In September 2023, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and a bevy of city officials celebrated as a 22-year-old man, who had been homeless, became the first descendant of the historic community-Black Rondo to buy a house in the area using $ 90,000 from the new city housing program. He was the first home buyer in Old Rondo to benefit from St. Paul’s Inheritance Fund.
He was also the last.
The program of St. Paul’s $2.6 million city grant grants up to $40,000 to home buyers, as well as up to $70,000 for descendants of Rondo families who were displaced by the construction of Interstate 94 in the 1950s and 1960s to return home, as it is, but has received little action.
City officials hope that the changes aimed at renters who lived in Rondo could expand eligibility and lead to more homeowners, as would open the Legacy Fund to families who lived within the area of urban revitalization projects around Dale Street and Western Avenue to St. Paul College.
“Whether you were a property owner or a renter … everyone was equally harmed in the eviction,” said a member of the St. Louis City Council. Paul Anika Bowie, who had urged the council and the city’s Housing and Development Board last month to approve the changes.
Heritage Fund
In the 1930s, Old Rondo was home to half of St. Louis’ Black population. Paul. The construction of other countries, which lasted 12 years, began in 1956, removing more than 600 families from Rondo with little money in return. The study estimated that it excluded about $158 million in lost productivity.
When city officials offered descendants of the Black Rondo community up to $110,000 in down payment assistance to buy homes in the neighborhood, they found few qualified candidates. In fact, only one new homeowner has been able to use the Legacy Fund in the Summit-University area. Another grandson of Rondo used this fund to buy a house in the Eastern part of the city.
The partners’ efforts to provide about $80,000 in housing repair funds were completely stymied by staff shortages and problems reviewing contracts and issuing payments, according to city staff. The city-wide program has supported 67 housing improvement projects from 2023 to 2025, totaling $2.2 million, of which six projects, or $310,000, were designated for Heritage Fund housing improvements. The program was not renewed last fall.
“Staff worked on a waiting list that was closed over a year ago and decided not to re-open the Home Ownership Recovery Program for new applications,” interim Planning and Economic Development Director Melanie McMahon said in an email last week. “This decision was carefully considered. … We also noted that many community partners were using similar programs in the area.”
Here are two important changes
In St. Paul’s historic-Latin West Side, the guidelines of the Legacy Fund were prepared last year to help the descendants of the families who left the West Side Flats in the area that became the Riverview Industrial Park. The fund has already allowed four families to buy houses there. A fifth Legacy Fund participant with roots in the West Side Flats bought a house somewhere in the city.
The difference weighed heavily on Bowie, whose grandmother was forced from her hilltop home near the State Capitol decades ago by the urban renewal project that led to the construction of St. Paul College.
On March 25, when Bowie recommended, the City Council of St. Paul changed the guidelines around the Inheritance Fund as well, making two important changes aimed at casting a wider net and helping more people who have the opportunity to get help paying to buy a house in Rondo.
The new ordinance opens the Legacy Fund to the descendants of Rondo tenants — tenants who were displaced from Rondo by the construction of I-94. Bowie said he heard from many families who can trace their roots to Rondo, but they were not eligible for the city’s payment assistance because their grandparents did not own property, a common enough situation due to the practices of the time and other barriers to homeownership for Black families.
“Many of Rondo’s families were not by choice, but because of discriminatory housing policies – renovations, restrictive covenants, contract purchases, and mortgages – systematically denied them the opportunity to own a home,” said Keith Baker, executive director of Reconnect Rondo, in a letter to the city.
The changes also expand the area’s eligibility for the Heritage Fund beyond the families who lived near Rondo Avenue to other parts of Old Rondo where the houses were removed for the sake of “urban renewal” led by the government during the same period. That includes families who once lived in the redevelopment areas of “Western (Avenue), “Midtown” and “College of St. Paul”. Those boundaries run along Dale Street, Western Avenue, University Avenue and Central Avenue.
“These were all houses, even though the Sears location was there,” Bowie said. They destroyed all the houses in that area. The new orders also include the south side of St. Anthony Avenue, where Bowie said homes were moved for the construction of I-94.
The changes were sought by the directors of several non-profit organizations, including Reconnect Rondo, the Rondo Center for Diverse Expressions and Model Cities, who all sent letters to the city council.
Territorial boundaries
Under the updated guidelines, a person participating in the city’s low-income grant program is eligible for up to $20,000 to $40,000 in interest-free, forgivable loans, based on income. That would increase by $10,000 for first-generation homebuyers whose parents were previously homeless, and by another $50,000 for descendants of displaced families in Rondo or the West Side Flats.
Recipients of Heritage Fund loans who purchase property within two designated areas will receive an additional $10,000.
Rondo, the boundaries run on both sides of Selby Avenue to the south, on both sides of University Avenue to the north, on both sides of Lexington Avenue on the west, and on both sides of John Ireland Boulevard/Rice Street on the east.
On the west Side, the boundaries follow the Mississippi River to the north, west and east, and the southern boundary follows nearly all of Annapolis West Street.
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