QCBJ Newsmakers: Homegrown leaders seek to revive RI West End

This story is part of the QCBJ’s Newsmakers edition. This year-end wrap-up from the staff of the Quad Cities Regional Business Journal includes some of the biggest stories we brought you in 2023. It's also a tradition by our parent company, Corridor Media Group, based in North Liberty, Iowa. This story was originally published in April 2023.

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For years studies and plans have been created by well-intentioned outsiders seeking to fix what they believe is broken in Rock Island’s once vibrant and historic West End neighborhood. But despite periodic investment, an overdue rebirth eludes this diverse, economically challenged and marginalized community as its housing base, infrastructure and youth pay the price.

Seeking to change that today is an active, influential and inclusive group of West End community leaders who are working with the City of Rock Island and grant funder Deere & Co. to flip the area’s tired old redevelopment script and create a homegrown revitalization plan that will be both effective and sustainable. After a difficult start that included a forced COVID-19 pause, a reincarnated West End Revitalization process has been making strides in the effort to lift up the area bounded by the Rock Island Parkway on the north and west, 18th Avenue on the south and 15th and 16th Streets on the east. Progress so far includes an internal assessment of the area’s needs, challenges, assets, barriers and its promise led by a seven-member steering committee of West End residents and supporters. At month’s end, that panel also was busy helping 35 West End residents and leaders to launch the working groups critical to the success of the evolving plan.  Their job will be to turn research and planning into action steps centered around this agreed and ambitious vision: “The West End is a preferred place to live and thrive.”  They will be guided by these key values, organizers say: justice and equity, inclusion, trust, collaboration, empowerment, respect and communication, and the overall goal will be to “Build the West End community’s wealth, power and livability.” Among those convinced that they can make that happen is steering committee member Avery Pearl. “The progress made in the West End project has been excellent,” Mr. Pearl told the QCBJ. “In every step of this project community involvement has been the keystone to progression. One of the key findings we’ve received from the community is that we are reviving the past greatness of the West End; not simply creating something new. The biggest issue in West End Rock Island has been disinvestment, and this project is the solution.”

West End once bustling

Steering committee member Lynda Sargent grew up in the neighborhood and is pleased to share her passion about it. “I remember the west end neighborhoods as ones where families cared about their homes and their neighbors,” she said. “We had grocery stores that we could walk to; at least five different stores. We had a movie theater right where Martin Luther King Jr. Center now stands, and a high-end department store across the street. We had laundromats, bakeries, and every type of business or service available right within our neighborhoods. I long to see the west end section of our city flourish again.” That’s a goal shared by Jerry Jones, the executive director of the Rock Island Martin Luther King Jr. Center, which is serving as the backbone for the revitalization plan. He, too, is convinced a community-based path is the right one even if the current process didn’t start out that way. This revitalization effort originally was launched in 2019 when Rock Island Mayor Mike Thoms and other city leaders approached John Deere about investing in the area, Mr. Jones told Rock Island Rotarians at their meeting last month. Deere agreed and a traditional group of planners got to work.  They “came up with a wonderful plan, put it forth and met with pretty good reviews,” Mr. Jones said.  But when they presented those findings to their major funder, Mr. Jones said two important questions were posed by Deere: “Are you really dreaming large enough or impactfully enough?” and “Have you really engaged the community in regard to what is needed in this West End community?’” They had not, so Rock Island’s Community and Economic Development Department (CED) and the MLK Center began working with community champions to find out what it is like to live in and experience the West End. The result, Mr. Jones said, is “not just a canned survey, but an interactive process brought forth with community champions who really engaged our community to find out what it is really like to be living in the West End.”  Residents had a very different story to tell than the ones that had been written by previous reformers. Miles Brainard, Rock Island’s community and economic development director, said for example, community members told researchers they were tired of being told what the West End needed rather than being asked about their lives and their challenges.

Time for a different approach

“This is a different approach and a necessary approach than some of the past efforts by the city to do good which, while well intentioned, probably just didn’t come at things from the right perspective,” Mr. Brainard added. This reboot also allows neighborhoods to lead themselves and ensures experts will take a back seat to the people with the experience needed to make effective and lasting change. While there have been investments in the West End, Mr. Jones added, they often tended to “only focus on particular things and they didn’t come with a holistic point of view to address the entire issue or even most of the time not even the root causes.” Many times, too, for example, “we think the same cookie-cutter program will work the same for every area and this is simply not true,” he said. Such solutions often failed to address communication and access issues. “Are programs truly accessible and understandable by the people who need them the most?” Mr. Jones asked. Image matters too, and today’s planners point to past plans that have ignored the vibrant community and rich human capital of the West End. Among the things residents wanted in this planning effort was restoration of the name “West End” along with its rich history. “In the short term, we want to see the West End Rock Island Revitalization plan gain support from partners throughout the Quad Cities,” Mr. Pearl said. “We especially want to involve the organizations and community leaders actively fighting to address the disparities within West End Rock Island. Through collective action, we will create a grassroots movement focused on revitalizing the West End community.” He added: “Long term, we will revive the rich history of West End Rock Island, making an overdue, positive, long-lasting, transformational change to its historical and new populations. Once the QC community comes together to enact the West End Revitalization plan, we will see the power of investing in our vulnerable communities. This will birth numerous urban development projects throughout our community.”

Local approach breeds success

Such efforts have worked elsewhere. Mr. Pearl said he got involved with the West End Revitalization when – through his work with the TMBC Lincoln Center in Davenport and the QC Empowerment Network – he attended an Omaha Empowerment Network conference. There, he said, he learned that over a decade local leaders “changed north Omaha from one of Omaha’s most vulnerable communities to one of their most preferred places to live and thrive.”  There is every reason to believe that can be accomplished in the West End, he said. “I want the entire QC community to understand that our urban communities are not liabilities, they are assets,” Mr. Pearl said. “When we invest in our vulnerable communities, we realize the rich potential of the people that live in these areas, and the entire Quad Cities benefits socially, politically, and economically. The effects of this can be seen in the success of the Floreciente community in Moline, and the Mercado on Fifth celebration.” Maria Ontiveros, Mercado on Fifth’s president and co-founder, also sees the parallel between the West End planning effort in Rock Island and the one conducted in Moline’s Floreciente neighborhood that led to a host of improvements, investments and celebrations including the Mercado outdoor summer marketplace. “The John Deere Foundation, through their support of Global Communities, was a huge help to Mercado on Fifth in our early stages,” Ms. Ontiveros told the QCBJ. “GC staff assisted aspiring entrepreneurs through the process of starting a business in Illinois, they led strategic planning sessions and board development, and even provided Mercado on Fifth with the funds to purchase our first tables, chairs and tents.” There’s a lot of work to be done in the West End, organizers say. Challenges, barriers and disparities include a high rate of disconnected youth; lower home values; limited access to healthy food and other amenities and services; historically low economic security; under-performing schools; higher rates of (severe) housing cost burden and other housing problems and poor infrastructure. The area also suffers from a lack of civic capital marked by the inability to access the democratic process. Not knowing who to call or how makes it hard to get potholes fixed or access to programs and funding or to make systemic changes, Mr. Jones said.

Area’s assets are its people, nonprofits

Against those challenges, the West End also boasts critical assets that include: City of Rock Island investment and programs, historic Douglas Park, social capital including a strong, active group of trusted community leaders and organizations such as the MLK Center, Rock Island schools, Skip-A-Long, the YWCA and the YMCA already at work in the West End. While West End Revitalization leaders are shooting for some “quick observable wins” in the days ahead, Mr. Jones and others emphasized that reformers know this revitalization effort is “not going to happen in the snap of a finger.” “These ideas are bold, bold, bold and not easily accomplished and it’s not unusual for any place in the United States to have these goals for a particular area,” Mr. Jones told the Rotarians. “So how do we do something differently to reach these goals?”  “This will grow beyond the working groups,” Mr. Jones added. “This will truly and, if it’s ultimately realized, be engaging the community in one of the truest grassroots efforts that you can see and hopefully spread beyond the city of Rock Island as well.” Rock Island development leaders share that hope. “We did want to be a model and we wanted to show how in a place like the Quad Cities that this work is necessary, can actually yield positive results and can be replicated,” Mr. Brainard said. That’s because when “looking around at all the older parts of the QC you have minority populations who aren’t well resourced and need revitalization.”  Local leaders also believe that this effort will prove to be more lasting than past revitalization projects. That includes reformers who took part in prior failed revitalization efforts. “I was a part of another committee several years ago that was also working on the same goal of revitalization of the west end neighborhoods,” Ms. Sargent said. “We met for almost a year and formed a plan that was put together in a binder to present to the city leaders. I still have a copy of that proposal that was to be presented.” ”To this day, I am not sure why nothing happened with all the investment of time that was made,” she added. The work also included organizers printing flyers, going door-to-door and meeting with neighbors at a west end church.  Still, she said, she’s not discouraged. “I believe with all of my heart that this time, we will see our west end neighborhoods flourish again!”    Key Recommendations

• Strengthen civic capital in the West End.
• Develop and deploy comprehensive, proven racial equity strategies within City of Rock Island government.
• Hire to enhance and model authentic communication, meaningful engagement, and inclusive community leadership. 
• Create a locally run West End Community Development Corporation Strategy and support West End community organizing, advocacy, and engagement strategy.
• Fund participatory budgeting process that focuses on directly engaging historically excluded communities (i.e., West End residents) in selecting investments.
• Build West End residents’ assets and incomes.
• Increase housing stability and quality, and community control of land and housing.
• Increase the economic vitality of the West End.
• Improve the infrastructure and visual design of the West End.

NEWSMAKERS UPDATE

RI leaders expect to have plan, budget by in 2024

The 40-plus Rock Island community leaders who continue to drive the Rock Island West End Revitalization (WER) effort will enter the new year working to complete a final plan and budget for reigniting the historic area. The goal, at this writing, is to have both a final budget and plan in place in 2024, Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center Executive Director Jerry Jones told the QCBJ. “The budget will reflect operational needs for the backbone and support of the committees.” “We are currently enjoying real interest from the philanthropic community to provide significant ‘seed money’ for WER,” added the director whose MLK organization serves as the backbone of the effort. “Our hope is that we will be able to make announcements of support in late November or early December.” Since June, one of the professionals tasked with helping lead the working groups in tasks that include prioritizing strategies and creating specific measurable goals for the effort is its new Coordinator Thurgood Brooks. The Rock Island native has been working with Mr. Jones to kickstart the project. Before taking on the West End challenge, Mr. Marshall worked at MLK Center-based Family Advocacy Center as a family advocate. Now as the coordinator for the community-wide planning effort, he works with leaders to find ways to bring to life their vision of making Rock Island’s West End a preferred place to live and thrive. That effort is centered around seven impact areas:

• Community engagement.
• Personal assets & income.
• Housing & land.
• Community economic vitality.
• Infrastructure & visual appeal.
• Communication.
• Events.

The ultimate mission is to “envision the future we want for our families and community, to align activities, to implement innovative solutions, to evaluate our progress, and to learn and improve together.” — Kenda Burrows