris Krehmeyer, Phone: (314) 862-8130
Tracking Number: 2600
Winning Category: Geographical

Best Practice: Missouri Commission on Human Rights

Commission Trains Ministry Staff on Fair Housing Issues

Missouri (Various Counties). The Missouri Commission on Human Rights is partnering with Columbia Interlight Ministry, a local housing counseling agency, to promote fair housing in four counties in Missouri. The commission provides fair housing training to the ministry’s staff who then collect allegations of fair housing violations in the counties served and deliver them to the commission for further investigation. As part of an outreach strategy, the commission also developed a fair housing quiz show for use at state and county fairs. The traveling quiz shows receive a positive response at these events and serve to further educate the public about fair housing issues.

Contact: Donna Cavitte, Phone: (573) 522-1019
Tracking Number: 205
Winning Category: Geographical

Best Practice: SAVE, Inc.

Program Offers Housing Assistance to HIV/AIDS Individuals

Kansas City. Since its inception in1986, SAVE, Inc. has been the only provider of housing and housing-related services to individuals who are both infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. For more than two decades, it has successfully housed and/or assisted some 1,800 individuals in the 15-county service area. SAVE provides a continuum of services, including short-term emergency housing, intermediate-term transitional housing, permanent housing, hospice care, and housing assistance for vouchers and other subsidies for scattered-site housing. SAVE has developed 14 different housing programs within the last 13 years, nine of which have added more than $3.5 million in physical improvements to the east midtown area of Kansas City. In addition to 75 units of housing, SAVE purchased and restored a 100-year-old three-story stone mansion, at no cost to taxpayers, that serves as an administration center, a service center for all SAVE residents and clients, and a facility for use by community residents and neighborhood associations. Funding for SAVE rehabilitation and construction projects has been contributed through a partnership of private donors, foundations, Federal HUD and Health and Human Services dollars, the Missouri Housing Development Commission and the Fannie Mae Foundation.

Contact: Ellen King, Phone: (816) 531-8340 Ext.22
Tracking Number: 2043
Winning Category: Geographical

Best Practice: St. Louis HUD Sweat Equity Program

Program Exchanges Manual Labor for Down Payment Assistance

St. Louis. The Sweat Equity Program developed by the St. Louis HUD office permits any homebuyers who are applying for a FHA-insured loan to exchange manual labor on their new home for a percentage of their down payment. Prospective homeowners can plant grass seed around their house for a 1 percent discount on their down payment and can paint the inside of their home for a 2 percent discount. In both cases, the housing contractor supplies all necessary supplies and the homebuyer provides the labor. The St. Louis Sweat Equity Program has been successful in enabling low-income homebuyers to become involved in the construction of their new home and in easing the financial burdens that often inhibit homeownership.

Contact: Dennis Martin, Phone: (314) 539-6388
Tracking Number: 865
Winning Category: Program (Housing - Single Family)

Best Practice: Doorways Interfaith AIDS Residence Program

Program Offers Community Services and Housing to People Living with HIV/AIDS

St. Louis. Doorways is an Interfaith partnership, which provides innovative residential settings in which HIV affected individuals, and families can receive coordinated community resources. Doorways began providing residential services over 10 years ago with a 10-unit project. Today the organization meets the needs of HIV/Persons living with AIDS through a continuum of residential services. It is the only housing program specifically designed for people with AIDS in the St. Louis area. Doorways operates four programs: The Residential Program, the Own Home Program, the Clearinghouse, and the Supportive Housing Program. Currently, construction is almost complete on a new 811 unit apartment complex, to be called Mama Nyumba ("My Mother's House" in Swahili). Doorways also houses up to 450 persons each month through its rent/mortgage subsidies, and independent and supportive living facilities. In the near future, the program plans to expand its work into other St. Louis neighborhoods. For more information visit the Doorways website (http://members.aol.com/DoorwaysMO/index.html).

Contact: Lynne Cooper, Phone: (314) 535-1919 Ext. 3030
Tracking Number: 453
Winning Category: Program (Community Builder)

Content Archived: April 20, 2011