The difficult road to 'communities of opportunity'

Stuart J. Mitchell, President/CEO PathStone Corporation

Challenge: Rochester, New York, has the highest rates of extreme and childhood poverty among comparable U.S. cities. The public schools are segregated by race and class, and fewer than half of the students graduate. In 2015, the city's plight triggered a plan to reduce poverty in the region by 50 percent over 15 years.



Nearly a third of Rochester, New York, citizens live in poverty, and it has the highest extreme poverty rate and childhood poverty rate among comparable U.S. cities. The public city and suburban school systems are segregated by race and class. The education gap between upper- and lower-income students is a sad tale of two, largely disconnected communities, literally minutes from each other by car. The city school district graduates less than 50 percent of its students, while several suburban schools are rated nationally as best in class.

In early 2015, the City of Rochester and Monroe County launched a plan to reduce poverty in the region by 50 percent over the next 15 years. The initial investment was $500 million.

The Rochester Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative has embraced the concept that large-scale social change will require broad cross-sector coordination in order to be successful. A 2015 report made 33 recommendations through eight different community-based workgroups: education, health and nutrition, housing, jobs, justice system, safe neighborhoods, child care and transportation.

There were three common themes:

• Address structural racism.
• Address poverty-induced trauma.
• Build and support the community.

PathStone, a regional nonprofit community development corporation, co-chaired the Housing Workgroup, a diverse partnership of affordable housing advocates, community representatives and government officials. They made four bold recommendations designed to increase access to safe, affordable housing:

• Develop a cross-cultural plan reaching across socio-economic lines to dismantle the thoughts, attitudes and behaviors that exclude people who live in poverty from access to quality, safe, equitable, affordable housing in a location and type of their choice.
• Protect long-term residents of neighborhoods from displacement caused by gentrification.
• Create a solid foundation of life skills, which will greatly increase the potential for households to move to self-sufficiency and thrive.
• Create a countywide affordable housing policy to serve the needs of households living in poverty.

Conflicting perspectives and different areas of expertise in the workgroup complicated efforts to reach consensus on these issues. To foster effective access to affordable housing, the local government needed to commit to a robust, multi-year initiative comprising both city and suburban communities.

The vast majority of affordable housing projects developed in the Rochester region are located in high poverty inner-city areas. In this, developers of affordable housing, including PathStone, have often taken the path of least resistance, which has perpetuated racial segregation in the city as well as in the suburbs. The hope going forward is to create "communities of opportunity" across the region that integrate low-income households and provide quality housing, safe streets, affordable child care, good schools, health care and public transportation.

The Rochester Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative will succeed only when leaders commit to integrating both the city and the suburbs. In addition, because racism is often baked into our institutions, it is a major determinant in confronting the root causes of poverty. Before we can execute the housing task force recommendations, a legion of community and political leaders must become sophisticated and organized champions of racial and economic integration. PathStone will continue to do everything in its power to work towards that day.