Renters’ rights. Worker co-ops. Housing the previously-incarcerated. Banking the unbanked. At St. Paul City Hall, a small team of city workers will lead all those efforts and more in 2020, spearheading a series of socially conscious initiatives.

Launched by St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter with the hiring of a full-time director in February, the new Office of Financial Empowerment is now staffed with four employees and has an ambitious agenda ahead of it, not the least of which is rolling out $50 college savings accounts for every new child born in the city as of Jan 1.

The college savings accounts initiative will get underway next month. And as sweeping as it may appear to be, it’s arguably less controversial than some of the housing and labor-related efforts that will proceed it.

Here’s a look at the staffing and year 2020 goals for the Office of Financial Empowerment, from college savings to tenant protections.

According to the mayor’s office, Carter launched the Office of Financial Empowerment this year to address the underlying causes of financial instability for St. Paul families by focusing on wealth building.

The vision is “to advance an economic democracy that shares prosperity with all St. Paul residents.”

The office’s stated aims are to help city residents achieve financial health; help neighborhoods achieve community wealth; help residents live in stable, accessible, fair, and just housing; and allow families with children to enjoy living in a city that cares about their future.

THE LEADERSHIP

Muneer Karcher-Ramos, director: The former director of the St. Paul Promise Neighborhood holds an advanced degree in sociology from the University of Chicago and teaches a social justice class at the University of Minnesota’s school of social work.

Kirstin Burch, fair housing coordinator: Burch, who holds a degree in culturally inclusive approaches to economic advocacy and leadership from Metropolitan State University, is the former director of the ZOOM House (Zion Originated Outreach Ministry) in Minneapolis, a supportive housing community for low-income families. Before that, she spent eight years in sales, marketing and office management at State Farm Insurance.

Ikram Koliso, program manager, CollegeBound St. Paul: A 2017 graduate of St. Catherine University’s Schools of Public Health and Social Work, Koliso was a policy associate in the mayor’s office for about a year before being promoted to a key role organizing the citywide college savings program.

Katrina Mendoza, Outreach and Engagement coordinator, CollegeBound St. Paul: Mendoza was recently a health education and outreach supervisor with West Side Community Health Services, a community health center in St. Paul. She is also an active volunteer with the West Side Community Organization.

In addition to the four city employees, a fifth program manager linked to the college initiative will be hired in early 2020, and the office is also staffed by up to three VISTA workers completing a year of national service.

THE INITIATIVES

S.A.F.E Housing Tenant Protections: Over the past few years, St. Paul has evolved from a city where homeowners were in the majority to a city of renters. That’s elevated questions about equality and historical discrimination.

The mayor’s office points out that while renters come from all economic backgrounds, they’re disproportionately people of color and low-income. “This makes tenant protections a race equity and economic justice imperative,” reads a statement from Carter’s office.

What shape those protections will take is still being finalized under the acronym S.A.F.E. — stable, accessible, fair and equitable — Housing St. Paul, but the mayor’s office expects to introduce the tenant protection agenda to the city council in early 2020 for discussion.

The general goals include increasing housing access — making it easier to qualify for rentals, decreasing housing displacement by reducing evictions and apartment loss due to property sales, and addressing “historical and on-going discrimination in the housing market.”

This fall, the Minneapolis City Council adopted a wide-ranging series of tenant protections and commitments toward housing efforts, some of which go into effect Jan. 1.

The Minneapolis ordinance limits tenant screening practices by landlords with regard to credit scores, criminal history and past evictions.

In particular, Minneapolis landlords cannot reject applicants due to misdemeanors more than three years old, felonies more than seven years old, and most other serious crimes with sentencing dates more than ten years old.

In St. Paul, “it’s the same vein,” Karcher-Ramos said. “It’s going to look a little more expansive. There’s going to be the elimination of credit scores, but landlords can still pull credit reports.”

He added: “There will be a cap on the look-back period for evictions, capping the size of security deposits, a ‘tenant’s rights and responsibilities’ packet. If a landlord is selling a building, they would have to give a tenant 90 days notice that the building is up for sale.”

In addition, landlords would have to show “just cause” to decline lease renewals, based on a series of criteria that is still being defined by the office. Tenants would be guaranteed written notice from their landlord, upon request, for reasons their lease is not being renewed.

The Minnesota Multi-Housing Association, which advocates for landlords, is closely following the S.A.F.E Housing initiative and on Thursday issued the following statement:

“Minnesota Multi-Housing has been working with St. Paul’s Office of Financial Empowerment for several months to identify ways to work together on housing issues. Our members turned out and offered meaningful feedback at the community listening sessions. We will continue to offer constructive feedback and work with the mayor and the council as they consider new ordinances.”

CollegeBound St. Paul: During his inaugural address two years ago, Carter said he would work toward ensuring that every child born in St. Paul has access to a college savings account. The vision is set to become reality with the first New Year’s baby on Jan. 1, according to city officials.

All children born in the city will be given an account at Bremer Bank with $50 seed money. Families will be encouraged to add more.

Returning Home St. Paul Pilot: Nestled into the mayor’s “Community First” public safety budget is a $110,000 pilot project that aims to increase housing access for residents returning from incarceration.

“It stems from a Bloomberg Philanthropies project that many city departments are working on,” Karcher-Ramos said. “There’s been a year of planning developing the prototype.”

The mayor’s office points to research that shows housing stability reduces recidivism, or repeat offenses. The project has two parts. A pool of funding will offer incentive for housing providers to accept tenants coming out of prison. Those residents will also be connected to a community-based organization to receive housing and support services.

The city has opened discussions with nonprofit community partners and landlords and expects to pen contracts in early 2020. “We’re going to reach out to philanthropic sources for more funding,” Karcher-Ramos said.

Banking the Unbanked: The mayor’s office has called “getting St. Paul residents on the financial grid” a key goal of its anti-poverty efforts.

Nearly 1-in-5 households of color are “unbanked,” meaning they do not have a checking or savings account, according to the national 2019 Prosperity Now scorecard. That holds communities of color back from building savings and credit or planning for the future.

The unbanked also face hidden costs that add up with time, such as check cashing fees, and are more susceptible to predatory loans, Karcher-Ramos said.

The Office of Financial Empowerment is organizing a series of initiatives aimed at the unbanked. Among them, they intend to launch a coalition of banks and charitable foundations through the Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund’s BankOn platform.

“There’s BankOn coalitions all over the country centered on getting folks on the financial grid,” Karcher-Ramos said.

Another strategy is to increase access to affordable financial products through efforts like Financial Access in Reach, or FAIR, which is organized through the St. Paul-based nonprofit Prepare + Prosper and Sunrise Banks.

“We did six pop-up tests in our libraries, offering FAIR accounts with no checking or overdraft fees,” Karcher-Ramos said. “If you don’t make a lot of money, you often have to have a monthly minimum or face overdrafts for the traditional account.” Related Articles St. Paul rec center hours, aquatics, ice rinks face budget hit

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Worker Co-Ops: The title is a bit academic — “community wealth creation through cooperative economics” — but the effort boils down to workers buying the businesses they work in.

The city is partnering with Nexus Community Partners’ Worker Ownership Initiative (WOI) to encourage the wave of retiring business owners in the Twin Cities to consider selling their practices to their employees. Or childcare workers could come together and cooperatively own and manage a childcare business.

Among various ownership strategies, workers could buy shares or pay down debt through regular deductions from their paychecks. Expect to hear more on that in early 2020.

Fine and fee reform: Forgiving library fines — a previous initiative of the mayor’s office — may be just the beginning. Working with financial support from foundations, the Office of Financial Empowerment is looking at how to reform fines and fees, both at the city level and through the state Legislature.

“We want to stop the debt trap,” Karcher-Ramos said. “A lot of folks who don’t pay their fines can get their driver’s license suspended for non-moving violations. And without an I.D., you can’t open a checking or savings account, which leads to some of the unbanked issues. And if you’re pulled over, your car can end up in our impound lot, which adds to the debt.”