DollarHelp Contest: Enter to Win a Trip to St. Louis Cardinals Spring Training!

This winter has been extra cold and some in our region need help staying warm. The DollarHelp program is an easy way to help those truly in need:

DollarHelp is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1982. Over the past three decades, with donations from St. Louisans across the city and counties, DollarHelp has raised more than $20 million. As a service to the community, Laclede Gas, in partnership with United Way of Greater St. Louis, provides the administrative services to DollarHelp, so that every dollar you donate passes directly to those in need. Laclede Gas Company also donates more than $50,000 in matching funds annually.

Approximately 90% of DollarHelp donations are from Laclede Gas customers who “Check the Red Box.” More than 68,000 Laclede customers contribute to DollarHelp through the automatic giving option, a plan that enables Laclede customers to make regular monthly donations by having the amount they specify added to their gas bill. What if I want to contribute but I’m not a Laclede Gas customer? This year alone, more than $1 million has been contributed by these generous donors in the Laclede service area. Dollar by dollar, we make a difference together.

DollarHelp is more than just making a donation. It’s about people helping people. Through relationships with local social service agencies, DollarHelp grants pay the heating bills for those who have exhausted all forms of public assistance. What are some other public assistance heating programs? DollarHelp is their last stop to get the help they need. And DollarHelp grants pay the household’s primary heating source, no matter the type of fuel. What type of heating bills is covered by DollarHelp grants? The typical grant for a household is $300, but under certain circumstances a grant can range as high as $700. However, when a special medical, housing or financial crisis exists, additional grants up to $400 are available. Where can I get help? Donations to DollarHelp are tax deductible.

DollarHelp heating grants reach families in St. Louis city and the counties of St. Louis, St. Charles, Franklin, Jefferson, Iron, Butler, Madison, Ste. Genevieve, and St. Francois. (DollarHelp)

This year Laclede Gas is holding a contest that should appeal to baseball fans:

You could win the Ultimate Winter Warm-Up – a trip to St. Louis Cardinals Spring Training! Enter the DollarHelp “Share The Warmth” photo contest and you could win a trip to Jupiter, Florida, to meet Cardinals’ left-fielder Matt Holliday and watch the Cards in action! Visit Laclede Gas Company’s Facebook page for contest details. Must be a current Laclede customer with a Facebook account to enter.

Hurry, the deadline is the 19th!

— Steve Patterson

Poll: Which Financial Tools Do You Use?

I’m learning more and more about the “unbanked” and “underbanked” citizens in our community. From September 2012:

The percentage of households in the St. Louis region that are ‘unbanked’ rose to an estimated 9.7 percent in 2011, according to a survey released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Wednesday, an increase from 7.6 percent in 2009, when the survey was last conducted.

The percentage of unbanked African-American households soared to 29 percent locally, among the highest rates in the nation, though down slightly from the last survey.

Nationally, 8.2 percent of U.S. households, or about 10 million, are unbanked, an increase of about 821,000 households since 2009. (stltoday)

A year ago a local effort was made to spread good financial literacy:

Financial institutions, community based organizations, social service and faith based agencies, community leaders, local and state officials, advocacy groups and grassroots members formed to create the St. Louis Regional Unbanked Task Force. The Task Force’s mission is to identify and address systemic and individual barriers that prohibit unbanked and under-banked households from utilizing traditional banking products and services. The Task Force is using data from sources such as the FDIC, Neighborhood Data Gateway, and data collected by individual member banks in a variety of ways: to understand and educate people about the need, to help set goals for the number of unbanked households who will open and maintain new accounts, to target marketing and outreach initiatives, and to measure their progress. The Task Force’s first major initiative, driven by data about the specific needs of the unbanked and underbanked in the St. Louis region, will be BANK-On SAVE-Up, which is launching February 21, 2013. (source)

The Bank On Save Up St. Louis program

Which brings me to the poll this week:

Q: Not everyone uses all available financial tools, which of the following do you use? (check all that apply):

• Checking account at brick & mortar bank
• Checking account at brick & mortar credit union
• Checking account online
• Savings account at brick & mortar bank
• Savings account at brick & mortar credit union
• Savings account online
• Investment portfolio
• Retirement account through employer
• Credit card(s) paid each month
• Credit card(s) with a balance each month
• Debit card(s)
• None: no checking, savings, debit, credit, portfolio

The poll is in the right sidebar, the answers will be presented in random order.

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November 28, 1939: Black Tuesday In St. Louis

Tomorrow is known as “Black Friday” but 74 years ago today is known as Black Tuesday here in St. Louis.

The day became infamous as Black Tuesday, the worst of many smoke-choked days in what was to be St. Louis’ smokiest cold-weather season. The city already was known for the nation’s filthiest air, worse even than Pittsburgh’s.

The reason was the area’s reliance on cheap, dirty, high-sulfur “soft” coal dug from the hills and hollows across the Mississippi River in Illinois. St. Louis’ first anti-smoke ordinance dated to 1867. But as the city grew in population and industry, the smoke kept getting worse. (stltoday.com)

This day finally prompted the city to ban the use of cheap soft coal, a hard sell during the Great Depression. Watch a brief KETC9 Living St. Louis video here.

On this day be thankful earlier generations took steps to protect the air we breath.

— Steve Patterson

Poll Results on Food Insecurity

Circumstances can change quickly. One moment you’re doing great, then you find yourself struggling a few years later. I know, I’ve been there.

I left a comfortable full-time job in May 2004, going from part to full-time in real estate. My income took an immediate drop from a nice steady salary. I started grad school but also began getting urban planning consulting projects and one client had me on a monthly retainer. I’d weathered the worst of it, or so I thought. I had a stroke and the recession hit.

I struggled for two+ years before filing a disability claim. In the meantime I applied for help with the Missouri Food Stamp program. Thankfully my disability claim was approved within 30 days and I received my first direct deposit months later. I received food stamps for less than 9 months. It wasn’t much, but boy did it help me when I needed it.

Due to the very healthy income I had while working for others, my disability income is above the national average. Still, it is just 20% of what I was bringing in a decade ago. I’ve reduced my expenses and added a boyfriend, so I’m back to feeling comfortable.

Here are the unscientific results from last week’s poll:

Have you, a family member, or friends, experienced at least a month of “Food Insecurity” in the last 5 years?
No 39 [78%]
Yes 10 [20%]
Unsure [1] 2%

Twenty percent is about what I expected, but I can’t draw any conclusions from these results.

“There are still too many people in Missouri who have to decide, ‘Do I pay the rent or buy food?”’ said Scott Baker, the director of the Missouri Food Bank Association. “The hunger problem is real and significant. The safety net is strained already, and I don’t know how the state’s food pantries would be able to meet additional demand.”
Missouri had about 915,000 people receiving food stamps in August. That’s down from a peak of nearly 962,000 in December 2011 but still well above the 724,000 recipients in August 2008. The federal government pays the full cost of the benefits while states administer the program. (KMOV)

You may not see it, but many face food insecurity. In some cases it may be there own fault, but others may have bad timing of circumstances beyond their control. If they had savings to last at least 8 months they may have burned through it by now.

— Steve Patterson

No Trespassing Property of City of St. Louis

Last month I went down street after street, passing vacant lots where homes once stood, all owned by the City of St. Louis. It was depressing to think a once lively neighborhood has been erased, except for roads & sidewalks.  You’re probably thinking I was somewhere in north St. Louis, but I was actually in St. Louis County. At one point I even crossed over I-270! Yes, because of the Lambert runway expansion the City of St. Louis owns hundreds of acres in the City of Bridgeton: the former Carrollton subdivision.

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St. Louis is responsible for maintaing the properties, cutting acres of grass basically. Not only does St. Louis have too much property in St. Louis, they also have too much in Bridgeton!

The land can’t be used for residential purposes, but office/retail/industrial is apparently fine. The problem is St. Louis must repay the FAA if it sells the property, making it very costly to develop based on the amount the FAA paid.

And that runway? From a 2007 MIT-student analysis:

The need for runway 11-29 was actually delay-driven, not demand-driven. Although the levels of demand from the forecast never materialized, the new runway did provide the capability to perform dual independent IFR approaches at Lambert. Again, although the delay cost savings are less than initially projected, there are nonetheless savings that can be directly attributed to the new runway. Thus despite the over-optimistic demand forecast, the construction new runway does seem to have been justified.

With regard to flexible planning, the Lambert officials were indeed responsive to the lower actual passenger traffic than was originally projected. The terminal expansion plans were abandoned after the traffic collapse. Although it is still possible to implement the terminal expansion plans in the future, it would have been wasteful to do so once demand levels dropped. Thus, the part of the Lambert expansion project that was demand-driven was indeed responsive to the drop in demand.

The new runway was probably cheaper to build when it was than it would have been in the future. It is likely that property acquisition costs as well as construction costs would have increased, and so delaying the runway construction would probably have cost more than proceeding as scheduled. Once traffic returns to St. Louis, runway 11-29 will be an invaluable asset. In fact, it may even provide the competitive advantage needed to draw traffic to Lambert. Thus, it seems that despite the strong-armed actions and swift construction in the face of the dramatic downturn in passenger traffic, the new runway at Lambert- St. Louis International Airport was in fact beneficial.

The runway is built and not going anywhere. Now we just need to figure out what to do to remove hundreds of acres from St. Louis ownership, so that it can again produce tax revenue for St. Louis County & the City of Bridgeton.

— Steve Patterson

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