FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Growing Coalition and Policy Platform, “The People’s Plan St. Louis,” Release Wins, Update Objectives, and Invite More Public Engagement
(St. Louis, Mo.) Today, a coalition of fifty grassroots organizations shares achievements, updated objectives, and a public invitation to be involved with The People’s Plan St. Louis, a comprehensive policy agenda designed to redistribute power and resources in St. Louis City. Since launching in January 2021, partners have dedicated time and resources to shape and achieve policy change in four categories: Making STL Home, Funding Our Future, Building Inclusive Democracy, and Re-Envisioning Public Safety.
“The People’s Plan St. Louis represents a significant anchor in our region for combating harmful policies and creating sensible solutions to address the economic, health, housing, and safety needs and dreams held by residents throughout this City,” said Kayla Reed, Executive Director,
Organizer, and Co-Founder of Action St. Louis. “The City’s pattern of enabling overt and stealthy decision-makers to make choices that help the few but hurt the majority is facing a reckoning, and we are just getting started.”
Updates to The People’s Plan St. Louis are online.
Since launching three years ago, The People’s Plan identifies the following wins by coalition
partners:
Catalyzed the City to pass Right to Counsel legislation guaranteeing the civil right to counsel (RTC) for tenants facing the threat of eviction. St. Louis is the second city in Missouri to pass this and the 22nd jurisdiction in the nation to implement this.
Emptying and defunding of Workhouse jail after several years of organizing and campaigning. In June of 2021, the Medium Security Institution, also known as the Workhouse, was finally closed and funds were reallocated within the City’s budget. A city-commissioned community-based process provided a clear roadmap on what to do with the land and the funds that were used to maintain the site. The Close the Workhouse campaign is now focused on the implementation of that vision.
Defeated multiple attempts to increase surveillance technologies (a.k.a. spy planes) to monitor St. Louis residents. Recently, a coalition of residents in Gravois Park and other neighborhoods organized to pass legislation aimed at reigning in private drones to serve the same purpose.
Catalyzed the City to establish a Reparations Commission after months of advocacy. In 2022, St. Louis City’s Executive Order 75 established the first-ever Commission on Reparations “to assess the history of slavery, segregation, and other race-based harms in the City of St. Louis; explore the present-day manifestations of that history; and, ultimately, recommend a proposal to begin repairing the harms that have been inflicted and necessary for the welfare of the City of St. Louis.”
Activated the St. Louis Development Corporation to adopt an equitable development scorecard to improve transparency and incentivize community benefits like affordable housing, historic preservation, and walkability. For decades, the city’s process for issuing development incentives has lacked transparency, concentrated resources in areas of economic privilege, and fueled neglect and divestment in some of the poorest areas of St. Louis. The scorecard aims to change that.
Increased resident participation in how St. Louis spends money via processes like the Stimulus Advisory Board and the Rams Settlement Fund Public Engagement; however, the People’s Plan calls for increased levels of participatory budgeting in which residents actually get to decide collectively how their tax dollars are spent.
Organized support to pass a substantive Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) bill in St. Louis. Board Bill 185 aka the CCOPS bill promotes greater transparency, oversight, and community input in decisions about if and how the police and other city agencies use surveillance technologies. The coalition will remain vigilant with its next phase of implementation.
Additionally, coalition organizations advocated to establish the City’s Re-envision the Workhouse Committee and the People’s Redistricting Commission.
“Reflecting on the strides as well as the pushback we’ve seen, the coalition has updated our objectives and we are inviting St. Louisans to join us,” said Kristian Blackmon, Executive Director, Homes for All St. Louis.
A complete and detailed list of The People’s Plan’s revised objectives for each of the four categories is available online. A few highlights include:
Making St. Louis Home
- Provide rent relief to tenants unable to make rent payments.
- Pass and implement an Unhoused Bill of Rights to restore and expand upon rights of unhoused people living in St. Louis City.
- Fund the St. Louis City Department of Health to provide free medical services, including STI/HIV/COVID testing and vaccinations.
- Support efforts to establish the state constitutional right to safe abortion care, and expand access to reproductive healthcare.
Funding Our Future
- Require $15/hour minimum wage for all City procurements and contracts.
- Protect and promote the right to join a union in order to raise wages, improve working conditions, and create family-sustaining jobs.
- Invest in local financial support for worker coops, including revolving loan funds, loan guarantees, and grant programs for both worker cooperative businesses and technical assistance providers.
- Increase funding and programming for SLATE job training program, which currently receives no general fund allotment.
Building Inclusive Democracy
- Implement a free, low-barrier municipal photo ID card program for St. Louis City residents, regardless of immigration status.
- Protect the citizen initiative process to allow citizens to directly propose and pass legislation for issues we care about.
- Implement rules that allow people who are incarcerated in St. Louis jails to register to vote and participate in elections.
- Support the restoration of voting rights to people on probation or parole.
- Increase the accessibility of citywide voting centers and locations. Access considerations include ADA accessibility, proximity to public transit, and proximity to Black neighborhoods that face voter disenfranchisement.
Re-Envisioning Public Safety
- Adopt the recommendations of the Re-envisioning the Workhouse report, fund the Memorial Resource Hub, and make reparations to Workhouse survivors.
- Invest in non-carceral restorative and transformative justice strategies.
- Fund and implement harm reduction-based drug use interventions, including effective syringe service programs (SSPs), drug checking, and supervised safer use sites.
- Repeal all ordinances with criminal penalties related to poverty, addiction, protest, HIV status, or sex work from the municipal code.
A range of St. Louis-based organizations comprise the growing grassroots power of The People’s Plan.
The People’s Plan St. Louis invites individuals to learn more and get involved by attending the upcoming virtual training sessions on Tuesday, May 14 from 6-7pm and Wednesday, May 15 from 6-7pm. To register, visit: bit.ly/PeoplesPlan2024Events.
The People’s Plan grew out of years of findings, proposals, and visions put forward in such documents as the Ferguson Commission Report, For the Sake of All, Dismantling the Divide, Environmental Racism in STL, Close the Workhouse Reports 1.0 and 2.0, and more. Following the January 2021 launch, The People’s Plan coalition hosted teach-ins on each of the four pillars: Making STL Home, Funding Our Future, Building Inclusive Democracy, and Re-Envisioning Public Safety. These live, virtual trainings are archived on Action St. Louis’s Facebook and are accessible here. The coalition also hosted a public town hall in October 2023
to inform the 2024 platform updates.
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Updates to The People’s Plan St. Louis can be found online, along with a detailed list of resources, campaigns, and organizations driving the core tenets. To follow the conversation on social media, use #PeoplesPlanSTL.
