Grantee Spotlight- Mission: St. Louis
Sometimes what someone needs in order to stay in the house their family has called home for generations is someone with plumbing experience or power tools and know-how that they can trust. When homeowners without resources have needs like this, Mission: St. Louis answers the call—and then some. Founded in a living room in 2006, the agency has grown over the last, nearly 17, years to serve low-income homeowners across the St. Louis region as a trusted partner in repairing and restoring more than just roofs over heads.
"We’ve developed that reputation as someone who will come in, they will do everything that they can, with everything they have,” Todd Martin, senior director of home repair with Mission: St. Louis, said.
Nurtured by word of mouth, the agency has grown to include educational as well as home repair programs, a Health Home Construction effort, case management, a jobs program, and community building initiatives. Working in parts of the St. Louis region that have been traditionally marginalized, including neighborhoods that have been plagued by residential flight and civic disinvestment, Mission: St. Louis’s staff members say they seek out “the pain point” and work with those who have stayed in their homes and neighborhoods, even when their needs have outpaced the resources available to them. That’s where Mission: St. Louis steps in as a partner.
Martin recalled one client, a woman whose home had been in her family for generations. The house had been her parents’ “pride and joy,” and it was a place she couldn’t imagine leaving, despite the fact that the house’s plumbing systems had deteriorated to the point that she had no hot water in the bathroom. She and her loved ones would heat water in their kitchen and carry buckets to the bathroom. The client had tried to address the issue on her own for years. But, like so many homeowners, she faced obstacle after obstacle in trying to make the repairs on her own.
"It’s a beautiful home,” Martin explained. “But just years and years of under-maintenance and not having the resources, of not having the ability to call reliable people to come in and do the work, took their toll. She’d been taken advantage of time and time, by people who would take money and promise the world, and then never show up.”
That changed when she contacted Mission: St. Louis. Through its home repairs programs, the agency arranged for repairs to her plumbing systems. Now she has hot water—and further repairs to her bathroom—making her beloved house a home again. And in rebuilding her home’s systems, the agency also built a lasting relationship—its ultimate goal.
"I’m not here to fix you,” Martin noted. “I’m not here to save you. I’m here to serve you. I’m really here to help identify areas of need and to connect you to resources. And that’s why we have that spirit of empathy when we’re walking in the door. The first thing we ask is, ‘What do you need?’ ‘What can I do for you?’ Rather than, ‘I’m here to do XYZ, right now.’”
Her story is just one of many that demonstrate how Mission: St. Louis is fostering community and rebuilding neighborhood foundations, pipe by pipe, person by person. With funding partners like the Marillac Mission Fund, Mission: St. Louis is able to do that, expanding its staffing and meeting critical client needs with a minimum of burden.
"My heart has always been to leverage all of our funds, across everything that I have, to maximize our impact,” Martin said. “They are so open,” he continued. “They are so available for us, and we appreciate their flexibility. They trust us to spend the dollars where they need to be spent.”