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ST. LOUIS — Darius Franklin’s family recently scraped together $9,000 for a new furnace. Then the house on Oakley Place needed electrical work. Franklin tries to keep up with the to-do list for the 1906 home in the West End owned by his grandfather. But sometimes the projects go beyond a trip to Home Depot and the family toolbox.

When an employee of nonprofit knocked on their door and told the family the group was giving away $20,000 neighborhood residents could use on home repairs or upgrades, it seemed too good to be true.

But Franklin’s family, several generations of whom live in the home, was assured the offer of money was real. So they applied, and became one of the 50 families in the neighborhood selected for a $20,000 grant.

“Home improvement in this program is a blessing to us,� Franklin said Thursday at an event hosted by Invest STL on the program. “Using the $20,000 to improve our home, it’s going to benefit our family in so many ways, siblings having a place to stay 20 or 30 years after my grandfather passes.�

The , funded with a donation from Wells Fargo, is the most ambitious yet from Invest STL, which was formed to connect philanthropic donors with neighborhood-focused community development projects.

In 2018, Invest STL chose the West End as one of its focus neighborhoods. Situated on the western edge of the city, the West End takes in the blocks south of Page Boulevard south to its Delmar Boulevard border that separates it from the wealthier neighborhoods just north of Forest Park.

Already, Invest STL helped residents and the neighborhood’s community development corporation, , for the West End and adjacent Visitation Park. The St. Louis Planning Commission officially adopted it June 14.

It was from those planning efforts that Invest STL staff heard from residents who were concerned they could eventually be displaced should the neighborhood redevelop, a fear not uncommon in the region’s Black neighborhoods.

The West End, just north of some of the city’s most exclusive private streets and containing the city’s portion of the Delmar Loop entertainment district, still carries the city’s infamous north-of-Delmar stigma. The fits and starts of urban reinvestment efforts are visible in the housing stock, with 1970s and 1990s-era homes on some streets while others maintain their original century-old, multistory brick masterpieces. Blocks are still dominated by vacant lots and boarded-up houses, and the median income sits at a paltry $29,000.

But residents say rehab activity seems to be picking up in the two neighborhoods where nearly 7,800 people live, including prominent city officials such as Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and Comptroller Darlene Green.

, the apartment and office complex built in the rehabbed St. Luke’s Hospital campus, recently opened. Some new people are moving in. The West End’s population actually increased in the 2020 census by 272 people, a feat in a city whose overall population is declining, particularly in north St. Louis neighborhoods. The neighborhood’s white, Asian and Latino populations grew by a combined 800 people in the last decade, while its Black population fell by nearly 700. The neighborhood was 72% Black in 2020, down from 85% Black in 2010.

“The market is on the brink of flipping,� said Michelle Witthaus of Invest STL. “We’re seeing a lot of outside investors buying up property. We know things are beginning to change in the neighborhood.�

Witthaus helped design the group’s new “Rooted� initiative to help West End and Visitation Park residents secure their place in the neighborhood by building household wealth. The $20,000 Rooted is giving to each of 50 households can be used for home repairs, real estate purchases, starting or expanding a business or opening an investment account.

Most participants plan to put the money into home repairs or upgrades.

Eligible households had to be African American, lived in the neighborhoods since at least 2016 and make below 120% of the household area median income, or about $114,000 for a family of four. After soliciting applicants throughout the neighborhood late last year, Invest STL received 175 qualifying applications and chose 50 at random.

Witthaus compared the approach to past U.S. wealth-building initiatives focused on property ownership, such as the 1862 Homestead Act and the New Deal-era Federal Housing Administration, both of which initially excluded Black households.

“It’s not that this is unprecedented,� Witthaus said. “It’s doing it in a place-based way and focusing on a Black community is what makes this innovative.�

Invest STL will help participants find contractors if they plan to put the money into home repairs. And the group will also provide estate planning services to make sure the property can be passed down to family members with a clear title. And all participants get $2,000 up front for immediate household needs such as debt payments or car repairs.

Invest STL is working with , a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, to evaluate the outcomes after three years.

“Our goal is to pilot this, prove it works, and then get other entities or government to pick up something like this,� Witthaus said. “There is a lot of appetite from funders to fund things like this now.�

There are few strings attached to the money. Participants can use some of it on their homes and invest the remainder in the markets. And Invest STL staff decided they didn’t want to be “paternalistic� by using any sort of legal mechanism, such as a lien, to require participants to stay in their homes. The requirement that participants be neighborhood residents since 2016 is intended to reduce the risk that they take the money and leave.

“When we designed this project it was really important that we did it in a way that we trust people, and we trust them to make the decision that’s best for them and their household,� Witthaus said. “But I will say in the program design what we looked at is selecting — and that’s part of the criteria — people who’ve been here long term in the neighborhood in the hopes that we’re selecting people who want to stay.�

Franklin, the Oakley Place resident, said he doesn’t see his family flipping the home to the first buyer that makes an offer.

“As good as that sounds, we entered this program to keep our home for our family,� Franklin said. “We didn’t enter this program just so we could fix it up, make it look nice and get a check. This house is more than just monetary value to us.�