Research in Action is partnering with the West Side Community Organization (WSCO) to work with impacted community members to bring the historical displacement of the West Side Flats community into public memory and build collective strategy to prevent further displacement from the neighborhood.
West Side Community Organization
Partners
West Side Community Organization
WSCO organizes the people of St. Paul's West Side to build collective power and advance justice and racial equity. Founded over 50 years ago, WSCO is a center of neighborhood organizing and serves as the planning council for Saint Paul District 3. Learn more about them here.
Problem
Between 1961 and 1963, the City of St. Paul and the St. Paul Port Authority displaced over 2,000 residents of the West Side Flats community to build an industrial park on the Mississippi River. The institutions who were responsible for, and benefited from the displacing this community have failed to acknowledge the harm they caused. Over 60 years have passed since the displacement, and now the old West Side Flats are being redeveloped back into housing and commercial uses, indicating that the neighborhood may gentrify and displace vulnerable residents from the neighborhood. In 2022, WSCO conducted a series of historical interviews with residents displaced from the West Side Flats. After conducting the interviews, WSCO partnered with RIA to lead additional research with the community about the West Side Flats displacement to build collective strategy for repairing past harms and sustaining the future of the neighborhood.
Process
RIA and WSCO formed an advisory council made up of descendants of the West Side Flats displacement, present-day West Siders, and stakeholders from organizations that are responsible for the West Side Flats displacement. The West Side Community Advisory Council (WSAC) will leverage its collective influence to interrupt the cycle of displacement in the West Side community.
So far, we have:
Met over several months to identify key priorities for redress for the Flats displacement and policy recommendations to prevent present-day displacement from the West Side
Hosted four community events, including inviting elected from the city, county and state level to collaboratively discuss the implementation of the community created recommendations, to hear stories of past and present-day displacement, examine data that maps the historic displacement, and gentrification status of the West Side while collaborating on recommendations for redress and preventing further displacement and housing insecurity on the West Side.
Solutions
Through our research, RIA and WSCO have identified actionable recommendations, including:
Acknowledgement and Memorialization for the history of the West Side Flats and the displaced families of the West Side Flats
Economic Remedies to families displaced from the West Side Flats and Economic Justice for the entire West Side community
Anti-displacement Organizing to advance affordability and prevent displacement from the West Side
Neighborhood Belonging for historically displaced families, their descendants, and current residents on the West Side
Environmental Justice on the West Side for hazards and contamination caused by industrial development