Housing the Poor: Challenges & Hope

The Edge of Chaos

Wicked Problems Discussion

Housing the Poor: Challenges & Hope

June 19, 2014

Participants

Approximately 53 individuals attended the Wicked Problem discussion on “Housing the Poor”. See Attachment A for a complete list of meeting participants.

Facilitators

Kay Kornmeierand Kristie McCullough, Clarus Consulting Group

Discussion questions

What does Housing that successfully meets the needs of those in poverty look like / include?
What short and long-term action items should be undertaken to improve efforts to provide improved housing for the poor?

Discussion Overview

Opening Discussion:

Mark Kelly, Publisherof Weld for Birminghamprovided context for the session by presenting information from Weld’s recently published “Poverty in Birmingham” series (Attachment B). Kelly reviewed some of the sobering statistics outlined in his article, including:

Almost one-quarter of families in Birmingham live below poverty level;
In households headed by single mothers (or other females with no husband present) with children under 18, the poverty rate is 49.9 percent; and,
Of all the children in the city of Birmingham under 18 years of age, 45 percent live in poverty.

Kelly also emphasized that poverty in Jefferson County, AL cuts across racial lines. In fact, the population of the 13 JeffCo municipalities where poverty exceeds the statewide rate is 49.5 percent white, 46.7 percent black and 4.8 percent Hispanic / Latino.

After Kelly’s presentation, the group engaged in a high-level discussion of what ideal housing for the poor would include / look like, including. Participants also broke into smaller groups and developed a graphic depiction of their ideas, which can be found in Attachment C. Responses included:

Same features as housing for the non-poor, but with additional service s/ resources
Housing that encourages interaction between neighbors (i.e. front porches)
Community that is diverse (families, elderly, young couples, mixed incomes, etc.)
Mixed housing options (single family, multi-family, elderly etc.)
Housing that is safe and promotes healthy living:
Low crime rate
Clean water
Good air quality
Safe soil
Healthy food options nearby
Quality schools
Community gathering spaces (green space / community parks)
Neighborhoods that are walkable and with easy access to:
Public transportation
Jobs
Community resources and services (including Senior and Youth Centers)
Housing with access for people with disabilities and/or mobility issues
Energy efficiency

Issue Identification:

Participants then identified and developed action items around four main issues that impact housing for the poor:

Action Items: Health & Safety

Meaningfully enforce existing laws
Design homes and neighborhoods to encourage interaction between neighbors
Stop industrial pollution
Reduce violent crime / assault
Increase knowledge of how to take care of yourself (healthy eating options, exercise, self-defense)
Clear communities of blight (take down abandoned houses; provide lawn maintenance for elderly, etc.)

Action Items: Policy

Coordinate policy and funding across city, county and state government
Develop processes to improve / streamline things such as securing permits (improve current “process paralysis”)
Make it easier to do business in the city of Birmingham
Develop aggressive housing initiatives

Action Items: Coordination / Collaboration

Develop strategies to improve collaboration / coordination
Ensure resources are brought together holistically; eliminate duplication of effort and silos
Ensure coordination of assessment / intake process; make sure process is well-publicized
Conduct a full assessment of available resources (strengthen 211)
Improve information sharing across resources; provide the community with access to accurate, up to date information
Improve collaboration for housing rehabilitation; do more housing rehabilitation

Action Items: Resources

Advocate for support and funding for Housing Trust Fund of Alabama (HTFA) bill
Secure more low-interest loans

Develop policy to “jump start” markets / generate more capital
Provide more access to capital
Develop strategies to get the faith community more involved in providing resources to help transform communities
Encourage UAB and private sector to support housing development / revitalization efforts
Encourage the City of Birmingham to provide financial resources to non-profits working to improve housing for the poor
Encourage investment from individuals and the private sector

Action Items: Miscellaneous

Address the problem of housing for the poor with intentionality
Nurture the will to tackle the problem; change mindsets
Increase buy-in and sense of ownership from the community
Develop strategies to de-stigmatize housing for the poor
Research what is working in other communities
Move away from historical “fixes”
Elect community activists (not politicians)
Build on existing resources / programs

Other Stakeholders:

The group completed their discussion by identifying other stakeholders that should be included in the conversation in order to develop sustainable solutions to housing for the poor.

School board / superintendent

United Way Community Impact Team
Birmingham News
Media / social media
Church leaders
Consumers
Students
Representative of State Housing and Urban Development
Police Department
Woodlawn initiative

Attachment A

Wicked Problem Discussion: Housing the Poor

Participant List

Clarus Consulting GroupPage 1

Shauntice Allen, One Great Community
Lathia Banks
Majadi Baruti
Amber Beg, UAB
Oscar Berry, Office of Representative Terry Sewell
Valeria Bouriche, One Roof
David Bradford, EAB
Jon Brock, JBS
Patricia Burch, Habitat for Humanity
Paul Carruthers, Regions Bank
Jennifer Clarke, YWCA
Laura Coulter, The Edge of Chaos
William Curry, UAB School of Medicine
Theodore Debro, JCCEO
Traci Edwards, Weld
Michelle Fanucchi, UAB School of Public Health
Hala Fawal, The Edge of Chaos
Jim Fenstermaker, KRC
Sharon Fenstermaker, Low Income Housing Coalition of Alabama
David Fleming, REV Birmingham
Sherri Goodman, Alagasco
Gus Heard-Hughes, Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham
Zac Henson, Magic City Ag
Anthony Hood, UAB
Robin Hood, Inhabit Bush Hills Project
David Hooks, The Edge of Chaos
George Howard, UAB
Steven N. Hoyt, Birmingham Housing Authority
Reeve Jacobus, Alabama Possible
Reeve Jacobus, Alabama Possible
Haydor Kayali, UAB
Mark Kelly, Weld
Ashley Kerr, Low Income Housing Coalition of Alabama
Kay Kornmeier, Clarus Consulting Group
Katie Langley, YWCA
Kristie McCullough, Clarus Consulting Group
TC McLemore, Alabama Possible
Max Michael, UAB School of Public Health
Susan Diane Mitchell
Binnie Myles, Birmingham Water Works
Stacy Oliver, One Roof
Cody Owens, Weld
Richard Rice, The Rice Firm, LLC
Forrest Satterfield, UAB
Terry Smiley, Alagasco
Tevhide Ekin Sut, UAB
Landon Taylor, Alabama Possible
Patricia Todd, State Legislature
Gregory Townsend, Jefferson County Department of Health
David Van Williams, Inglenook Neighborhood
Swaroop Vitta, EAB
Cameron Vowell, Naked Catfish
Daniel Yarbrough, Alabama Possible

Clarus Consulting GroupPage 1

Attachment B

Weld for Birmingham

A place to call home

Mark Kelly

For Ivory Prince, the bullet hole in the hood of her 2007 Kia Rio is a reminder of the distance she has traveled in less than two years’ time. The bullet that caused it was fired in revelry, a New Year’s Eve custom in the Pratt City housing project where Prince and her young daughter lived at the time. There, as in other low-income neighborhoods throughout Birmingham and Jefferson County, scores of young men greet the new year by firing their pistols randomly into the air, utterly unmindful of the Newtonian dictum that what goes up must come down — and that what comes down is going to cause some damage somewhere.

Photo by David Garrett.

“I hadn’t had the car for very long then,” Prince recalls. “I was so proud of it. When I went out the next day and saw that bullet hole, it made me think about where I was living, a place where gunfire was something we heard almost every day, and where I couldn’t walk to the store with my child without running into drug dealers who wanted to know if I wanted to buy something from them.

“Those are hard things to explain to a child. Seeing that bullet hole in my car made me want to work even harder to get myself and her into a better environment.”

As she speaks, Prince, 26, is seated on the sofa in the living room of her new house in Chalkville. After living in three different housing projects over the previous seven years — working two and three jobs while completing her college degree in early childhood education — she graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in May 2013 and, after qualifying for the Habitat for Humanity program, became a homeowner last December.

Next to Prince is 6-year-old Janiya, who is happy to answer questions about her new school, Chalkville Elementary. She readily volunteers that her favorite activities at school are “puzzles and coloring and playing outside,” and that her favorite subjects in the school year just ended were math, reading and learning her ABCs. Her mother says the new school, and the new environment in general, already make a difference in Janiya’s life.

“When we were in Pratt City,” Prince says, “her reading wasn’t that good. She started at Chalkville in January, and by the end of the year, her teacher told me that she was one of the best readers in the class. She has improved so much.”

Making a difference

Location, location, location. That’s the old saw of the real estate industry, highlighting the three most important factors in valuing a particular property and forecasting the success of most business and commercial enterprises. It’s also a decisive factor — some would say the decisive one — in the prevalence and perpetuation of poverty.

“Poverty is an extremely complex issue, and there are many ways to approach it, but housing is the key,” Jennifer Clarke says. Clarke is the chief housing officer for the YWCA of Central Alabama, which provides both transitional and permanent housing for low-income clients, including programs specifically targeting single working mothers, two-parent families and both single and married people who are experiencing homelessness.

“Housing is the thing that holds neighborhoods and families together,” Clarke says. “It affects education, health outcomes and just about every other aspect of life. Kids who don’t get enough sleep because of the surroundings they live in are at a disadvantage in school. Working people who are trying to achieve stability and independence are held back by living in substandard housing. If we want to make Birmingham the best city it can be, we have to do a better job as a community of addressing that.”

As evidence of the difference improved housing options can make, Clarke points to the ongoing revitalization of the Woodlawn area of Birmingham. The YWCA is heavily invested in that effort through its multi-million-dollar YWoodlawn program, which has replaced dilapidated apartments with affordable, income-based housing, including opportunities for home ownership.

YWoodlawn also provides for health, education and employment services. According to Clarke, this holistic approach is helping to maintain and enhance the stability of the community while contributing to its growth as a residential and business location.

“Mixed income is the model that works best, and that’s what we’re trying to build toward in Woodlawn,” Clarke says. “The poverty rate in Woodlawn has fallen from 43 percent to 25 percent, and we don’t think that there has been significant displacement of residents. We’ve kept people there who, while they’re still making very little money, are beginning to see more opportunities open up because of a stabilizing housing environment.”

YWoodlawn also has housing units that are fully accessible for individuals with disabilities, including sight and hearing impairment. That’s an important component, as the difficulties faced by low-income people are compounded when disability is part of the picture as well.

“People who have different disabilities have different needs,” says Josh Whitmire. “People [who] use wheelchairs have certain needs, people who are blind have certain needs; some people have service animals that need to accompany them, and so on. And sometimes landlords have to be educated on ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] guidelines. It can complicate things.”

Himself a wheelchair user due to the congenital developmental disorder spina biffida, Whitmire is a peer advocate with Disability Rights and Resources. The agency assists individuals with disabilities in locating affordable housing or modifying their current homes to better accommodate their needs, and provides training in skills needed for independent living. He says his experience has shown that both the quantity and quality of housing for people with disabilities — and affordable housing in general — remains a daunting proposition.

“I’ve lived in both income-based and fair market rate housing,” says Whitmire, who currently lives in a market-rate apartment in Trussville. “I can tell you firsthand the trouble people have in finding accessible housing. Most of our clients are on extremely limited incomes. Most have to use public transportation. So it’s not as easy as saying, ‘Here’s an apartment,’ and handing them the keys.

“As far as affordable housing in general, there is absolutely not enough of it. There are not enough options, and it needs to be spread out more, to different areas of the community. As it is, people get grouped into certain areas, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. It’s a serious issue and a real challenge.”

Photo by David Garrett.

“…a bad situation”

Ivory Prince knows all about challenges. Born and raised in Birmingham, she graduated from Parker High School and enrolled at Alabama State University, in Montgomery. Less than a year later, she became pregnant with Janiya, and wondered if her dream of earning a college degree was gone.

For a time, Prince worked three jobs in Birmingham while commuting to Montgomery for Tuesday and Thursday classes at Alabama State. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, she unloaded boxes at a local Family Dollar store. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, she worked at the Summit 16 theater complex on U.S. 280. And she worked a weekend temp job setting up and breaking tables for events at the Ross Bridge facilities in Hoover.

“I used to be so tired all the time,” she remembers, smiling ruefully. “And even though my mother was looking after Janiya, I felt like my daughter didn’t really know me. There were times I felt like quitting school, but my mom and my sister encouraged me to stick with it.”

Prince did stick with it, transferring to UAB. She had been fired from her job at Family Dollar when she had difficulty juggling the schedule — an occurrence she now calls “a blessing in disguise,” as soon afterward she received a promotion and a small raise at her job at the movie theater. Still, her housing situation was anything but stable. She lived in three different Birmingham housing projects, each with its own particular set of difficulties.

“I lived at Loveman Village, where there was no central heat and air,” Prince relates. “Then we moved to the Smithfield projects, which had air and heat, but there were roaches everywhere, no matter what I did to try to get rid of them. If you left a room and turned off the light, when you came back and turned it on again, there’d be roaches all over the place. I remember once sitting down and just crying because I was cooking our dinner, and there were roaches falling off the ceiling into the food.

“Another time at Smithfield,” Prince continues, “Janiya was in her room playing, and all of a sudden she just started screaming, ‘Fire! Fire!’ I ran back to her room, and someone had set the dumpster outside her window on fire. The fire department came pretty quickly, but that was just something else on top of all the everyday stuff in the projects.”

From Smithfield, Prince moved to an apartment complex in Pratt City. Though “much nicer” because they had been rebuilt after the April 2011 tornado that struck Jefferson County, there was still frequent gunfire, as well as drug activity and fights that often were visible as she and Janiya walked to their mailbox or sat outside their unit.

“It was just a bad situation,” Prince says flatly.

About two years ago, a friend told Prince about the Habitat for Humanity program. She became determined to qualify for home ownership through Habitat, a process that took her two years. And it’s not an easy process, points out Beth Bradner, vice president for marketing and development for Greater Birmingham Habitat for Humanity, which covers Jefferson, Shelby, Walker and St. Clair counties.

“Obviously, there’s a lot of need,” Bradner acknowledges. “There are lots of individuals and families who can’t make the transition to home ownership because they can’t make a down payment or qualify for a loan. Our ultimate goal is to help make that happen for as many people as possible, but for many people, we first have to help with things like repairing their credit and other things that stand in the way of qualifying them for a loan.”

Like Prince, the majority of applicants to Habitat are single women. Bradner says her office fields approximately 120 contacts per month, but only about 25 percent of those are invited to complete a full application; of that number, she estimates that “probably 60 percent” ultimately qualify for the program. Others are connected to services — primarily through Habitat’s partnership with the United Way of Central Alabama — that can provide them with immediate assistance, and they can reapply to Habitat at any time.