Super Abundant Neighborhoods

Regeneration on Kansas City’s Eastside

Affordable housing remains one of the greatest determinants of personal, familial, and community health because it directly affects one’s means to care for self and family.

The United States federal policy of “redlining” majority low-income, Black neighborhoods as ‘risky’ for mortgage and insurance lenders kept Black Americans in the 20th century from building wealth via homeownership while inequitable land use policy destroyed or contaminated housing stock in Black and Brown neighborhoods.

As a result, Black Americans are projected to have a net negative or zero wealth valuation by the year 2050 without intervention to create 50,000-55,000 quality jobs within said community and/or bolster Black homeownership as a means for generational wealth transfer, self-determination, and community equity.

Our panel of poised practitioners will share their innovative, entrepreneurial approaches to creating attainable, sustainable structures and homes from vantage points of the environment and economics–all while working alongside the surrounding community to imbue it with opportunities to build generational wealth, a sense of belonging, and community equity.

04.25.24 | 11:30am-1:00pm

11:30am | Registration
12:00pm | Presentation
Lunch Provided

2000 Vine
2000 Vine Street
Kansas City, MO 64108
United States

$18 + fees in advance | $25 at door

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About

Pat Jordan

President, GEM Cultural and Educational Center

Pat Jordan, President of Pat Jordan & Associates, Inc., is a specialist in community development. Ms. Jordan spearheaded the renovation of the Gem Theater in the Historic 18th & Vine Jazz District. She first served as a development consultant for Jeffrey Smith Development Company for the first KCMO School District adaptive reuse project transforming the D.A. Holmes School into Senior Housing. She also served as project manager for the Morningstar Youth & Family Life Center and project consultant on the 40-unit Morningstar Senior Housing development. Ms. Jordan has served on numerous civic and community organization boards and initiatives. She currently serves as President of the Board of Directors for the Town House Community Development Corporation in Kansas City, KS. Town House CDC just completed a $40M renovation of a 130-unit Senior Housing project in downtown Kansas City, KS. She also serves as President of the Gem Cultural and Educational Center which has produced performing arts shows and visual arts exhibitions. The non-profit owns the Vine Street Studio and recently pivoted into media production and a new STEAM project. Ms. Jordan was previously appointed Co-Chair of Mayor Sly James' Task Force for the Arts. She is a recipient of the Downtown Kansas City, KS Shareholders Award; the Kansas City, Missouri Economic Development Corporation Cornerstone Award and the coveted Missouri Arts Council Leadership Award. She is also a past Commissioner for the Missouri Housing Development Commission and currently works on several community development projects in Kansas City’s urban core.

Ajia Morris

Founder, LocalCode Kansas City; LADD School Development

Ajia Morris, Founder of both The Greenline Initiative and LocalCode Kansas City, Ajia Morris is creating vehicles that increase generational wealth in historically excluded communities through redistributing ownership. Through her businesses, Ajia is responsible for turning low to moderate income renters into homeowners, as well as creating opportunities for low to moderate income community members to invest in commercial real estate development. Ajia has created meaningful wealth generating vehicles for low to moderate income families across two touchpoints: through nontraditional financing of residential real estate development and creation of a marketplace where the same community can easily invest in commercial development projects. The activation of these long vacant properties is revitalizing blighted neighborhoods on the Eastside of Kansas City, Missouri.

Godfrey Riddle

Founder and President, Civic Saint

Godfrey Riddle, artist and serial social entrepreneur, is driven to create inspiring communities where people reach their full potential. Godfrey founded Civic Saint in October 2020 as a protest brand offering affirming apparel and accessories to advance social justice through donations to advocate organizations. Today, informed by his life as a gay, Black man and cancer survivor whose late parents struggled with homeownership, Civic Saint pioneered a process to sustainably produce artful, affordable homes and adaptive communities for revitalization and wealth creation in redlined areas. Its business model prioritizes the environment while eliminating the racial wealth gap through job creation, homeownership, and their ambient economic impacts. His degrees in architecture and city management allowed him to see a need for sustainable, affordable housing but delivered with resilience and beauty to offset the legacy of low-quality investment in Black neighborhoods. Godfrey is an Ambassador for American Cancer Society and Board Member of BlaqOut which works to improve healthcare access and social outcomes for Black queer people in Kansas City. Past honors include 2023 National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Main Pitch Winner and Inaugural Communities of Color Pitch Winner, 2023 ACE Champion of Diversity Award, and INK Magazine “30 under 30”.

Doris Sung

Co-founder, TBM Designs/InVert™ Shades

Doris Sung, brings active systems to sustainable design far beyond the simple "greening" of a building. With the belief that buildings can be more sensitive to the changing environment like human skin, she seeks ways to make the building skin dynamic and responsive. Through grant-funded research, she is developing smart materials, such as thermobimetals, to self-ventilate, self-shade, self-structure, self-assemble and self-propel in response to changes in temperatures--all with zero-energy and no controls. More recently, she is rethinking the liminal surface of the façade as a part of a city’s infrastructure and designing innovative building products that will improve public health for pedestrians. Juggling between research and teaching at the University of Southern California, Doris publishes, lectures and exhibits, internationally while managing to bring her patented inventions to the market. Her TED.com talk has reached 1.3 million views and her list of awards include a Time Magazine Best Invention Award, a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, National AIA Small Projects Award, ‘Architect Magazine’ R+D awards, World Technology Award and the [next idea] award from ARS Electronica. She has been named a fellow of Google’s R+D for the Built Environment, the U.S. Artist, the Rockefeller Foundation (Bellagio Center) and the Headlands Center for the Arts. Doris received her M.Arch. degree from Columbia University and her B.A. degree from Princeton University.