Housing ...and of course more ice cream

Because of my dad's business with real estate and affordable housing, I felt like I came into this summer thinking I knew a bit about city housing. Little did I know that I had a LOT more to learn. It is much more complex than I had imagined, due to an entire complicated history behind the existing neighborhoods today. We started yesterday morning off by having a grand breakfast at the Memorial Art Gallery with officials from the University of Rochester, including the president and some deans, there were representatives from every Urban Fellows' agency they work with and some other business people from the city. Following a delicious breakfast (all served with local food, of course, after last week's discussion), we held a panel discussion with three well-known and experienced individuals of Rochester. Carlos Carballada (Commissioner of Economic Development in the City of Rochester), Walter Cooper (activist in civil rights, first African American to earn a Doctorate in physical chemistry from U of R) and Patty Malgieri (former Rochester deputy mayor, now President of Hillside Work-Scholarship Connection) were asked what they thought is the city's most important challenge today. Without much hesitation, all three of them responded that it is education. While we have already spent a great deal of time talking about education in our program, they insisted that it affects every other aspect of life, such as public safety, violence and family stability. One even remarked, The most serious form of child abuse is to refuse a child education.

One of the major problems with the education system that was brought up (and most education systems for that matter, not just in Rochester) is that there is no outcome measure. If students achieve more, teachers do not get paid more - teachers are paid the same regardless of their students' performance, so there isn't much incentive to do a great job encouraging your students to stay in school and reach high achievements.

They presented some possible reasons for why there are such drastic differences in city and suburban schools (something that I am definitely interested in exploring more, as a graduate from a suburban school)...
-attendance: in the city, there is no process for finding a student if they don't show up; in suburbs, parents are often called at home if the student is absent. If a student isn't in their seat at school, they will never learn. In today's knowledge-based society, gaining an education is so important and much more valued than when we were labor-focused.
-family structure: some claim that more stable families exist in suburbs, allowing students to achieve more - I think this is a bit generalized and can't be taken for face value. There are a fair number of unstable families in suburbs but also many stable families in the city. What exactly does a stable family look like anyways? Some people would argue that it has be a traditional nuclear family, while others would say that you simply need support from an adult figure.
-attitude: once a student comes from a neighborhood with an impoverished environment, often there are lower staff expectations of achievement. Suburbs often showcase their students' great achievements, while you will rarely hear of positive achievements from city schools - all that is publicized are the negative statistics and news about the city students.

After the panel discussion, Eric Van Dusen, the COO of NeighborWorks Rochester, spoke to us about residential segregation, based on readings from The Origins of the Urban Crisis. [I could talk for a while about at least a portion of the history, but I don't really want to bore you to death...] It was great to have him there, really tying together everything that I've learned about (plus more) at NWR with our educational Wednesday sessions.

One of the issues with housing is reaching a point of integration. Yet, what exactly is integration? How can we tell when we've reached that point? What does it look like? When whites were asked what it is, the majority responded that it has 10% minorities, yet when blacks were asked, they responded that it is about 50/50. There continues to be a lack of equal housing opportunities for everyone with the complicated intersections of race and class: If someone is white & poor, they have an 80% chance of living in a middle class neighborhood; If someone is black & poor, they have a 90% chance of living in poverty.

Today, Rochester and many other cities have too many houses for their population. Housing is continually being built, yet the population is remaining at a pretty steady number. This results in the city having many vacant lots and a lack of reinvestment in city homes. Beyond simply vacant lots, many residents rent their homes/apartments rather than buying them and this can also contribute to the lack of reinvestment to improve their homes. In comparison to earlier traditions, home ownership is NOT necessarily a solution to stability or a sign of success. One may be able to afford their mortgage but may not be ready to maintain a home and truly be a proud homeowner. Recently we have been conducting physical condition surveys in one of our target neighborhood and the final aspect that we have to measure is whether it is "house proud" or not. Sadly, most of the houses that we evaluate are not an A, but some have been improving over the years and we're hoping more will join on the wagon of home reinvestment soon!

In the afternoon, we went to the JOSANA neighborhood of the city, where there is a high concentration of poverty and serious crime violations as well. There are many vacant lots in the neighborhood that are owned by the city but can be purchased for $1,000. Habitat for Humanity has been building houses (27 so far) in this area for the past three years.

It costs them about $79,000 a house, which all comes from money that they raise through donations or other resources. It's incredible to think about how much money they have raised in order to provide secure homes to these families, who actually still have to pay a mortgage (granted, very low and no interest) and have to put in sweat hours working on other homes.

We received a tour of three houses all on the same street that are in different phases of being constructed (very beginning, middle, family already moved in & having a furnished house). What's great about these homes is that often some surrounding neighbors begin to reinvest in their homes, too, after seeing their neighborhood homes improve (more of the ripple effect!).

After the tours of the houses, we went to the House of Mercy, a homeless shelter in a pretty rough neighborhood. Sister Grace, who opened up this shelter in 1985, used to pick up homeless individuals and take them to shelters, but she found that they were often turned away due to number limits or if they were not covered by welfare. She told us a conversation she had when she first started the House of Mercy, which is open 24/7 and never turns people away. A police officer came up to her and asked What are you doing here? She replied I'm opening up a homeless shelter. He said to her Don't you know this is a dangerous place? And Sister Grace responded Yes and that's exactly why I need to be here. In the first month, over 600 people came; today over 4,000 people visit a month. Technically speaking, they are allowed to have 16 people but they average about 34 at a time, with their record at 65. We heard some emotional personal stories about their struggles as individuals without homes and toured the building. There is the typical stereotype of a homeless person being crazy and a drug addict, but hearing these stories revealed even more that what put them on the streets is much more complicated than that. We walked through this open space of room after room filled with people lying on couches or other furniture. It was heart-breaking to see this many people at a homeless shelter, but knowing that they have somewhere to go rather than being on the streets is a bit more comforting.

Tonight we had an ice cream social in our other neighborhood, Brooks Landing. We had a couple large groups come and sweep us clean of the yummy goods! I was able to connect with some of the neighbors who came out and didn't know who was hosting the event.

I shared information about what NeighborWorks Rochester does in their neighborhood (it's hard to think that people still don't know we are in their neighborhood...yet, again, many of them are renters).

I felt very helpful and knowledgeable (more or less) about our organization and was happy to say that they are excited to become more involved in what we have to offer!