Race and Equity in Green Infrastructure

Government Alliance on Race and Equity

Through the generous support of the Southeast Sustainability Director’s Network, CEJ and Volusia County had the opportunity to invite Race Forward and the Government Alliance on Race and Equity to provide equity training for local agencies and help local Volusia County and the City of DeLand undertake a systems change approach to the provision of services and land planning.

On January 22, 2020 government employees from Volusia County and the City of DeLand gathered at the Chisholm Center in Spring Hill to explore race, equity, and community resiliency. Through a series of panels, videos, lectures, and group exercises, this event:

• Develop a shared understanding of foundational concepts surrounding racial equity
  including definitions of key terminology

• Increase skills analyzing policies, practices, and procedures from a racial equity
  perspective and communicating about race

• Develop a shared understanding of how to apply racial equity concepts to resilience
  and environmental equity, highlight youth leadership, and discuss the benefits of
  Green Infrastructure in addressing stormwater pollution and flooding

The workshop was facilitated by Juan Serrano, Race Forward GARE Gulf/Delta Region Manager, Shawna Davie, GARE South and East Regional Project Manager, and Leah Obias, Race Forward’s Director of Policy and Strategy. In addition to County and City employees, the workshop was also attended by Bob Apgar, the Mayor of DeLand and Barbara Girtman. the District 1 Representative on the Volusia County Council.

Council Woman Barbara Girtman

DeLand Mayor Bob Apgar

Margaret Stewart opening the Workshop

Throughout the day, the GARE facilitators led the group in exercises including Operationalizing Racial Equity, Communicating About Race, and Putting Ideas Into Action. The morning started with an introduction by CEJ’s Director, Margaret Stewart who welcomed Mayor Apgar.

Shilretha Dixon and Katrina Locke

Next, Shilretha Dixon, Director of the Spring Hill Resource Center and Katrine Locke, Volusia County Sustainability and Resources Director provided the attendees with an overview of the project and what brought everyone together for this important gathering.

Althea Chavers and Megan Martin

At lunch, everyone was able to hear about the developments at the Spring Hill Boys and Girls Club from its Director, Ms. Althea Chavers and Megan Martin, Volusia County Be Floridian Now and Resilience Outreach Coordinator .

After lunch, CEJ’s Director Stewart, Katrina Locke, and Leah Obias sat for a panel discussion about Race, Resiliency, and Green Infrastructure to discuss the importance of incorporating these lessons into projects like the Community Resiliency Through Green Infrastructure project.

Margaret Stewart discussing the importance of working with and not for the community

Panel Discussion on Race, Resilience, and Green Infrastructure

GARE’s strategies include organizing a membership network of jurisdictions that are working to advance racial equity; expanding pathways for new jurisdictions to begin doing racial equity work via work with individual jurisdictions; and supporting and building local and regional collaborations that are broadly inclusive and focused on achieving racial equity. The GARE team provided and very informative and engaging space to learn and grow.

GARE Team closing the Workshop

GI/BMP Training at the Spring Hill Resource Center!

Community members attending the online GI/BMP training at the Spring Hill Resource Center.

On October 19, 2019, CEJ was at the Spring Hill Resource Center in DeLand, Florida with our partners at Volusia County and the City of DeLand providing Green Industries Best Management Practices with training to community members.

The GI-BMPs are a science-based educational program for Green Industry workers, provided by UF-IFAS Florida Friendly Landscaping program. The GI-BMPs teach environmentally safe landscaping practices that help conserve and protect Florida’s ground and surface waters.

The GI-BMPs teach environmentally safe landscaping practices that help conserve and protect Florida’s ground and surface waters. They can also save the Florida homeowner money, time, and effort; increase the beauty of the home landscape; and protect the health of your family, pets, and the environment.

This training is designed to provide corporate, governmental, environmental, and other personnel the Best Management Practices for lawn and landscape. This training is provided by UF-IFAS Florida-Friendly Landscaping program with partial funding by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection through a Nonpoint Source Management (Section 319h) grant from United State Environmental Protection Agency.

Thanks to the Southeast Sustainability Director's Network and the Kresge Foundation for their generous support that allows us to offer this practical and important training.

Green Infrastructure Apprenticeship Accepting Applications!

Barry University School of Law’s Center for Earth Jurisprudence (CEJ) is seeking to hire a Green Infrastructure Apprentice for a community resilience program within the Spring Hill community of DeLand, Florida. The apprentice must be from the Spring Hill community (originally or current permanent resident of the area).  This is a part-time temporary position for a community member working up to 15 hours per week during the Fall of 2019.  The ideal apprentice is an individual who is interested in pursuing a career in landscaping, community green space (Green Infrastructure) and/or community resilience.  The purpose of this position is to prepare the apprentice for a career that will support community resiliency.

CEJ is the only Center within a U.S. law school dedicated to advancing laws, policy, and governance designed to protect the natural systems, species, and entities that sustain life on Earth through the use of Earth Law principles. Our work is based upon the concept that humanity has a basic responsibility to care for and protect the long-term health and well-being of Earth, meaning all beings and ecosystems that constitute the natural world, recognizing that humanity is an integral and interdependent part of nature. Earth Jurisprudence is an emerging field of law that encompasses both environmental ethics and legal practice.

Essential Duties

·       Assist a local landscaping company or environmental consulting firm with community plantings.

·       Plant trees and other vegetation; and carry and use landscaping equipment (including, but not limited to augers, water hoses and pruning devices).

·       Assist with additional Center for Earth Jurisprudence duties as assigned, including social media outreach and website as well as administrative duties, such as preparing documents and maintaining records.

Qualifications/Requirements

·       High school diploma.

·       Less than one year of applicable experience.

·       The successful candidate must be a member of the Spring Hill Community in Deland, Florida

·       This position is predominantly outdoors and the preferred applicant must be able to carry and lift 10 pound items as well as kneel, bend, sit and stand for extended periods of time.

·       The successful candidate must be comfortable working in a collaborative, multi-faceted organization, must have excellent organizational skills, be a self-starter, detail oriented, and have a proven ability to work independently as well as with a team.

For more information, please visit Barry University Employment.

T.U.R.N. Festival: Celebrating What’s Good in Spring Hill

The following article was originally published in the The West Volusia Beacon on September 23, 2019. Through generous funding from the Southeast Sustainability Director’s Network and Kresge Foundation, CEJ was able to work with Volusia County and the City of DeLand to help fund the job fair at this year’s 17th Annual T.U.R.N. Festival in Spring Hill.

“A New Horizon on the Hill” was this year’s theme for the 17th annual TURN Festival and Job Fair in DeLand’s Spring Hill neighborhood Sept. 14.

Entertaining the Crowd: Singer Nfrwi Hall belts out some soulful notes on stage, in front of a crowd at the TURN Festival. The festival featured a number of entertainers, including a “So You Thing You’ve Got Talent” segment in which attendees could show off their talents for the chance to win a Visa gift card. Beacon Photos/Marsha McLaighlin

The festival’s name stands for “to unite, rebuild and network.”

This year’s expansion of the event allowed for the community to unite, taste a variety of great food, be entertained by local talent, meet inspiring authors, learn of the work of community organizations, and honor those who enhance the lives of others every day with their selfless efforts.

“Every year, I look forward to the opportunity to share music with the Spring Hill community,” singer Neferwi Hall said. “The TURN Festival brings together the residents of DeLand, and neighboring Volusians, with delicious food, live musical performances, and fun activities for all ages. It’s a family affair full of friendship and fellowship.”

Exceptional Community Partner Awards and Good Neighbors Awards were presented to several individuals and organizations.

These awards showcased those who continue to celebrate and support the community.

A large number of service organizations were present to help and to provide the community with information about healthy living.

Lots of Vendors: A variety of community service organizations and local businesses had tent set up at the festival, offering services from mentoring to health screening. Beacon Photo/Marsha McLaughlin.

Shilretha Dixon, executive director of the Spring Hill Resource Center, and her team, worked tirelessly to enhance the opportunities presented at this year’s festival. This included the well-organized job fair that attracted a large number of individuals seeking employment.

“This was my second year attending the TURN Festival, and I was very happy to see how many people came out and supported the event. I spent most of my afternoon as a featured author in the literacy corner, but I also enjoyed talking with a few attendees that came for the job fair, which was an awesome addition to the festival,” DeLandite Ann-Marie Cornwall-Garden said.

She added, “The more we continue to bridge the gap between the residents and resources, the more we will build as a community.”

With the new Spring Hill Resource Center being built in Spring Hill, expect bigger and better in the years to come. To be involved or learn more, call 386-740-0808.

— Cameron, a longtime educator, lives in Orange City. Send email to cameronchronicleslive@gmail.com.

Learning Made Fun at the Boys and Girls Club!

Boys and Girls Club students walking the DeLeon Springs paths.

As part of the Community Resiliency Through Green Infrastructure project within the Spring Hill Community, the CEJ spent the summer working with the Lacey Family/Spring Hill Chapter of the Boys and Girls Club.  Club directors Althea Ross Chavers and James Gunter have helped CEJ and project partners from the Green Volusia Program develop a relationship with club youth.  During the summer, we conducted programs once a week at the club to teach the students about community resiliency through a variety of ecologically-centered lessons.

CEJ Director Margaret Stewart introduces youth to Earth Jurisprudence

The first session was conducted by CEJ Director, Margaret Stewart, who gave the group of high school and middle school students an overview of Earth Jurisprudence and the inherent rights of Nature. She followed the instructional component of the class with videos of youth from around the world who are taking a stand for the environment and making a difference. The students were extremely engaged in the video and eagerly participated in the next phase of the class, which focused on problem solving. Ms. Stewart asked the students to identify problems in their lives and/or community and led them in an exercise that taught how to find solutions and advocate for change.

UF IFAS instructor, Joe Sewards teaches youth about hydroponics

In the weeks that followed, the students visited the Volusia County’ Lyonia Environmental Center to learn about the aquifer and water cycle; planted Seminole pumpkins in their garden with the help of Green Volusia’s Megan Martin to learn about plant resiliency, and learned the difference between surviving and thriving through a series activities led by University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences instructors and master gardeners Joe Sewards, Lance Harding and Brittany Payne.

Lacey Family/Spring Hill Chapter of the Boys and Girls Club at DeLand’s historic Athens Theater

In the remaining weeks, the program included lessons on where our drinking water comes from (the aquifer), how we can impact the aquifer and our water quality, community gardens and local food, and an oral history of Spring Hill. The summer culminated in a film viewing at the historic Athens Theater in DeLand of “Water's Journey: The Hidden Rivers of Florida”, which depicts an underground adventure through Florida’s aquifer system.

This educational initiative has yielded very rewarding results for both the Boys and Girls Club and the resiliency project partners!

Algal Blooms Are Visual Symptoms That The River Is Sick

A Center of Hope in Spring Hill by Eli Witek

Originally published in the West Volusia Beason on March 20, 2019.

HOW CAN WE HELP? — Spring Hill Resource Center Administrator Shilretha Dixon, left, and Administrative Assistance Wanda Raulerson are ready to help clients who visit the Resource Center. Behind them is a wall of information to help clients navigate various programs to help them find healthcare, housing, jobs, and more.

BEACON PHOTO/ELI WITEK

There is no such thing as a typical day at the Spring Hill Resource Center. The modest building at 910 S. Adelle Ave. in DeLand is many things to many people: a notary, a food bank, a résumé coach, a diabetes tester, a credit coach, a job hunter, a computer lab, a place to learn how to understand your water bill, and a place to sit and stay out of trouble.

Once a temporary police substation — which made many neighbors feel targeted as criminals — the Resource Center stands now as a nexus of information, a key to understanding the byzantine world of public services.

It offers a literal lifeline to the tangled web of public programs intended to serve those in need.

Students— Students from nearby grade schools also use the Resource Center. Some, like middle-school students Cameron Doby, left, come by every day after school. “We’re like mentors,” Administrator Shilretha Dixon said. At right is DeLand High School sophomore Soraya Gonzalez.

BEACON PHOTO/ELI WITEK

In February, the shortest month of the year, the Resource Center provided 882 people with some 2,026 services. In one five-day week, Monday through Friday, more than 200 people came in for one of 100-plus services that are provided there. The center is open to anyone who needs it, which includes residents of cities other than DeLand, like Deltona and Orange City.

The Resource Center is behind much-loved Spring Hill events, like the Mayor’s Backpack Giveaway before the beginning of school, the TURN Festival in September, which unites neighborhood and nonprofit organizations for a day of celebration, and the Christmas toy drive, among others. But the heart of the Resource Center is in meeting everyday needs, from explaining paperwork to simply providing a friendly face.

“We give a little TLC. A meal, encouragement, that’s just as important,” Administrative Assistant Wanda Raulerson said.

Some residents struggled to put into words what the center has done for them — and what life would be like without it.

“I’d be lost,” Donna Rene’e Bess said. “I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“They help you a lot” — Donna Rene’e Bess is one of those who rely on the Resource Center, ad the knowledge of the administrators, to understand the complicated paperwork associated with life in the modern world, search for jobs, or simply use the computer.

The 1,100-square-foot building would just be a building if it weren’t for the people inside, members of the community said.

Spearheaded by Shilretha Dixon with assistance by Raulerson, the Resource Center oversees a network of volunteers, and cares for people’s most sensitive information. Daily, the Resource Center makes a positive difference in clients’ lives.

“It’s my calling; I truly believe that,” Dixon said. “If God didn’t want me to be right where I am, I wouldn’t be here. It’s my passion.”

“I come up here to get my paperwork down, assistance, all the things I didn’t know about,” Diana Layne said. “You can be sure it’ll get done. Some places you call, and they say they’re going to send it in, and you find out they never did it. Here you know they’ll do it. You can go home and rest easy.”

Accordingly, the Resource Center is one of the most important and successful creations of the decades long attempt to lift up poverty-stricken areas of Spring Hill.

The small building at 910 S. Adelle Ave. was never intended to be the center’s permanent home and, finally, after 13 years, the City of DeLand and the County of Volusia have matched funds to build an improved 3,000-square-foot facility with more than twice the space, named in honor of former state legislator and former Volusia County Council Member Joyce Cusack.

Officials will break ground for the Joyce M. Cusack Spring Hill Resource Center in late April on West Mathis Street — a short distance from the existing center.

But the good news is clouded by the threat of a funding shortfall. The cost of operating the Spring Hill Resource Center at its new location was budgeted before the city got wind of an unexpected property-tax exemption for the Woodland Towers retirement community.

The result is a $97,000 shortfall in the Spring Hill Community Redevelopment Agency budget.

That fund will now plummet from a projected $147,000 income this year to $50,000 — just when its revenue had started to grow along with property values.

DeLand was depending on that fund to pay for operations at the new Resource Center.

Administrator Dixon remains confident.

“I would like the new Resource Center to set the precedent for the new Spring Hill,” she said.

Positivity is always part of the message, Dixon added. She pointed to a sign displaying the Spring Hill motto: A New Horizon on the Hill.

What are some of the services the Spring Hill Resource Center offers?

RÉSUMÉ ADVICE

Stetson University student Jordan Joseph examines a resume. Joseph, a volunteer at Spring Hill Resource Center, is a certified resume coach.

Jordan Joseph is a junior in accounting at Stetson University, and a certified résumé coach. Working through Stetson’s Career Services program, he volunteers at the Spring Hill Resource Center several times a month — coaching clients and editing and printing their résumés.

On a recent day, a woman needed to print her résumé. She didn’t have time to wait for Joseph to edit the document, which can take up to half an hour. He offered to email a professionally formatted version to her.

“I originally came to make my hours to become a certified résumé coach,” Joseph said. “Now I just come to volunteer.”

Students from Stetson University come to the center four times a week to provide the free service. The Career Services program is one of several Stetson has in partnership with the Resource Center.

COMMUNITY SERVICE

Strict parameters are required to qualify for cash assistance, offered by Florida’s Department of Children and Families. To receive a little more than $200 a month for a child, the applicant’s income must be no more than 185 percent of the federal poverty level.

In addition, the DCF requires the child’s adult caregiver to work at least 82 hours of community service a month.

To qualify for cash assistance to help her raise her young children, Megan Cooper does her hours at the Resource Center.

“I’d love to do it as a job,” Cooper said. “They know me here, and they like me.”

Cooper is one of several who choose to fulfill their community-service hours at the Resource Center.

CREDIT CLASSES

The Resource Center also hosts other community-outreach programs, like the ones offered by the Mid-Florida Housing Partnership. On a recent Saturday, some two dozen people arrived at the center before 9 a.m. for a four-hour credit workshop. Among them were Linda J. Strong, Luz Elena Caro and Caro’s husband, Roberto Gonzalez.

Like others attending, the trio hoped to find help from the multi-class program to improve their credit scores so they can qualify for a mortgage, an essential step to buying a home.

“Absolutely, the Resource Center has been a big help,” Caro said. “That’s how we found out about this.”

Strong has taken advantage of other offerings at the Resource Center.

“I’ve been coming to the Resource Center for some years,” she said. “You know, it’s not about the color of your skin — it is for everybody.”

VOLUNTEERING

Many people who have used the Resource Center later become volunteers and donors. One of them is Alicia Gonzalez. The help she received at the Resource Center when she first moved to Central Florida prompted her to give back, she said.

“Through the years, I’ve come for everything: to use the computer, to find out about programs,” Gonzalez said. “Now I come to volunteer, and so does my daughter.”

She complimented the staff.

“Ms. Dixon has her thumb on the command center. The things she does here… I’ve never seen something so amazing,” Gonzalez said.

Dreams Unrealized: Daytona Beach Company Had Plans to Help Spring Hill by Eli Witek

Originally published in the West Volusia Beacon on February 27, 2019.

Once upon a time — At a meeting in 2007, Gerald Chester, Bo Davenport, and former DeLand Community Development Director Dale Arrington discuss plans for the Spring Hill Community Redevelopment Area

BEACON PHOTO/MARSHA MCLAUGHLIN

The story of governmental attempts to help Spring Hill is one of big dreams that don’t come true, of funding that dries up, of plans drawn and never seen through.

The reasons are complicated, vast, and sometimes too hazy in memory to pinpoint.

Among those involved is Gerald Chester, president and CEO of the nonprofit Central Florida Community Development Corporation Inc., headquartered in Daytona Beach.

Chester’s story in Spring Hill stretches back to the early 2000s, a time of great hope in the community for uplifting the consistently poverty-stricken area of DeLand.

Between the early 2000s and 2012, according to city officials, Chester’s company, the CFCDC, was under contract with Volusia County and the City of DeLand to administer redevelopment in Spring Hill.

With Chester at the helm, the Spring Hill Resource Center was created. Today, that center is a popular and well-used community asset. It also is currently facing a crisis in funding because of the unexpected loss of tax revenue from a large retirement center.

Chester had plans to fund the Resource Center without depending solely on property taxes. Those plans were never realized.

Dreams of change

For at least seven years, a 10,800-square-foot commercial building that used to be a nightclub has stood vacant on the southwest corner of Adelle and Mathis avenues, in what could be the commercial heart of Spring Hill.

The property is one of eight purchased by companies run by Gerald Chester, mostly during the time his nonprofit organization was contracted by the City of DeLand to help redevelop Spring Hill.

It was Chester’s vision, he said, to put the properties to work creating income to help pay to run the Spring Hill Resource Center. But Chester’s contracts with the City of DeLand ended in 2012. His organizations still own the properties.

Before Chester’s organization bought 918 S. Adelle Ave. for $111,000 in 2008, the building was a popular, if sometimes controversial, nightclub.

“It was a nuisance,” Chester said.

Purchasing the building was part of the CFCDC’s plan to buy up “nuisance” properties and turn them into economy-boosters.

The organization that ended up with the deed on the former nightclub was a for-profit called Central Florida Community & Economic Development LLC, or CFCED. The CFCED is also owned and operated by Chester.

“The LLC is used for commercial property and the nonprofit, residential,” Chester told The Beacon. “Our overall strategy is to maintain our viability — the riskier properties we don’t touch with a nonprofit.”

Chester’s organization made a stab at finding a new owner with a new business plan for the building, and had a prospect in 2016. A little more than two years later, according to court records, the CFCED and that prospective new owner are engaged in a civil lawsuit, in which the prospective new owner claims the CFCED used his $10,000 deposit to pay property taxes and buy a used truck, and wouldn’t return the money after plans for a sports bar fell apart.

The property remains vacant.

Good has come from the property purchases, too. Of the eight properties Chester’s organizations own in Spring Hill, five are affordable-housing rentals, offered at discount rates to low-income residents.

For a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home, one family pays $650 a month, a massive help to the mother of two who lives there.

“I said ‘Thank you, God,’” the mom told The Beacon.

Still waiting — Just down the street from the Spring Hill Resource Center is 918 S. Adelle Ave., a vacant commercial building owned by the Central Florida Community & Economic Development LLC headed by Gerald Chester.

BEACON PHOTO/ELI WITEK

Unpaid assessments

Volusia County records show that neither the CFCDC nor the CFCED has paid any of the assessments owed on the eight Spring Hill properties since at least 2016 — and, in one case, since 2011.

Most of the money owed is for non-ad valorem assessments, such as those for stormwater, garbage pickup and streetlights, which are not subject to tax exemptions.

Tax exemptions

Seven of the eight properties are listed by the county as tax-exempt. The vacant lot at 1124 S. Thompson Ave. is the exception. County records show taxes were last paid on that parcel in 2009, the year the property was transferred from Volusia County to Chester’s CFCDC.

The deed on the vacant lot has a restriction: The property is to be used for permanent affordable housing. If not, according to the deed, ownership transfers back to the county.

The lot remains vacant.

Tax exemptions on the other seven parcels may be a problem.

In two cases, the properties are owned by Chester’s for-profit corporation, which wouldn’t qualify for the exemption.

Volusia County Property Appraiser Larry Bartlett said his office made an error.

“We gave them the exemption by mistake,” Bartlett said. “It was a clerical error on our part.”

Because of the similarity of the names of the two companies, the property appraiser never noticed the parcel had been sold to a for-profit corporation.

“Now we noticed it, we’re going to take the exemption away,” Bartlett said.

County records show a full ad valorem tax exemption for the property, which is valued at $81,621. The non-ad valorem assessments were last paid in 2015, the record shows.

There’s another problem — the tax exemptions for the six properties owned by Chester’s nonprofit are contingent upon its 501(c)(3) status. That 501(c)(3) status has been revoked by the federal government.

Loss of federal exemption

In late 2010, the CFCDC was sued by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for failing to register as a charitable organization.

What Chester described as an administrative error would have a ripple effect: Caught in litigation with the state for two years, the CFCDC was unable to produce the certification necessary to file a tax return with the IRS, a source told The Beacon.

The IRS investigated the CFCDC in 2011, according to Chester.

That investigation endangered the nonprofit’s 501(c)(3) status, a designation that is integral to the operations of a nonprofit. Without it, the corporation could no longer apply for grants or receive property- and income-tax exemptions.

Because grant-writing was one of the main functions the CFCDC was supposed to perform for the City of DeLand, in 2012 the nonprofit either withdrew from its contract with the city, according to Chester, or had its contract terminated, according to Assistant City Manager Michael Grebosz.

The CFCDC filed three years of back taxes in early 2012 and was eventually reinstated as a charitable organization by the state later that year, according to the organization’s tax returns.

Three years later, however, the IRS revoked the CFCDC’s 501(c)(3) in May 2015, for failing to file taxes three years in a row.

That should have triggered a revocation of the organization’s property-tax exemption. But first, the company would have had to inform the county.

“As far as I know, we don’t have a system in place to check if 501(c)(3) things are unrevoked,” Property Appraiser Bartlett told The Beacon. “If we made mistakes, we’ll fix them, but if someone withheld something we should have known about, we will hold them accountable.”

As far the revocation of the nonprofit’s tax-exempt status, Chester said that’s all about to be taken care of.

“We just submitted for that — we have to go into review. It was delayed from the government shutdown,” Chester said.

Even if the renewal goes through, it’ll cause a two-year gap for the CFCDC in its 501(c)(3) status. Chester doesn’t anticipate any trouble from that.

“No, it won’t cause a property-tax issue,” Chester said.

Still hopeful

Chester still has big dreams. It’s just a matter of time and paperwork, he said, before he’s going to begin again working on redevelopment in Daytona Beach.

“Now it’s a waiting game, so we can be a gangbuster out there,” he said.

If Spring Hill wanted him back, he’d be willing, Chester said.

“I wouldn’t mind working with other organizations there trying to make it work. And you know, it takes time, it’s tiresome,” he said. “It’s hopeful if you get people who are committed good caregivers that can make some things happen.”

“Things aren’t hopeless,” he added.

Spring Hill’s Challenges Reflect Its History by Eli Witek

Originally printed in the West Volusia Beacon on January 30, 2019

‘FOR…THE COLORED PEOPLE’ — In 1954, a swimming pool was constructed at the Chisholm Center for the “exclusive use of the colored people,” according to the 1949 resolution by the City of Deland. A donor offered to contribute $5,000 toward the $6,500 cost of the 40-foot-by-80-foot pool at the corner of South Clara and West Hubbard avenues, where the Chisholm Community Center (and its modern, integrated swimming pool) is not located.

Photo courtesy West Volusia Historical Society

Segregated DeLand

By the 1940s, in segregated DeLand, there were at least four operating black schools, and at least double that number of churches attended only by black people.
The DeLand Colored Hospital, a two-story building that was demolished in 1993, was in operation until 1948.
There was a sit-in in 1960 at F.W. Woolworth’s in Downtown DeLand, that ultimately led to the restaurant’s agreeing to serve black customers.
Volusia County Schools files show a massive wage disparity between black and white teachers until the 1940s, with white teachers being paid almost double. Black schools in the DeLand area were given secondhand materials and 75 percent less funding by the State of Florida.
Volusia County schools were also among the last to integrate, which was forced by court order in the 1969-70 school year.

Editor’s note: This is the beginning of our series of stories about Spring Hill and DeLand’s continuing struggle with racial disparities.

The history of African-Americans’ arrival in the United States is the history of slavery — of the forcible capture of black people from the African continent for lives of forced labor.

The origin of the traditionally African-American community of Spring Hill is rooted in slavery, as well.

In pre-Civil War Florida, citrus and timber plantations littered the state like so many ATMs. The houses and businesses we see now sit on land that once was orange groves, and citrus was good business.

Just a few miles from the present-day Spring Hill community, to the east, circa 1763-83, was the 20,000-acre Beresford plantation.

To the north, in what is now DeLeon Springs, was the large Starke plantation, circa 1851.

According to data from written and oral histories, these two plantations were likely the source of communities of freed slaves who ultimately settled in the DeLand area.

They didn’t all move to what we now call Spring Hill. It was one of at least five local historic black communities that emerged after the Civil War.

Other distinctive neighborhoods in DeLand whose residents were mostly African-Americans were Red City, the majority of which has by now been purchased by Stetson University, and Little Africa. Both of these neighborhoods surrounded what is now known as Painter’s Park, bisected by East Wisconsin Avenue.

There was also Dunn’s Bottom, at Garfield and Voorhis avenues, and Blackberry, Dug Out and Yamasee, also in DeLand.

“They all had their own little identity,” longtime resident and former City of DeLand Public Works Director Bo Davenport said.

Over time, as these communities began to fade into memory, “Spring Hill” became a catch-all description of DeLand’s African-American community.

In truth, Spring Hill is just one area — historically underserved and low on quality housing stock — where African-Americans settled in DeLand. Spring Hill is distinctive, however, because it developed mostly as a place where seasonal workers lived. Many of the houses were never intended to be long-term residences, and the endemic neglect has been hard to overcome.

The original Spring Hill — named for a natural spring near the corner of South Clara Avenue and Vermont Street — nestled against the boundaries of the City of DeLand.

Today, people define Spring Hill by many different sets of boundaries. One official set, however, was laid out when the City of DeLand and Volusia County jointly created a Community Redevelopment Agency in 2004, in an attempt to create a fund for public improvements in the neighborhood. Those boundaries are shown on the map accompanying this story.

A summary of the history of the area in the CRA master plan notes the small size and substandard conditions of many of Spring Hill’s houses. Many were built between the turn of the 20th century and the early 1950s, were undersized and weren’t connected to public water, sewage systems or electricity.

Over the years, including years when discrimination in housing and mortgage lending was legal, and people of color were welcome only in certain neighborhoods, those homes were sold to black residents.

“There’s a whole reason why blacks were steered to certain areas — because they were lower-value properties,” County Council Member and Realtor Barb Girtman said.

Longtime resident and businessman James E. Cusack talked about misconceptions about Spring Hill.

“People think of that area of Spring Hill, on [the south] side of West Beresford, as the total representation of the historic black community in the area,” Cusack said.

That just isn’t true, Cusack said.

Just two blocks away from the official boundary of the Spring Hill CRA is the historic J.W. Wright building, constructed in 1920.

Wright was one of the few black business owners at the turn of the century. In an address to the National Negro Business League in 1915, Wright, by then a successful citrus grower, explained that he had been able to buy his property for $300 after the devastating freeze in 1894, which decimated the citrus industry.

Wright, who had been a laborer for other growers, put his wages into buying his own land, becoming successful enough that he bought more property in DeLand — including a manufacturing plant on West Minnesota Avenue, and a lot at the corner of Voorhis and Clara avenues, where the large, two-story brick building named for him still sits.

The building, considered part of the nearby Yamasee neighborhood, once was home to a dentist office, beer garden, apartments and a grocery store.

It spawned its own neighborhood, known as Wright’s Corner.

LAY OF THE LAND — The J.W. Wright Building at the corner of Voorhis and Clara avenue was once a hub for the African-American community in DeLand. Today, it sits in disrepair.

BEACON PHOTO/ELI WITEK

“There were a lot of mom-and-pop shops. There was a black hotel, dentist, doctors, grocery store, service stations, restaurants and cafes. Wright’s Corner was really a hub,” Cusack said.

There was a theater next door to the Wright Building, and clubs, cafes and restaurants lined the street.

“My grandmother purchased a house on Adelle in the 1950s. At that time, Spring Hill was moving and shaking for the black community,” Girtman said. “Of course, my grandmother was more into religion than the juke joints down the road.”

Even then, at a time of bustling business in the black community, discrimination in lending, along with the historical disparity in wages between blacks and whites, and other damage from persistent racism, conspired to create separate and not equal standards of living.

Davenport said conditions now aren’t that different from the past. He sees some of his neighbors struggling at the bottom of the pay scale.

“It was always like how it is. They work, but they aren’t getting the wages to thrive,” Davenport said. “I had to work for 20 years so I could have just a little for myself.”

Fifty years after segregation, Spring Hill’s median annual household income, at $18,828, is 47 percent lower than the median household income of DeLand at-large, $39,902.

“The living conditions have improved, but the real change didn’t come. They still have to work two or three jobs to make things work,” Davenport said.

And what happened to the once-bustling center of commerce?

The reasons for its decline are myriad but not unfamiliar: the rise in illegal drug use in the 1980s and the subsequent crackdown that disproportionately affected minorities, the deaths of older residents whose children had moved on, and the prevalence of big-box stores like Walmart, which ran smaller businesses into the ground.

“There’s a lot of reason for a lack of wealth in the community … you can’t lay it in any one lap; it just is what it is,” Girtman said.

By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the 4-square-mile area identified as Spring Hill was considered a blighted community. Basic public utilities, like sewage systems, streetlights and road improvements, arrived in patchwork fashion. For example, some 100 streetlights, including replacements for those that were broken and never repaired, were installed in 1998 only after residents petitioned the county.

In 2004, the CRA was created to help address the problems, but three short years later, the Great Recession decimated its funding.

The recession had another effect — homes in Spring Hill and nearby were targeted by predatory lenders who offered easy access to cash. Once the bubble burst, those who had borrowed were deep underwater, and foreclosed homes were snapped up by investors who live all over the country.

The Volusia County Property Appraiser website shows multiple vacant homes in Spring Hill that are owned by investors in Delaware, Illinois and New Jersey, to name a few, who have no discernible ties to the area.

“There is a long history of why this happened. And history repeated itself in the recession,” Girtman said.

In some cases, she said, investors snapped up devalued properties and started renting them back to the former homeowners.

A generation later, rentals that had become homesteads reverted back to rentals.

“That was the reality for that community, and it’s not true for any other community nearby. We got what we got,” Girtman said. “That generation is used to making do.”

Although those in power have shown an interest in helping Spring Hill, little has been accomplished.

“In the better days of 2000-2007, there were a lot of plans and support, and now it’s 11 years later,” Girtman said.

Girtman, elected to the County Council in 2018 when she narrowly defeated a longtime incumbent, is hopeful that she and others will be able to make a difference by serving in political office.

Spring Hill deserves to share in the success that has brought nationwide publicity, tourism and economic prosperity to Downtown DeLand, Girtman said.

“A rising tide lifts all boats. And they’re a couple of blocks away, and are not able to enjoy or be a part of it,” she said.

Sections of the 100 and 200 blocks of West Voorhis Avenue are included in the Downtown DeLand CRA, which helped develop DeLand’s central business district.

But that doesn’t cover everyone in the community, according to Mary Allen, executive director of the African American Museum of the Arts, which is next door to the deteriorated Wright Building.

“The Downtown CRA stops at the Wright Building; it doesn’t include us,” Allen said.

She pointed to now-bustling Downtown DeLand.

“There’s lots of activity there, and we sit here,” she said.

Once again, plans for improving Spring Hill and the surrounding area are being made.

This year, a new community resource center will be built near Spring Hill Park, at the corner of Beresford and Adelle avenues. A community garden for residents was begun in 2017, with support from Stetson University, in the 500 block of South Delaware Avenue. Greater Union First Baptist Church bought the Wright Building in 2016, and hopes to restore it.

Girtman says all these actions are steps in the right direction.

“We’re sowing the seeds, and now we have to connect that all together,” Girtman said.

— This article draws upon myriad sources, including: history books, news articles, historical documents, oral histories and resident interviews. Thanks to the Spring Hill Community Resource Center, the West Volusia Historical Society, and members of the Spring Hill community.

Editor’s note: Our next story in this series will address how two governmental mechanisms — annexation, and the Community Redevelopment Agency concept — could help Spring Hill.