(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Change doesn't come easy.

That's true in politics and in our everyday lives.

Nearly a hundred years ago, India's spiritual and social leader, Mahatma Gandhi said, "be the change you wish to see in the world."

Through his peaceful actions and leadership, Gandhi helped win India's independence from colonial rule.

Today, nearly a hundred years later, it has one of the world's fastest growing economies.

It takes a rare individual to be the change they wish to see in the world.

You're about to meet a Tampa woman who's taken that message to heart and by empowering others, has been transforming communities and people's lives, for decades.

Next on the "Suncoast Business Forum."

- [Narrator] "Suncoast Business Forum," brought to you by the Financial Services Firm of Raymond James.

Offering personalized wealth management advice and banking and capital markets expertise, all with a commitment to putting clients' financial wellbeing first.

More information is available at raymondjames.com.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - [Geoff Simon] The Declaration of Independence says, "we are all created equal."

It doesn't say we all grew up the same and have the same opportunities in life.

The income and wealth gap in America is wide and growing wider.

Closing that gap is a complex challenge.

One way to tackle it is to make changes at the community level.

For more than 30 years Chloe Coney has been mobilizing people and resources in Tampa Bay, to close that gap and change lives for the better.

Chloe, welcome to the "Suncoast Business Forum."

- It is a privilege to be here today with you.

- [Geoffrey Simon] It's great to have you.

- Thank you so much for inviting me.

- Now, most people when they hit midlife, decide to slow down a little bit, but you did just the opposite.

You're different.

When you hit midlife, right around 40, which was just a few years ago, you decided to do something altogether different and you created a non-profit entity called the Corporation for Community Development.

And you went after some serious problems that were plaguing an East Tampa neighborhood.

Tell us about the inspiration and the vision.

- When I turned 40, I had one of my a-ha moments.

I went back to Bible college, Florida Beacon Bible College, and I read "Nehemiah."

All of a sudden his life inspired me.

Nehemiah in the "Bible," he was the cup bearer for the king.

And when they came back from Jerusalem they would always say to him "the walls are broken down, the community is in despair.

We need help."

And when I was given a tour of East Tampa.

That was the same spirit I saw.

I saw one of my classmates who was on drugs and she had graduated from high school at Elwood Bound.

She went off to college and I wept when I went to her house to see that she was living in College Hill, no place, no food, trying to take care of her child.

And I said, "God, if you want me to, send me, I'll go back," like Nehemiah.

And today, 30 years later, we see the evidence of those works and seeds that we planted 30 years ago.

- There's a wealth gap in America and it's been growing wider over time.

10% of the population, the top 10%, own 70% of the wealth in this country.

Half the population owns less than 3% of the wealth.

What is the impact of this growing disparity and what can be done?

- Well, in the 1990s when we first started CDC we did a survey, a needs assessment of the community.

The average income was $5,400.

Most the people lived in public housing.

But it was interesting, what their four top needs were, number one was affordable housing.

Number two, was job or business opportunities.

And the third was services for the youth and then healthcare.

So, in other words they didn't say, "give me welfare, food stamps."

They said, "give me economic opportunities.

That if I can find a job, I can get a decent place to live.

I can help send my kids off to college.

I can live a better life."

But we're happy now, I think in East Tampa it's now, the average income is between $35 to $45,000.

- For many years Florida, Tampa Bay had relatively affordable housing compared to other cities.

Not so much anymore, in fact, the cost of housing, both rental and homes to buy, it's gone up significantly.

What impact do you think that's gonna have on the community and what were you able to do over the years to affect that?

- One of the first projects that CDC started under my leadership, it's always good to have someone that can mentor you and that person was Alex Sink, she was the president of Bank of America.

And her CDC came in and partnered with our CDC of Tampa.

And we built the first 25 single family homes in East Tampa.

And we also built Osborne Landing Apartments, is around 43 apartments.

But during that time, the houses were around, I'm gonna say $65 to maybe $85,000.

I encourage many of my friends or people I know, "please purchase in East Tampa."

A lot of people are hesitant because they say crime was there or drugs or whatever.

I said, "no, it's gonna be a great investment."

And now those same houses, 20 some years now, is around three $350-$400,000.

So, what do we have to do now to encourage or you know, especially people that are making a living wage to be able to afford the houses?

So we are partnering with the city and the county.

Banks are realizing they're gonna help with down payment assistance.

Of course we require they go through the First Time Home Buyers Training Program and how to have their finances together and how to really take care of a home.

And we share that with them.

Home ownership, you know that's the greatest wealth you can have for your family.

- How important is education and skills training to really improving people's quality of lives, for turning neighborhoods around?

And how difficult is it to implement programs like that?

- Well, one of the first programs that CDC started too, was our Career Resource Center.

Because we heard what the community said, "we need jobs."

So we actually brought a Career Resource Center, has staff and work with Department of Labor to find jobs.

But what we realized when we went in the community, there were a lot of young people and whoever, that had no skillset, had never worked before.

So how do you prepare them to go for a job?

So we started out as a Stepping Stone program, it's a job readiness, going back to the basics, teaching them to be on time, how to dress, how to interview.

And then we realized after that, how do you find skills?

So now under CDC with my son's leadership, Ernest Coney Jr, they have the Tampa Vocational Institute.

Well, we were doing our Stepping Stone training, one of the components is financial literacy.

And by working with Bank of America and across the street we had Suncoast Credit Union.

We will bring them in to explain how to have a checking account, how to have a savings account, if you wanna buy a car or a house.

- Let's talk about your formative years, let's talk about your family and growing up in Tampa.

- Now you have to realize, that I was born in 1950, it was a different time here in Tampa.

It was a segregated time.

So you could only live in certain neighborhoods.

But as I tell everybody, we had a sense of community.

I knew my neighbors, some of them was unemployed, someone was a preacher, some was a teacher.

But everybody aspired you to be great and to do something that you can make the community proud of you.

- Were you a good student?

- I was, I went to Dunbar Elementary and then I went to Just Junior High, when they first built the school.

So in 1963, the school system came to our school and they wanted to recruit some African Americans to go and help integrate the school system.

So it was three of us from the school and I left Just and went to West Tampa Junior High.

Then going to the old Jefferson, making honor roll, dancerette, graduating from Hillsborough in 1968.

So again, it's privileged to say that I'm one of the first African-Americans to integrate the school system here in Hillsborough County.

And one of the schools I went to they were singing "Dixie" during pep rally, they had their confederate flag.

Sometimes we were called the N word.

But you had to know who you were and why you were there.

And whenever I became discouraged I could hear one of the teachers saying, "I prepared you for this hour, we're sending you off."

- During this time when you were a young teenager you met another teenager named Ernest, who later became your husband and is still your husband, - [Chloe Coney] Yes.

- [Geoffrey Simon] to this day.

Tell us about your young love for Ernest.

- [Chloe Coney] I met my husband, I was 13 years old, he was 16.

We had gone to a friend of ours party who lived behind me.

And so he decided he wanted to walk me home after the party.

Well, my mother met him and said, "he's too young to date.

You gotta come back when she's 16."

And true to the word, he did.

But you know, when I first met him, I knew he was gonna be the one.

He was a star football player for Blake High School.

He was a running back, okay?

And he lived one block over from me in our community.

So when I was 16 we started dating and when I was 19 we eloped, we got married.

And it's 53 years later.

I'm still with this same wonderful man.

- [Geoffrey Simon] After high school you went to Florida A & M in Tallahassee.

Did you know what you wanted to study and what you might do after college?

- [Chloe Coney] Not really.

First, I thought about going into medicine and then had to dissect the frog and I said, "forget that, forget it."

And then I started with political science and lo and behold, the opportunity in correction, criminology.

The Department of Correction came to Florida A & M in my junior year and said, "we want to be able to hire some of your students.

So if they will get their undergrad in criminology we would hire them."

The same opportunity there too.

In fact, I did my internship at Probation & Parole, here in Tampa.

And then June 1972 Department of Correction hired me as the first female African-American as a parole officer.

And being a female probation officer, I'll never forget, we went to a Ruskin Florida to do a pre-sentence investigation.

And my supervisor, Chuck Herb, took me with him.

So we stopped by on Highway 41 to get gas, he goes into the store and the store has steps during that time, and he came out running and yelling, "Chloe, get your badge, get your badge.

She's not my girlfriend, she's a probation officer."

And when I look up and I see this man pointing a rifle.

A rifle, directly at me, "I'm gonna kill her, that's your girlfriend."

And I'm trying to get this badge and I'm saying, "God, how in the world did you put me in this?

I have my husband, I have my son.

Where is this badge?"

And finally I found it and and showed that to him.

But we took off from there and I made up my mind I was gonna quit.

And that's the reason as a young person, you find a mentor, find somebody you can talk to.

And when I got back to the courthouse it was two men that just set me down and gave me one of the best advice I ever had.

And that was Deleno Stewart, he was a lawyer there.

And he is the Dean Of Lawyers and he told me his story being a black lawyer and the other one was George Edgecomb.

He was with the State Attorney's Office and he said, "Chloe, all of us experienced things like this.

Racism is real, but somebody has to do it, somebody has to be the first.

So please stay."

And Judge Edgecomb promised me he's gonna put me in his court, where if he became judge and he did.

And I became his court service supervisor in his courtroom.

So I had people to go ahead of me, that I'm standing on their shoulders.

I always have to mention them, 'cause I would not be who I am without them.

- After years of working in the criminal justice system and for the judge, you then went into the corporate sector and you work for Florida Power, which we now know as Duke Energy.

- Duke Energy.

- [Geoffrey Simon] Tell us about that.

- Well Florida Power during this time too, was looking for African Americans.

They had just started their program, The Energy Conservation Program and they needed people that would go out and market that program.

So, I always loved being in sales, so that was a natural for me.

And to be able to go into our customer's homes, as well as their businesses and tell 'em how to save on their energy.

In fact, you see TCO and Duke Energy still doing that today.

- You and Ernest were in your thirties, raising a family, comfortably happy, growing family, you were working for Florida Power, he was working for Honeywell.

And then you decided to change course, why?

- Well, you know, like I said too, one of the things I saw and God did the a-ha moment, both in my husband and I.

'Cause my husband had been coaching the little league out in Oldsmar and he bought a van and come to West Tampa, North Boulevard home and pick the kids up and bring them there.

And of course they went to church and they did everything for it.

And I saw those young men changed their life because of my husband.

And my husband kept saying, "I'm enjoying Honeywell and I love the corporate, I love the paycheck, I love everything.

But boy, if I can do this full-time, I would do it."

And he had the opportunity to become the first Executive Director for the new Central City YMCA.

So when you see that on Tampa Palms, you'll see his fingerprint, his hand is all over that.

He did that for about 10 years.

And I had the same experience, when I was doing my internship at a church and I saw the conditions of the community.

And I just said, "Lord, it has to be better.

This is not the community I knew when we were growing up and I know it could be much better."

And that's when I made the conscious, my husband and I, to leave our corporate jobs, to leave the five bedroom, three bath house, you know, whatever, and to come into Tampa and make a change and be the change and be change agents for our community.

Much giving is much required.

- So you went back to school, got your master's degree, focused on inner city improvement.

Took a job then, with the Lee Davis Neighborhood Service Center, right?

- [Chloe Coney] So lo and behold, when I interviewed for the position at first, the county said, "you don't have all the criteria to do this."

But Mrs. Sparford, who was the chair of Lee Davis Advisory Board said, "I heard her heart.

She says she wants to come back home to make a difference."

And she persuaded them to hire me.

And I think that's probably about the best hire they could ever have done, 'cause I love Lee Davis and the work we are doing.

- Several years later in 19- - About seven years later, signed for a change.

- Right, in 1972 is when you started the Corporation for Community Development, from scratch.

- From scratch, no money, but we have faith and we believe that this is what the Lord really wanted us to do.

I received one wise word from Charlie Ketchum, I don't know where he is now, he was a great lawyer.

And he said, "Chloe," I told him we had no money, he said, "Chloe if you can do great work, the money will come."

And that's what I tell young folks.

"Put your hand to the task, do it with all of your might.

It's contagious.

When people see the great work they will give.

You then will draw the money because again, people see the impact."

And so today, starting, it was May 1992, we had no money.

And now my son is running the CDC and it's a billion dollar company.

They build apartment, houses, strip centers, send thousand kids to college and you see the impact.

So I'm grateful that I had enough faith to say, "let's start it and don't worry about I had no money.

'Cause again, if you do a great job, the money will come."

- But you were facing some serious challenges, there were drugs, there was a lot of crime, poverty in this area.

How did you confront that?

- One of the programs, that came out from the federal government, was the Weed & Seed.

Where you weed out the crime and you seeded with jobs, businesses, houses, everything we're talking about.

So we had to do the drug marches, the police.

"We went up with hope, down with dope.

You keep selling crack, you will be back.

Standing tall, looking good, we're taking back the neighborhood."

So Geoff, we had to take back our neighborhood.

That it's not okay to sell drugs.

It's not okay to have trash in the streets.

So we cleaned the streets and we set a whole new standard for our community.

We built the laundromat, named it the Nehemiah Laundromat.

Well, this was not going to be any kinda laundromat, 'cause nothing new in East Tampa had been built in 30 years.

It had a play area for the kids.

We had a ice cream business, that we allowed the kids to sell ice cream.

Once we finished the laundromat, behind that was an old bar had been closed 25 years, called Rabbit Foot Bar.

And you're not lucky when you went there.

They had so many killed, that's a true story.

So many people were killed there.

When a 16 year old girl, Lisa Davis was killed, the governor at that time, closed it down.

And lo and behold we had built this laundromat and we know we could not have that horrible looking bar, that was boarded up behind there.

So we decided that we wanted to buy that bar and make it into a youth center.

And I am so grateful that I got a chance at United Way Meeting to meet my good friends now, John and Susan Sykes.

And when Susan went on the drug march with me, on Lake and 29th Street and we talked to John about the conditions of East Tampa and the vision, of tearing down that horrible bar and build a youth center.

It was John and Susan that supported us on that.

And not only John and Susan that gave us financial money for that.

We had good friends like Beck Construction Company say, "we want to help."

Of course it was SunTrust Bank at that time, said that, "we will come in and partner with you."

So you know, that's the reason I love Habakkuk, it says, "write the vision and those that read will run."

So we were able to write the vision and to share with people.

- In 2006, you retired from CDC.

The good news is, your son Ernest took over and is still to this day, running the CDC and it has grown substantially.

Tell us about Ernest and tell us about the growth.

- Well you know, I'm really proud to pass the legacy and the mantle and my hat, you see I wear my hats, I'm the Hat Lady, over to my son.

I'm blessed to have him as my son.

He graduated from Jefferson High School as an honor student.

He played football there.

He had the chance to play football for Dartmouth.

He went to Ivy League school.

So those two years, they were Ivy League champs, okay?

So once, finishing college at Dartmouth he came home and he went to University of South Florida to get his Master's.

He got his Master's in Public Health Administration.

He always loved the whole industry of Community Development Corporation.

He would go to the conferences and hear about the homes they're building, the apartments, the shopping centers.

And he kept saying, "this is what I wanna do with my life."

And he's taking it even greater, 'cause he is the businessman, okay?

He's taken that knowledge, the financial knowledge and he knows how to leverage all those fundings together.

And he's working and we are very fortunate now, to be working with Fifth Third Bank, they made a commitment last year for $23 million that's gonna be making into East Tampa.

So for the people that are gonna be buying homes and starting businesses, it's just wonderful to see the change now.

- In 2006 you contemplated a run for elected office in Hillsborough County.

Ended up working for Congresswoman Kathy Castor, who's still in Congress to this day.

Tell us about your years working with a congresswoman.

- [Chloe Coney] Oh, I love that, it was 2007 and Congresswoman Cathy Castor had just become the very new congresswoman after Jim Davis.

And I was at Alex Sink's victory party, she ran for CFO and she knew that I had helped Alex for the campaign and so she said, "Chloe, come run my district office."

And I said, "well Kathy, I've never really worked for anybody in federal government or whatever."

And she said, "Chloe, I've never been a congresswoman.

So we're gonna learn it together."

And it was one of the greatest experience I could ever have because when we took over in 2007 and eight, that's when the Great Recession hit.

And Florida and especially the Tampa Bay area (sighs) became one of the hardest hit cities and state.

Where people were losing their homes due to foreclosure.

And one of the things the congresswoman wanted to know was "what can we do to help?

How we can help our residents, our constituents?"

And so we worked with her and we did the first foreclosure workshop, here in this Tampa Bay area.

We're able to bring all the banks.

And like I told them, "hey, Congress regulates the banks now, so we need your help."

And then we spread the word and the first time we did the foreclosure workshop at Al Lopez Park, we had over 1500 people to come out.

- After 11 years working with Congresswoman Castor you went out on your own, you established your own consulting practice, which you have to this day.

Tell us about that.

- [Chloe Coney] Yes.

I needed to have time to spend with my mother.

She was in her nineties and I could see her health failing.

And so I decided I needed more time for that.

But then I also had opportunity 'cause nobody ever lets me go home and just rest, rest.

And they had just started a program with Florida Department of Transportation, Tampa Bay Next and they wanted to do community engagement.

And now today, I'm working with them now, to do workforce development.

As they're building all the highways and the bridges and $6 billion project.

One of the things we heard in community when we went out, was Secretary David Gwynn and we all heard that, the residents said, "we want jobs."

So, we were doing this a local employment, okay?

We're gonna be working with the contractors.

We're gonna identify and work with our community partners, we have some great community partners in our community, Abe Brown Ministries, Metropolitan Ministries, University Area CDC, CDC of Tampa.

They're gonna help us identify residents.

To get them into those paying jobs.

Like we said, if we're gonna create wealth, start most times, with a good paying job or even start your businesses.

We tell them there's business opportunities for them too.

As long as we can give out economic opportunities, you'll see the community prosper.

- You are renowned for an extraordinary collection of very stylish hats.

Tell us about your passion for hats.

- Well, growing up in Tampa and being a member of Beulah Baptist Church, the ladies there were so elegant when I was growing up.

All of them had their hats, they had their gloves.

And as a child, I kept saying, "I wanna look just like them when I grew up."

And so I said at a certain age and it was the age of 50.

I said, "I'm gonna start wearing hats every day and I'm gonna keep this tradition going."

And lo and behold, it has benefited me greatly.

I have been in Washington, DC at a conference and somebody said, "we're looking for Chloe Coney."

And they said, "oh, go find her, she's sitting there, she's the only one with the hat on."

And they would find me.

So everybody know I'm the Hat Lady.

And I love my hats.

And it is a legacy to the great women that I knew, that poured into me when I was a child.

- Well, Chloe, I'd like to thank you so much for being our guest today.

- Thank you so much.

- If you'd like to see this program again, or any of the CEO profiles in our Suncoast Business Forum archive, you can find them on the web at wedu.org/sbf.

Thanks for joining us for the Suncoast Business Forum.

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