For Danny Estrada and his wife, Maria, owning their first home is a dream come true.
Their family of seven moved to St. Louis in 2016 to be closer to family and escape the high cost of living in California. They had lived there for 14 years and paid nearly $2,000 a month for rent, electricity and other bills in two-bedroom and studio apartments.
That changed after moving to St. Louis. Their first apartment cost nearly $600 a month, and they later rented a house for about $700.
In 2019, they became the first family to purchase their home for around $120,000 through the St. Joseph Housing Initiative, a nonprofit that identifies and revitalizes vacant and dilapidated properties, renovating them from top to bottom in underserved St. Louis neighborhoods.
After visiting nearly a dozen homes, something about the last three-bedroom, two-bathroom home that they decided to tour on South Grand Boulevard in Dutchtown just stood out — despite still being under construction and having no walls, no bathroom and no kitchen, said Maria, 50.
“It’s something curious that I’m going to say, but when we went into this house, I felt — like I said — this is mine,” Maria said in Spanish. “But the bigger emotional moment was when my son went outside, and the big tree that’s there — he said he needed to pee and he peed on the tree and said: ‘This is my house.’ I told him, ‘Yes, son, this is going to be your house.’ But I still didn’t know that it was going to be my house.
“He was little — he was about 4 years old,” she said through laughs.
Meeting a need
Since the St. Joseph Housing Initiative was created in 2018, the organization has revitalized 13 properties in Dutchtown and three in Baden.
The process moves slowly because the group relies on grants and donations for support. The group was founded by St. Mary’s Southside Catholic High School President Mike England and Incarnate Word Foundation Executive Director Bridget Flood. It received initial funding of $500,000 from former St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson after presenting the idea to him.
The program was formed in response to the Ferguson Commission Report, which provided policy recommendations to address systemic racism, poverty, childhood well-being, police violence and economic inequity in the wake of the movement that sprung up after the killing of Michael Brown, England said.
“There was (a) very low percentage of home ownership that was existing, and because of the large number of rental properties, none of the people that are living in those properties have the ability, through home ownership, to build up their own personal wealth and equity,” England said. “The things that challenge this neighborhood here at Dutchtown, the things that challenge neighborhoods in North City are rooted in poverty, the lack of opportunity and the lack of education that exists.”
Regarding education, interested homebuyers are required to complete the Homeowner Readiness Academy before they can apply for a home through the program. The academy prepares first-time buyers for homeownership through a four-class series. It teaches people everything they need to know about home ownership — including finances, insurance and building generational wealth.
Homebuyers have accumulated over $310,000 in equity so far in the eight years the program has existed, said Christy McCutcheon, executive director of the St. Joseph Housing Initiative.
“In addition to that, when you complete Homeowner Readiness Academy, and if you buy one of our houses, we provide $5,000 in down payment assistance,” McCutcheon said. Homebuyers must qualify for a mortgage through a lender and aren’t allowed to sell the home for five years after purchasing it.
McCutcheon said buying a home isn’t required to participate in the class.
“We have a lot of people who attend Homeowner Readiness Academy who are just beginning to realize that home ownership is even a possibility for them,” McCutcheon said.
Once a homeowner moves in, the nonprofit then works with another group called Home Sweet Home to make sure new residents have linens, silverware, furniture and other household items.
Revitalizing neighborhoods
The organization recently received its first donated property, located at the corner of Idaho Avenue and Bates Street. It is being renovated into a three-bedroom, two-bathroom property.
“It had been vacant a long time, and it’s right across the street from a school,” McCutcheon said during a tour of the properties in November. “So the message that sends to kids in school is, ‘This is my neighborhood, and nobody cares about the properties right across the street.’ So we’re excited about being able to do this.”
A four-bedroom, three-bathroom property recently renovated by the organization sits at Itaska Street and Virginia Avenue — the largest property the group has obtained so far. The brick building is adorned with a colorful mural on the side. It previously had an absentee owner, McCutcheon said.
It now has new electrical, plumbing, flooring, windows and a blue front door indicative of an SJHI property.
“Blue doors are something we have added to all of our properties in recent years, but if homeowners want to change it they can,” McCutcheon said. “We try to maintain as much of the integrity of the property as we can. However in this case, the floor was all gross and rotting, so this is all new flooring.”
SJHI relies heavily on volunteers, including students from St. Mary’s Southside Catholic High School and other community members, organizers said, who help with construction, cleanup, landscape work, demolition, painting and more.
Annie Purcell, outreach and volunteer manager at the St. Joseph Housing Initiative, said several volunteers grew up in the Dutchtown and north St. Louis areas where most of their revamped homes are currently located.
“One of the (volunteers) who worked a lot in this house – there was a tavern here, and the building collapsed about 10 years ago – but his mom ran the tavern, so he grew up across the street. Then he came back and volunteered in the house,” Purcell added.
The work is costly, McCutcheon said. She said SJHI loses about $50,000 per property.
“(This is) what we lose on a property between what we acquire it for, the money we put into renovations, and then what we sell it for that is manageable for a low- and/or moderate-income family without (negatively impacting) the neighborhood.”
The housing initiative hosted a holiday party and art show last week at the Wild Fruit Projects Art Gallery on Virginia Avenue in Dutchtown. Homebuyers who participated in the program received photos of their homes drawn by undergraduate students at St. Louis University.
“Professor Amy Bautz, I reached out to her and we came up with this idea of creating an internship where the students could create custom illustrations or artwork – portraits – of each of the homes, and then they could be gifts for the homebuyers,” Purcell said.
Danny Estrada, 45, pointed to a framed photo of his Dutchtown home that was posted among dozens of others along a wall at the gallery. Others laughed in conversations and viewed their own homes that had been drawn.
It’s well past the contractual five-year mark to not to sell his home, but Estrada said he’s not going anywhere.
“I received the letters, you know, and they tried to pay me $250K for this house,” Estrada said. “I don't know, maybe in the future I (will) buy another house, but I don't want to sell this house."
“We pray, and we ask for the right house," he said. "We have this house, and it’s perfect for us. We have a lot of memories here now.”
