Funding for Rebuilding the Dream is provided in part by the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation, Boeing and Spire.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] It was once a place that, for many, defined the post-World War II version of the American Dream.

White families from the city moving into modest homes in dozens of small and tiny municipalities in North St. Louis County.

But over decades, many whites, and later many Blacks, moved up and out, eventually leaving behind a suburban area with urban problems and a hodgepodge of under-resourced municipalities.

- It's extremely difficult to get people on the same page, get them working together.

- But dozens of towns and villages in the Normandy School District are now meeting together as one, working in coordination with the community development organization, Beyond Housing, whose groundbreaking and wide ranging work and services in neighborhoods, business districts and schools is being closely watched here and around the country.

- It's a whole lot of two steps forward and one step back, sometimes one step forward and two steps back.

- [Narrator] There is more economic and racial diversity here than outsiders might expect.

The homes and families remain.

There are plenty of problems.

- I would rather have my kids in an accredited district for sure, - [Narrator] But there is also pride and determination to reverse decline and rebuild the dream.

- You wanna do it yourself.

- If we value people as human beings and not see them as problems, people will find ways to thrive.

- And I just think that the perception of North County is not that good and we're working very hard to better that perception.

(people cheering) - It didn't happen overnight, and it won't be fixed overnight.

(gentle music continues) - A woman should know how to tie a tie, too.

Y'all coming back?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- All right.

Watch my stuff.

Make sure nobody steals it.

- Right.

(laughs) Woke up this morning, I was tying my tie and I said, you know what?

I'm gonna bring 10 ties to school with me.

And they gonna say, "We don't wear no tie."

You know, you don't wear 'em yet.

Amir, right quick.

- Phil Berry works with young people- - You wanna know how to tie a tie?

at Normandy High School.

- Okay, just follow me.

- He's not a school district employee.

(Phil speaking faintly) He's embedded here by the school district's partner, the nonprofit Beyond Housing.

- There we go.

- [Narrator] Sometimes he takes on big issues that students are facing, and sometimes this.

(upbeat music) - Excuse me ladies, I'm gonna be doing a demonstration on how to tie in a minute.

- All right.

- One day you might get married and want to tie your man's tie.

Now, you can follow me if you want.

Want somebody gonna follow me?

- Yes.

- I just feel like I'm there to share my experiences, and show them, you know, open up the world to them.

And tuck it in.

- In the same hole that in my thumb in?

- Uh-huh.

Cross.

- Just the little?

- [Phil] Yep.

Yep, right through that.

Put that thumb up here.

Where your thumb at?

- Yeah.

(laughs) - Right.

(laughs) It's so tricky.

- Right, yeah.

See how she got it turned backwards so we see the label?

Yeah, we call dressing it up.

You pull it up.

- [Narrator] He's preparing these young people for success, and many will succeed.

- There we go.

- and many will move away.

(Phil speaking faintly) They will move up and move out to neighborhoods with better schools, lower crime, access to healthcare and shopping.

Some will stay though, and others will return.

- [Phil] Every time she comes through the moves (continues faintly) - One of the things that I did, like so many other people, was I had this belief that success was growing up, getting an education and then going out into the world and doing great things.

But I didn't equate success with coming back home to use those gifts and talents and that education.

- [Narrator] Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge was an executive at Edward Jones, a Normandy High School graduate who moved away and then came back.

She served on the local school board, the Beyond Housing Board, and now is on the Missouri State Board of Education.

- Let's have tough conversations about how we got here and then let's have a conversation about how we rebuild housing, how we address jobs, how we addressed education, because all of those institutions and factors have to be rebuilt together to affect the outcomes in the community that we'd like to see.

- Juneteeth!

- I like those Jeeps - [Narrator] This Juneteenth Parade was the culmination of five days of celebrations (people cheering) in North St. Louis County.

(horns honking) Five Days of Black joy, it was called, kicking off renewed efforts (people cheering) by mayors and county council members to address the challenges facing North County.

- My hopes and dreams of North County is, one, that we come together collaboratively and work, be impactful, have four priorities: economic development, addressing food insecurities, health access, community engagement.

I believe us all working at each level of government is gonna be more impactful than us working in our silos.

And so we are doing that.

We've been doing it in these Five Days of Black Joy.

- Wave!

(laughs) (horn honking) - You know, for so long we have been the stepchildren and the stepchild of St. Louis County.

And so we're not doing that anymore.

And so this is an opportunity for us to come together as one.

I have 40 municipalities that I represent in the North County area.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] It is one of St. Louis's defining characteristics: Dozens of suburban municipalities, many of the smallest ones concentrated in mid-North County.

- There were often, by the way, created by developers.

Developers had a subdivision which they developed and then they turned it over and incorporated it as a municipality.

New homes, they had more green space, better schools, lower crime.

So it was, in some ways a good deal.

- [Narrator] The real suburban growth came after World War II.

The population spilled across the city county line into new neighborhoods, for the most part, limited to whites only by practice and policy.

- St. Louis was ground zero for redlining segregation, and the very house we live in now has still has a restrictive covenant in the indentures, indicating that people of color can't live here and those kinds of things.

- [Narrator] And even after racial barriers began to lift and whites moved out.

Many communities still had the same appeal and advantages for the new residents.

- The early years of Black suburbanization, they were solid, safe, high-performing suburban, you know, communities, right?

But over time the poverty has gone up.

More single-parent families, more what you might call the classic urban issues.

Those small municipalities become dysfunctional, not functional.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] And some of these municipalities would gain reputations for dysfunction and for budgets increasingly dependent on fines for speeding tickets and minor violations.

It won't take a village to raise up this part of St. Louis County, but a lot of villages and towns working together to change the reality and the perception.

And that's the idea of the 24:1 community, formed in partnership with Beyond Housing and bringing together the municipalities in the Normandy School District.

- We have 24 mayors, alderperson, the whole community working together as one.

Make sure we get them there, (continues faintly) We met and started talking about salt salt for the road.

And we was paying like $35, and then you found another city was paying $145.

So when we got together, say, well, why you all have to pay $145 when we paying 35?

So we all got with the salt co-op, and made an agreement.

Now, we all pay the same price for the salt.

(group applauds) That led on to trash.

Everybody was paying different prices for their trash.

We got together and made a contract with the trash people, and now all of us doing the same thing with that.

- The 24:1 initiative is one of the cutting-edge efforts in the country to try to deal with institutional fragmentation and get things done.

- If you do a master land use plan by yourself, you're spending like 100-and-some thousand.

But we all went in together and got grants and now we pay like 12,000.

So we saving our city a lot of revenue.

(presenter speaking faintly) Our biggest challenge was in Normandy School District, because our Normandy School District was going in the wrong direction, so now the community is involved.

We have a new superintendent, new school board, so now we are following in the right direction.

That was a big challenge, that Normandy School District, because they was unaccredited.

- Whereas the State Board of Education on September 18th, 2012, classified the Normandy School District as unaccredited.

(board member continues faintly) - [Narrator] It was because of consistently poor student performance that the State Board of Education revoked the district's accreditation and took control of the renamed Normandy Schools Collaborative.

The district is back under local control, working to overcome the label (people chattering) of failed, struggling, underperforming.

It is part of the bigger story of North St. Louis County, and it didn't happen overnight.

- Normandy was still pretty much all white.

Within the 10 year span from '68 to like '78, '79, it became it Black.

So while it didn't have racial diversity anymore, it had socioeconomic diversity, and so all the kids who lived here, they all went to Normandy.

- More recently, what's happening in the St. Louis region is Black flight.

Black middle class and working class families are moving out of these communities, right?

You can't blame them.

Whites have been doing that for decades, right?

- Where especially people who have resources, who have education and talent, they want to move.

(gentle music) Front and center, I don't think I've met anybody here who hasn't talked about the school system.

- To our left here also is some newer school buildings from the Normandy Schools Collaborative Early Childhood Center and Kindergarten Center.

The community passed the bond issue like they always do to support the school system.

We have staff embedded in all the schools.

- [Narrator] Chris Krehmeyer runs Beyond Housing.

(Chris continues faintly) Its work in the schools is only part of a wide range of services focused on revitalizing the Normandy District's 24:1 footprint.

Much of that work focuses on housing, jobs, healthcare and economic development.

It's a holistic approach that's considered a model for social work and community development.

- Well, the community development groups around the nation that do the best work, do it this way, cross-silo, cross-sector planning, right?

Cross-silo means that you're doing not just housing, you're also doing social services, you're also looking at the schools, you know, you're doing cross the various policy silos we talked about.

- [Chris] So again, it's this idea of comprehensiveness when we're trying to invest in all those pieces that make up a healthy community.

- Too often in this work, folks have asked us what I think is the false question of, "Well, isn't education the most important?"

Or "Isn't jobs the most important?"

Or "Isn't housing the most important?"

Or "Isn't health the most important?"

And the answer, from our vantage point, it's all the most important.

(gentle music) (traffic rumbling) - Good morning!

- What'd you do yesterday?

What you do?

Hmm?

(student speaks softly) - [Narrator] Raykell Davis is Beyond Housing's liaison at Barack Obama Elementary School.

- Hey, come here, come here.

- [Narrator] One of the major challenges for this and other school districts with high poverty rates, the mobility of families and the constant turnover of students in schools and classrooms.

She works with children and she meets with parents.

- You were in a shelter, that's how you got it through?

- And yeah, (laughs) we had to get out.

We had to get out, and we moved to my grandpa's house, and my mom and all them, we all in his little (laughs) apartment, but he let us stay in there, 'cause he was the only one that accepted us.

- Don't worry about it.

- Okay.

- [Raykell] Don't worry about it.

See, you're- - Yeah.

(laughs) - [Raykell] You thinkin'.

You thinkin' too hard, you know what I'm saying?

- Yes.

I always do that, though.

- We're here to help and we're going to help.

(parent laughs) It's not like we're gonna make it worse.

We're not.

we're going to actually help you.

You just want some normalcy, you know what I'm saying?

You want a little normalcy in your life, you know?

So...

If you sell another appliance, another appliance, 'cause I don't understand that.

You were gonna pay for a hotel for you guys to stay in a hotel every day?

That was your plan?

We have to change that mindset, because that's not what you do.

Okay, there's some cereal right there.

Let me get milk for you.

It looks small, but maybe once you get 'em in.

Too small?

- What's that school you was just at, baby?

- Herzog?

- Yeah.

And it was awful.

- Okay, fine.

- Is that too big?

(student speaks softly) - [Raykell] He got a little room.

He got a little room, but tying em, you'll be fine, okay?

- [Raykell] Okay.

Ah-ah.

- [Raykell] If you don't take that off with your hands, you going to, you ruined them before you- - [Tanya] I just bought these a few months ago, 'cause that one (indistinct).

- He took his foot...

Here, you want, since you don't have on any socks, put these socks on before you have a cold.

You'll be sick for real.

- A lot of people don't know what to say with his situation, 'cause a lot of children don't go through what he went through.

- Yeah.

So you okay?

(gentle music) Were you all together?

You weren't?

- Mm-mm.

- But I know you.

- No, I'm just a frustrated momma, but he had nightmares and just... - He had what now?

- Nightmares.

- (indistinct) he would just wake up screaming.

(gentle music continues) - Yeah.

- It was a hard time for me.

- [Raykell] I understand.

I understand you.

You just have to take some time.

Do you want me to... Do you want counseling also?

Do you want me to refer you?

I know you want to address his, but Mom, you have to be okay to help him, you know what I'm saying?

- He's been having nightmares, so I had to start recording him for the school to understand.

Like, in his dreams, he'll wake up screaming and he'll be like, "Why did you shoot him in the head?"

- Oh no.

- So.

- Okay, so much easier for somebody else to tell you to just be okay, but you gotta believe that.

You are not gonna fail, and you're not let your baby fail.

We gonna make sure we do what we can do for you.

- The uncertainty, just on a day-to-day basis has a tremendous toll on our mental and our physical health.

And so I think it's really difficult for people to even navigate or not just navigate, but to imagine a future, to have a future orientation that is positive, and that people can imagine a different life when they're focused on, you know, what's immediately in front of them on a day to day-to-day basis.

(upbeat music) - I use every resource I can to reach the young people and show 'em there's a better way that you don't wanna waste your life, 'cause they look at me and say, "Oh, you don't learn about the gangs and drugs and all of that."

I said, "I know some people do."

This is Michael Berry, my younger brother.

How old are you man?

- 57.

- How long have you been in gangs?

- 30 years of my life.

- Have you ever been shot?

- Shot three times.

- So somebody was trying to kill you three different times?

- How do you think your life would be if you weren't in the gang?

- [Michael] I believe my life would be in a better place right now.

- From 20 years old to 32 years old, those times are spent locked up in a cell in a prison.

All because of decisions he made as a youngster, and was that fun?

- [Michael] Oh my god, that is the most degrading thing in the world.

- But when I listen to some of the songs, and some of the rappers sayin', they sound like, hey, that's the thing to do.

- [Michael] No, they not talking about it when they're in there stripped butt naked with about 100 men, and you gotta sit on the bench with your butts back to back.

They make you sit like this.

- Well, I can reach back to those memories of growing up.

And then I'm sitting there looking at young people in classes today, they not knowing what's waiting for them.

That's why when they, other people come here, guess what they do?

They say "We can go to school for free?"

And I think about where I come from and where they going, where they heading.

They ain't cussing out the teachers.

Makes me want to just stop the presses, stop everything.

Because where they come from, they don't have this.

Repeat after me: If you don't know nothin'.

- If you don't know nothin'.

- You won't have nothin'.

- You won't have nothin'.

- You won't be nothin'.

- You won't be nothin'.

- If you don't know nothing, you won't have nothing.

You can't be nothing.

First thing you do when they get ready to go get a job, they ask you, "What you know?"

They say, "Here, take this test," so they can see what you know.

And if you don't know nothing, they say, "Oh, thank you Star, we'll call you."

- And they don't call.

- And don't call you.

Because you showed them that you don't know nothing.

You gotta know something in order to have something.

(bell rings) All right, that's the bell.

I'll holler back.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Yeah.

All right.

- Thank you.

We appreciate it.

- I always like to point out to people that there are more Black men in college than there are in jail.

There's more Black men trying to make a way for themselves compared to people who fall off the path.

And so what can we do to strengthen the resiliency that is there, fostering some of the strengths that are in place?

- Yes.

- Pizza.

- No.

- Hamburger.

- No.

- Chicken.

- No.

(laughs) - Breakfast food?

- Yes.

- Eggs.

- No.

- Pancakes.

- [Family] No.

- Bacon.

- No.

- Sausages.

- No.

- [Randal] We met in St. Louis City.

- Potatoes.

- No.

- Actually we met on the bus line.

- What's a breakfast food?

- [Randal] Because neither one of us had a car at the time.

- Oatmeal?

- No.

No!

- And then one day I asked her to marry me and she said, "Yeah."

(Brandi laughs) - Almost nine years ago.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] The Morrises are a family of five.

Dad's a warehouse driver, mom works with special needs students.

They'd been renting in St. John and went house hunting, ending up in Cool Valley.

- We started looking for a home and settled on this one.

(gentle music continues) I came over here at nighttime to see what the neighborhood was like after dark before we moved here, just to make sure it would be something that if I'm away from the house, that my wife and the kids, I could feel safe.

It's pretty quiet.

It's a older neighborhood.

Don't have a lot of the late night noise, and you might hear some gunshots, but it's not on a regular basis.

- Kim, come up on this side.

- For the last two and a half years and been out here, it's been pretty peaceful and quiet.

(kids singing) (lively music plays) ♪ No, I ain't walkin' out the door ♪ ♪ 'Cause I know in the end ♪ 'Cause I know in the end - [Narrator] Like a lot of families, their weekdays are filled with school jobs, activities, but all that is set aside on Sundays.

- After church, it's our family time, and we get on the mic and do karaoke.

The little one, she actually thinks she's the best, (laughs) but hey, she's seven.

(family chattering) When the pandemic hit, of course, we wasn't at work, and me and my sister, we always loved to cook, and one day we was like, what if we just start selling plates on Fridays?

And it went from selling plates on Fridays to different people booking us for different weddings and different baby showers, and stuff like that, which hence Sincerely Boxed came in.

- I hope that, you know, once the kids graduate, go off to college and become successful.

By that time I'll be ready to retire, I could kick my feet up.

(laughs) She looking at me like, you all right?

'Cause she'll still be working.

She'll still be in the work, (laughs) in the work field.

And you know, I can- - I work, you work.

(laughs) It's a partnership together.

We both gonna work.

- I just bring you lunch every day.

That's it.

- Uh-uh, mm-mm-mm.

(laughs) (Randal laughs) It don't work like that.

- The housing stock here is just a great example of kind of what's here.

Modest little bungalows, you know, used to call 'em starter homes.

If they're cared for and invested in, these are good, solid homes that are wonderful for families.

So part of our rehab program is to try to find particularly seniors who live in these homes and give them the support they need to take care of their homes in a way that they might not have been able to otherwise.

One of the things that we love to do here is bring people and then jump in the car with me, and let's drive around.

Let's just take a tour and see this place.

At some point during the tour, the light goes off, and they're like, "Oh, I get it."

And I think what they're surprised at is this place is not monolithically poor.

It's not monolithically, oh my god, all falling down.

There are lots of good and wonderful people who take care of their property, who are trying to raise their kids, who have the same dreams and aspirations all of us do.

- [Narrator] It's an uphill battle.

The poverty rate in the Normandy School District is estimated at nearly 25%, twice St. Louis County's overall rate.

Some municipalities are lower, but some are higher.

In Pine Lawn, nearly half the population lives below the poverty line.

(sirens wailing) On this summer night in Pine Lawn, the sirens did not mean trouble.

The North County Police Cooperative was parading through the streets as part of a National Night Out event.

- So we're just doing a Pine Lawn National Night Out.

So we haven't did this before since I've been here.

So we're just trying to do something nice for the community, and inviting everybody in Pine Lawn.

We've been knocking on doors prior weeks, trying to get people out.

(horns honking) - [Narrator] Pine Lawn was one of those municipalities that once had its own police department.

Now, it is served by the North County Police Cooperative, which is one of the moves to share and improve services in North County.

(people chattering) - It's hot out here.

(laughs) - [Narrator] The parade ended here for a Night Out gathering to get folks together to have a good time and to improve police community relations.

Along with food and attractions, 24:1 was there with a table, as was the Community Impact Network.

- We are an organization located in the 24:1 and our work is to primarily, to support families and nonprofits.

- Whoa!

- Our community has a lot going on.

Today is a great day for us to come out, celebrate our community and celebrate where we're going, and so it's a lot of different projects, and we're one of those organizations working hard.

We're partners over here.

We love this community.

We're happy to be here.

- [Narrator] There are those who wonder why tiny, under-resourced municipalities like Pine Lawn even continue to exist.

Pine Lawn Mayor, Terry Epps, is not one of them.

- We're a close-knit community.

You know, a lot of the residents in this community has been here 50-plus years, and they know the community.

We know each other, so that's one of the greatest things going.

- [Narrator] But that identity is rooted in a more stable suburban past.

- We do see a lot of rental properties, increase in rental and those are not homeowners, and the turnover is high, so we want to be able to get everybody together and let 'em know our tradition in Pine Lawn.

- [Narrator] While North County is still a jigsaw puzzle of towns and villages, there has been some consolidation.

The North County Police Cooperative was created and now patrols eight municipalities, Vinita Park and Vinita Terrace merged a few years ago, and the tiny two-street village of Glen Echo Park, population 120, just voted to become part of Normandy.

- I would love to see the, all of the community municipalities become one, but that will never happen.

There's so much individual history.

(children shouting and chattering) - [Narrator] You won't find Rose Blassingame on the pro-merger side.

She's a widowed mother of seven who moved to Vinita Park 11 years ago from South St. Louis.

- Best decision I ever made.

I love it here in the county.

It's, the community and the people, it just seems like a family, which I didn't have like in the city.

(laughs) You know, I know my neighbors, I know the police officers, the mayor, alderman.

I didn't have that in the city, you know?

I didn't, I guess, have a sense of belonging or anything in the city.

But when I came out here, like, everybody, welcomed me, and it was great.

Okay.

Better?

- [Narrator] While most white and many Black parents in the Normandy School District send their kids to private or parochial schools, that's out of reach for her.

- [Rose] Not an option.

No, very expensive.

- [Narrator] And she does have concerns about the school district, especially as her youngest kids move into middle and high school.

- I think they'll make it through.

I'm hoping that the Normandy district, with having the new superintendent, I hope he puts a lot of new stuff in place that will help maybe get their accreditation back.

I would rather have my kids in an accredited district, for sure.

- [Narrator] So improving the schools, yes.

But when it comes to merging, unifying these small municipalities, - Oh, I hope that never happens.

(laughs) I can't imagine I that.

I would not be for that.

(laughs) I like our Vinita Park.

- When COVID came, know what?

We didn't see each other.

(group laughs) I'm talking about we didn't see each other.

- [Narrator] Richard Fairly is a preacher who also happens to be a Vinita Park Alderman.

- (speaks faintly) came in, like this.

Hey, didn't look up.

Not one time.

- [Narrator] Once a month, he holds an open meeting for any residents who wish to come.

- Residents build a relationship with every worker, police, and your Board of Aldermans and mayor.

If you do not make your need known, how can it be met?

(gentle music) - [Attendee] Right.

- Don't get so mad, "I ain't calling nobody."

Well, your need won't be met.

- That' right.

- Calm down first, then call and then call your alderman.

(group laughs) I'm gonna say that again.

(group laughs) - Calm down.

- Calm down first, and then call your alderman.

You see Public Works cutting the grass, stop 'em.

Hey Aida, you're doing a good job.

My name is so-and-so.

I stay on this street.

- They were able to give me resources, and I found someone to cut my grass.

- She wrote a letter for me.

She sent it to the mayor.

The mayor got back with me, because he know me.

- Okay.

- And it was resolved.

- When you see something, say something, just call it in, and you say you don't wanna be identified, just call it in and say, you know, I saw somebody over there at night at two o'clock in the morning looking in somebody's window.

- Their springs, they got like these huge monitors, and it's like filled, they got the maps up, they got the, 'cause you know, MODOT has cameras, so they got all the highways up so they can see what's going on.

- Let's not just come together to protest something, a tragedy that happened, but let's come together for ideas to make the community thrive into (continues faintly) - These small governments are close to the people.

So you can get involved in city government very easily in these small governments.

You can make your voice heard.

You can feel that you can really make a difference, right, in your participation in the community, but I call it's like a hollow prize.

Yeah, you can influence it, right?

But it doesn't have much capacity to deal with the big issues that you need to deal with.

- Again, this idea of investing, investing, investing is really what we believe in and are confident that if we can continue this path and continue to find the resources to build more, rehab more, that we're gonna turn this overall community around.

- [Narrator] A centerpiece of Beyond Housing's community building can be found in Pagedale at the corner Page and Ferguson.

- We're attempting to create a place, and you think about the work as, you use the term placemaking.

We want people to come here to enjoy the space, to, again, recognize that if you come here you can see a movie, you can get something to eat, you can do shopping, you have healthcare available to you.

There's a bank across the street.

There will be, again, a grocery store across the street.

So again, this (continues faintly) - [Narrator] The grocery store shows how difficult and uncertain success can be.

Originally Beyond Housing was able to bring in a Save-a-Lot in 2010, but it moved out a few years ago with little explanation.

- Food deserts, when they don't have a full grocery store within, I believe it's a mile, then that is considered a food desert.

You can get the calories and often you can get them cheaply, but you're not necessarily going to get the vitamins, minerals, and all those macronutrients in the right proportions that you need.

- [Narrator] It took time and subsidies to get a new store.

Fields Foods, CEO Chris Goodson agreed to move into Beyond Housing's building, rent free.

- Typically our mission has been to take food deserts and make them former food deserts.

(people chattering) - [Narrator] Goodson was saying all the right things about food deserts and commitment to the neighborhood, but just months after the opening, he shut down all of his stores.

(crowd cheers) The entire chain went out of business, and Beyond Housing's Pagedale Grocery building was once again empty.

- Then that is considered a food desert.

And along with that we have this term called food swamp, so you get more convenience stores, you get more fast food, you get more dollar stores, and the dollar stores are where some people do their grocery shopping, because it's close to them.

But if you've been in a dollar store and you think about what you see, you know, there are some limitations on the healthy food options that are available.

As a matter of fact, many of the people that I see doing the grocery shopping in the dollar store are elderly.

- In public health, we often say now that your zip code is more predictive than your genetic code.

Because so much of our health promoting resources are embedded at the neighborhood level.

It's all patterned by where people live.

- Let me just give you one small example, because today's a pretty hot day, and I think we all recognize that having a tree cover, a tree canopy is extremely helpful in St. Louis on a hot summer day.

It turns out in the 24:1 blueprint, there was no one dealing with the tree cover.

(upbeat music) - [Doug] So here we are at Isabella Park in Wellston, so we're just gonna do an assessment of the trees here.

- [Narrator] Today, Doug Sealey runs Beyond Housing's Tree program in the 24:1 community.

- Start right here with this one.

This is a callery pear that looks like it's even dead now.

- [Narrator] Healthy trees are more than just cosmetic.

They impact water, temperature, air quality, and the neighborhood's overall public health.

- We call that good condition, just want to tree clean it.

So we have 6,377 trees that we have inventoried, and those trees give us over $470,000 worth of environmental benefits each year.

Think about trees as part of our infrastructure.

Because our native plants have much deeper roots.

So when we get heavy rains, it's gonna help mitigate that storm water a lot better.

We don't have to invest that money into larger pipes or more storm water systems, so those are all cost-saving.

Pretty good.

How are you doing?

- And this was a what?

- This is a pin oak.

- Pin oak.

- Yep.

- Big oak tree, huh?

- Yeah.

Yep.

That thing's probably 100 years or old or better.

- Or better?

- Yeah.

- We got one in our backyard like this.

- So that's a post oak?

- Post oak?

- Yep.

(resident speaks faintly) - That was first.

They came and left because there's some bees right there.

- So yeah, I'll follow up with them and see why we haven't finished this up, 'cause they told me they were all done.

- Yeah.

- So I'll follow up and see if we can't get that wrapped up.

- Non-profits that deal with urban issues are much more common in the city than they are in the suburbs.

So I've seen a number of studies on this, and basically the city, which back in the war on poverty in the '60s and '70s, you know, all these nonprofits emerged through job training, for mental health services, for all these different functions, and when you go out to the suburbs, they're just not there.

- Good morning and thank you for calling Beyond Housing.

- Beyond Housing is one of the more sophisticated.

Once again, what makes them somewhat unique, there are other groups working in inner ring suburbs, but this suburban context means that their work is, in some ways, more challenging, right?

And they are cutting edge.

(traffic rumbling) (birds chirping) - Two of my brothers that are in Los Angeles who didn't listen to me when I was in college and I was trying to give him some advice about what to do, and so one of 'em decided he wasn't listening at all.

So he became a gangbanger.

He's been shot probably five times.

(Phil continues faintly) It wasn't easy growing up here in St. Louis, rough, tough city, no dad.

Could've easily went the other way, went down the wrong road.

Because this is my little brother.

When soon as I did this, people start coming out of everywhere, outta the gangway.

This is my brother, (students laugh) and I took him on, threw him in the car, took him home, and then he went in the front door, went out the back door.

(gentle music) My youngest brother was shot and killed in Los Angeles.

(students chattering) I made my mind was if I was to ever become a father, I was gonna be a good one.

Second thing I made my mind up was I wanted to get an education.

(students chattering) (Phil laughs) I remember, though, being in class with guys who could care less about school and things, and so there was a balance I had to keep between not being beat up and bullied because I was a smart guy.

Two squares.

You're supposed to put two squares.

I was thinking the other day that my job at the school is to change the climate, change the conditions and the culture at the school.

(bell rings) One day, a fight about to break out between the guy I just played chess with, who gave me a great game, and somebody else.

I said, man, you could be the best player in prison, man.

They got chess players all over prison.

Good ones.

(students chattering) And then he go there.

Or, you can be a grand master down at Central West End.

Why you put this over here?

It's up to you.

Now, you brought your bishop down, and you are attacking, if I'm not careful, you can attack that.

But I can get you with that one.

This applies to life.

I say, you make one bad move on this chess board.

It could be the game.

(Phil chattering faintly) I said, same thing in life.

If you make one bad move, it could be your life, it could change everything.

(Phil chattering faintly) (gentle music continues) (Phil speaking faintly) And man, it's building a camaraderie between the students.

All right, good game.

Set 'em up.

Set 'em up.

Guys, come back each time at lunch period, forget all about eating and come and sit down and ready to play.

(gentle music continues) - If we do that, as a society, if we value people as human beings and not see them as problems, people will find ways to thrive.

They'll find ways to troubleshoot and problem solve, and coming out of a neighborhood like I did in Detroit, I was certainly not the smartest kid in my neighborhood.

I wasn't the brightest.

I don't even know if I was the most motivated.

I was just really fortunate and benefited from tremendous investments in terms of mentorship and people in my family supporting me.

But I think about all my peers around my age, my contemporaries, and the talent that was lost, the contributions that were lost.

I knew from talking to them when we were kids, like, what they really wanted to do in life.

And I can only imagine what life would be like for them and for our broader society if they had an opportunity to realize those dreams.

(children chattering) (birds chirping) - [Tiffany] I guess you say it plain.

(laughs) - I grew up in Memphis.

Terrible area.

It's full of gangs.

We were on food stamps.

I lived in abandoned apartments.

I went to the same, I went to high school every day with the same clothes on every day.

Ate out of dumpsters, and.

(lively music plays) - We both dealt with homelessness, separately in our lives, and then we also went through it together while we were pregnant with the 5-year-old.

- [Narrator] The Osbornes were once down and out.

They have worked their way back up.

- I moved to St. Louis and I was blessed with an opportunity to become a pipe fitter with the Local 562, and that's what I've been doing ever since.

Once I found out that I can work and make money and have my own, I wanted three or four jobs, (Tiffany laughs) and that's what happened.

- [Narrator] And now he has plans to own his own food truck selling his barbecue.

They were picnicking at Creve Coeur Lake.

They live in Charlack, one of those small municipalities.

And they moved here not so much because it was nicer, it was safer.

(lively music plays) - We were living in North County in a area called Glasgow, poverty stricken, it's very violent, shootings every other night.

We saw two men just walking up the street with assault rifles and loaded the house next door to us with bullets.

- We moved in the middle of the night.

It was like two o'clock in the morning.

We just packed up everything.

We left a lot of stuff there and just moved here.

- Beyond Housing helped us.

When my husband was laid off for 11 months during the pandemic, they helped with our rent, utilities.

You wanna do it yourself, you know, like yeah, I had resources, I didn't have to be homeless, but I got myself in this situation, and the only way I'm gonna not be back here again is if I get myself out.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] They have achieved the kind of stability and safety that these small suburbs were designed for.

And it still exists in plenty of North County neighborhoods, but not enough.

- I feel hopeful in many different ways, I think.

Chris Krehmeyer and others who are investing and advocating for these communities, I think there's a lot of potential progress there.

And I think that, you know, some of the problems that we see here in St. Louis are solvable.

- Hello, hello.

- This is our passenger van here.

We'll go pick up kids from school and deliver them to our afterschool program.

So again, we're again, constantly trying to find ways to make sure that kids and families can access the services that we offer and that and that we provide.

- We know the typical shift is eight to five.

Well, school gets out at like two or three.

Do we really want our kids to be home alone, or do we want them to have some place safe?

- All right, so now we're gonna have read loud.

Y'all ready?

- Jacob!

Jacob?

(laughs) (teacher drumming) - Jacob!

- [Alice] This is a place for youth programs and community resources.

- [Jacob] So the book I'm gonna be reading today.

- We're not just jump ropes and basketballs, we are actually getting into what it is that the kids need, as well as trying to build up their confidence in, after school every day, we say our positive affirmation.

And that's just them speaking positively over themselves and how they believe that they are represented in the world.

Today we are going to start our self-love challenge.

There are words in here that can describe you.

You can also add your own words, your own pictures and everything.

You have a question?

I call myself the sower.

I'm the one that plants the seed.

And even if they don't get it from me, they've heard it here, and they're gonna hear it somewhere else, and it's gonna get watered and nourished.

Ah.

- I.

- Ah.

- A.

- Ah.

Whenever my kids come back, there are people who literally stop by the center.

"I just wanted to see if Miss Alice is here.

I wanna tell you what I've got going on.

I'm going to law school."

"I'm going to get my master's," "I'm gonna have a baby."

Like they just wanna update me, because they remember the feeling that they got from being in this program.

They remember the life lessons and they wanna show me that they heard it, they got it, and that they're doing okay.

(children chattering) - Currently I am an insurance advisor during the week full time.

I have a good support system, but a lot of the times they're at work at the times I work.

It's really a blessing, because they do more than just watch the kids.

They're actually there for them.

- I want to make sure that every student within the Normandy Schools Collaborative has a safe place to go after school.

(phone beeping) - Hello?

- Hello.

This is Shai with Beyond Housing returning your phone call.

How can I help you?

You aware of it being some sort of a housing crisis (continues faintly) - [Narrator] The idea is to get people and families on a firm footing, but tough economic times, the 2008 housing crisis, the layoffs and reduced hours during the pandemic, that knocked a lot of people off their feet.

- So you got everything you needed?

You're fine?

Well, did you pay your rent?

You want to know how to get your name on our wait list, correct?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

So that would be the Housing Authority?

Once all of the appointments are filled, I have to close the wait list again.

Right now she's living in an apartment with a hole in the ceiling, and it's cold outside and there's no heat in her apartment.

They shoot guns all day, all night.

They can't even sleep in their beds.

They actually sleep on the floor, because they don't wanna be in gunshot area.

Hello, this is Shai with Beyond Housing returning your phone call, how can I.

Can you stay with us a little longer?

- There's a whole lot of two steps forward and one step back, sometimes one step forward and two steps back.

Are we serving everybody who has needs in this community?

Of course not.

Are we trying to bring in other resources to meet as many of those critical needs as possible?

Yes, we are.

- Also gonna tell you that you're being placed on a wait list.

- [Narrator] Real progress will not simply be made with handouts, but with continued services that help move the neediest families up to financial stability and success.

(phone beeping) - Everything is going pretty good?

- That's what we want to do for over 20% of the population on the lowest end of the income scale.

So we think if we can get to those 20% and really in a transformative way, then we think we can shift, not the trajectory of their lives, but again, the trajectory of this entire community.

(traffic rumbling) - Hold up, hold up, hold up.

Before you start speaking negatively, Beyond Housing knows that people have issues and problems with their credit and all of that, so they have classes available for you to go to, and they will help you get your credit and all that back online.

I'm a family engagement liaison.

Oh yes.

There's a program.

(Frondel continues faintly) Employed by Beyond Housing, working in the Normandy Schools Collaborative.

We supply all basic needs and resources that families may need in order to be successful families, successful students, and not just successful, but thriving.

And they wanna see you all not just as renters, they wanna see you as homeowners.

So they have all those types of programs.

She is a recovering crack addict that is working and functioning every day and has gone through treatment, and is doing everything she can to stay on the right track for her children.

(people chattering) (upbeat music) - [Social Worker] It's called Dads, Granddads, Godfathers, Brothers and Uncles Do Matter Breakfast Meeting.

- So we encourage everyone to come out every month to get the information about what's going on in the school.

- And we ask all those men to come out and hear what's going on in the school, what we have to offer families, and especially to let them know that they are needed in their children's education.

I am the director of social service for the Fathers and Family Support Center.

We not only teach you these parenting skills, we give you the tools that you need instantly to implement, better communication.

We even have what's called a woman's panel so that you can understand what a woman is saying, because she could be saying the same thing but in a different way, and both of you all are right.

- The fathers group, it's a group here in the city of St. Louis that came out and they work strictly with fathers, and they had all types of resources available, schooling, they help you with your resumes, help you find employment, - Then we will support you in making sure that we help you address your barriers.

Now, we not gonna do it for you, but your case manager will sit down with you to show you how to do it.

(bright music) - People who are low-income but they're stable, that is to say they're not evicted, they're not moving every six months.

They can create their own solutions, right?

But it's very difficult when there's constant roiling of the social structure, right?

As people are moving due to unemployment, due to health problems, due to bankruptcy, due to whatever it is that low income families are dealing with.

(lively music plays) (people chattering) - Well, so goes North County, so goes the rest of the St. Louis County.

We just can't leave one area unattended to, if you will, and that's what we're pulling together now to try to make this a wonderful community.

We have very good housing stock, wonderful people there, and I just think that the perception of North County is not that good, and we're working very hard to better that perception.

(bright music) (bright music continues) (Phil laughs) - [Chris] So I think image is everything, and you know, you can't construct an image out of whole cloth, right?

I mean the facts matter, right?

But the two have to go together, and I think Beyond Housing has made a pretty good effort at trying to alter the perception of the area.

This is an area that is moving forward, right?

Is doing it.

- Where the thing's cover this square, and it's a double or tight?

Well, it's got double checks, that means can't move down.

(Phil murmurs softly) Can't move right there can move right there.

Can't right there, and it's got double checks.

- Yeah.

Oh yeah, that was it.

- Yeah.

- I think folks are weary of can't we just fix these doggone problems?

I'm tired of reading about the shooting that happened someplace, the bad thing that happens somewhere else.

You know, our schools are still failing our children.

It's just weary of hearing that.

I think we want something better as a region.

We want to have something to be proud about, other than our beloved baseball team and a few other things that are fine, right?

That are good to have as a region, but there aren't the kinds of things that propel the region forward.

(people chattering) (gentle music) - You're up first.

- I'm up first!

- [Pamela] It's the story of Normandy.

- Bring this up around your waist.

- It's story of America, the story of a once all-white community (group chattering) that in the '50s was impacted by flight and redlining and segregation and business disinvestment.

And so literally, this story plays out all across our nation.

And if we don't find a way to uplift everyone to ensure that everyone can get a good education and ultimately contribute to society, we're really looking at the slow demise of our country and democracy can't survive.

- All right, so you're in the tree.

Good job!

You're not officially in the tree until you get past the first branch.

- It's fun.

It's a lot of work though.

Oh, I need help.

- Like, whatcha talking about (continues faintly) Getting the kids engaged like this and seeing 'em climb the tree and have fun is the best day of the year for me.

(gentle music) - [Pamela] Normandy is coming back, and we see it all around us.

So what we don't need is pity.

We need partners.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) Funding for Rebuilding the Dream is provided in part by the Betsy and Thomas Patterson Foundation, Boeing and Spire.