St. LOUIS — A $316,000 grant will help Legal Services of Eastern Missouri expand its Neighborhood Vacancy Initiative.
The two-year grant, from Washington-based Legal Services Corp., will fund a new paralegal, who has already started, and a new staff attorney who begins work next month at the nonprofit legal clinic. Those positions will support pro bono efforts from private law firms in four neighborhoods: the West End, Academy/Sherman Park, Old North St. Louis and Hyde Park.
Four law firms with large St. Louis offices are participating: Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, Husch Blackwell, Stinson and Thompson Coburn.
“Fractured land titles, unreleased mortgages, liens – all of these result in a blight that requires legal assistance before anyone can even think about getting a house fixed up,†said Peter Hoffman, who has led Legal Services of Eastern Missouri’s vacancy initiative since last year.
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Hoffman led similar efforts in Kansas City that assisted property owners with title issues and helped neighborhoods deal with nuisance property. His position was initially funded with a grant from St. Louis’s economic development arm and the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis.
Also this year, Matt Ampleman began working on the neighborhood vacancy project through a fellowship from New York-based nonprofit Justice Catalyst.
The vacancy efforts have been a signature priority for St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson’s administration, which has collaborated with various groups on its efforts. In the fiscal 2020 budget, aldermen put $4.2 million toward building demolition, up from $3.6 million last year and just a few hundred thousand dollars before that.