BY DESIREE STENNETT | Staff writer / The Advocate
Aaron and Psytia Jordan spent years eyeing the boarded-up building on Lake Forest Boulevard near Read Boulevard in New Orleans East before they finally bought it six years ago.
The Jordans' print shop, Universal Printing, had outgrown its space in the strip mall next door. Instead of paying the escalating rent for a larger unit in the mall, they bought and renovated the eyesore from the owner, bringing back a building that had been blighted since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the area in 2005.
"We did it because we care about the East," said Aaron Jordan, who added that the couple's 13-year-old print shop replaced services lost when Office Depot left the community after the storm. "We thought, 'Hey, that's a blighted piece of property. This will add to beautifying the area, and we provide a service to the community.’"
The Jordans are part of a growing contingent of Black residents, in New Orleans and across the nation, who are "buying back the block," or becoming property owners and revitalizing communities where they live and work. City policy experts tout such investing as key in the revival of predominately Black neighborhoods, which often struggle with devaluation, speculative investing and other barriers to economic growth.
While Black neighborhoods need big, catalytic redevelopment projects, "for every one of those, there are ten smaller projects that could be shovel-ready with much less difficulty — projects with development budgets of $100,000 to $2 million," wrote Lyneir Richardson and Tracy Allen Roh of the Brookings Institution, a think tank that focuses in part on city policy, in a July report.
In other gentrifying areas, buy the block efforts can ensure long-time residents have a say in neighborhood development, the authors said.
The Jordans want to see national investors return to the East, an area that has long struggled to attract big-box retail. But while they wait, they are taking the first steps to reimagine the once-vibrant area.
"You got to tell yourself you can do it. And you've got to take the chance,” Aaron Jordan said. “It's a risk involved. We put our money on the line."
A national movement
The Buy Back the Block movement has been popularized in recent years by rap artists such as Nipsey Hussle, Rick Ross and Jay-Z, who have urged Black residents in various lyrics to move from renting in their communities to owning residential and commercial property.
In majority-Black areas in Rochester, New York, Chicago and Baltimore, either local private investors have answered that call buy ponying up cash independently, or local governments have created incentive programs aimed at encouraging such investing.
Though city officials didn’t respond this week to questions about similar local programs, at least three aim to make it easier for long-time residents to own property in their neighborhood.
They are the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, which aimed to create more homeowners in the city’s Lower 9th Ward; the Lot Next Door, another program from that agency that lets people buy adjacent government-owned property at fair market value; and the city’s Mow To Own program, which gives residents the chance to buy nearby city-owned property after maintaining it for at least a year, for below its fair market value.
At the Mow to Own program’s launch in 2021, Mayor LaToya Cantrell, who worked to pass the local law to create it as a council member, called it “another tool to fight blight, and build transferable wealth for residents in their neighborhood.”
The city has also offered direct assistance to first-time homebuyers with lower incomes through various programs.
Combating misconceptions
Even with motivated local investors and government aid, it can be difficult to build momentum for development in Black neighborhoods forced to fight against misconceptions about crime and limited business viability, and that also struggle with low property values.
To combat some of those problems, the Jordans in 2022 launched the Greater New Orleans East Business Alliance. About 30 other small business owners have already joined. Together, they try to court major retailers and restaurant chains and work to raise the profiles of the small mom-and-pop businesses serving the East.
Aided by a federal tax break, the Jordans say taking a risk on the neighborhood they love is paying off. Years after their first renovation of the building Universal Printing calls home, the Jordans bought a portion of an empty row of offices nearby. They have renovated three of the units so far, bringing in as tenants a workers' union and a law practice, and opening an event venue.
As business at their print shop keeps growing, they are also making plans to move a portion of the operation into the new space.
'Investing in a legacy'
DJ Johnson opened Baldwin and Co. Bookstore and coffee shop on Elysian Fields Avenue in the Marigny near his childhood neighborhood in 2021. He also bought the former Gene’s PoBoys building next door at corner of Elysian Fields and St. Claude avenues, renting it to Credit Human, a credit union opened in what was once a banking desert.
The book store and the credit union are part of Johnson's vision to increase literacy and access to financial institutions for Black and other residents, giving them a fighting chance to escape poverty. He said he hopes his success inspires others to be part of the growth of their own blocks.
Johnson said he hopes to continue to invest in his neighborhood while also looking to open Baldwin and Co. locations in Black neighborhoods in other cities. When longtime residents invest, he said, that is the key to development without displacement.
"We have to reclaim ownership in communities that have long been ours," he said. "It's a stand against the erasure of our culture and history. For me, I'm not just buying real estate. ... I'm investing in a legacy and the idea that this block can be a beacon of Black excellence and resilience."
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