A TALE OF TWO PROJECTS - Wayne Miner and Parade Park Compared

By E. Crichton Singleton, F.A.I.A.

Most of us have come to believe that public housing is a dismal failure and with good reason. Stories of the demise and demolition of the famed Pruitt Igoe high rise apartments in St. Louis are legend. And the same fate befell the less famous Wayne Miner buildings in Kansas City not long thereafter.

A Community Up in Arms

During the 1950s and 1960s in Kansas City, there arose a community outcry regarding the condition of slum housing in the central city. Committees were formed to eradicate this blight in what most thought was a clean and pleasant city in which to live. Should we not marshal our forces and those of our federal government to demolish over-crowded and unhealthy slums?

On May 28, 1951, the Kansas City Times reported on the establishment of an "ordinance establishing minimum housing standards for Kansas City ..." which City Manager L.P. Cookingham and Health Director Dr. Hugh L. Dwyer maintained "…will improve the value of homes and other property and result in better living conditions for thousands of persons" with "... standards to prevent overcrowding, inadequate plumbing facilities, improper ventilation and light, and other substandard conditions that contribute to bad health."

Public Housing to the Rescue

The Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority was formed and began the task of attending to this problem, funded mostly by federal dollars.

On March 21, 1957, the Kansas City Times editorialized, "The long drive to redeem Kansas City slums is in high gear … In this public housing attack on slums, the biggest inroads will be made near Twelfth and Woodland. There, 733 new units bearing the name of Wayne Miner, a Negro hero in World War I, will replace one of the older neighborhoods in Kansas City."

On August 18,1960, the Kansas City Star ran a photograph with the following caption, "The outworn past and the hopeful future of low-income housing in Kansas City are contrasted in this view southward from Eighth Street and Euclid Avenue toward the rising buildings of Wayne Miner Court public housing project. Rehabilitation through a better minimum housing ordinance or a new urban renewal technique possibly are the answers to the problem created by buildings such as the one at the right."

Yet only 27 years later, Wayne Miner was dynamited into oblivion like its St. Louis sister, the victim of crime, vacancies, deferred maintenance and shared perception that these "answers" were a dismal failure, and had themselves become the slums we so wanted to remove from our city. So much for the "hopeful future" of public housing.

Another Approach

At almost the same time as Wayne Miner was being conceived, the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority was developing another project under a different approach, a housing cooperative.

In August of 1961, The Kansas City Star reported on the construction start for Parade Park Homes, a 214 unit, 2 story development in the Attucks urban renewal district, only a few blocks from Wayne Miner. The project was a joint effort of the Authority, the Federal Housing Administration, the Federal Housing and Home Finance Agency, the Reynolds Metals Company and a private entity called the Foundation for Cooperative Housing.

The following year, at the opening of the project, the Kansas City Times reported, "Under the cooperative plan, the units will be sold, with operation and maintenance under a pooled resources plan… Each purchaser thus would hold stock in a cooperative organization owning and administering the development. Owners will select a board of directors [from] among the residents."

Civic Leadership Backs the Concept

On August 18,1962, The Kansas City Star listed the names of the initial sponsors, including Lucille Bluford, Judge Lewis Clymer, Fletcher Daniels, Dr. E. Frank Ellis, Harold W. Holliday, Lester Milgram, Everett P. O'Neal, Louneer Pemberton, Lee Vertis Swinton, Dr. Earl Thomas and Rev. John Williams, a strong core of committed community leaders whose lames have been heard again and again over the years in efforts to address the ills of the inner city.

A Different Result

Today, Parade Park Homes has 510 units and boasts only two vacancies. The co-op has recently financed a new perimeter identification fence and new siding for the buildings through a loan backed by the City and HUD. Trees are trimmed, dwellings, walks, drives, lawns and playgrounds are maintained and resident turnover is minimal.

Board of directors’ president Wendell Jones, a 24 year Parade Park owner, meets with his board monthly and administers a number of important rules:

• ownership is acquired by buying a "certificate of interest", which is currently priced at $1,600 to $3.800, depending on the size of the unit;

• employment is essential for new owners; preference is given to those who have held their current jobs fur more than one year;

• the whole family is interviewed and oriented to the rules of the cooperative at the time of purchase;

• the co-op attorney begins termination procedures when one payment is late;

• ownership is terminated when three payments are late;

• ownership is terminated for conviction of illegal drug use or possession of illegal drugs,

• the cost of repair and repainting a unit at the time of move-out will be deducted from the equity of the departing member.

The board is comprised of nine residents, with three elected each year to three-year terms. In addition to enforcing the rules, the board oversees the managing agent, Omega Realty. Board members attend the annual conference of the National Association of Housing Cooperatives.

Jones reports of considerable resident longevity in the co-op. In fact, one of his own children, now married with children, is living at Parade Park. As incomes rise and a surcharge is placed on the below-market-rate monthly payment, many residents, nevertheless, decide to remain. Many units are occupied by families with children. Employment of residents is not focused in the central city, but distributed across the metropolitan area.

At the same time, Coleen Hernandez, executive director of the Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance reports that many buyers of housing in the neighborhoods where her agency is active have cashed in their Parade Park equity to move up to more spacious housing opportunities. Parade Park residents have established worthy credit ratings, which have resulted in more housing options for them.

Should Parade Park Be Replicated?

With this enviable record, what lessons can be learned and applied to ongoing efforts in affordable (low income) housing? The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and many agencies in Kansas City are searching for answers.

Many critics will say that the rules at Parade Park would be unworkable in a truly "public" housing project, which is housing of last resort. that is open to those who are on public assistance, the unemployed and those without income of any sort. But in public housing projects across the nation, tenant managers and tenant Associations are taking charge with the blessing of HUD and other housing authorities to exercise some community discipline and order.

Some say that Wayne Miner failed due to its high-rise design. Yet the low-rise T.B. Watkins project, next door to the vacant site that was Wayne Miner is little more successful than its high-rise neighbor, and displays today scores of boarded-up windows. Similarly, Pennway Plaza on the West Side, was demolished after its management became ineffective, vacancies rose and deterioration outpaced revenue resources.

The current philosophy among public agencies favors a "scatter site" approach that purports to distribute low-income families throughout the metropolitan area using "vouchers" which allow the recipient to locate anywhere. David Rusk, former mayor of Albuquerque and an urban development researcher, asserts that communities in which low-income families are allowed a broader choice in locating affordable housing are attracting new industry and are prospering. He cites Montgomery County, Maryland, where its Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit program requires any new housing plan over 50 dwelling units to include 15% moderately priced units, of which the Housing and Opportunity Commission can purchase up to 30% for locating low income residents. This is a county with a minority population of 25.9%.

But others, like Sylvester Holmes of the Black Economic Union, advocate for inner city, rejuvenation, criticizing the dispersal of minority families from their traditional ethnic and neighborhood roots.

Perhaps the answer lies in both approaches: a continuing effort to rebuild devastated neighborhoods that are such a source of degradation to the entire community, and an affordable housing policy that can provide an opportunity for low income families to exercise the option to disperse to less economically and racially segregated neighborhoods.

Civic Will is the Key

Parade Park stands as an excellent example of how pride can grow in a low-income neighborhood. It's an example worth emulating as we continue to search for answers to this knotty problem that negatively influences the whole metropolitan area. Parade Park is also a powerful example of civic will, demonstrated in our community 40 years ago, in which the worst of our slums were removed in favor of a new approach to low income housing that works.

Today, with the history of success and failure apparent to us, we need to bring this kind of civic will to bear oh finding real, fundamental, and sustainable solutions into which we can pour our tax dollars and our entrepreneurial skill, with the hope that more fully understood solutions will not end in dynamite and failure, but in renewal, rebirth and opportunity for us all.

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