Chauncy Nelson; Social Worker, Neighborhood Developer

Chauncey Nelson [00:00:00] We need communities to be self-sustaining and have its own ecosystems. And I actually think that COVID and new technology has brought us back to those old terms, right? So you talk about, when you're talking about making America great, it's because that people were able to, like, we, we also have the knowledge of, you know, pulling ourself up by our bootstraps. Well, inside of a community, you have all the, you have access to all of those things. It's when you feel like you have to go outside the community to get those things met.

Listener intro (station ID) [00:00:28] This is Joseph Ring. I'm a cattle feed lot operator in Northern Illinois, and you're listening to the Vance Crowe podcast, JY Nelson, welcome to the podcast.

Chauncey Nelson [00:00:39] Thanks for having me.

Vance Crowe [00:00:41] So you are a developer here in St. Louis, you live in the same area that my buddy Ben, who bought a house for I think $10,000 because it was, you know, dilapidated and worn down and now he has built it into a home and, but there's not very many people out in this part of the world. What makes you decide that you want to build out in such a dilapidated part of St. Louis?

Chauncey Nelson [00:01:04] Oh man. So I guess I have to start with my career. So I'm a social worker by trade, and when I was getting my master's degree over at Washington University here in St. Louis, one of the things that I recognized was we were putting band-aids on bullet wounds across different services. And the service provided and the service, the services that were provided for individuals and families and youth is where I really kind of focused my tenure on prior to grad school. So coming out of that piece, I was like, these communities need way more than the resources that we're providing them. They need a full on approach to an ecosystem. From there, I started looking at buying homes in low income areas, turned into me being an acquisitions manager for a syndication and recognizing, hey, we can really do have a greater impact if we afford them. Quality housing. So statistics, and I'm a, I'm a research guy, so statistics says that if you like where you live, whether it be your community and neighborhood, your morale automatically goes up and you have a better outcome on life. So I was like, if we just focus on the housing piece and people always need somewhere to stay, that's not, that's not a resource, that's a basic need, then we're gonna automatically help change and shift lives, which brought, which at about three years in, we had some, an opportunity come through our neighborhood where a group of developers wanted to come into our neighborhood. I had been in that neighborhood for the longest, never wanted to move. I always had pride in our community and they had already had an assembled team, a group of people that were doing the work.

Chauncey Nelson [00:02:40] Your friend Ben, my friend also was on, was one of the members of that team. We just kind of had a natural mesh and being kind of flourishing doing the work together along with some of the other people on that team to try to change, transition that neighborhood. Right. You know, in the real estate terms they call 'em war zones in the community development terms, we call it transitioning neighborhoods. So we're trying to make sure we dive on in and hit all those components from a community development standpoint so people can enjoy where they stay and get their basic needs met right where they live.

Vance Crowe [00:03:11] So why social work? That seems like a weird thing for a guy that's like, I want to get in and do houses and develop things.

Chauncey Nelson [00:03:19] Actually, it fell in my lap. It had nothing to do with, you know, and I think, and I think that's just life, right? You have to think of the natural migration of life. I was a finance guy. I wasn't going to school to do finance supply chain more specifically. And I took a job over the summer at a children's youth camp. I fell in love. I literally came outta this summer, summer job and said I'm doing something with youth. Talked to a couple of my mentors and there was either gonna be counseling or social work. Found out I could, I had a wider range of motion in social work. So I chose that naturally. It took me back to something having to do with, with, you know, be more lucrative in, in being real estate, but I could also help people in the process.

Vance Crowe [00:03:59] You know, I actually worked at a camp for inner city kids when I was coming. I, I actually did it in high school and then I did it again right after college. And that was a life changing experience for me because doing it as a high school kid, you're just trying to be the cool counselor, right? You just want to be the one that's well liked. I was a lifeguard, you know, but then when you're, when I was coming outta college, I was like, wait, these kids will one day grow up, right? And like you're experiencing kids that have a totally different way of interacting with one another with adults or, you know, like the authority figures than anything I had ever seen. And I, that, that like had a profound influence on me.

Chauncey Nelson [00:04:40] No, definitely. Right? And so I think that was kind of where I was at, right? So I was halfway through my, I I was actually just diving into my concentration into undergrad and I was halfway through school and I, and I was good at the financial classes, I was good at, you know, all the, the micro macroeconomics, but it just didn't, it, it wasn't something I really enjoyed. I just run through the work, get, get a good grade, and onto the next course looking for the internship part of, and I went to a Jesuit university, so we had to do some volunteer work. And so for me to hit my hours, I was like, you know, lemme be, I'm gonna knock 'em all out in one time over the summer. And that's how I ended up falling in love with the, you know, doing something in the local community, worked at the summer camp. They always needed additional hands on deck at the, at, you know, the rec center. And I, it just, it, for some reason I left there happier than any dollar amount I had ever made previous to that part. And I said, this must be it. So I, I went on, when I called some of my old friends and I was like, yo, I think I might be going to social work, do some stuff with some kids. It was funny, one of my childhood friends said, well, I could have told you that. And he was like, you know, we used to call you the counselor in high school. So it was just, it was like, you know, it's, it's funny how those natural progressions always brings you back around full circle later on in life. And I think that's what happened for me.

Vance Crowe [00:05:55] You know, what I saw when I was there was kids would go from like happy playing, great time, laughter to instantaneous, it would seem almost that they would get into a fight or they would be ready to throw down like on the scale that if when I was a kid you would, you're, you would least see this progression lead up. And it would maybe only happen once a month, maybe once every two months. But this was happening like multiple times a day. And one of the conclusions I came to, but I'd be very interested in hearing your perspective on this, is a lot of those kids didn't have the language to describe different emotions they were feeling, right? So they had, I'm angry, they had, I'm embarrassed, right? And they maybe didn't even know the word embarrassed, but they would feel that, right? So they were feeling this range of emotions, but they only had, instead of having a dial where they could change it or check, check different dials at the same time, it was very clunky. It was happy, angry, happy, embarrassed. And that, that seemed to me to be something that, I don't know how you resolve it, but it seems something to do with language.

Chauncey Nelson [00:07:02] No, definitely. I think it's even more deeper than language, right? Because at the end of the day, what you're talking about is that spectrum of emotions, right? And so they can only go from one end to the opposite end. And what I've at least recognized in, in my work that I've done thus far is the ones who can best describe in the middle. So some of those like, I'm embarrassed, but, or I'm ashamed and nobody is, nobody is helping me with that piece. And now that, that matures and manifesting into anger after so much shame is put upon me that there's been no one to, to come and intervene in the process of that. And then also you have to look at, you know, what environment are they growing up in? Because if they haven't, they haven't been in an environment where that's been taught to them and not taught just, you know, as the do as I say, not as I do, but something that can actually experience emotional intelligence. 'cause let's be honest, how many adults have a problem with telling, you know, their counterparts, whether it be at home in their regular life or at the work life? I don't feel this doesn't feel good. You know, we we're taught we have to bite the bullet and take it as it comes. And that's a, you know, it's a bunch of bull. Like we don't necessarily have to do that. You know, our feelings are real, our emotions are real, and we should be able to do so. And if young kids don't know how to do that because the, the adults that are training and raising them haven't instilled that in them, then I would expect for them to just go from one end of the spectrum to the next. We have, and, and again, it, you know, I always hear the term that it falls on, it starts at home. Well it does start at home, but your home is inside of a community.

Chauncey Nelson [00:08:34] Your school is inside of community. And you know, I tell people all the time for 10 months more, for 10 months of, of every year, this outside, people outside of the home, adults outside of the home are responsible for those kids more than the parents are. You're at home, you're at school 10 hours a day, then the school year you're at home and actually up working probably six. So the majority of that responsibility, it sucks. And I, and I tell my educators this, that I work with all the time, that you were given a responsibility to help in instill values in these kids when all you were taught in college was how to teach them arithmetic or reading and language. But now you have to teach them emotional regulation or how to defuse conflict. That wasn't, that's not something in the requirements for an educator, right? But it's, it is, it's something that you have to do to be successful as a educator.

Vance Crowe [00:09:24] What kind of home did you grow up in?

Chauncey Nelson [00:09:26] I grew up in a home for two educators. So both my parents were educators also. We had a very close knit knit family. So I was very close with my grandparents. My grandfather was actually the first black supervisor at McDonald Douglas, which is now born forming on the, one of the construction floors. My grandmother actually worked in the plant as well. So I, I grew up in a very close knit family, like I said. So they had a small family and we all lived literally within that same community. It's probably why I never left that community. 'cause all my basic needs were met and my entire family is in that community.

Vance Crowe [00:10:02] Yeah, there's something I I used to say, like when I moved to California, I I, I made this realization that everybody thinks they're moving to California to get away from all the people that they can't get along with, right? And so what you have out in a place like the, like you know, San Francisco is a bunch of individualists, right? Yeah. But if you stay in a place like St. Louis, or I make the comparison like South orange, New Jersey, right? If you stay in one of these towns, you don't stay there 'cause it's beautiful. You stay there because you're knitted into the community. You have, you know, you're a part of that fabric. And it's one of those things that to, to leave it would be, I mean, it would cost you way, no matter how I'm like, you would have to make so much more money to be able to offset the loss of the, you know, family, to watch your kids and, you know, connection into other opportunities, whatever that is. It's, it's almost probably impossible to imagine.

Chauncey Nelson [00:10:55] No, definitely. And

Vance Crowe [00:10:56] It's funny

Chauncey Nelson [00:10:57] 'cause being a social worker, people always wanna lean on me for emotional and life advice. And it's, and one of the things I always, I always encourage people, I always say, you know, go spread your wings, enjoy life. You know, go do some self journeys, figure out what you want to do if you haven't figured out for yourself. But when people say, I have to move, the first question is, what are you moving for? Because if you're moving to get away and to reinvent yourself, I'm sorry, but in the world we live in today, your, your reputation's gonna follow you. And if you're moving before your own internal demons, those are gonna go with you no matter what. So

Vance Crowe [00:11:29] It's one of those questions though, like, you look at a dilapidated place, like let's imagine East St. Louis, right? And you, you say like, what? Hey, people that are here, there's no jobs here. The in the community that you're in seems quite run down. To me the obvious answer is to move. But then you kind of run into like, are are they moving out of social situations that are, are holding them back or are they leaving? I, I don't understand what the right question is, but like, it seems like there's some places where the right answer does seem to be to leave.

Chauncey Nelson [00:12:03] Well, I, I think that's a personal question, right? And so you have to see what is, what is it that's happened to you in that situation that you would have to go? But at the same time is that if there are situations that, that have created a, there's a situation that that's at a place where people don't have the opportunity to flourish and opportunities to grow, then yeah, you want to leave. But most people don't, from my experiences, haven't, haven't had the bandwidth or instilled the skills to really utilize what's around them. So yeah, you look at a place like East St. Louis and you're like, Hey, this is run down. There's not that many opportunities. Well, when I look at a place at East St. Louis, I say, man, they could really, really use a fresh produce, you know, convenience store. They could really, really use a place that that, that has non-perishable goods and meets their basic needs because they have to travel, you know, 10 miles to the nearest Walmart to get, so, however, only 12% of the population have a, a functioning, a functioning vehicle. And public transit in East St. Louis is almost non-existent outside of the Metrolink line, which could be an additional two miles to walk to. So let's think in the midst of the winter and it's zero degrees, you know, granny G can't go to get those basic needs met. So yeah, it may make more sense for Granny G to move out to, you know, a more more condensed area of, of Illinois or even in the metro area so she can get those basic needs met from a retirement facility. But she look at what she's given up, she's given up that home no matter what the neighborhood is, she's given up that home that she worked to pay off this mortgage over the last 30 years.

Chauncey Nelson [00:13:41] She's given up the relationships that she has built in the community. She's given up the hierarchy that she created inside of that neighborhood. Everybody, you know, we all have that elderly person in our communities that we know, that we check on and we recognize and actually see, I

Vance Crowe [00:13:57] Don't think you're right about that. In fact, I think in my world, like I don't look in on any, you know, older people. I like, I don't, I I I think that's something that's a part of you and a part of your culture. But I think in suburban, suburban culture, I don't, I don't think it's the same.

Chauncey Nelson [00:14:15] I don't, I don't think it's the same either. I mean, I remember getting this question from a friend, I remember actually getting a comment from a friend in high school and he, and he was saying, you know, he li he lives in a prominent area and he is like, you know, Chauncey can't wait for all of us to come out here and get these, get a house out here. And I was, my, my response was, I don't wanna live out here. 'cause there is no sense of community. You know, houses are put on one acre lots where on and where in the community that me and Ben work in, they're put on quarter acre lots and we're all close together. I think we just saw this out out of COVID, you know, when COVID just happened, I was able to reconnect with neighbors I probably hadn't had a real relationship with since I was younger. But again, it, that is, you're right, it is my truth. And, and at the end of the day, there is, but there's a cluster of people that are looking for that, that type of connection inside of their community. I think that is why we're seeing herbal renewal be such a big topic across the country. You know, we see plenty of cities that's made a turnaround over the last, over the last 10 years. I would like to put up on the block, you know, Denver's probably been one of the biggest ones. You know, we've seen the flood of population out there, of course with, you know, with the regulation of cannabis being put, being put in place. You've seen a boom and economic divide. But at the same time you've also seen different cities too. You know, Atlanta, Dallas, dc steady turning, you know, we're seeing it in Florida cities as well. Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, these are all cities. I mean, CI, Midwest, cities, Cincinnati, Cleveland, you know, Chicago on the south side that's seeing plenty of disinvestment is now making huge turns.

Chauncey Nelson [00:15:46] You're seeing the real estate market go up 300% in the last four years. That's all speaking to people wanting to have that personal connection inside of their community. If not, we'll we would just see more suburban sprawl happening across the country and we're still seeing that piece, but we're also seeing that revitalation of urban centers as well.

Vance Crowe [00:16:05] So after we had launched the other day, I went home and I found this St. Louis American article that you had written, I think several years ago. So this is an article about you being 18 to 21, somewhere in there and talking about losing a member of your community. Talk a little bit about the article 'cause that was, man, that was really something.

Chauncey Nelson [00:16:24] Yeah, man. So, you know, one of my slogans is I wasn't always a social worker, but I also think that, you know, as young adults, that that's what we're meant to do. You know, I i, this is probably why I hate cancel culture, right? Because as young adults, as teenagers and emerging adults, we're supposed to make mistakes. We're supposed to go out here and test the limits and see, you know, what's the right niche for us. Unfortunately, though, in certain situations where basic needs aren't met, you probably they push it a little too far. So yeah, I, I had a group of friends that I was running with involved in some pretty dangerous situations and

Vance Crowe [00:16:59] Like what

Chauncey Nelson [00:17:01] Typical, typical thing. So drug trafficking, gang activity, potential acts of violence. I've never seen any myself, but, you know, rumors, some there, whenever there's smoke, there's fire, of course. So yeah, I, I I, I had some, I had some experiences, you know, I don't like to say I, I guess some people would consider those to be traumatic experiences. And, and that had to do with, you know, me trying to find my place in the world. You know, I, I've had, as we talked about, you know, the, the spectrum, the, the, the, the lived experience being on a spectrum. I've been everywhere from the, and I say this, this is one of my slogans, I can't, I've been everywhere from the, the clubhouse all the way down to the barbecue and the, and the projects, right? So, and, and that was probably one of my lows, is I was trying to figure out where I was at making some bad decisions as a young man not ready for the responsibility when it was time to go to college, things of that nature, end up linking in with some of the wrong crowds because at that point they were, they were making accomplishments that I thought was due due to the financial gains that they were getting that I thought meant that they were successful. But again, I'm, I'm 18 years old and I don't have a full developed brain, so I can't, I don't, I'm not looking at the risk first reward. So I ended up losing a good friend to gun violence behind that. And it just switched my gears, you know, one of my, and actually his brother, we were sitting there the night, the evening that he was killed and his brother looked and said, you know, there's only two options left for us and there's death of jail.

Chauncey Nelson [00:18:41] And I'm like, dude, you're 19, I'm 18. Like, we have other options than that. And I just, I left everything along and I literally went and rolled back to school the next day. When

Vance Crowe [00:18:54] You had experienced that gun violence, was it a total shock? Had you known

Chauncey Nelson [00:18:58] Other

Vance Crowe [00:18:58] People or was this a random thing? No,

Chauncey Nelson [00:19:00] I've, I had known other people. I'd known other people in my family, known other people in the community. This is probably just the one at the current time that was the most closest to me.

Vance Crowe [00:19:09] Man. Let's see, this is wild because I, when I was a kid, I, like, I definitely wanted to hang out with the kids that smoke cigarettes. I definitely wanted to be around the, you know, the kids that they worked construction so they could have a nice car and then we could also drink or we could do whatever, like, you know, I think that any, any extroverted guy has that like, pull and it's a little bit like, I could be cool, but like the biggest danger we ran into was getting pulled over by a cop for a DUI or something like that, or somebody getting into like a major car accident, right? Like that's how people died where I was from, to, to imagine that somebody would have malice in their heart enough to go kill another human being that I know is like really hard for me to wrap my mind around. And to have that to be a reality of the world that you grow up in, it seems like this stuff of fantasy no different than me watching stuff come out of Buckingham Palace. Like it's that far away from me.

Chauncey Nelson [00:20:06] No, definitely. And so if you really wanna lean in, let's lean into that even more, right? So what would make somebody want to kill another person, right?

Vance Crowe [00:20:12] Because

Chauncey Nelson [00:20:12] Like, if, if you were to get caught, the punishment is that you lose your life in the state, Missouri, the minimum punishment for, for a homicide is life without the possibility of parole. You have lost your life. You will, of course you'll be in the system, you'll be in jail, but you have no freedoms whatsoever. You'll be behind bars to the day that you die. So at what point does it take, and this is actually something I talk with some of our older, our older kids, that we deal with our young adults in our, in our program. So what is it? What is, what is worth taking another life? You know? And, and at the end of the day, there is nothing. But, so then what, what brings you to the point of wanting to do so? And it's a state of desperation. And so let's go back to looking at kids as young people. So we talked about adults and what it takes when you're picking what community or what neighbor you're gonna stay in, but young people who don't have that option because they have to follow whoever, whoever has the, whoever's responsible for their wellbeing. And if their basic needs are getting met, eventually you get tired of being a victim. You take it into your own hands. And so now, so now it becomes, I think me and you've had this conversation before, you know, it be, it becomes looking at the structure of, of obedience and law, right? And it's like, okay, yeah, it's against, it's, it's illegal for me to take another life. How, however, is it, is it okay for me to go on starving when there's no options for me to eat? Is it okay for me to live inhabitable situations when I know there is, if I just had an additional $500 a month and something that minuscule like five literally will make or break someone's life and likelihood and them being able to see their basic needs get met.

Chauncey Nelson [00:21:48] And so, you know, that's one of the things that I've always, you know, said, and I've always said this, I'll be the sacrificial lamb. I will figure out a way for you to get that additional money, that additional resource. So you do not have to make those, those same decisions so you can change the way that you think so you can focus on your future and not the present where you're not getting your basic needs met.

Vance Crowe [00:22:08] Yeah, I, before I went to Kenya, my, for the Peace Corps, my dad, you know, pulled me aside and he's like, now Vance, the biggest difference between you and the people that you're going to be with. And he's like, you won't really understand this until much later, is that they don't know anyone that knows anyone that can help them. And my dad was making reference to the fact that I, I was like, I've been poor. I've had like $10 in my account before and not been able to buy or only buying ramen noodles or barely able to pay my rent or whatever. And my dad was like, yeah, but at the end of the day, if something really did happen, there are people that would come through for you. But if you're living in an existence where you don't even know anyone that can help you out, and I don't know if the same is true for Kenya as the people you're talking about, but it does frame shift what desperation feels like. Because I was always like, all right, well if I really can't eat, I've really, I've really got other options. Is that what you're talking about?

Chauncey Nelson [00:23:04] No, definitely. And a lot of people don't have other options. A lot of people are in that same situation and, and it's sad, but it's real. I

Vance Crowe [00:23:10] Think this is really hard for people to wrap their minds around.

Chauncey Nelson [00:23:13] Okay, well like I said, I'm a research guide, so let's start some statistics at it, right? So let's look at, let's look at Syria. Syria has no, has no controlling government right now, and it's a free fall, right? So let's, north, north city of St. Louis has an infant mortality rate 1.2% lower than the ungoverned country of Syria. Oh my

Vance Crowe [00:23:32] God.

Chauncey Nelson [00:23:32] Exactly. So you cannot tell me that these people aren't in desperate situations. If, if we, if, if we in the, in the greatest country in the world, in the richest country in the world, have issues like that happening right in the heart of our city.

Vance Crowe [00:23:46] Yeah. Infant mortality is one of those things that like everybody can get their, their hearts around that one that, that's like you're talking about a mother that's incredibly vulnerable. You're talking about a baby that is nothing but potential, right? And to lose a child at the rate of what's going on in Syria seems crazy. So what's going on there? Why does that happen?

Chauncey Nelson [00:24:06] I mean, it's a few things, again, we're going back to basic needs being met. We're going back to, we can look at every public health disparity across the board and it'll, and it, you can check a box in certain situations, and it is not just north city. 'cause you know, there's, there's plenty of, 'cause if, again, St. Louis is a very segregated city. So North city by itself is somewhere in 90th percentile for African Americans. However, outside of race, you know, Bayless hits just as many of the public health disparities as, as, as North City does, which is a prominent, you know, white south city, south, south county suburb. So at the end, at the end of the day, it's not necessarily just a race thing, but what is going on is lack of, lack of education, lack of basic needs, lack of access to healthcare, you know, lack, lack of quality, quality jobs for these mothers. And then also, also, again, you're looking at the trajectory from previous generations, not having the ability to help, like you said, not having access to, to healthcare, I mean, excuse me, to, to assistance in, in for childcare. Not having, not having that, that extra support that you'll need. A lot of these, a lot of times, you know, these mothers go out and they say, they ask them, and the, and the also the other piece is shame. I remember talking to a nurse about this and she, you know, they asked, Hey, do you plan on breastfeeding? The mother was like, yeah, she had never even looked at it, knew how to do it, was just holding the baby thinking it would latch on. That's not how it works. A lot of the deaths have to do with, have to do with Sid. Like, so these children, these mothers aren't educated, the society isn't educated and there's no additional help or resources to bring to them so they can actually see, get these things met to, to put a barrier in place.

Chauncey Nelson [00:25:48] So we don't see something like that happening. And I put the infant mortality piece on there because who wants to see babies die? Like at the end of the day, if you can hear that statistic and walk away, I'm gonna start questioning your own personal morals.

Vance Crowe [00:25:59] Yeah. So part of my job at Ken in Kenya was that I was at a neonatal clinic, so I watched all these pregnant mamas come in and a big thing of what I saw, so these people were terribly impoverished, right? You're talking about people living in dirt floors, no electricity, you know, running water out of cisterns. Maybe they have it, but what they had that doesn't exist now is this like deep interconnected community, right? So if you were a mama and you just had a baby, you went out and worked maybe a week after you had that baby. But you're also there with grandmas great grandmamas little girls, all these people are taking care of the kids. You've watched kids grow up your whole life. You've seen that breastfeeding going on American culture, whether you're talking about black or white or poor or rich or anything. It just doesn't, it's just not, it's not comprised that way.

Chauncey Nelson [00:26:49] No, I mean it's, it's all, and unfortunately, I, I say this, I say this as a, as a real estate investor, but unfortunately it ends up being all about the money piece, right? Early childhood healthcare is, is the most expensive education that you'll ever pay for. You know, that that zero, that zero to kindergarten age, so that zero to four, maybe three or four or five is the most expensive. Health is most expensive education that any parent will pay for. I

Vance Crowe [00:27:14] Mean, I'm going through this right now and you gotta have like two year waiting periods to, into some of these places and they're charging like $2,000 a month or something like that. It is like, it's just as expensive

Chauncey Nelson [00:27:25] As Ivy League and it's a harder, it's a harder, you know, emissions process. Like, it's really ridiculous. So, you know, it's all based off of the capitalist mindset, which is fine. I'm definitely, I will tell people all the time, people always ask, you know, or am I more conservative, a liberal Democrat or Republican? I just tell 'em I'm a capitalist. Like, so at the end of the day, I totally get that piece, you know, but it's a money grab. And that's also the other part too of it, you know, we look at mass media and everybody says, you know, this is what we're supposed to strive to be at. But that is, once you have the ability and the surplus that you can strive to get all the glitz and the glamor, the golden juries or the, you know, the, the nice, the nicer homes and things like that. But the first piece is, are you living in a safe habital environment? Like is there, is there water leaking through your roof in the range? Then let's focus on fixing that before we focus on getting a new car. If you have, and you know, it's more about being appreciative of what we have. I think in all honesty, most of the society's being lied to through mass media because it, it's gonna be, it's a su supply and demand. So if, if we could create the demand, we then we, we produce a supply so we can get rich off of it. Yeah. And

Vance Crowe [00:28:31] I mean, so I would go and say I would, my personal belief is a lot of the reason that the childcare is as expensive it is, is is because government regulation makes it so you have so many hoops to come through. Like I was talking with this person that was like, if I'm gonna run a daycare, I have to have a master's degree at this point. If I'm going to run the daycare, and then I can only hire, you know, so many people without a college degree, and then the rest of the people have to have this special education and this special certification. And a lot of that came about as we started saying, well, we want more safety. We wanna make sure that this accident that happened here, this bad thing that happened here can't ever happen. So let's create a rule and every rule you put in place is now gonna amortize the cost of that rule across everybody. And then you start having all the places that used to do it, the churches and the community groups say, it's too expensive. We're not, we're not able to make money or we're not able to find people that can pay it around this neighborhood.

Chauncey Nelson [00:29:27] No, definitely. And I think one of the other, one of the other components of it is not only just the, the government regulations, but but also, you know, looking at this piece, we're still handing our kids off to a company, essentially, right? Education system is definitely, definitely ran like a company. So in doing so, you know, ev what parents are gonna check for is, yeah, I'm willing to, I can, if I can afford to pay you this $1,400 a month for early childhood care, it's fine. But I want to see, I wanna see the procedures put in place to make sure that my child is protected throughout, throughout the tenure while they're here. And the best way to do this is, you know, here's our handbook with all our rules and regulations to make sure that if anything happens, your, your child is number one priority. Well, hogwash, you got, you're seeing anywhere from 60 to 300 kids in the early childhood center. Like there's, and there's, and your staff by 20 people, accidents are gonna happen, you know, this kids fall, kids get hurt. But, you know, as soon as that happens now it's gonna be, it's the pointing of the finger game. And so now we're looking at liability and insurance, and now that is an increased cost and god forbid somebody gets sued, tuition goes up for everybody. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:30:35] So you were talking about COVID in your neighborhood, what is, what's going on with vaccines and people like following mask mandates where you're at?

Chauncey Nelson [00:30:45] I mean, so the mask mandate is, is not a big deal. I think most people are following either within that or the social distancing piece. You know, I even seen neighbors, you know, they make sure they stay within, you know, or at least the one concrete plot, which is a good know three feet away on top of the distance that they are on there. So people are staying there six feet or better away masked up inside of, inside of stores is not a problem. I've seen that for the most part. I haven't seen, I haven't seen any, any Karens or, or get kicked out of any places for any reasons.

Vance Crowe [00:31:17] Do you, where you go, everybody's wearing masks

Chauncey Nelson [00:31:20] For the most part. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:31:21] Man, where I go? No. Maybe 40% are wearing masks. Yeah,

Chauncey Nelson [00:31:24] I mean we, but, and, and, well, I'm gonna be honest again on this piece, you know, it's not like we have a bunch of grocery stores and, and, you

Vance Crowe [00:31:32] Know,

Chauncey Nelson [00:31:33] And patron places in our community, you know, fair enough. You know, most things are inside the community. So vaccination, you know, I treat that almost, especially right now with it being a extensive topic. I treat that almost as of, you know, like, like politics, religion, and finances. You know, I kind of leave that along on a personal basis. But if people open up and talk to me about it, I would say just based off of my conversation, I it's probably about a 50 50, you know? And what's actually surprising is I get more elders that say that they've been vaccinated than, you know, you're working, you're working age or your young people who are actually qualified to be vaccinated.

Vance Crowe [00:32:09] It's, I think you're exactly right about it being the same thing as as religion and politics. And maybe it's the ultimate religion and politics put together. Because at the end of the day, it is faith, right? Yeah. You have faith that this, that this thing you're putting into your arm is this thing. And it also opens up doors and it lets people, you know, okay, if you've done it and you're willing to prove it to other people, now you get access to all of the community. What do you think over the long term, the community you're in with the 50% that aren't taking it? Is this a permanent thing, they're not taking it, period? Or is it a, eh, we will wait and see what do you, how do you see this playing out?

Chauncey Nelson [00:32:46] So this is strictly off assumption and opinion, so it is not factual, but I will definitely, I will say that based off of the people that I've talked to in my community and other communities, if they haven't gotten vaccinated, they probably won't, you know, at this point, you know, the, even, even more, you know, right now what we're seeing is lotteries and incentives to get vaccinated, that just draws more red flags for people. Like Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:33:07] I was gonna say, doesn't

Chauncey Nelson [00:33:07] That sound, I,

Vance Crowe [00:33:08] I think that's like I owe you. Yeah,

Chauncey Nelson [00:33:10] Like really though, because I, I mean, I had, I, I had a neighbor tell me just recently, it was like, nobody's ever given me anything, and all of a sudden you wanna gimme $50 just to get a shot. And it is like, nah, like I don't trust it. So, you know, it be it becomes, it becomes, you know, those type those type of conversations and I just let them, you know, if they want to open up about it. I don't even talk about my status with people just because I don't wanna get into that conversation. So I leave it alone. But, you know, if people wanna open up to me about it, that's totally fine. I, I'll I just do the yeah. Not thing. Okay. But at the end of the day, and of course everybody either advocates for not getting it or getting it depending on what choice they made. But yeah, I, I, again, I I I thought it was kind of lack of better words. I, I, I thought it, I thought it was, I thought it was kind of questionable too when people start trying to incentivize things to an untrusted group, right? It is like, we already don't trust you as a, as a collective group. Like, well now you want to gimme money thinking that you could buy me into getting vaccinated. Like, like I would raise the eyebrow too if I felt, if I was coming from that perspective,

Vance Crowe [00:34:14] When you say like the, they don't, they already don't trust, you know, the, the powers that be you, the government. Tell me a little bit about that.

Chauncey Nelson [00:34:21] I mean, so yeah, I think looking at, going back to what we started off when we were talking about me and Ben working into, in this blighted area around community development, you know, that's, that's not by mistake, it's by design. You know, we, we are working in a community just north of Delmar and in that community, you know,

Vance Crowe [00:34:37] So for people that don't know, the Delmar divide is kind of, where they say is like the poverty impoverished line is north of that, and south of that is where you have the Wash U and the slews and the, like, the universities and the hospital systems and everything. And so if you go north of Delmar, that's just kind of like a, a, you know, I don't, I wouldn't compare it to Compton, but something, you know, you're going, you're going north somewhere.

Chauncey Nelson [00:35:01] Actually I would compare it to Compton, and actually if you look at the housing market, I know the cost of living living is significantly cheaper in St. Louis than it is in la. But, you know, so if you, if you go, if you go north of Delmar household media income, and you, I don't quote me on the Nu Census, but last census that came out, household media income was $70,000. You cross over Delmar, south of Delmar household, any media income is like 180,000, right? So it's more than double that piece. You know, the, the, the price of your house north, north of Delmar is around $60,000. The price of a home south of Delmar is around 350,000. So, you know, those, those statistics by itself started to raise flags. And so then you start looking, okay, well, going back to it. Well, people's needs aren't gonna be met. And anybody who's opened up a business, whether the franchise, whether it's just your mom and pop shop, if you start looking, if you start doing a, a market, a market analyst report and saying, okay, well where, where I'm gonna put my brick and mortar business at? And you look at something like that, it's like, why would I put it over here? I'm going to be in the red for the next 30 years where I could actually see a profit in three to five years if I just go down the street a quarter mile. And I understand it from a business perspective, but we're forgetting about a huge population of people in the process. And this is why one of the narratives that, you know, me and Ben in the group that we work with always talk about is the disinvestment that's happened over decades. And so even if you, if you go from one side of Delmar to the next, the housing structures don't change. What changes is, what changes is the, the work that's been been able to be put in because of the surplus of capital in one confined area compared to the next.

Chauncey Nelson [00:36:38] So we have just as, just as many beautiful historic homes built in the same era.

Vance Crowe [00:36:43] Oh yeah. The neighborhood you guys are in, I mean, fountain Park is like gorgeous, right? Like it's, it's like you, you wouldn't, no one in the United States right now is building neighborhoods like that one.

Chauncey Nelson [00:36:54] I mean, and even more specifically, that's the only neighborhood in the city like that one. So we are, we have the only neighborhood with a residential oval park in the middle of our neighborhood. Now of course, other neighborhood has parks, but to have that oval in the middle of it, for the only one, we have a fountain that's, that's over a hundred years old in the middle of that park.

Vance Crowe [00:37:13] And so I kind of hijacked what you were saying before to clarify Delmar, but tell me about the, the concerns that people have about the government.

Chauncey Nelson [00:37:21] Well, I mean, at the end of the day, it goes back to that, that whole disinvestment, right? And as you talked about, we talked about education, you talked about regulations. Well, there's housing regulations just like anything else. And so in doing so, you know, like I said, just, just actually in our neighborhood, you know, there was a, one of the biggest housing regulations back in the day was redlining and found Park Lewis place, most specifically Lewis Place was when that conservation was lifted, lifted was the first community that, that you saw that flood of, of prominent African Americans. So that was in 1949. The Shelly family went to, went all the way up to the federal, federal Supreme Court, had the case that lifted that, that housing conservationist says that African Americans could live in the neighborhood within 20 years. It was, it was the mecca of upper middle class. It was plenty of black lawyers and doctors that lived in these, lived in these communities. Well then other regulations came around. And so you start seeing disinvestment into these communities around such. And so you start seeing, start seeing the surplus of homes and investment on south of Delmar and almost forgotten about north of Delmar. And I hate to, because I don't like to pull the race card, it's not my thing, but at some point you have to say, well, what was the only difference in this play? You know, like I said, they're doctors and lawyers. These are prominent positions still to this day. You know, in certain cultures, if you're not a doctor or a lawyer, you're a failure. So if you are, if you have that prominent of a profession and you're starting to see regulations put in place that, that prohibits you to succeed on a state level per laws or federal level per laws, then what else, what else can we attribute to it?

Chauncey Nelson [00:39:06] And that, and I, I will leave that out for a question for your listeners and other people to push back on because I would look for educational piece.

Vance Crowe [00:39:12] And so what, what time period was this going on in that you're just grabbing

Chauncey Nelson [00:39:16] The forties.

Vance Crowe [00:39:16] The forties. So Pru before a Pruitt Igo comes in.

Chauncey Nelson [00:39:19] Yeah, definitely. And Pruitt Igo by Pruitt Pruitt Igo was, was segregated. I don't know if most people know that, but those Pruitt and Igo were two separate buildings. Pruitt was black, IGO was white. No kidding. Yeah. Most people don't know that.

Vance Crowe [00:39:34] I didn't know that. I don't, I actually really know almost nothing about Pruitt Igo other than it was a disaster. Everything they tried to do, like forward thinking, like from the not being able to change the light bulbs out to, you know, didn't work. But what is your take on Pruit Igo?

Chauncey Nelson [00:39:49] I think Pruit Igo was the beginning of new regulations around housing and more, more specifically, not just housing, but social services to say, if you, if you need said services, here's the criteria that is that you need to meet. And we still see that today. And for instance, housing authority and housing structures, right? Excuse me. Most people are not gonna get a, like a housing, a housing voucher from the housing authority if it's a two family, if it's a a, a, a, 2, 2, 2

Vance Crowe [00:40:19] Parent family,

Chauncey Nelson [00:40:19] There we go. Two parent family, two head house, old family. So if you have two incomes coming in of, they're not gonna get a housing voucher. So, so that is a policy that started in p prude io. And though that's a prime example of what we're gonna continue to see across the board with, with regulations, you know, so you're going to, and it goes back people, you do a case study, see what works, see what doesn't work, see what the extreme need is and you know, we have to cap it somewhere. 'cause everybo, we can't just hand out priest. This isn't a, so, you know, it's not a social society. We're not communists. So we got, we have to draw the line somewhere on what we are willing to help with. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:40:56] And a bureaucracy knows no nuance, right? Exactly.

Chauncey Nelson [00:40:59] It's

Vance Crowe [00:40:59] Got, it's, we're putting in a rule. I, to me, when I look at the statistics, like just in the latest census, right, where we now have huge 40% or something like that of all children are born out of, you know, with to a single parent. But in the black community it's something like 70%.

Chauncey Nelson [00:41:17] Yeah, it's pretty high. I know it's more than 50.

Vance Crowe [00:41:19] I mean, like to me, having just raised, you know, I've got a 1-year-old right now, right? Like, I cannot imagine raising a child by yourself. But then on top of that, having all the challenges of, you know, having to ride the bus to go to the grocery store, making an income that's, you know, 12 or $13 an hour, to me, it is inevitable that the outcomes of that will, will be bad.

Chauncey Nelson [00:41:44] No, definitely. And I, I, I think like, so this goes back to why we need communities to be self-sustaining and have its own ecosystems. And I actually think that COVID and new technology has brought us back to those old terms, right? So you talk about, when you're talking about making America great, it's because that people were able to, like, we, we also have the knowledge of, you know, pulling ourself up by bootstraps. Well, inside of a community, you have all the, you have access to all of those things. It's when you feel like you have to go outside the community to get those things met. People just need the, people just need the educational aspects and there's someone to come and help them put it in place. And once you get those wheels turning, it becomes an effect, right? So let's look at, we can look at other statistics too in other communities, you know, the dollar transfers for months on end, right? In the Jewish community, I think it's something somewhere around like three years, which is the longest, meaning

Vance Crowe [00:42:38] That if you go spend a a dollar at a flower shop in the Jewish community, then that flower shop owner goes and spends it at the grocery store store and then he goes and spends it at the, you know, the whatever, buys some a dress for his wife and then just keeps going around. Definitely.

Chauncey Nelson [00:42:51] Definitely. And if you look at, and so I use the Jewish community 'cause we can look at parts of St. Louis, like if you look at U City where the synagogue is that, you know, that they, they circulate that business inside of that community for a very long time. You know, like I say that that dollar stays in there on average three years. Well, in the African, African American community, again, very much segregated here in St. Louis City, that dollar stays in, in circulation about 48 seconds because there are business owners that are able to put that in place. Now we have plenty of, you know, one of the coin terms that's going around a lot right now is economic development and people are really trying to ramp it up and, and help help minorities, black and brown people get access to either financial, financial backing loans and, and get them, get them brick and mortars up and running in these communities to start creating these ecosystems. But it has to be, it has to be an all hands on deck from a three tier approach, right? We have to, we talk, you know, you brought up my own personal story about gun violence. We have to do something about public safety first and foremost. But I, I don't think I, but my thoughts behind it is if you focus on the housing and get people quality housing, because everybody doesn't want to be a homeowner, you know, I know that's the old way to get to, to, to get to wealth is to home is home ownership. But everybody doesn't want that. That comes with a lot of responsibility that I just don't think that some people in our generation are made for nowadays. But then the next piece is making sure people's basic needs are met or resources. And once you do that, now people can start getting their wheels turning into what is it you actually want to do?

Chauncey Nelson [00:44:24] And is this something that we could do right here in this community to make it, to, to make it feasible and sustainable inside of this ecosystem? I, I, one of my mentors told me one thing that he believes that every community needs is a hub. You know, we need that hub so we can have these hard conversations and then start these think tanks and draw that attention. You know, I say this, I say this as coming in a very, coming from a very low income community, you know, I've been privileged enough to own a few rental properties. My neighbor owns a few rental properties, but no one would even believe that there are real estate developers and investors right inside of this community. But if we were to concentrate that in our community instead of outside communities, we could really start to have that transitional change at one community at a time. I think that some of these institutions have a great approach to it. I think WashU has done a great job in, in the Forest Park southeast neighborhood and how they've created a corridor that meets their basic needs and also drives revenue from outside communities. Plenty of people come on the weekend into there to bring that money back into that community. You're seeing where over 30% of the residents are still in place over a 10 year span of development and just, and just the housing stock that they've created. You know, they have that whole, that whole spectrum of home ownership and housing. They have everything from low income li you know, the affordable housing and the, the housing voucher play to that medium, up to $180,000 homes up to 300, $400,000 homes all within the 25, 25 30 block radius.

Chauncey Nelson [00:46:01] Those are the perfect examples of what needs to happen. Chicago did a great job at Lincoln Park. Cincinnati is doing a great job just, just nor east of their downtown Detroit. Even though they've had their issues, it's starting to see a huge turnaround with their housing stock and those, and it's all due because they're hitting it from all the approaches and they're getting that group of people corral together with the same agenda.

Vance Crowe [00:46:26] You had a a a fascinating turn of phrase when we met for lunch that really blew my mind. We were talking about the value of churches in communities and that's, you know, your communities or my communities when I grew up like that was the center of everything. But those have gone away and have been replaced by what you call the nonprofit industrial complex. Talk about that for a little bit.

Chauncey Nelson [00:46:49] Oh, definitely. So I mean, you know, if, if you go back to it, and this is kind of, and this is a perfect transition. 'cause you know, the, those hubs used to be the churches, right? The churches used to be where everybody went to go get their basic needs met. Also, you know, if you're talk about, if you're talking about pre the civil rights movement, this is where, this is where your, your black engineer who couldn't be, who couldn't get a job at a, at a engineering company would be a, would, would, would be a engineer for the church or have a, have a prominent position in the church, whether it be a deacon or a trustee on the board. But on his regular nine to five may have been a bus driver. So, so this is a, this is the perfect, that's a perfect example of what a community hub would've bun been. So these churches used to have used to have the opportunity. We still have a couple. You know, I, I like to, you know, shout out to Friendly Temple Baptist Church here in St. Louis. I think they're doing a great job over in the, in the Martin Luther King corridor where they, they have, hey, they have really started to meet a lot of those basic needs. They have all, they have everything but a market. And I'm pretty sure knowing their pastor, Mike Jones, he's probably in the process of putting a grocery store up there pretty soon. So outside of that though, like that is where those hubs started and the idea from there. So we're along the lines though. Churches no longer churches and I, I can't speak to why, but I can say that churches no longer started to start. We're meeting the basic needs of the people. And I don't know if that, because we started seeing a number of churches grow and congregations split to smaller.

Chauncey Nelson [00:48:24] 'cause again, it's about having that collective of people.

Vance Crowe [00:48:26] Yeah. You can only have about 130 families in a, in a church. And once it gets above that, then you've got separate churches inside of that. It's, it's not stable much beyond 130.

Chauncey Nelson [00:48:36] And so that's where I go back to the leadership. Right. You know, true good leaders, good leaders are able to corral those different churches and, and get people's, you know, that bureaucracy get people's needs met. You know, I just had a conversation with one of the stakeholders me and Ben works close closely with, and he, he brought up a old quote, I forgot it, but who said it? But, you know, it's in a good negotiation. Nobody comes out happy. Right. You know, everybody has to, everybody has to give up something in order to get the, get what they get a piece of what they want so they collectively can come together. So nobody's gonna ever get a hundred percent of what we want. But that is what compromise is for. But I think in, in doing so, if people are willing to stick it out for the long haul, you're able to see, so these churches, these churches used to be able to do so. You know, I think I hear about churches, even my, the family church that my family goes to used to have 4,000 members in there. Right. That blows my mind today. I hear about it in other, in other settings. But most of the times, those are the ones I see on tv. And I don't necessarily see them actually doing the, the, the more concrete work on the ground floor. And also those are the churches where we have people traveling from different communities all over the, the black church used to be in black communities as a central hub, and they bonded together around specific needs. So, you know, for instance, I'll bring up the Alabama boys, excuse me, the Birmingham bus boycott where, where pastors from all the, through the south and Midwest came together.

Chauncey Nelson [00:50:07] You know, we see Martin Luther King as the face behind it. But there was plenty of pastors and, and ministers, black ministers that came behind together to rally that up. And with those, so with those, those domestic carpools that they were having around the bus boycott, they literally almost shut down the transit system for the whole state of Alabama. And it takes that, it's that type of influence that the black church used to have in black communities and band together where pastors were taking people from and from like, for, from work for their regular nine to fives during the week that we don't necessarily see that type of on the ground leadership. And it goes back to, you know, what type of leader do we want to see? Do we wanna see the, the floor general that's leading the, that's leading their soldiers in the battle? Or do we wanna see the dictators from the balcony? This is demanding orders. And I, I just can't get with the latter. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:51:00] I think that, that one of the things that churches did was help people develop their leadership skills. Because within every single church, whether you're talking about, you know, St. Luke's Catholic Church in Eureka, Illinois, or the Friendly Baptist Church like that minister isn't doing things alone. Right? They may seem like they're on top and they're the ones that like, have the final say. But they got the women's group, they've got the bible study, they've got church like the Sunday school. They've got all these different, you know, the choir, all of these little hierarchies where people are meeting, they're seeing each other, they're checking in on one another. They're probably gossiping about each other, which has some social like goodness to it, right? Like if, if you are a little bit concerned about what your parishioners are gonna think of you, it might keep you a little bit more on this straight and narrow. And then you see young people getting to watch how do you actually get along with a group of people when it's not possible for you to be like, I don't like them. So, you know, I'm gonna go yell and scream in their face. 'cause you gotta see 'em next week in the week after that. And for years and years and years. 'cause you don't choose who else shows up to church and all of that. When, when church attendance starts falling away your community or mine, then you lose things that we don't even have names for because they were so deeply embedded into our culture. It goes hundreds of years, thousands of years back.

Chauncey Nelson [00:52:19] No, definitely. And so, and you know, just outside of the church, 'cause I, I want, I wanna lean back into the nonprofit piece, right? So the, the, the, the church has definitely created that, that bonding that you had to do. And I agree with you on that part. And so when we look at these, these new nonprofits, these these mega nonprofits, it's all for salary in the church. Nobody got a check. Now you got, you receive this,

Vance Crowe [00:52:43] Ah, there were some ministers that make money.

Chauncey Nelson [00:52:45] Oh, definitely. Like,

Vance Crowe [00:52:45] People make money in those situations.

Chauncey Nelson [00:52:47] No, well, well I'm, I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about the era of the civil rights movement. I remember going through a course and I was reading a book and, and Fannie Lou Ham said this outta Mississippi, right? It wasn't the fact that we got money to do this, but yeah, we would get, we would get food donations or, you know, Ms. Johnson would cook dinner for the whole congregation type deal. And the ones who were doing the work, you know, she would make sack lunches throughout the week so that that's ev that, so of course it equated to, to fi to finances. But we didn't have to come out. There was different incentives besides just here's some, here's an actual fiscal champ

Vance Crowe [00:53:23] That you walk away with. Absolutely. Right? And, and, and you weren't measuring to let's quantitatively measure how well exactly the success was. It was, Hey, did the parishioner get what they needed? And now it's, did we meet the metrics that we need in order to be able to get more grants for this

Chauncey Nelson [00:53:37] Grant? Yeah, exactly. Right. And so, and that's, and that's where I think the biggest difference came, came into play was, did we, did we make an impact? Did we solve the problem? And when we solve these problems, the incentive comes along. Right? And so that's, this is, this goes back to the saying, you know, we, I keep hearing this over and over again. You know, do what you love. You never work a day well because you're never looking at the, you're never looking at the, the financial reward that you're getting out of it. You as you keep working, you just like, you're just meeting the needs or your responsibilities and you're like, I'm able to meet my basic needs in life as well. But on that nonprofit piece, the biggest reward is how much grant money did we receive this year? You know, we're going for about three grants right now, just currently that's doing next week. And all of them was like, what's your financial report? What's your financial report? I understand where it's coming from. This is the, that's the life that we live in nowadays. But at the same time, it's, it's also like, ask me about the, ask me about the problems that we solve. Ask me about the data and the impact that we made and see and fund those guys. And I, that's what I really like to do. I like to see the small guys get a shot because the big guys have forgotten the reason why we're at the table in the first place sometimes.

Vance Crowe [00:54:48] Well, I, I see that. I mean, you know, so you, I had a chance to see the Clinton Global Initiative, right? So the way that they were dispensing money, I mean, they had hundreds of millions of dollars and they were, they, you, we could go way into that, but the biggest thing that I noticed is that they were like, we're gonna change the KPIs, the, the key performance indicators because we want them to be X and Y and Z and this is our great addition. And so people were saying, okay, but we're gonna need to have like four or five people just to spend all day long creating the reports that allow us to be able to fulfill your thing. And they're like, well, just add it into the grant and then you can add four more people, and then you've got more people you're employing. And then look at how this works. So when I heard your term, the nonprofit industrial complex, I was like, oh my God, that's, that is the name for what's going on here. There is no, you, you don't benefit by solving the problem and reducing the size of the staff. Like that's failure, right? If, if the, if a nonprofit lowers how many people are working on their staff the next year, that's not a good thing. That's not like the engineer that didn't have a job and became a deacon for a little while.

Chauncey Nelson [00:56:01] You

Vance Crowe [00:56:01] Don't want him necessarily to only be a deacon. You'd love to see him get his engineering job and move on and shrink the staff. And because it's, it's a part of a fabric as opposed to a quantitative industry.

Chauncey Nelson [00:56:13] No, definitely. Right? And that's, and that's what it, that's where we're falling back. And that's what we need to fall back into is to that space right now, what we keep seeing is, is that, that the fiscal responsibility on the nonprofits to say, Hey, here's what we, here's what we think we can hit. Here's how much we can, we can, here's how, how many problems we can solve with just this amount of money. And it was like, Hmm, okay, cool. I hear what you're saying. But at the end, at the end of the day, like, how are you justifying that? And I, and as you said it right now, you know, I'm thinking my data guy is a hundred dollars an hour, but if I don't have him, like I don't have any grins to, to go out here and deliver these services where that is, that shouldn't be the case. And that is not where, where we should be alluding to moving forward along, along with, you know, meeting, meeting the basic needs and serving the people that actually need these services, that whatever, whoever and whatever we're providing. And so when you start looking at, when you start looking at people that just are making that grant language up, my fear is, and I get this all the time, I will, I love diving into people's grant proposals. If I ever get a a my chance to look at 'em or their nine nineties, I'll jump on there and see that too. 'cause I really, 'cause the next thing is I'll read something they they applied for and I wanna call and see if they actually do this work. I wanna see like how, how far in depth can I push them to say, yes, this is what we do, this is what we allude to type deal. Or was it just a money grab? And this is where that nonprofit industrial complex really falls into play because it starts to become more of, again, I think I said this earlier, a bandaid on a bullet wound.

Chauncey Nelson [00:57:45] Let's, let's address this problem. But we are gonna say we can only effectively hit 30%. Well, based off the Department of social services, 30% means that you're effective and we're gonna fund you double next year. And not to reach 60%. But, so you can spread that arm out and saying, Hey, we saw, instead of saying, you know, we saw a thousand clients and 300 were successful, we can say we saw 2000 clients and 600 was successful. Instead of deep diving into that, that thousand clients. And so, and so that is kind of that, that complex, right? Just like any other company, we, we, we hit a certain benchmark and we open up a new store and we just continue this cycle.

Vance Crowe [00:58:26] Well, and you were saying before we turn the cameras on about like the work that you actually are doing, like the qualitative work for somebody that runs a nonprofit like yours is a kid gets in a fight at school, the school's ready to expel him, and your role is to come in and say like, all right, let's, let's figure out what's going on here.

Chauncey Nelson [00:58:44] Yeah. So, you know, it's, it's about assessing the, assessing the situation and the whole environment and not just that one problem. Right. You know, one, one, my my business partner, she says all the time is not, it's not what happened, but what happened to you. Right?

Vance Crowe [00:58:58] And

Chauncey Nelson [00:58:58] So that's one of the things I always lead into. 'cause usually by the time I've gotten a kid, they've seen the principal they got, they've seen the teacher, they've had these referrals. So the first thing I always ask them is not what did you do? Not what happened. So what happened to you? And just that by itself, you will see the tension be relieved in a young person. But in doing so, again, like I said, you know, I'm all about the quantitative stuff. You know, we have to have that piece, that data mark. I love to see that part. I love to see that, you know, our success rate is 72% compared to the national average being 30. So, but, but what I, what I care even more about is that interpersonal connection with these young people. So they actually see someone that gets it and has removed the, removed the imagery of what success has looked like because the status quo has said this is what success is supposed to be. And has more now looked at them as an individual person with their, with rights, with needs to, they need, they need to be met with a, a premise that of, of coming from a premise of understanding and not trying, not trying to label and say, okay, well here's the issue. Here's the problem. Here's how we're gonna fix it. 'cause everything is a, a unique situation. Nothing's cookie cutter. You know, I always say that's one of the best things about my job is no two days or alike, which means that I always have to go in, you know, I can't go in there with blinders. Everything, every new situation, all cards have to be back on the table because what, what work for work for Johnny is not gonna work for Billy. And until we start recognizing, and not only just in in social and emotional learning, but in the educational system, this is where we start to see kids be called failures.

Chauncey Nelson [01:00:36] You know, it's funny, I I just saw a a a quote earlier says, the A students work for the B students. The B students work for the C students. The the D students. The D students run the company and the F students are the board members. Because, you know, it's, it's about the creative mindset and creative thinking. And whenever you're able to be successful outside of what the status quo tells you success is supposed to look like and you can still do what the status quo does on top of it. You know, you're gonna go, you, you're gonna go light years past the, your common man. Yeah. There's

Vance Crowe [01:01:09] Something to be said for the, the a student being the golden child, right? They figured out how do I mimic what other people want me to do so that I can get this a and whether or not f students are on the, on the board, you know, I don't know for sure, but I know the people that weren't so focused on making the teacher happy are often way, way more creative and, and coming up with solutions to solve the problem that don't necessarily have to be with the way you've done it before.

Chauncey Nelson [01:01:37] No, definitely. You know, again, my dad was an educator and a principal for almost 40 years. And one of the things he always told me, he said, Chauncey, you know, I wasn't the best student, right? I was a good, I was a good C student, right? And so what, what my dad told me, he said, Chauncey, you know, you have, you have all the charisma in the world. And he said, you know, charisma takes you far and education takes you far too. So when you have both that you that that, that you'll succeed everybody else. And that, I think that was probably halfway through my high school years where I really start to buckle down. It wasn't the fact that you had to get the education, but it was the discipline that came along with it. And if you had that level of discipline with that charisma, and I hate to say this 'cause I'm not saying this for every a students I know some pretty charismatic A students, but, but tho the ones that are, are the people pleasers that are just trying to fit a box that may not be their authentic self are going to have, from my experience, most of 'em have lost who, their authentic self, who they are authentically and never really get that back. You know, when, because it's a, it's a practice and it's a part of your personality. And if you, if you bury it long enough, you're, you'll forget it even exists. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:02:46] Or not have the courage to be able to live it out.

Chauncey Nelson [01:02:48] Exactly.

Vance Crowe [01:02:49] So a few months ago, we had a mayoral election in St. Louis and I had the mayoral candidate, Kara Spencer on the podcast one time. She's an interesting person. She was talking about all, all the things that were going on and, and making the case for like, you know, because for people that don't know, the people in the county, like where I live don't vote for people, the mayor of of St. Louis City. But it has a huge impact, right? So you are the first person I'd ever encountered that was like, Hey, you should give Sharra Jones a a different, you know, like a chance. She's got some new ideas. So make the pitch for people that don't know anything at all about Sharra Jones, why give, give her a chance when I think a lot of people in the county were thinking Kara Spencer was the one they wanted to see win.

Chauncey Nelson [01:03:34] Well, first I have to see, in all honesty, first I have to see why people wanted to w were so eager to see Kara. So, you know, I had opportunity to meet Kara on a walk audit about a month ago. Had known some people that have worked with her. One of, one of my, one of my assistants and and partners in crime has always has was working with the progressive caucus, was with Kara as a part of, and did some consulting work for them. So I've only heard great things about Cara the Tahar play. My biggest thing is, I'm gonna go back to what I said about, you know, bringing all the cards on the table. I don't, I don't know why people canceled Sharra. Everything I had heard had been around her dad. And I hate to, I hate to hold people.

Vance Crowe [01:04:20] I don't Yeah. The sins of the father shouldn't, shouldn't go the south.

Chauncey Nelson [01:04:23] There we go. Yeah. So, so again, I I I hate, I hate to see that piece of it, right? So, you know, I had an opportunity to meet with one-on-one a couple times and, and talk to her about what her envisions were and what she saw. Everything that she was saying aligned with what it, you know, with, with what I, I I think would be a great approach around the cancel piece. Nothing that, nothing that we had seen in previous administration. Administrations not only s but slaves. I did not see care. I did not see Shar, you know, dismiss that those workings. If anything, what I saw was, was her giving more people, more people opportunities then, then just the power structures that already existed. So that's where I really was like, okay, maybe she, maybe she does get it in the light that she's willing to have open dialogue. And if you're not a part of this fraternity that already exists, then you're shut out. Right? And I say to say that I work with that fraternity on a regular as well, but everybody also knows that I'm all for like, shifting, like, not necessarily shifting, but throwing a wrench into the power struggle to see how people move when we get too comfortable in our positions. You know, a lot of times we don't, we don't start, we, we, we don't see the pushback or try to come up with new strategies and approaches to how we're going to, how we, how we're going to fix a a certain situation. You know, what work even five years ago may not work today. And so when I see someone like deShar come into play and, you know, her dialogue may make, may make, make people uneasy around whatever she's saying.

Chauncey Nelson [01:06:00] I like those type of things. I think that, I think that draws people to start thinking creatively and get the wheels turning again. Okay, well how do I approach the situation with this new, with, with potentially a new power structure in play, a new administration in play. So how, how do I shift my thinking to approach this person? And at the end of the day, well what anybody who knows that those at the top of these power structures is the play always is the same. Like, it never changes. So in doing so, how, now for me, it's going back to some of the metaphors and examples we use earlier. How do we get the bus driver who has an engineering degree to the table to give him an opportunity to see if he works with it? Right? And when you have, and when you give, again, when you're in the government regulations and they're saying, Hey, we want you to give the little guy a option or a chance, well that should be coming out. We're gonna put up the finances for you to give the little guy a chance. For me that looks like a win-win situation. So you're saying I don't have to come outta any capital, I potentially can grow my staffing out just by giving somebody who I don't know, don't trust, but are willing to build a relationship to, to make ease with the, with our local elected official. I'm okay with that. Yeah. You know, you

Vance Crowe [01:07:12] Were, I I was really just around one sphere of people and so you were the first person to be like, I don't know man, she's like trying to break up the old boys networks and like, that's gonna make some people uncomfortable and they're not gonna like that. And I was like,

Chauncey Nelson [01:07:26] You know,

Vance Crowe [01:07:27] That's true in particular, like, I've moved to a bunch of different cities and I've like tried to get involved in things and you're like, they don't want me here. You know, I'm not a part of this. And so there is something to be said for breaking that up. You, you let any one power structure around, hang around for too long, you know, then you start developing an inability for things to change at all. So I, I was just glad you brought it up and I wanted to give you a chance to, to chat about it.

Chauncey Nelson [01:07:52] No, yeah. And I think, I think that's exactly it though. You know, just, just the simple fact that more than anything, 'cause it's not, I don't think it's gonna break up anything, right? Cer certain power structures that have been in place for too long that you won't break it up. But to get people to start rethinking like, or, or start thinking differently in the, in their approaches and the ways they do things. I mean, you know, let's think about it. We just, we talked about your network, you know, your network is your network and, and ideally most people who don't have a large, an extensive network will see a cap on their network. And, and I think that when somebody comes in and can throw a wrench in the way that people think and not just, you know, hire the next one up who I know and I could trust, but give other people a shot, they may exceed the expectations that you have for the person that you want to put in place in the first, in the first place. I think that's fun and exciting. I do not like the, I like excitement. I like, I like to, I like a challenge. And I think more than anything, if there's a challenge to be done and, and you know, you have the charisma and the skillset, you're going to succeed no matter who's in power. But, you know, I don't, I don't, I never want to take the easy ride out. Always go for the underdog.

Vance Crowe [01:09:05] So Chauncey, this has been a really good conversation. If people wanted to learn more about your nonprofit and the work that you guys do or just kinda to, to find out more, where would they go?

Chauncey Nelson [01:09:15] Oh yeah. So go to K Inc. That's K with A-K-K-H-A os inc.com. Dot org. Excuse me. So they actually, social worker stands for, stands for Keep Healing and Overcoming Struggles. So we're a social and emotional learning organization. We also have a NA Inspirations, which is a private therapy company as well. So if you need psychotherapy as well, you can come in and see us on that piece as well. As well from from the community organization aspect, if you want to go to a park place, housing economic development, we are a community development corporation focused north of Delmar and right now primarily two communities, fountain Park and Lewis Place. Trying to make sure that people get their needs met and we get this, this ecosystem up and running.

Vance Crowe [01:09:59] Who would be a good person to contact that group? Like who are the types of people you want to see showing up? Ah,

Chauncey Nelson [01:10:04] Man, we wanna see, we wanna see it across the board. Like I said, the more the merrier, right? So I wanna see community organizers, activists that get it. I wanna see people that can bring in skill sets and resources. Definitely developers we're really ramping that up. You know, we just got a, we just got approval and we'll see a hundred and well 200 unit department going up on Del Delmar market rate. We're looking at a senior living facility with 52 units, one of the, with all new and, and new and interesting layout. So it is gonna be a lot of, you know, it's gonna be a, a lot of, excuse me, amenities that that focus on, you know, elderly who may have some dementia. So that's gonna be kind of fun to see of that piece. You know, we just, we, we just had an application go through with, with Rise a local nonprofit builder to put up some low income housing. So we, we wanna see some more people, some private developers come through and do some, redo some of these historical homes we have over in Fountain Park. We're also doing a, a capital, a capital contribution campaign right now to rehab that Fountain over, like I said, is 114 years old. It's a beautiful fountain. We want to get it back up and running.

Vance Crowe [01:11:17] Well man, I, I'm rooting for you and Ben was 100% right. You're like one of the most interesting conversationalists and I'm just, I'm just glad you and Ben crossed paths 'cause it seems like you guys are doing good things. Yeah,

Chauncey Nelson [01:11:30] Let, let's see. Give us a couple more years when we can knock off some of these, some of these benchmarks. But thanks man for having me.

Vance Crowe [01:11:36] Thanks Jony.

Chauncey Nelson [01:11:36] Appreciate it.