College Hill Community Initiative
Grace Hill has adopted a place based approach to addressing some of the negative conditions that keep people in poverty and prevent communities from thriving:
- fragmented social service delivery
- urban sprawl
- lack of civic engagement
- crime
- decaying housing stock
- low performing schools
- lack of employment and business development
Grace Hill is working within the College Hill Neighborhood; specifically within the boundaries of Obear, Highway 70, Ferry and North Florissant.
Grace Hill’s approach to neighborhood revitalization is not rooted in service delivery or bricks and mortar community development projects alone, but in transforming the community through systems integration. Grace Hill’s approach is to strengthen the dialog and collaboration between the individuals, institutions, and agencies that control the resources in the community.
The goal of the project is to improve education, housing, employment, economic development, transportation and civic engagement by building agreement and shared responsibility amongst stakeholders and neighborhood citizens, and making policy level change and individual level change to achieve equity.
Water Tower Hub: The Water Tower Hub (opening fall 2010) will offer Head Start, youth development, employment training and placement, entrepreneurship services, emergency assistance and case management, senior day programming and community meeting space.
Affordable, Energy efficient Housing: Grace Hill is renovating 42 units of existing housing stock and making the homes energy efficient, and maximizing the use of space for families.
Contact:
Johanna Wharton, Vice President, Systems Advancement and Integration
2600 Hadley Street
St. Louis, MO 63104
(314)584-6859
jwharton@gracehill.org
