During his years as a community engagement specialist with the STL Vacancy Collaborative, an organization with the mission of reducing vacancy in the city of St. Louis, Ronald Jones repeatedly fielded the same questions and concerns from residents, which all boiled down to this: What should be done about abandoned, dilapidated houses and vacant lots? Despite a desire to do something, citizens had no idea about how to address the problem.
“A lot of these neighborhoods kept having the same issues,” says Jones. “You had vacant houses where residents didn’t know how to get in contact with the owners.”
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As a member of AmeriCorps Vista from 2019 to 2021, Jones assisted the STL Vacancy Collaborative and the Community Builders Network by attending neighborhood association meetings and connecting residents with the right resources to address their concerns. Through this work, he saw a need for a centralized resource that would answer questions and offer guidance for citizens wanting to improve their neighborhoods.
The Vacancy to Vibrancy toolkit, released in March, is that resource. A joint project of the STL Vacancy Collaborative and Green City Coalition, the 80-plus-page digital toolkit—designed by Arbolope Studio—is the result of more than a year’s worth of data gathering and development by both organizations.
A formal partnership between the city of St. Louis, the St. Louis Development Corporation, the Missouri Department of Conservation, and the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, the GCC aims to increase stormwater absorption through the creation of greenspaces that transform vacant and abandoned city lots. (There are nearly 25,000 such lots in the city.) The Vacancy to Vibrancy toolkit offers a community-based twist on GCC’s efforts.
“The work that GCC was doing, they are big projects, and they require a lot of funding. But not every project needs to be that big,” says Xandi Barrett, a Lead for America fellow who manages the toolkit project. “If neighborhoods can get access to a piece of land, they can easily turn it into a garden.”
Designed with the average citizen in mind, the toolkit guides property owners through the steps to revitalizing St. Louis neighborhoods. “We recognize that vacancy is such a huge and complex issue that not one strategy is going to address, so this toolkit is one of many tools,” says Barrett.
The toolkit breaks down the process into four steps. It covers everything from how to identify and acquire a lot to how to put together a team and determine the type of project that is appropriate for the space.
“There’s a long list of example projects,” Barrett says. “So, if a community just wants to keep the space mowed and accessible for events, that is one option—anything from that to putting in public art or a playground.”
With fill-in-the-blank worksheets—and even a place to sketch your lot—the toolkit gives property owners a place to brainstorm ideas and consider such factors as timeline, budget, and milestones. “Anyone can pick up this guide and get the tools they need to start leading a project,” says Barrett.
Jones recently acquired a lot adjacent to his home, in the JeffVanderLou neighborhood. He’s in the process of raising funds to turn it into a community garden. For Jones and others, the toolkit is an invaluable resource. “This information could be found, but it was so spread out that the average citizen didn’t know where to start,” he says.
The toolkit’s greatest benefit is the agency it gives residents over a neighborhood’s image and, ultimately, its future.
“I think human beings are naturally attracted to beautiful things, and people like to live in beautiful spaces,” Jones says. “Once residents start taking command of their communities and beautifying the spaces they live in, I really think this will spread.”
