From flood to framework: Building collaboration across state lines

Don Patrick, President and CEO, North East Community Action Corporation

Challenge: In 1993, the Great Flood along the Mississippi River caused $15 billion in damages across 30,000 square miles in a tri-state region stretching through Missouri, Iowa and Illinois. Recovery efforts required coordination with multiple government agencies across state lines.



The Great Flood of 1993 hit a huge swath along the Mississippi River, causing devastation throughout the 35-county tri-state region of Northeast Missouri, Southeast Iowa and West-Central Illinois. The inundation left $15 billion in damages to homes, businesses, crops and roads across 30,000 square miles.

Since 1965, the North East Community Action Corporation (NECAC) has offered social services and housing assistance to low-income, elderly, youth, disabled and disadvantaged residents in 12 Eastern Missouri counties. When the flood hit our service region and neighboring areas in Illinois and Iowa, our non-profit agency had to coordinate housing strategies throughout the 35-couty region with multiple government agencies across state lines.

Efforts to rebuild the area resulted in a Tri-State Development Summit and set recovery goals in areas affected by the Great Flood. NECAC helped organize the group's Housing Task Force, which still holds quarterly meetings. In 2005, NECAC and its partners held the first tri-state summit on housing and we continue to promote collaboration and progress across the region. NECAC's housing summits are cost-effective ways of encouraging substantive dialogue and sharing incremental successes.

"Our housing task force has looked beyond what separates us as a region and toward what unites us," says Carla Potts, NECAC deputy director for housing development and summit founder.

"Working together, we have watched as our barriers collapse and have seen the foundation built for amazing opportunities."

Patrick Poepping, a member of the group's steering committee, credits NECAC and the task force with helping to bring the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Great Regions designation to the tri-state area in November 2013. The designation creates opportunities for additional housing development and economic growth.

One of NECAC's many success stories comes from Hilly Jacklin of Hannibal, MO. She lives in the kind of house that helped the city live up to its motto: "America's Hometown." But the 117-year-old two-story structure needed rehabilitation. NECAC installed new windows and a new furnace, substantially reducing air loss. Thanks to NECAC, Jacklin's utility bills were cut in half.

During one 18-month period in 2014 and 2015, NECAC leveraged more than $11.3 million of direct investment dollars for housing efforts.

In 2015, Nathalie Janson, a fellow at Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, published a report on the task force. She applauded the group's "ability to make connections with organizations whose purview has traditionally been outside the housing field as a benefit of working as part of the Tri-State Development Summit."