JVL Community Work Day: February 22

From Katherine:

On Saturday, a group of us met with the North Grand Neighborhood Service volunteer coordinator, Marty, to work on sanding and mudding a house. The house was one of many that the organization had bought and begun to restore, later offering these houses to lower-income residents at a reduced rental cost. Jeff-Vander-Lou is an area with serious housing issues, many abandoned buildings and crumbling homes decreasing property values and being used for criminal activity.

Personally, I had very mixed feelings with the community work day in Jeff-Vander-Lou. Initially I felt encouraged by the time spent with classmates. Getting out of the classroom to do hands-on work with the group was rewarding and truly fun. Seeing each other walk around with masks and goggles on and laughing about our fear of heights was great quality time. Everyone seemed enthusiastic to be helpful, even though not many of us had experience in this kind of work.

On the other hand, I was discouraged and became pessimistic about the work we are doing. The idea of the "outsider" is one that has really weighed on me through this course. As social workers, we are almost inherently on the outside of every issue we attempt to address, whether on the individual level or community-wide. While we cannot (and probably should not) necessarily change this, there are ways to be more aware and humble about it.

While this, of course, did not feel intentional, I felt awful about our "outsider" nature on Saturday. The organization we met with felt like a group of outsiders, though heavily invested in and knowledgeable about the community. We were outsiders coming in to join this organization and fix a house, with absolutely no assistance (or input from what I could see) from the community.

Additionally, my research on JVL shows a continuous effort from those outside the community tearing down abandoned buildings and rebuilding them. I read newspaper articles going back to the 60's describing this same approach. While my group was meeting at a coffee shop in JVL on Sunday, we ran into another community class from SLU. When I think about what my attitude would be towards these groups of city developers, non-profits, universities and every other organization, I feel really uncomfortable with our work day. And, while NGNS is in the neighborhood for the long haul, how many community classes come into JVL for a semester class? This feels like gawking.

What approach to address the housing issues in JVL would empower those who actually live in this community, give them ownership over these new properties, and avoid presenting another example of the "White Savior" coming in to "fix it" for them? What approaches are evidence-based in successfully and sustainably changing housing issues in the long run? Would this organization do better to train and hire unemployed individuals (especially youth) to build these new houses?