We Live Here

We’ve got new hosts! We know it’s a big change, but trust us, we care deeply about issues of race and class. And we want you to get to know us. In our introductory episode, members of the new team have an honest conversation on how race and class has affected their lives. Co-host and Producer Ashley Renee, a St. Louis native, dives into her first experience with racism as a child. Co-host and Prod...

Just before Thanksgiving, a housing crisis popped up in the infamous St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo. The county housing authority had stepped in to demand repairs from a property management company officials deemed substandard and even dangerous. In other words, the system was doing what it was supposed to do: ensuring residents have a safe place to live. But the property company responded by th...

We’ve spent our entire year dissecting the intersection of race and housing. Which of course has meant taking a pretty critical look at the deeply destructive patterns of segregation in St. Louis. And listening this year, you might have thought to yourself: “Sheesh! they talk a lot about the problems.” But that’s not the full picture of what’s going on right now in our region. There’s a robust con...

Hey ya’ll! It’s a been a long season. And it means so much to the WLH crew that you’ve hung with us all year as we dissect race, class and housing in one of the most segregated cities in these United States. Recently we invited about 150 of our friends over for a house party downstairs from our studios at St. Louis Public Radio. Conversations were had. New connections were made. Of course there we...

The Grove neighborhood is in a part of St. Louis that has seen an uptick in new housing and business development. The changes have been a blessing and a curse. While many in the area welcome the investments, there are concerns that rising housing costs are pushing out longtime residents. On this episode, we listen to stories of those who live, work, worship and teach in the area about how they've...

It's an open secret that the nation's housing voucher (section 8) program has its issues. And that glaringly, a program intended to give people choice often doesn't, because turns out, many landlords on the private market aren’t rushing to participate and take housing subsidies, no matter that they're backed by Uncle Sam. In St. Louis, it leads to this data point: just 7 percent of housing voucher...

The specter of Pruitt-Igoe still looms over St. Louis. The massive 1950s era public housing complex suffered under disinvestment and bad public policy. Ultimately, officials literally blew the whole thing up. Since then, the focus of public housing has shifted to the Section 8 voucher program and smaller developments. Yet, the model of large public housing complexes is still very much alive today....

Segregation is systemic. We know that. But who powers these systems? People. In this episode, we zoom in on a group that holds immense power in guiding where people choose to live and raise families. Today’s show is about real estate agents. And what happens when some try to make amends for their industry’s past transgressions by focusing on a single St. Louis neighborhood.

Rosetta Watson has won her fight against the city of Maplewood, Mo., which kicked her out of town after she generated too many calls to police while dealing with an abusive ex-boyfriend. Now what? We catch up with her, give her case some national context and chart out what may come next for the people challenging these nuisance and crime free laws.

We’re interrupting our normal storytelling podcast schedule for...some breaking news. Earlier this season we brought you the story of Rosetta Watson, a woman suing in federal court after she says she was kicked out of Maplewood, Mo. for calling police too many times for protection from an abusive ex-boyfriend. Two days ago we got a tip that Maplewood had settled with Ms. Watson, who is set to rece...

J.D. and Ethel Shelley wanted a better home for their children. They were crammed into a small apartment in downtown St. Louis, but had saved enough money to buy a nice, two apartment building in a quiet neighborhood in north St. Louis called the Greater Ville. However, racially restrictive covenants barred the Shelleys, who were black, from owning the home. So in 1945 a white realtor bought the h...

The Missouri Supreme Court has ruled on a case we highlighted at the beginning of our season. That of Latasha Johnson, whose eviction case made it to the state's highest court because of it's importance to tenants rights.. And the ruling, issued in a holiday news dump, does indeed change some things. Short story: The court ruled for Johnson's landlord. But it also laid out some really important ne...

Eltoreon Hawkins always thought he would be a cop. That's how he wanted to serve his community. But he quickly became disillusioned with the criminal justice system he wanted to see reformed. So he's turned his efforts closer to home. specifically, to real estate. And what started out as a plan to secure a future for himself and his family has turned into a mission for this 20-something: taking ba...

Hear a group of St. Louisans tell their stories on stage as part of our annual “I Live Here” event. This summer’s theme was “Homes and the stories they hold.” This week’s episode was made possible with the help of the Second Tuesdays story organization and local music producer Trifeckta. Visit welivehere.show to hear the full, raw audio of the event and additional storytellers!

Today’s show is all about the g-word: Gentrification. Which we often think of as happening in urban centers. But for generations there’s been a slow turnover as cities expanded into the suburbs and rural areas. That’s the backstory of Brentwood Promenade, a relatively affluent mall about 15 minutes outside of city of St. Louis. For 90 years it was home to middle-class African American families cen...

Spend time in St. Louis’ wealthy, old neighborhoods and you might notice something unusual. Amid all the splendor of ornate craftsmanship and tree-lined streets you’ll often happen across thick, wrought iron gates. In fact the city helped put gated communities on the map in America. The developers of these early streets also crafted racial restrictive covenants, which would spread to suburbs in St...

A lot of people moan and groan about segregation as if it's a plight that magically fell out the sky. But that would be letting a lot of powerful people, policies an institutions of the hook. Because the truth is, America is segregated because it was designed to be, via a series of purposeful policies and government actions implemented in the past several decades. In this episode, hear Richard Rot...

In a country where fair and affordable housing is becoming harder to hold onto each year, we profile the people who are standing in the gap: the lawyers. And we introduce you to Lee Camp, a young St. Louis attorney who stumbled upon a case that could level the playing field between tenants and landlords in Missouri — and his client Latasha Johnson, whose eviction story sits at the center.

Last episode, you heard about serious allegations against officials in Maplewood, Mo. Housing advocates say public nuisance laws in the leafy suburb of St. Louis are being used against the poor, people of color and victims of domestic abuse. But in this episode, town officials push back and say there’s nothing wrong with the way they determine who is and isn’t a nuisance in their town. We also hea...

Maplewood, Missouri. is a cozy little suburb at the border of St. Louis City. It has great schools, a cute downtown and one of the region’s most celebrated breweries. But in the background, some housing advocates say the town’s officials are turning public nuisance laws against people of color, the mentally ill and victims of domestic abuse. In the first of a two-part episode, hosts Tim and Kameel...

Tim and Kameel give you a preview of what is coming in show’s fourth season, with an extra emphasis on the LIVE HERE part of We Live Here.

Tim and Kameel are working hard to make shows for the next season, but don’t worry dear listeners, because it’s bonus episode time! We’re taking you allllll the way back to a little more than a year ago when we brought you an episode called “Black Girl Magic.” Some of you diehards probably remember it, if not, scroll back in our feed and check it out. The episode is all about a big effort among bu...

It almost seemed like a too-good-to-be-true Black History Month gift: the unveiling of the super-cool official portrait of former president Barack Obama. This distinct image of Obama, which is unlike any other presidential portrait, immediately caused a cultural and artistic buzz. Even better for us, it happened to be by the mesmerizing Kehinde Wiley, an artist we had on the podcast in 2016 follow...

We miss you guys! We’re hard at work getting shows ready for our fourth season, but we don’t want to leave you hanging. So, we’re dropping a little bonus content. Last year we collaborated with the very cool producers at Baltimore’s Out of the Blocks podcast and brought you voices from the Ville, a historic black neighborhood in north St. Louis. This is the second show from that podcast mashup wit...

Jesus is back! Our favorite black spiritual adviser returns to judge our third season. Hear highlights from the episodes he liked, and the ones he didn’t.