The Kansas City Star from Kansas City, Missouri • 115

Health Sciencepage J-5 ion Op T1 SUNDAY October 6 1991 Section THE KANSAS CITY STAR Kansas neighborhoods need to thrive Urban spirit hard to find I but it will take some nurturing By YAELT ABOUHALKAH Of the Editorial Staff Cathy Wagner executive director of Old Northeast enthusiastically backs a model block rebate program that has succeeded in reviving parts of that area Money is available to people who live in the neighborhoods of Pendleton Heights Scarritt Renaissance Lykins and Independence Plaza A rebate of up to $3000 is available to homeowners who make exterior improvements such as painting or reshingling There are no income guidelines and a solid majority of people who live on the block hav: to agree to participate The rebate is 1 for every $2 spent pulls people Wagner said really is a rejuvenation in the real sense of the She added that once exterior work is finished many homeowners spend more to refinish their interiors Some of the blocks improved through a past rebate program look markedly different from how they did three or four years ago The rebate program recently renewed at City Hall works Jim White is program director of Kansas branch of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation a privately supported group that invests in housing around the nation Local corporations and foundations such as Hallmark Payiess Cashways Kansas City Southern and a handful of banks give money to match funds from the national group So far the LISC-created National Equity Fund has concentrated on building apartments and townhomes in Kansas City Completed or planned projects include 80 units at Justin Place 20 at Linwood Apartments 48 at Nottingham 1 1 7 at Martin Luther King Village in the old King Hospital and 96 near the 1 8th and Vine renovation work supported by city tax money Other National Equity Fund money has gone to local Community Development Centers in a so-called Take Part program Housing is rebuilt to improve older neighborhoods scattered around the city not easy to piece together the complicated financing and government subsidies needed to make these programs succeed Work on Martin Luther King Village for instance has been hung up for months as paperwork is completed at the local and federal levels That in turn has slowed completion of giving important National Equity Fund money to get Basie Court going near 1 8th and Vine Now a new program known as the National Community Development Initiative is beginning it was created by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation This project will emphasize the rebuilding of houses most important thing for stable neighborhoods is retaining single-family home ownership" White said Over near 35th and Indiana Alex Harris is putting a little money and a lot of sweat into rebuilding some of those needed houses One that he proudly showed offhad a new deck ceiling fans in most rooms a decent looking kitchen and in a few days was going to get some new carpet The house was being offered for around $40000 more important Harris said it had been appraised higher than that A bank loan for a buyer would not be such a great problem market is Harris said got all the bad elements around he said mentioning crime first got all the good elements he added mentioning the $32 See YOUNG J-4 Col 1 It takes a lot of hard work to reclaim and just maintain older Kansas City neighborhoods Fight the crime Battle the drug houses Keep up the home and yard Pay high taxes for public schools It is easier for many people to simply leave Overland Park Lee's Summit Parkville and other suburban beckon Try to leave the racial problems and fear and a shrinking tax base behind Hello shopping malls Yet spend a few weeks looking for the urban spirit in Kansas City and it's not difficult to find The desire to live in strong old houses close by honest-to-goodness neighbors is definitely alive in Kansas City Look at Santa Fe Quality Hill Hyde Park Westport Union Hill Quality Heights Westside Waldo Washington Wheatley Columbus Park Volker Valentine East Meyer Blue Hills Some areas contain almost all black residents others are almost all-white Still others are evolving toward economic and racial integration Oh yes the urban pioneer flame is flickering badly in some of these places But for Kansas City to survive economically and spiritually a good majority of these and other neighborhoods have to thrive in the next few decades Take a look at life in the urban core neighborhoods basically south of the river and north of 85th Street and examine three topics: the past the present and the possible futures of these neighborhoods make the history lesson brief and simplistic covering the last three decades Generally public schools got the cold shoulder from taxpayers and went downhill Much of the white middle class left Houses deteriorated along with some infrastructure The black middle class started to leave Crime increased and fear of being its victim intensified Housing values sank and bank loans east of Troost got scarcer Low-income housing concentrated in pockets of the city problems rippled outward into nearby neighborhoods Specifically look at the Westport area The blight there is appalling considering the hopes of just five years ago Plans for two large apartment complexes fell through leading to vacant houses and empty land Home ownership declined as speculators bought houses Consider Brookside where recent crime sprees have helped prompt people to plop signs in their yards still part of the golden ghetto with much potential for stability But these people want to feel safe in their own homes If they so long Kansas City An encouraging number of people are trying to save and rebuild core neighborhoods They are involved for lots of different reasons from wanting to make a buck to wanting to make a difference (sometimes the two coincide) Not suiprisingly their ideas on how to save Kansas City neighborhoods can differ plenty of room for divergence of opinion and the number of solutions that can be used to combat dying neighborhoods Colleen Hernandez executive director of the Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance is among the most impressive of these people She works tirelessly for the cause She knows the ins and outs 1991 Catherine Kenner make home ownership classes work Essentially people are being trained in various matters from how to manage money to how to approach a bank for a loan Of 250 people trained recently around 35 are still pursuing a house The key Hernandez says is attracting persons really serious about owning homes for $300 and $400 a month rather than paying that much just to rent Another idea Hernandez says is to spend a few thousand dollars buying homes in relatively decent areas gut them bring in an architect and using a 3-D computer image on a video screen get potential homeowners excited about owning a home spending money and designing their own interior of government loan programs while also maintaining close ties to a network of neighborhood leaders on the front lines Hernandez says she has become convinced that putting up a nice house or two on a city block make much difference us to rebuild property values and bring up property values we do concentrated Hernandez says Targeting neighborhoods can work as the houses in Quality Heights near 25th and Woodland show More than three years after completion the houses are considered fully occupied by rent-paying tenants Now the Neighborhood Alliance is trying to When will Major make his move? Missouri is failing in its obligation to children By LAURA SCOTT Of the Editorial Staff cold As Mr Bush himself knows all too well elections are settled on the unglamorous issues of inflation employment education welfare and the percentage If as many people feel good as felt good in the last election the incumbent administration stays If they it goes In Britain the percentage has slipped Inflation is under control but unemployment is up House prices are down which is fine for first-time buyers but a pain for existing owners Education is absorbing colossal sums but too many kids are semi-literate Health outspends defense but waiting lists for surgery remain long Offering to solve these headaches is the Labor Party For eight years the Labor leader Neil Kinnock has struggled first against Thatcher and now against Major to present his left-wing army as a born-again alternative capable of forming a moderate government He believes that See LABOR J-4 Col 6 Major is prime minister only because the Conservatives led by Margaret Thatcher won the election It was her third straight victory but when a significant number of Conservatives doubted her ability to win a fourth she was impolitely dropped overboard Major inherited her job for one reason and one reason only: to secure that fourth Conservative majority in the House of Commons It is by no means certain that he can do it If elections were decided on the basis of foreign policy he would be home and dry The Gulf War the plight of the Kurds the weekend at Kennebunkport the Group of Seven conference the flight to Moscow when the barricades were still in place the blunt talking to the old men of China on human rights the veto on sending troops into the Balkan quagmire of Yugoslavia all combine to provide an image of Major as a political Clark Kent encircling the globe with Superman-nish energy Trouble is it leaves voters at home By BRIAN DUNNING Spatial Correspondent Try to imagine George Bush picking the date for the presidential election Instead of November next year he could opt for November this year Or maybe January Or possibly March Or perhaps June The decision is his Under the Constitution only the president makes the choice Crazy? Perhaps it would be in the United States But the way governments are chosen in Great Britain where general elections are movable feasts just so long as they take place within the five-year life of a parliament Right now nobody knows whether Prime Minister John Major will make a sudden dash this month next month or wait until the very last minute in June Almost certainly he does not know for sure either Winston Churchill said calling an election was like falling in love: You plan it until it happens People who advocate for children should give out an award for irresponsibility in child care regulation and make it a three-way tie It is difficult to say who has behaved the most irresponsibly in the Missouri fiasco over divvying up the new federal child care dollars the state legislature the Division of Family services under Gov John Ashcroft or the federal government A personal choice for the award is the state legislature which has refused for years to pass a law which requires day care centers operating in churches and synagogues to be licensed and to have to meet minimum health and safety regulations and staff-child ratios But it is clear that no matter where the greatest fault lies the ones who will suffer from this attitude are children And yet they are the one constituency group for which all these governments should be doing their best Blocked at the schoolhouse door The controversy over the federal dollars comes about because the state is seeking to spend part of its share of federal dollars to encourage child care which is potentially unsafe or unhealthy The state through the Division of Family Services has filed an application with Health and Human Services in Washington which would allow the federal dollars to be used for both state-licensed and unlicensed centers Under plan unlicensed providers who care for 10 or more children would have to file immunization information with the Health Department and document that they meet local fire codes Unfortunately in many areas of Missouri there are no fire codes And in those areas there would be no effective regulation The state proposes to leave it to parents Most parents do not have the knowledge to play fire marshal And under the proposal unlicensed providers of nine or fewer children get off with no regulation Anyway what good does it do to require a provider to have a smoke detector if there enough adults to get the children out of the church basement when a fire strikes? The state proposes to let these unlicensed unchecked centers get the same amount of money as those which are regulated It is patently unfair Centers which must or which voluntarily do meet state licensing requirements have additional expenses of bringing their buildings up to code The state plan discriminates against the wrong people the ones who comply with the rules State licensure ensure perfection just that there are standards and someone is checking But attempts to regulate church centers have been beaten back almost annually in the General Assembly A compromise last year was killed at the request of the office It seems to be more See CHOICE J-4 Col 6 USDA to start changing the regulations soon after the bill becomes law The farm measure passed the House July 3 1 and the whole matter now sits at the Senate Agriculture Committee with a strong possibility that the issue will be resolved in a House-Senate conference on the bill Like Pizza Hut Glickman argues there would be no health risk in changing the rules since the meat on pizza has already been inspected twice when the meat was slaughtered then when it was processed need a meat inspector at every Pizza Hut in the he says The firm says it would cost $5 million for federal inspection of 1 000 Pizza Huts Pizza Hut whose 7000-plus outlets had sales of over $4 billion last year already sells non-meat pizzas in several thousand schools nationwide These pizzas subject to federal meat regulation because less than two percent cooked meat (all cheese or token See J-4 Col 4 Wichita in its efforts to get in the schoolhouse door The issue has pitted the fresh pizza industry against the frozen pizza industry and has involved some major Capitol Hill players the Bush administration and various high-powered lobbyists and lawyers the story so far: Pizza Hut wants to sell its fresh-made meat-topped pizzas in schools as part of school lunch programs The USDA says no The reason: Any meat-topped pizza (like pepperoni) will have to be federally inspected since a meat product being sold to the school for resale Pizza Hut went to Glickman who sits on the House Agriculture Committee and is a major player on farm bills Glickman slipped the so-called Pizza Hut amendment into a bill making technical corrections to the 1 990 farm bill The amendment permits USDA to exempt from further inspection meat-topped pizza so long as the meat has already been inspected It then directs Pizza Hut is trying to get in the lunch program By JAMES WORSHAM Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON When Boris Yeltsin and his band of anti-communists were holed up in the Russian parliament building during the recent coup attempt in Moscow they were sustained by vittles from the local Pizza Hut About 300 pizzas made it through the tanks These days however Pizza Hut the Wichita-based tomato sauce and mozzarella colossus is having a much more difficult time trying to get some of its products into American schools and to enjoy a piece of the big 1 6 billion school lunch industry Blocked by the US Department of Agriculture Pizza Hut has now gone to Congress for help and has enlisted Democratic Rep Dan Glickman of I A 1991 Richard MHhoHand.