I want to begin by talking to you about
the issue of housing affordability and
we’re going to ask a few questions to
start us off if you will raise your hand
if you rent your home okay we’ve got a
few and now raise your hand if you own
your home and keep those hands raised if
you view this home as an investment all
right well that is a common answer we
will be touching on tonight we are also
going to be looking at housing
affordability how I came to personally
understand it and a bit about where we
are today as a city I want to offer you
something you can leave with tonight a
way that you can help green will take
its next big step forward and I want you
to leave and ask why why does where you
live affect you as well as your broader
community and why our homes and economic
and a moral imperative and what does
that have to do with views from rooftop
Bars as well as the views from those and
also those who work there and how can we
move as a community to say yes in my
backyard
well last fall 87 percent took a survey
and agreed that Greenville has a housing
at 40 affordability issue 81% said that
is getting worse in our city I joined
the affordable housing steering
committee thinking I already understood
the problem but I had to ask myself did
I because it’s very complex and
complicated there are as Russell
mentioned these interconnected dynamics
of race and class and wealth and crime
and poverty
an often that becomes extremely
difficult to discuss when it’s viewed in
relationship to something we know might
be our largest investment so let’s begin
tonight by looking at what stood out on
our city when our consultant analyzed it
what stood out is that to the aspects
the first is our rents
for our low-cost units have risen
dramatically over the last 15 years in
relationship to incomes today we face a
gap of 2500 units now as a city that are
affordable and that means that these are
for people earning $20,000 or less in
our city and as recently as 10 years ago
we had a surplus of some 800 units that
were affordable to low-income workers
the second aspect is that our units in
Greenville are geographically
concentrated and that means generally
these are not located near jobs we will
be touching on this point later so we’ll
be coming back to that when we talk
about our special emphasis neighborhoods
now when you drive around we do see a
lot of development in Greenville there
have been around 5,000 new units come on
to our market in the city majority of
those are upper to high-end so what I
came to understand is that our new
economy has made us very top-heavy but
also very bottom heavy and this gap is
widening and I did not like hearing it
was going to take us 20 years to solve
this problem and then it would cost 220
million dollars if we had the money
today so Greenville has done a lot we’ve
done so much so well as a city I moved
here in 1992 I was a graduate in NC
State at the time and it was when I was
at an NC State a great time to watch
basketball and like this season it was
still the jimmy view years and I came to
Greenville and over time I really have
come to appreciate that cheering for
Clemson football can be fun as well
so in 1992 I looked at a condo downtown
and it was too expensive for my income
so I ended up renting an apartment off
of East North Street and I picked this
particular one because my employer who I
was coming to work for that apartment
complex offered me a discount and I
thought that was pretty great because I
had some new things like a car payment
and I was also living on my own for the
first time so when we think about the
issue of housing affordability it is
people it is housing that is affordable
no matter who we are talking about and
to be affordable that means you’re
paying 30% of your gross monthly income
anything above that means it’s difficult
for a family to pay for things like
transportation quality childcare
nutritious food good health care or even
medicine now Matthew Desmond tells us in
his book that’s called evicted poverty
and profit in the American city and he
will be in Greenville on April the 20th
that we have 11 million people in our
city now who are incredibly rent
burdened and that means often they are
paying up to 70% of their income to have
somewhere to live in Greenville we have
increasing rates of child homelessness
just last year we had 802 children
reported in our Greenville County
Schools and when you put a face with
that child and you realize that is a
family from your neighborhood school I
just have to ask myself how can this
happen in Greenville and this is a
family who attends Stone Academy and
they were featured in an exhibit
downtown called through the eyes of the
homeless Desmond goes on to tell us that
millions now are evicted in our country
each year and the majority of those are
mothers with children and in Greenville
County we have over 38,000 students who
are Medicaid eligible this year so we
know we are bottom-heavy
but yet we drive around and we see
luxury development and so Greenville has
very successfully shifted itself and
that is why the consultant from
Alexandria Virginia said to City Council
any urban planner would have jumped at
the chance to work on Greenville we have
made great investments in our quality of
life amenities we value our beautiful
parks and we’re very proud of our clean
drinking water we also have shifted our
economy to now from a pre depression
textile centered economy to one today
based on knowledge advanced
manufacturing and services when we think
about
about the significant challenges that we
face we know we can solve this as a city
because we have solved difficult
problems before all right there is an
African proverb that says if you want to
go faster go alone but if you want to go
further go together and that represents
what Russell mentioned we had a very
historic vote taken on January the 9th
and our City Council approved setting
aside 2 million dollars of local dollars
to go into housing and that is combining
with a million coming forward from the
community my church has stepped forward
with a one hundred thousand dollar gift
towards this 1 million we’ve also had a
Sunday school class from Buncombe Street
since January night to come forward with
the donation this is being combined into
a new entity a public-private
partnership a new way for Greenville to
address housing and it will be a housing
trust fund city council also approved
the recommendations in the steering
committee report and this three million
will be split and immediately address
rent subsidies as we know we are losing
about 200 units each year off of our
market that are affordable the other
portion of that will help keep people in
their existing home with rehabilitation
funds and then a million and a half will
be used to purchase land as land is an
essential part and piece of the housing
equation so we can go further together
and this is connected to our future as a
city and if we fail to ask the question
why does where you live affect you we
will also eventually see that we are
suffering and failing as a city business
expansion and service will suffer in it
we can’t simply say to someone just move
because you can’t afford to live here
that will cause us to fail both
economically and morally so when we
think about creating new housing we know
we need to shift our settlement patterns
and I’ll leave it on that one up I’ve
recently was given a study by Ansel
Sanders and it details a county in
Montgomery County Maryland who is one of
the oldest and larger
programs in our country that has
inclusionary zoning and they’ve been
doing this since the 1950s and they have
a very successful model that shows why
this works and how it promotes a healthy
City with academic success and students
and we can look at any city in our
country and know that residential
patterns are closely tied to school
enrollment patterns so I wanted to share
a story about someone I loved dearly
named shakeela and she lives now in the
Green Line Spartanburg neighborhood
which is in the dark green at the top
this is one of our 13 special emphasis
neighborhoods in Greenville and special
emphasis neighborhoods are defined as
people living there who are in low to
moderate income and when shakila’s
neighborhood was built it was in the 20s
and it was segregated housing that was
built at that time so if you were black
and wanted to own or rent a home you
could find one here and many families
were working for families nearby who
lived in the Overbrook community well
fast-forward to 1965 and title one
schools were created due to federal
legislation which was followed then in
1968 by a Fair Housing Act fast forward
to today and East North Street which is
her neighborhood school continues to be
a title one school this is a view from
looking up from where her house is up
the street and we can see that having a
policy like Montgomery could really be
beneficial to Greenville now that we
know what our challenges are so I wanted
to point out the aspects that stood out
in in that County and the first is that
by having students in poverty spread
among the vast who are not in poverty
they have achieved achieved academic
success and they have nine out of ten
students graduating one of the best
rates in our country and they are still
one of the most affluent counties in our
country so placing those families again
throughout the counties provided a
supply of workers for their low wage
jobs and finally that didn’t stem
poverty in any one area of the county
which kept it to be a very safe healthy
vibrant come
unity now I came to meet sir Kyla when
she was five she was attending Stone
Academy at the time and I was matched
with her to be her mentor through mentor
Upstate and she really enjoyed reading
and so I quickly realized that and I was
so proud of her by the end of first
grade she was reading a full grade level
ahead and then around that time her
family moved and they had been in an
apartment in the Hampton Pinkney area
and they moved into this beautiful
quality subsidized three-bedroom home
here in the Greenline Spartanburg
community and I noticed once she just
started at East North Street things
started to struggle and her reading was
falling behind and by the end of third
grade she was now reading a full grade
level behind so I asked myself how does
this happen when a child like shakeela
moves from a lower poverty school into a
higher poverty school that’s literally
about a mile you know apart and so I
wanted to share some numbers with you on
some of our statistics in Greenville at
Stone you have 33 percent who are in
poverty that’s compared to 79 percent at
East North Street Stone has 66 percent
meeting or exceeding expectations in
English in East North Street has 44 now
you compared to non magnet schools
because these are both magnet and you
take Hollis which has 93 percent in
poverty and can they have 30 percent who
meet or exceed expectations in English
and then you contrast that with monarch
where there’s 20 percent in poverty and
77 percent who are meeting or exceeding
expectations in English so this is the
key for Greenville to take the next big
step forward and I wanted to point out
though a few more things in shakila’s
neighborhood that are positive and that
are happening there it is going through
revitalization and the city has invested
about a million dollars in
infrastructure work which has provided
things like safe drinking water new
lines and also lights and street curb
curb äj–
this is an example of a gain home that’s
at the end of her street and
is a solar-powered home in a family who
has emerged from being homeless lives
there next door is work force housing
that is a partnership between Genesis
homes and Rik Quinn with Quinn’s
daughter Phil builders so this also
demonstrates our housing challenges our
most significant for this $20,000 in
under annually but extend all the way up
to our teachers our police officers and
military so this is a you know positive
thing that’s happening in this
neighborhood I wanted to share though
that last fall I did stand in the
kitchen of her home with her mother and
she shared a difficult conversation with
me
where she has a brother who’s 16 and he
had come home and brought a gun into
their home and she said that he really
just wanted to protect himself we had
talked many times about that he’d been
experiencing gangs who were threatening
him since they moved into this community
and he also wanted to protect his family
so revitalization takes time changing
poverty levels in schools takes time but
there’s also an element of safety that
is important for families as well as our
broader community when poverty is
concentrated we have those side effects
so where you live affects your life your
health and your education I wanted to go
back into my neighborhood this is in the
North main area and this is a rental
around the corner from our house on
Bennett Street and it’s being offered at
$1,100 a month which is twice the rate
of the affordable units in shakila’s
neighborhood families are moving into
the stone area so that their children
can attend the school and the north main
community has become a very coveted
place to live at this proximity to
downtown so stone has seen a decrease in
their free and reduced lunch students in
their african-american students and in
their magnet enrollment because it’s
somewhere people want to move and live
all right so we know 87 percent agreed
we have a problem you all being here
tonight is a wonderful reflection of
that 68% agreed we should not have
poverty concentrated in Greenville yet
only 9%
said yes I would welcome a mixed income
unit in my backyard so when we can move
as a city from saying no to saying yes
in my backyard we can go from being good
to being great and this is the key to
our economic stability and vitality in
the long run so I’m going to ask you
tonight be courageous and think green
and when you do picture this and I did
ties a textile designer not a graphic
designer but hopefully you’ll see the
smiley face in here and smile
imagine that all these colors fade
except for the green dots and then that
becomes affordable homes spread
throughout our community and then have a
very courageous open conversation with a
friend with a family member or a
co-worker about why where you live
affects you and your community and then
I want you to leave here with a
challenge find one person just one
person who does not value a home to go
to at the end of their day and when you
do ask this question you will be
speaking for those in our community who
are most vulnerable those who have no
resources no power no status and may not
even have a home and when you do this
you will also significantly change the
outcome of their lives and you will help
Greenville write a new and equitable
history for yeah that Greenville [Applause]