Latest / ChangeMakers with Katie Goar / Episode 120: Chris Krehmeyer, President and CEO, Beyond Housing

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Episode 120: Chris Krehmeyer, President and CEO, Beyond Housing · ChangeMakers with Katie Goar

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This is change Makers with Katie Gore finding the right
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: solutions for the affordable housing community.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: This week's change maker is Chris Krameier, President and CEO
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: of Beyond Housing. He's a visionary leader dedicated to transforming
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: communities in Saint Louis. With over thirty years at the Helm, Chris,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: you have mobilized investments totaling one hundred and seventy five
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: million dollars to create thriving neighborhoods and I am so
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: excited to have you. Welcome to the podcast.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Great to be here, Katie, Thanks for having me.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: It is a pleasure to have you on this platform.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: We really cover best practices across the nation and I
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: can't help but think about what you've done in Saint Louis.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: But before we get started, tell our listeners and talk
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: to me about how you got started in a sfordable
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: housing community development, and just talk about your on ramp
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: to this industry.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Well, the on ramp wasn't anything that was terribly intentional
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: from the beginning. I got a degree in urban studies
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: from Washington University here in Saint Louis. My dad was
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: an engineer by training, and my older brother was an
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: engineer by education. So when I told my dad I'm
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: going to get a degree in urban studies, I think
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: his direct quote was, what the hell is that? And
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: what kind of job were you going to get? Bro
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I said, Dad, I don't know, but that engineering gene
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: just kind of flew right past me. So I took
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: some classes in undergrad in urban studies and I found
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: great interest in it, and I got my fancy degree
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: with my student loans, and I couldn't find a job.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: So my dad was like, yeah, I told you so,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: But I landed. I land at the Housing Throws Anglois
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: County and I worked there for seven years, first in
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the Section eight department, did that for three years, and
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: then in the rehab department, doing you know, some old
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: mod rehab stuff, some mental rehab stuff, some urban homesteading,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you know, some praises and programs from the past, and
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: kind of both, you know, kind of you know, cut
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: my teeth on your kind of project development and you know,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: housing rehab stuff. As well as three years work in
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: a section eight I got to see you know, low
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: income families every day, eight to ten families looking for
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a place to live. So I got both the humanity
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: side of it, and then I kind of got a
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: little bit of the again direct housing development side of
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the housing authority, and then this job came open in
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three. I was terribly unqualified in a whole
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: bunch of different ways, but I had some of the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: skill sets they were looking for. But I think, as
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I think what happens sometimes in life, other people see
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: things in you you don't see in yourself at that
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: point in your life. So I think some of the
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: board of the organization back and saw some things in
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: me that I maybe didn't didn't realize that maybe I had,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I had some more potential, So they took they took
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: a flyer on me, and thirty two years later, I'm
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: still here, still still trying to do good work.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: So are you able to describe to your family now
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: what exactly that you do for your day job.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, My my family knows pretty well after this. They
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: can probably speak chapter verse about all the work that
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Beyond Housing does and my role to that end. So yeah, no,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's actually kind of ingrained in the blood
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: of the family now everybody. Everybody knows and everybody, but
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: it gives back in some form or fashion to our
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: work and to work similar jars.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: So you've seen housing change starting in the section eight
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: department and probably what the eighties or something.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: If I do the math right eighty six.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, So how do you summarize, like we're talking decades
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: here of housing policy changes, neighborhood changes, but then need
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: has remained the same. So summarize, like what it's been
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: like over these decades in this journey, maybe what you
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: could say has worked out really really well, and then
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: what still needs to be improved if you could just
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: generally speak, sure, well, I.
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  Speaker 1: Look, clearly, there have been a lot of wonderful individual
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: things that have occurred. Right, People have gotten a place
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  Speaker 1: to go home, kids have gotten a place to grow up,
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  Speaker 1: Great opportunities have occurred, neighborhoods have been strengthened, home ownership
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: has been created. So there's a lot of individual stories
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: that are worth celebrating. But at the end of the day,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: there's no communit level change today than there was forty
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: years ago, same issues and mostly the same community still
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: exists and most likely have gotten worse. So it's this,
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  Speaker 1: it's kind of this notion of you know, I don't
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  Speaker 1: know what business would keep doing the same thing that
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't work for forty plus years, but they said, let's
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  Speaker 1: just keep doing this way. So it's it's for us.
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  Speaker 1: It's about trying to understand that there's nothing more important
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  Speaker 1: at home. You know, where you come home to every night,
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  Speaker 1: the place you sit around the dinner table, the place
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: you lay your head every night, where you talk about
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the day and plant your dreams. But that equity of
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: opportunity doesn't doesn't exist for everybody in this country and
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: the places you live. As it's saying goes now, your
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: zip code is more important than your genetic code relative
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to your future. And that's because we have not invested
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: in both people and place in a significant way to
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: really see systemic change and longitudinal change. And so while
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the work that happens if you're here in Saint Louis
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and all across the country with all my peers is
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: wonderful and important work, it just pales in the comparison
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  Speaker 1: of what needs to be done both at the individual
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: need level and at the community need level.
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  Speaker 2: And affordable housing policy is good economic policy, it's good
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  Speaker 2: for neighborhoods, good for individuals, but you're talking about a
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  Speaker 2: core need of people who need to know they're safe,
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  Speaker 2: need to know they belong, need to have a place
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  Speaker 2: to raise their kids, have a job, have an address.
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  Speaker 2: But you know, without throwing around like the technical terms
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  Speaker 2: holistic housing or housing first, what is it that at
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: beyond housing your org? What is it that you guys
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  Speaker 2: are doing to accomplish some of that? Because I've read
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: about your information you and I have walked in talked
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: about Saint Louis and Saint Louis County. But I'm a
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: little bit familiar with what you're doing, But I want
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: to hear it in your own words about this holistic
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: approach that I think I hear you describing.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Sure, So again for us, like our mission is to
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: strengthen families and transform communities to create a more equitable
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: and prosperous Saint Louis once and for all. So for us,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: when we think about that and we think about place, right,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: everything is interlated and interconnected. So too often people want
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: a simple solution, right, Well, isn't how isn't it just
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: got to do more housing. Oh, we've got to improve education,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: we have to improve access to healthcare, we have to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: work on jobs, we have to work on Uh, you know,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: economic development mustiple infrastructure, and our response is we have
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: to do all of that because places that are successful
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: don't worry about those things. Places that are successful have
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: all those things that exist and again support the well
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: being of all the families that live there. And too
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: often the communities that you know, folks in our industry
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  Speaker 1: serve they don't have all those things. There's there's the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: lack of strong public education. There's there's there's grocery, there's
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: food deserts, there's doctors deserts, there's entertainment deserts, there's all
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: these things that don't exist in those things again harm
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the well being of again families that live there. So
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: for us, as our name implies, yes, we do housing. Right.
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  Speaker 1: Our rental portfolio now is six hundred and fifty units
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  Speaker 1: plus another one hundred and eighty six that we're managing,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: and we're going to pick up another ninety or so
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: in the next six months in terms of third party
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: property management. Right, So we still do housing, and we
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: do it really well. We just finished our i think
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: it's our twenty fourth low income housing tax credit project,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: so we know how to do that and that's wonderful.
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  Speaker 1: We also in our community, which is the boundaries of
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: a local school district. We've also rehabbed fifteen hundred existing
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: owner occupied homes, mostly owned by seniors. We're in the
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: entering suburbs here in Saint Louis, so again we're investing
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  Speaker 1: in the housing stock in this community in a significant way.
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  Speaker 1: But we know that is not enough. So what we
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  Speaker 1: try to do then is several things. One, if you
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: live in our rental housing use, you get access to
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: a variety of services. As our name implies, yes it's housing,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: it's home, but it's more than that. So we have
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: a case management system that allows folks to again reach
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: out to our staff here, whether you want to become
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: a homeowner, whether you want to send your kids to college,
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  Speaker 1: whether you want to manage your money better, you want
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: to start a small business, you have your car broke down,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: you have a medical issue, whatever those things are that
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: we know our real life occurrences that sometimes cause great
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: harm to a family's journey to the life that they
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: strive for, and our staff's role in that case is
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: to be in that space for families to support them
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: along the way, whether it's crisis intervention or aspirational achievement.
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  Speaker 1: So again we're trying to invest not only in the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: places where people live, but we also invest in those
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: families as well. In addition to that kind of housing work,
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  Speaker 1: we also work with our local school district. As we've said,
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  Speaker 1: our geography is not a municipality, it's not a neighborhood.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: It's a school district because that's where the kids are
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  Speaker 1: and that's how the tax base is set for us.
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  Speaker 1: It's like this, our school district has to get better
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  Speaker 1: because it's been. It struggled for many, many years, as
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: have so many other school districts across the country, particularly
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  Speaker 1: when it's high degrees of poverty, whether that's urban, suburban,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: or rural. If you have high degrees of poverty, your
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: schools tend to struggle. So I have fifteen staff people
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  Speaker 1: embedded the schools today. That thirteen of them are called
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  Speaker 1: family Engagement Liaisons, and they're they're not about the teaching
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: and learning in the classroom. They're just about crisis intervention
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Kids are hungry, kids need school supplies,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: kids need clean clothes. We put washes and dryers in
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: every school building. But again, our school district requires school uniforms.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Right our kids are constantly, you know, running out of
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: school uniforms, you know, damaging uniforms. So again we stand
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: in that space. And then we have crisis intervention funds
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: for the families that against in their kids in the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: school district, and that could be rent assistance, utility assistants,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: other kind of assistants that we know constantly happens in
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: families lives. One hundred percent of the kids who go
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: to our school district receive frame reduced launch, which means
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent of the kids live in poverty. Right.
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  Speaker 1: So for us, it's again, how do we support the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: kids to give them the opportunity to take advantage of
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: again what the school district has to offer from an
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: educational experience standpoint. I have two other staff who work
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: at the high school that run a match savings program.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: When the students and their family save a dollar, we
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: match it with three. For post secondary education, Wow, we've
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: sent over four hundred and fifty kids to college, one
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty college graduates to date. We have thirteen
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: master's degree We have one doctor, Doctor Covington is doing
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: his residency at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. We
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: have one young woman in law school. We've invested close
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: to a million dollars in the Match Savings program to
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: again support kids and their journey to post second day life,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: which can also include trade schools. We're not wet to
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: you traditional two and four year universities, so if kids
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: have other aspirations and dreams and from a trade school perspective,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: we will support them along that journey as well. The
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: persistence rate, which is the fancy word for how many
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: kids stay in school, is over seventy percent, which is
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: incredibly high for again the demographic population that we serve.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: So again supporting kids, supporting families, supporting the school district
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: relative to its success, and again giving kids, you know,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the right jumping off point so they can again lead
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: a successful life. We do economic development work, so we
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: own and operate a four screen, three hundred and seventy
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: five seat movie theater, first run movies cheapest ticket prices
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: in Saint Louis seven fifty. We hire kids from the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: local high school who participate in our MATT Savings program
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: to work there. We have a senior building that's Caddy
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: corner from the movie theater, and we have a senior
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: who literally walks across the street to come to work. Again,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the idea here intersectionality, right, it's a economic development project
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: driven by the voice of the community who said, there's
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: no no entertainment in our community. Could could we help
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: with that? It's it's it's a job's opportunity right. There
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: are three full time employees and nine part time employees
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: who work at the movie theater. And again it's this
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: notion of again, how do you create a sense of place?
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Cross street from the movie theaters a food hall, three restaurants,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: and a pub, again all owned and operated by people
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: of color who who again look like our community. Our
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: folks said there's no place to sit down and eat
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: other than fast food joints in our community. We'd love
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: a place to sit down and eat, and we'd love
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: it to be run by entrepreneurs that looked like us.
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  Speaker 1: So we were able to build a building using new
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: market tax credits and then again, you know, find find
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the entrepreneurs to run their their particular businesses. We also
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: have a a training facility on on the bottom floor
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: of the food hall as well, where we have a
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: couple of trainers who again use our face facility to
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: train classes and to train individuals. On the second floor
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: of the building, there's an employment agency that again works
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: to try to find people job, particularly in the home
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: healthcare business. And we also helped create a community kitchen
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: where we're training young folks how to be in the
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: culinary arts. We also have a health facility right next
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: to the movie theater, which is a We have both
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: primary healthcare and urgent care by one of our local
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: regional partners, an organization called Athenia, which is a FQHC.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: So they see over six thousand patients here and said,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: we wish would have built bigger space because we can
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: serve more clients if we had more space. And then
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: our local hospital system, the biggest hospital system in Saint
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Louis BJC as a youth mental health service program in
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: our building as well. And then on the top floor
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: of that building there's a county taxing body that generates
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: about forty million dollars in taxes every year for mental
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: health services for kids all throughout the Saint Louis County region.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: We built our senior building that I mentioned as a
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: full service bank on the bottom floor. There was no
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: bet there was there was I believe twenty three pay
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: day check cashing places in our community only two regulated banks,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: so we brought another regulated bank to the community. It's
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a regional bank that this particular branch now was a
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: seventy five million dollar branch, and I promise you that
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: bank never thought this branch would do that that well.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: But it just serves that the notion that businesses can
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: can succeed in in lowmand communities if they have a
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: right speed of products and they understand the needs of
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: the community and treat with respect. Across the parking lot,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: we built the grocery store, full service grocery store, seventeen
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: thousand square feet. Sad that we've had two different operators,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: both who have failed. One was a regional firm called
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Save a Lot. They were open for seven years and
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: every year did better in sales, nearly five million sales.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: But then the company got bought by Kadian Hedge Fund
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: and that was kind of the beginning of the end.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: They kind of stripped out all the cash out of
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the business and the Sable Out brand now is mostly
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: a wholesale or not a retail. It's had nothing to
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: do with community. Then we had a second operator, a
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: regional operator who opened up his fifth store in that
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: particular building, and then sooner after he opened that business,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: his whole that store, his whole business crater, and all
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: five of the stores are now closed. Again nothing to
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: do with community, So we're trying to get that particular
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: location reoccupied. We bought a church on the same street,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: thirty thousand square foot church, and want to turn into
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: an arts facility. So we're in the process of securing
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: all the funding and hopefully some another new market tax
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: go to allocation to make that conversion happen, and they
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: will have another small business center with a restaurant, a
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: nail shop, and home to two other not for profits.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: So again we're investing in the economic development activity of
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: this particular community relative to again meeting the needs of
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: what the community has said that they wanted. We have
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: three community health workers on staff focusing on asthma and
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: diabetes to the kind of chronic diseases that communities like ours,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: which is predominantly African American and has a has a
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: high degree of people living in poverty, even though there
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: are some wonderful pockets of middle class housing and middle
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: class folks who just want the things around them to
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: get better and we have a forestry department. We've planted
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: over a thousand trees in our community. We've trimmed over
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: seven hundred trees and taken down over eight hundred trees.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: We've redone almost ten acres of land that was taken
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: over by some of the invasive species like honeysuckle, and
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: have replanted them with Missouri native native plants to again,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: you know, prevent the overgrowth and to take care of
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: some vacant lots in a way that is much more
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: attractive and less owner to some of the local communities.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: We're gonna plant another fifteen hundred trees in the next
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: three years. Again, the idea of place and what makes
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: it successful is a lot of things, including trees.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: So again, when we started this work with trees, I
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: knew nothing about trees other than they were pretty. What
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I've come to learn as an example, right, a healthy
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: tree canopy does a number of things. One prevents the
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: heat island from happening in a lot of low income
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: communities right where again, the neighborhoods are you know, two
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: three four degrees warmer than the rest of the region.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: And by having a healthy tree canopy, you can take
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: toxins out of the air to produce the problem with asthma.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Asthma's the biggest reason why kids in our community miss school, right. So,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: and from a municipal standpoint, you have a healthy tree canopy.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: It saves the wear and tear in your streets, right,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: so you have to have to replace your streets at
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: a longer extension between those times against saving the community
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: resources as well. So, again, as our name implies, we
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: do a lot of different things intentionally, we try to
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: link them all together in an ecosystem. That says, again,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: if everything is in related and interconnected. So when you
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: come to us, and you come to us through the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: through through a housing portal, we're also going to be
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: asking about education and health and jobs. And the same
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: thing is true if you come in through the education portal,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the health port We're going to make sure we're trying
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: to connect you to our work and the work of
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: many of our friends.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: You have touched on all of the core foundations for
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: this broader work of community transformation. In fact, I'm glad
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: you mentioned the trees. I was gonna I was going
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: to ask you about landscaping as a way of fostering
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: community fostering sense of place. You hit on that, you
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: hit on education, healthcare, mental health care, all of the big,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: the big ones. The only one we didn't cover was transit.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: How is transit having to be redefined within your community? Transformations?
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: All of the chech marks. Do you want to comment
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: on transit and what your vision is for that area,
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: what you guys have done?
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Sure, so we own we own some ground next to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: a light rail stop. Uh here, and we're it's it's
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: on our list of projects to get after right to
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: again to create some housing at the light rail stop,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: to work with a number of regional partners to say, look,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: our bus system is inadequate, our light rail system is
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: inadequate to serve folks, right, We've got to do a
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: better job of connecting folks together in Saint Louis. Right now,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: you really have to have a car, which is untenable
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: for a lot of families and unrealistic for a lot
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of families as well. So we're again we're trying to
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: step into that space as well. Just like so much
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: of our work, Kitty, it's just about capital, right, How
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: do we how do we secure enough capital to get
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: the work done.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about capital for a minute. You've invested millions
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: over time, housing, education, economic development, all of the tracks
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: we've been mentioning here. If somebody is listening to this podcast,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: you know we feature best practices nationwide and they're thinking
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: how do we get into the game on a long term,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: comprehensive scale, like you guys have talk about how you've
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: been able to secure that level of funding, because I
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: am sure it was no small feat. I'm sure it is.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Your wish list on what you want to do is
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: still bigger than your ability or your capital. So how
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: are you leveraging? How are you finding the financial support?
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Try to give some tips for people who they want
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: to replicate this.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Well. Look, I mean so many folks on industry you know,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: know know how to how to how to do this right.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: It's about securing capitals, about putting together good project. It's
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: about you know, making the economics of the project work.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: It's about telling a good story, and it's about executing
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: right right. The more you execute, the more success you have,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the more ability you have to go back and have
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: more success. So again, stay after its day after its
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: day after. I think philanthropy has has not done its
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: role in community development. We've been a bit of a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: step child in the film throught world. You know, the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: we know the arts and higher education and babies and
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: kittens and puppies have have some some audiences and some
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: healthcare issues that are meaningful to families that have gotten
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a bulk of philanthropy's attention over the years. We've been
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: successful at and I want to be more successful at.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: It is telling a story to philanthropy, in addition to
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: tax bettered investors, and in addition to lenders about the
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: importance of the work that we are doing. That from
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: our standpoint, if the Saint Louis region in our case,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: is going to be healthier, stronger, and everything that the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: people live here want it to be, we have to
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: address the neighborhoods that have been left behind for far
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: too long. And the only way to do that is
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: through a comprehensive, intentional approach about how to address the issues.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Because there's no simple way to take a community that
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: has been abandoned for you know, thirty forty years of
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: significant capital investment and turnered around in a short election cycle. Right,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you have to be committed to it and recognize that. Look,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: all the literature says the only way place is going
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: to get better is if you tackle all the things
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: that make up healthy communities. You know, it's this, it's
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: this notion of our work in the housing space a
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: lot like I'll speak to some of my some of
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: my peers who just do housing, and they look at
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: me like I've lost my mind doing all this stuff. Right,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, you don't have
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: to do what we're doing, but you should be connected
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: to others who are doing this type of work in
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the place where you're developing your housing as an example, right,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: connect to somebody's doing economic development, who's doing the health work,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: and who's working with schools, because all those things have
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: to be in place if again, your housing is going
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: to be successful over time, and if the communities you
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: work and will be successful over time. I would also
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: say that don't be afraid to spend money on fundraising
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: and marketing. So often we get told by folks that
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: you shouldn't spend money on you know, that much money
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: on marketing and on fundraising, And my response is, look,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: the only way we're going to be able to secure
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the capital we need is by investing in our ability
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: to raise that capital, and that's by again having a
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: fundraising team and having a marketing team that can help
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: tell our story. So again I urge my peers, don't
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: be smart obviously, but don't be afraid to have a
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: marketing budget that allows you to have good storytelling that
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: could gets you the media placements where you want to be,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: that could again have stories that can be used all
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: over your social media platforms.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: And I read that you've had about one hundred and
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: seventy five million invested that you've raised and invested. Is
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: that is that the right metric there? Or is that
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: how much you guys are.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Calling that's probably higher at this point. So you know,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: that's both in you know, again all the real estate
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: development as well as all the human service delivery. So
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: our annual budget again is around operating budget is around
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: twenty million, So that doesn't include you know, all the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: all the real estate development work, right, that's about balance
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: sheet stuff. So again we're intentional about trying to again
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: get to scale. The we're convinced that what we're trying
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: to do is replicatable. It is true the model out
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: and the way put the model out of scale, So
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: we were doing a lot of wonderful things, but it's
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: just not enough given the scope of the of the
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: challenges that our community faces in this moment. So, how
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: do we again get more capital to deploy, to execute
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: well and then to have the kind of results where
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: we're going to see increase in property values, which means
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: increase in tax base, which means more money for schools,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: more money for public safety. How do we increase the
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: economic development projects that are here so people have the
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: kind of things that are important to them. They have
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: a grocery store to shop at, they have restaurants that
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: sit down at, they have movie theaters to have some entertainment.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: They have all the things that they want to live
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: live their best possible lives. So we're we're convinced we're
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: doing the right kind of work. We just have to
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: get to scale.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: You mentioned property values, property taxes. Have you seen the graphs.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Do you have a number of up the actual value
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: that has increased over time? Do you have metrics on
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: that you want to share?
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: So, because our footprint is relatively large, we have a
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: couple that are kind of more micro in nature. Right,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: So in one community where we've done a lot of
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: the economic development work, and a fair amount of housing work.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Over the last ten years of average sales, price of
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: homes by square foot has gone on three hundred and
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: thirty eight percent and crime has gone down forty two right,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: So again we know those are in direct correlation to
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: the work we're doing along with our community partners. So again,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: this is not rocket science. It's just really hard to
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: take a place again have that has been left behind
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and abandoned to try to turn it around. So we're
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: again we're we're absolutely confident we're doing the right kind
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: of work. We also just formed a partnership with Missouri's
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: largest home builder and they're in our community now. Typically
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: big home builders aren't working in places where we work
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: right because the math doesn't make sense. So we've been
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: able to afford to partnership with a local foundation that's
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: rolling money through us. We're buying the property, we're clearing
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: the title, and we're doing the site prep, and then
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: we're handing the pad ready site to the home builder.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: They built their first home on a block that's four
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: blocks from our movie theater and food hall, on the
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: same block where we have five rentals, and they built
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: their first single family home. Did not put a sign
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: in the yard. Our homes were value county valuation around
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty one hundred and thirty thousand. Their home,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: while bigger than our homes without putting a sign in
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the yard, sold for two hundred and fifty thousand. So
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: we are thrilled with the possibility of again bringing more
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: homeowners to the community, more stakeholders, increasing valuation written large,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: which means that all the neighbors have greater wealth because
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: their biggest asset, their home is worth more, and we
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: have more money for schools, more money for public safety.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I have another fifty lots that we're putting through quiet
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: title work and other other prep work, doing the surveying.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I got to work with the city on subdividing lots
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: and combining lots and doing a whole bunch of other
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: stuff that and that's our role, and that's our job,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: you know, to kind of again make make that, make
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: that happen, so we can get this builder to stay interested,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: to stay excited about working with us.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: Is there something that has surprised you the most, like
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: either positively or negatively, when you go into a project,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: or when you go into a certain quadrant or something
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: any generalizations there that you kind of go, oh, here
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: we go again. You know, I've got a rule book
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: for how we handle this, or you know, or is
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: there are there things that just like shock you and
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: surprise you that our issues or aren't issues. I guess.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: So I'll give you. I'll give you the hardest thing
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: that we do, and then I'll give you some process.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: So the hardest thing is public education. Okay, we're on
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: our I think our fifth superintendent in twelve years. That's
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: problematic continent all over again, don't you is really important?
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: And there are still not in our estimation a full
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: understanding of you can have the best teachers, the best curriculum,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: the best buildings, but if kids and their families are
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: still struggling, you're going to have limitations on how well
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: the kids can do academically. It's just it just is
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: what it is. Right. It doesn't mean kids can't learn,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: teachers can't teach. It just means the context of the classroom,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: of the building, and of that child life make it
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: so unbelievably difficult. So we seed more people to understand
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: if we can strengthen families and strengthen neighborhoods, schools are
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: going to get better, but we've not made that kind
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of courageous commitment to again really invest in people in place.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: And we're confident that if we do that, things will
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: get better across multiple platforms, not just the education space.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: The other thing, Katy, that is still so absolutely true
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: thirty two years in the folks we serve are just
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: like everybody else. They want a better life for themselves
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: and for their kids, and they want to work for it.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: You know, again, there's so many stigmas or perceptions or
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of wrong narratives about folks in community
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: and families you know who again need a little bit
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: of help along the way. I'm amazed at the resilience
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: that the commitment of so many families afford a better
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: life for themselves and for their kids. And all they're
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: chomping foreign and wanting is the opportunity for that better life.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: And if you give them a little bit of support,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: they do amazing things. So again, we're thirty two years
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: and sometimes I get asked, you know, how can I
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: do this for this long? Isn't it hard? And the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: answer is, yeah, it's really hard, But I know what
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: we're doing makes a difference right where I'm standing, to
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: my left is where kids walk to and from a
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: local school. And then my motivation because they still deserve better.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Those adults need to need to serve them better so
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: their dreams and their aspirations can come true.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: I read about an initiative called Once and for All
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: that you're doing. Explain what that is and explain what
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: the community response has been to this particular.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Again, this is back to my ear savent about kind
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: of you know, telling your story. Right. So once and
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: for All, as a name implies, is about our region,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Like once for all, can we invest in the people
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: in places that have been left behind? Obviously it's supposed
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: to have double meaning, right, you know, everybody should be
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: included in this UH, and too often in in in
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: community and regions, not everybody is included in the prosperity.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: So we wanted to tell a big story, so we
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: created Once and for All campaign to help us raise
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: another two hundred million UH to continue the work and
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: really excite philanthropy in town. Excite you know, investors in town,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: get the get the public sector to get behind us
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: in a bigger way than they have, and again to
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: tell the story that if if Saint Louis is going
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: to be everything that we want it to be, we
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: can't leave so many people behind. And that's what we've
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: done here, and Frank it's true all across the country,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: lots of places have and people have been left behind.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: And again we're not going to be successful unless we
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: give people again the equity of opportunity. Remember, these these
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: are handouts and freebasy. So here's your here's an opportunity
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to live a better life. You have to committed and
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: do your part, work hard. We know systems don't don't
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: work very well frequently, and we're going to help help
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: you navigate through and around systems. But again, we need
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: you to do your part and we're going to be
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: here for you and we're going to support you along
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the way. And the results have been again some of
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: some of that one hundred and seventy five that's already
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: in the door is because of that. Right, it's a
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: it's a bigger story that you know, we're getting foundation support,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: we're getting individuals to support us. Right, individuals give you know,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: seventy five percent of all the philanthropic contributions in the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: country and a very scant small percentage that comes to
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: community development. So we've been doing a good job at
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: getting front and getting in front of individuals using our
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: board and other contacts. We have to tell our story,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: you know, to get people to come out, come, get
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: in my car and drive round me let me, let
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: me show you the community right, the good stuff we've done,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: and quite frankly, in many challenges that still exists. You know,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I never sugarcoat you know, the story, cause it because
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: it's real. Right, there are still many challenges that need
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: to be addressed. Even though we've done a lot of work,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: it's just not yet enough and it's not at scale.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: And again, we just need folks to say, look, if
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: if you want to see real change. Finally, if you
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: want to after you know, decades of billions of dollars
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: going to poverty alleviation that has not worked. Here, we
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: believe it is the way to do it. Not simple
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: nor quick, but this is the way to get it done.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: And matter of fact, it's the only way to get
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: it done because we've tried other methodologies and they've all
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: failed terribly.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: So if you could dream and pull in one large
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: project like you, this is your dream to land. This
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: is your Super Bowl win. What would that project be
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: for you?
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Kit? It wouldn't be one project. Not one project is
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: going to get us here in the quick aside. Another
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: thing that we're a part of is you're doing a
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: golf course in our community.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Right, So again, not many community avelment folks do golf courses, right,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: but this was. This is one of the oldest public
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: courses west of the Mississippi River, and it was in
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: jeopardy of again going under and going fallow. So if
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: you can imagine an old golf course going fallow, what
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: that does to a place, right, So we worked with
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the Saint Louis Metropolitan a Golf Foundation to keep this course.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: We were actually we actually we were a a We
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: leased the course from a local university who kind of
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: took it over when we Weridge operatists kind of threw
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: up their hands said we can't do it anymore. So
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: we leased it for two years to keep it afloat,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: and then we helped raise the money to buy the
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: course from the university and then the guy named Jack
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Nicholas agreed to redesign the course for us, which is
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: absolutely fantastic. So next October it's going to reopen again.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: That's amazing, is.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Amazing, and like and like the movie theater, We're going
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: to keep the Greens fees affordable so people in community
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: can still play this. It's going to remain a public
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: course and it's going to main again available to community,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: and it's going to be a wonderful thing. That's a
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: great project as an example, Right, that's not going to
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: turn the community around. So when I think about, like
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: if we got a large investment, what would I do
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: with it? It would be to look at all the
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: different spaces and places that we operate, from housing, education,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: to health to economic development, and I would say, where
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: can we get the biggest bank for the buck? Where
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: where can we put these dollars? And it doesn't have
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: to be one place, right, It may be I need
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: I need to shore up some of our economic development
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: work because guess what, it's really hard your low income community.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: We have inflationary challenges. You know, who knows what the
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: world is going to going to hold for us in
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: the next in the next several years, right in terms
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: of what happens in community. Right, So that may be
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: a place we want to put it. We may want
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: to do more owner occupied rehab. I may want to
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: double the amount of I have on the school buildings
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: because fifteen is not enough to serve the over three
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: thousand kids in the school system, right, So more work
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: to be done across the spectrum. So I wouldn't do
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: one project. I would say, where do I strategically, given
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the multiple platforms that we operated, how can I best
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: use those dollars to have the biggest bang for the
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: buck and then leverage a living hell out of it.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: We've talked about a lot of platforms, a lot of
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: toxics here, a lot of initiatives that you're working on
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: before we close out here, can you highlight one that
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: we haven't covered, one that you are just particularly proud
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: of or fond of.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: So one that we haven't talked about. And it's really
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: more unique to Saint Louis than a bunch of other regions.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: So in our geography, there were originally twenty four small
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: little municipalities, which makes no sense. But the guys who
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: are mayors and councils people and I didn't create the system,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: they inherited it. So every month for over a decade,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: we've met with twelve to eighteen of the mayors finding
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: ways for them to work together. They are small, they
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: have limited staff capacity, so we de facto or kind
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: of adjunct municipal staff. So we've helped with collective buying
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: power on trash collection, on street repairs, on housing demolition.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: We partner with them on so in the state of
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Missouri on some things that were unfair to communities like
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: ours and went all the way the Missouri Supreme Court
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: and one we've helped them focus on a number of things,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: including this August, seventeen different communities are joining to create
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: a Transportation Development District a TDD. We paid for the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: law firm to put all that together. We staffed to
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: get all the ordinances, to do all the logistics of
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: making that happen. It's again the idea of being in
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: relationship with community. So again, these mayors are de facto
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: community leaders in a very small kind of way. They
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: know their neighbors, they know their community well. They trust us,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: they believe in us, and they allow us to lead
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: in some ways, and we don't have any power, but
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: they trust us enough to say, will you please help
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: us make our community better and help us tackle the
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: things that we need to tackle. So I take great
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: pride in knowing that we built those relationships over time,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: that people trust my staff just to again listen to
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: their voice, to be a good partner, and try to
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: again help make the place they call home everything that
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: they want it to be. M h.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: Well, you guys are doing great work there. It's been
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: a little bit since I've been into your neighborhood, made
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: come back on visit and I'll make another visit. So
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: it was a pleasure when we work with you over
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: the last kind of projects. You guys are doing great
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: work again. I've been talking with Chris Krameyer, the president
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: and CEO of Beyond Housing, and we just wish you
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: all elike because you guys keep pushing forward and we're
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: very honored to highlight you here in what you guys
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: are doing.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you, Katie, appreciate it.