OneRouge Community Check-In - Week 112
- OneRouge
- Jul 1, 2022
- 6 min read
Updated: May 25
Week #112
The focus of the conversation will be a continuation on our 9 Drivers of Poverty series on‘Lack of Home Ownership and Escalating Rental Costs' with a roundtable discussion curated by Alfredo Cruz (listen to his PlusOne podcast episode below).
Special thanks to everyone that came out to the first in-person OneRouge Coalitions gathering last Friday at the River Center Library. Attaching pics below and hope everyone can join us for the ‘X’ celebration on 8.05.
Enlight, Unite, & Ignite!
Quick Links: Notes, Zoom Chat, Community Announcements
Speaker Notes
Alfredo Cruz
When we start passing policies to criminalize the homeless so we don’t have to look at them, then we act as a community of people who don’t want to see the problem, but ignore it. To really tackle this issue, we have to consider what resources we have locally.
In some neighborhoods life expectancy is as different as 20 years. That’s huge. This is like third world country statistics. If you live in certain zip codes you could live 20 years less and it’s all tied to the built environment. The other finding is the racial segregation that continues because some neighborhoods are still 100% African American and others are 100% white. The access to capitol. The lending practices are 60% less in some neighborhoods. There’s a difference of about 30-40% on the success of your loan and the access to capital. We wonder why the differences look the way they look and it’s because folks need capital to make repairs. We are seeing a decline in homeownership in these neighborhoods because we invest more in rental development than in homeownership. We have a lot of tax sales on our property. These homes that are being bought are being bought by outside investors and they are making a lot of money on making these rental properties. We don’t have a lot of rental protection in this state.
Marlee Pittman
I was born and raised in Baton Rouge. I worked at Mid City redevelopment for five years. Coming into the city I was supposed to be at graduate school this fall but the Mayor asked if I could bring that neighborhood focus to the city. I try to understand the way these systems work at the city level. We are working with landlords and residents. That’s the base. That’s where we start. With that understanding, we’re now turning to data. Alfredo led the process to create the housing study. It’s 300 pages, but there is an executive summary. One fact is that in certain parts of our city, we have several income blocks where the average income is over $100,000, but then also have several blocks where the average is $25,000. There are 10 recommendations at the end of the summary. Where we are at right now is creating thriving neighborhoods of opportunity that are safe and thriving for all.
Housing Market Segmentation Study: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m1zK9a3TWTV1LL0uJFhG_OTnNLjNTRYB/view?usp=sharing
https://chcs.uncg.edu/east-baton-rouge-parish/
Tasha Smith Saunders
We are this newly reconstructed office of community development. Our mission is to implement the mayor’s vision of the city parish. A major component of that is affordable housing. The mayor has for many years had a focus on providing quality, healthy, affordable housing for residents. Some people think this is low-income, but this is for everyone. 30% of a household’s annual income is what people should be paying. There’s a focus in this office of homeownership. We need new units and units that are healthy. We are about to kick off our lead rehabilitation programs. We’re going to be working with landlords to rehab existing units. We also manage the city’s disaster recovery fund that we are going to be using towards housing. We are going to start public meetings on those very soon. How can you get involved? We have a comment card on our website. In the plan you will find the needs assessment. Housing repair, which is preservation and rehabilitation of our already existing affordable housing. OUr annual action plans will be focusing on driving housing repair and affordable housing repair. We are going to be focused on strong viable neighborhoods in the corridor. We are going to be asking developers to work in particular corridors. We have upcoming action planning meetings.
Office of Community Development : https://www.brla.gov/855/Office-of-Community-Development
Manny Patole
I am with Co-City BAton Rouge which is a collaboration with Build Baton Rouge, and we’re working to implement the Imagine Plank Road plan. That was when we first put out the idea of affordable housing that is something different than the traditional model. Louisiana as a state doesn’t allow for a landbank as its own entity. Louisiana has peculiar laws. One of the charges with Build BAton Rouge is to put abandoned or vacant property back into use. Build Baton Rouge only has 130 to 140 properties in its landbank, but there are over 4,000 in Baton Rouge. There is a process how it goes through the city and ends up with BBB. December 2021, we officially started the Plank Road Community Landbank and Trust, it’s the first hybridized landbank and trust. It is a unique thing. We have 501(c)3 status. The idea is the interim board here will set up the policies. We’re not focusing purely on residential. Not everyone is ready to own homes. There’s a reason why there are so many homes that are abandoned. The idea is to look at it from the residential and commercial perspective. We’re looking at areas for stormwater mitigation and eco friendly spaces. Louisiana is a heavily property rights state, and people don’t like to be told what to do. As we start going forward regarding how people can get involved, it’s going to be community driven and operated. We are hiring for two positions for management of this entity and we’re looking for an advisory board.
https://nhc.org/policy-guide/land-based-solutions/land-banks-and-community-land-trusts/
https://buildbatonrouge.org/resources/opportunities/careers/
https://cusp.nyu.edu/the-cusp-capstone/
https://wagner.nyu.edu/portal/employers/about-the-capstone-program
QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS
Is the landbank and trust tackling issues of title?
Manny Patole - The hardest part is the clear title. In Baton Rouge you have a lot of heirs, no one ever actually got a title, there’s no records of it, it’s hard to find everyone. The due diligence of how many years it takes to clear that. If individuals are interested in a property that gets cleared, Build Baton Rouge can assist with that. There is a big legal cost. It comes out to about $7,500 per property and that’s only for the title, not just the maintenance of the property. These things are still privately owned, even if no one is keeping up with them.
What does the word affordable mean? Who gets to determine what that means?
Manny Patole - Affordable is subjective. The 30% is pre-tax, not post tax. It’s about the area you’re living in as well. 30% in one area is not the same as 30% in another. That’s only for rent, not all the other costs like utilities and transportation. It’s pseudoscience.
See this GAP report by National Low INcome Housing Coalition- about the lack of affordable housing for those most https://nlihc.org/gap
Rev Anderson - The issue of zoning and renters. We have an extremely lopsided renters market because of our two universities. We build a lot of rental properties designed for a certain population. The second goes into the tie of resources. Often our rental properties are more high maintenance than they need to be. When we get into these zoing conversations that lean into homeownership, I think 2016 really talked about the elephant in the room - the risk is with all of us.
Alfredo Cruz - We are a receiving community for those communities that are losing their houses to rising sea levels.
Marlee Pittman - Our state is at risk of losing more housing due to climate change than other states. A big component is some of the permitting, zoning and policy recommendations that came out of the storm water planning. We need to set those up for success.
Is there any conversation about mixed or intergenerational housing?
https://ssir.org/articles/entry/it_takes_a_multigenerational_village_to_raise_foster_kids
Tasha Smith Saunders - There are two current projects and it is a rental development at the end it will have units of affordable housing. Some of those are from families with 65 or older, and then the rest are reserved for any household, so that will create that mix. It has to remain that way for 20 years. The city can impose additional restrictions, but that is a pretty heavy lift already.
Renaldi Jacobs Sr.- When you're trying to clear condemned properties, it has to go through the metro council, that could be done by staff. That’s something we could look at making some changes. In other cities if there is a set aside system for blighted properties. There is a program at Southern University to become a community developer. In Scotlandville we have two major projects going on. Southern just completed a master plan for the Scotlandville area master plan. It’s being adopted by the city parish. If we can help clear some of these condemned properties.
Community Announcements
So Good Saturday
Sow Good Saturday at Howell Park's Baton Roots, 10 am until noon. So much fun! I'll see you there! Pick some fresh veggies, watch a great cooking demo by Chef Traci, and move a little (yoga and dancing)
First Sunday
The Capitol Park Museum will be participating for the first time in First Sunday. Admission to the museum is free
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