By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A person relatively new to her position says she already sees progress as St. Joseph seeks to identify its most vexing problems and capitalize on its assets to revitalize the community.
Tama Wagner has been director of the Community Alliance since March, in charge of implementing the ambitious program known as Imagine St. Joseph 2040.
An entity soon coming to St. Joseph hopes to solve a longtime problem by capitalizing on one of its greatest assets.
It’s the Land Bank. Signed into law by Gov. Mike Parson during a ceremony at St. Joseph City Hall, the St. Joseph Land Bank will work to accumulate the money necessary to buy up abandoned properties and resale them for renovation, taking deteriorating structures and making them historic showcases.
Wagner says the Land Bank will give a big boost to those in St. Joseph already trying to revive its once-beautiful architecture.
“It’s a culmination of all of those people working on that very specific issue to get something done and throughout the plan there are initiatives that have that sort of commitment around them, from neighborhood revitalization to historic preservation to job creation,” Wagner tells listeners to the KFEQ Hotline.
The website livability.com ranks St. Joseph second among its seven unexpected cities for architecture lovers. St. Joseph boasts hundreds of historic homes and businesses, many with stunning architecture. Yet, many have fallen into disrepair. The city counts nearly 5,000 abandoned or vacant buildings with nearly 500 without a known owner. The Land Bank hopes to accumulate enough capital to buy those buildings and pass them on to owners who will restore them to their former beauty.
Imagine St. Joseph 2040 has a three-fold strategic focus: invest in people, create a better place, and grow prosperity.
Problems identified by the Community Alliance, made up of eight partners with 700 volunteers, includes homelessness and the lack of early childhood education.
Wagner says one of the partners, Mosaic Life Care, is focusing on addressing the root causes of homelessness in an effort to get people off the streets and back into life.
Another partner, the St. Joseph School District, is looking at ways to expand early childhood education.
“The school district just this month has looked at reopening Noyes Elementary School and providing early childhood education in that space, which is great for the Noyes neighborhood because it would reuse that school again, but also great for students coming into the district that they’re actually prepared to go to school,” Wagner says.
Wagner says collaboration and leadership are the keys to making improvements to St. Joseph.
“It’s going to take everybody working together and it’s going to take people in those groups to step up and raise their hands and say, ‘I’m willing to take the lead on this.’”