Alona Sistrunk

The county housing authority demanded repairs from a property management company that officials deemed substandard and even dangerous, but the property company responded by threatening to kick out residents, blaming the housing authority and previous owners.

We listen to a man who has been leading a team of some of the smartest people in the region with the goal of dismantling divides and creating a new path forward.

Recently we invited about 150 of our friends over for a house party downstairs from our studios at St. Louis Public Radio. Conversations were had and new connections were made and it wouldn’t be a WLH party without stories!

The Grove neighborhood is in a part of St. Louis that has seen an uptick in new housing and business development. The changes have been a blessing and a curse.

The Section 8 housing voucher program, intended to give people choice, often doesn't because many landlords on the private market aren’t rushing to participate and take housing subsidies, no matter that they're backed by Uncle Sam.

The focus of public housing has shifted to the Section 8 voucher program and smaller developments. Yet, the model of large public housing complexes is still very much alive today. From mice to mold, the problems facing St. Louis’ aging public housing complexes is long.

In this episode, we zoom in on a group that holds immense power in guiding where people choose to live and raise families – real estate agents.

Racially restrictive covenants barred the Shelleys, who were black, from owning their family home. The U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1948 that enforcing such restrictive racial covenants was unconstitutional in St. Louis and the rest of the country. And while historians may get the facts and significance of the case right, there are details and human truths that are best expressed by family members.

Eltoreon Hawkins started buying up vacant homes while he was still a college student. Now, he's teaching others to do it, starting with his neighborhood of Walnut Park West. Hawkins also was the first person to participate in the city's Mow to Own program, which allows people to eventually get the deed of an abandoned LRA lot they've maintained.

Which we often think of gentrification as happening in urban centers. But for generations, there’s been a slow turnover as cities expanded into the suburbs and rural areas. That’s the backstory of Brentwood Promenade, a relatively affluent mall about 15 minutes outside of St. Louis.

Kameel and Tim trace the legacy of gated communities to modern-day. They find that while the mechanics have changed, the ideas and beliefs that helped build some of the first gated, private streets in the country are hardly a thing of the past.