(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 445: Do It for the Neighborhood Part 1

This week we’re listening in to PART 1 of a one to one conversation between David Longoria of LISC in Phoenix and Ryan Winkle of RAIL CDC. They discuss the community work they are doing in Mesa along the light rail line and the impact their work has on local businesses.

To listen to this episode, head to Streetsblog USA or find it at our archive site.

Below is a full unedited AI generated transcript:

David Longoria (1m 44s):
Hi everyone. I’m David Longoria, program officer with Local Initiative Support Corporation or LISC in Phoenix, Arizona. I’m also a member of the Impact National Steering Committee and I’m delighted to be here today with my good friend, my collaborator, Ryan Winkle, executive director for Rail CDC in Mesa, Arizona. Ryan, welcome Thank, you, David

Ryan Winkle (2m 8s):
Thank you. It’s great to be here with you again. The US doing the shows together definitely solidifies our partnership and definitely what I’ve noticed is that we’ve, we’ve been able to really create much more of a story the more times we get together and talk about these things. You know and it adds little nuances. So Thank you, I appreciate it and Thank you to impact.

David Longoria (2m 30s):
So good to be with you as always my friend. Always good to see you. So let’s start this conversation just sort of with some basic background information on what Rail is, who you are and what Rail does and what you do.

Ryan Winkle (2m 43s):
Okay. Yeah. So Ray, I am Ryan Winkle. I am one of the founders and now executive director of Rail CDC, which stands for Retail Arts Innovation, livability Community Development Corporation. We are a nonprofit place-based organization. Started around 2013 ish during other neighborhood and corridor things that were happening. And what we kind of do in a, in a simplified way, and we’ll get more into this later, is that we do community development, right? So we work with neighborhoods, we work with businesses, and then we work with the neighborhood and business corridor as a whole to deliver small business technical assistance, financial opportunity center opportunities for neighbors and, and corridor, I guess comprehensive community development.

Ryan Winkle (3m 34s):
Right? And all of this is in low to moderate income census tracks around transit in the mostly East Valley, but we now work a little bit in Phoenix as well.

David Longoria (3m 42s):
Awesome. So what got you into doing comprehensive community development? Like what, what was the spark? What was the path that brought you to where you are now?

Ryan Winkle (3m 53s):
It’s an interesting word that we call it comprehensive community development. And that’s probably one of the things that kind of got me into it. Cuz when I got into it, probably around 11 or 2000, 11 ish, 11 time, and I was getting really involved in the community. I was, I had just quit a bank realizing how You know they were just basically torturing people with their fees. And You know this corporate structure was, I was like, You know what? I Magna go off on my own. I Magna do my own thing, I Magna, just build my own job and I Magna start a nonprofit and I Magna make money You know as a job. Which was hilarious because still to this day that Mesa Urban Garden has never paid me probably 1 cent and this, it is now over 10 years old.

Ryan Winkle (4m 34s):
But then during that time, I’d gotten involved with so many, we like to call ’em townies at the time, You know Downtown Mesa folks doing different things. And there was just little things kind of magically happening all over the place. Little art happenings, little You know art parties and whatever, different things were happening. And then finally I had, I had ended up You know we opened the garden and I was like, all right, now what? Like this, this didn’t work out so well to in paying myself for something You know. And I had met a, a woman named Terry Benelli, who now we all know as the executive director of LISC Phoenix. Then she was the executive director of a community development financial institution. And she was You know, shaking things up in, in Downtown.

Ryan Winkle (5m 14s):
And, and even more than shaking things up, she was really focused on the light Rail extension into Downtown Mesa. Which as we all know in many other cities across the United States, even in in, in the Phoenix Metro area creates huge displacement, creates a lot of business closures. A lot of different things happen around that. So that’s kind of how I, the, the short version of how I got into all of this.

David Longoria (5m 36s):
So nonprofit work, not for the faint of heart and also not for anybody looking to score a buck. Well, especially if it’s from Mesa Urban Gardens. Right,

Ryan Winkle (5m 48s):
Right, right. I mean, You know it’s fiscally in a good shape, but the garden is fiscally in good shape. Right,

David Longoria (5m 54s):
Right. Also shout out to Terry, my boss, my executive director, she’s still shaking things up. Yeah. As the ED for LISC Phoenix. Oh man. She’s like just such a champion for all of the work that we’re doing. So quick shout out to Terry

Ryan Winkle (6m 10s):
If I could add on that just quickly. Interestingly enough, she has inspired, I would say a good majority of the, the up and coming community development people in the Phoenix Metro area through her bringing them into that kind of work, not just from the East Valley. Cuz as she moved to Phoenix, she, she’s brought in a lot of groups that have continued this work in a very new and innovative way that I think normally wouldn’t be in this kind of work. So definitely a big shout out.

David Longoria (6m 38s):
So like she’s not only like in addition to all the passion she has for this work, she knows everybody like seriously everyone. But funny story about Terry, I’ll tell really quickly is that, so we were Flynn Brown Fellows, You know the Arizona Center for Civic Leadership, not in the same class. She was in the class before mine and this was like 2012 around that time. And when she took on the executive director position for LISC Phoenix, right before she was about to, she told me at that time, one of these days, I Magna hire you. And it took her about eight years to do it, but I got it, I got it handed to her. She came around and she, she did do it.

David Longoria (7m 19s):
So I’ve been, I’ve been with LISC Phoenix for now for about eight, for about a year and a half. So, so she came around. So glad, glad to, glad to see that. Okay, back on track though. Your, okay, so Rails sort of mantra or it’s ethos, it’s hashtag if you will, is do it for the neighborhood. Tell me about the story behind that and tell me more about what that means to you.

Ryan Winkle (7m 46s):
So do it for the neighborhood came up kind of just one day randomly, right? As a hashtag because we’ve done so many things over time where we’re like, okay, we’re working with a group of small businesses or we’re working with a corridor that’s You know changing and growing or, or You know we’re doing something with this group of neighborhoods. And as our work kind of grew and changed a little bit, we really started focusing on the idea of displacement. And this wasn’t always the case cuz we, I don’t think early, early on we had that kind of, for like the vision to say doing this kind of work, community development and helping neighborhoods could lead to them being gentrified and displaced, right?

Ryan Winkle (8m 27s):
I mean it seems like so logical when you think, say when I say it like that, but really when you’re in the work, it’s not that logical, right? Yes. It’s not an outcome. You’d think what’s happening, you just think you’re helping. And so as we’ve kind of moved on, we’ve really in incorporated the, the two outcomes being born in the neighborhood, finishing the neighborhood and leading to an anti-displacement strategy and a You know community wealth building strategy. All for the purpose of keeping someone, whether it’s a business or a neighbor where they are comfortable, right? I think there’s been quite a few books now, now that have come out that have really kind of highlighted the idea of the neighborhood network and the power that has for people over time and wealth building and, and and issues that happen in in in neighborhoods.

Ryan Winkle (9m 13s):
And so even though we do a lot work with the Corner store or You know the Main Street area or the, and I say that not cuz we do work on Main Street, but I mean any main street be any main street, right? Be any corner store, could be any neighborhood, but there are all connected. So really it’s just do it for the neighborhood. And when you think about this type of work, I like to think about it from kind of the old days. They had like You know in Chicago, they had the Chicago boss, right? And it’s like the neighborhood boss and if you need anything to happen that neighborhood, you go to that person. And, and generally that was very organically grown. So I, I wanted to I guess rethink that in a more of a noncrime oriented way.

Ryan Winkle (9m 54s):
But a but You know a more positive like, hey, in this neighborhood it’s Las Madre de Mesa in that neighborhood, it’s the artist known as Scarlet in that neighborhood, it’s You know whoever it is. Right? Yeah,

David Longoria (10m 5s):
No, I love that. And it’s so funny because you sort of touched upon this a little bit, but doing it for the neighborhood seems so, it seems so sensible, right? It, it, it like, well of course we’re gonna do it for the neighborhood. But there’s so much packed into that simple phrase there. It’s, it’s not as easy as it sounds. This is to go back to the, to focus a little bit on the comprehensive part of comprehensive community development. This is long game type of stuff. This is not like something you can just sort of pop in for a little while and maybe shake it up a little bit and then be like, peace out. I’m You know I’ve done my work, you guys are self-sustainable and so long I’ve saved, I’ve saved the neighborhood.

David Longoria (10m 48s):
Right? Yeah. It’s

Ryan Winkle (10m 48s):
Dropped in and I saved,

David Longoria (10m 50s):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There’s just so much weight in such a, the simplicity of that, of that work and that mantra. So I mean I love that because it’s at at once, it’s simple, yet complicated and it is a very complicated line of work that we’re in. But talk about the neighborhood a little bit. Like what is the area of Mesa that Rail CDC focuses on? Sort of touch a little bit on sort of the commercial corridor aspect of it and the neighborhoods around it, but elaborate on that a little bit more.

Ryan Winkle (11m 18s):
So being a place-based organization and I was trying, we, we had just brought on a new operations administrator and she’s pretty new to this work but does have work business and this kind of organizing in her background, You know, and that was my background is community organizing and I really thought of them as something just kind of the same. It’s like, okay, community organizer You know you can go help the community do stuff with the community. But that’s much like saying like the difference between we all are not different races, we’re all humans. I mean that’s a true statement, but that also belittles the idea that You You know there’s things that create differences in between people and neighborhoods and things and communities, right?

Ryan Winkle (11m 58s):
And so it’s kind of, when I think of what is that neighborhood, is it everywhere? Cuz the neighborhood is everywhere technically, right? But the neighborhood we really focus on are these five places. Four of them are kind of a, one is the original Downtown Mesa area, which is West Mesa. The second one is slightly to the south of that, which is the Mesa south side, which is deto Latino, which is a Latino dominated area, not just Mexican but like many different types of Latino. And then we have the Tempe Apache Corridor, LA Victoria area, which is one of the original audios of, of Arizona as well as very international in in its kind of like restaurants and what’s going on there.

Ryan Winkle (12m 39s):
And then the Asian district, which is kind of where a lot of Asians have Asian businesses have convened and surrounded by neighborhoods as well. That’s kind of our four areas. Each neighborhood has very different wants and desires for their futures. The one we’re really focusing on big time right now is the Southside Mesa one. It’s probably where we have the at this time cuz of so long of doing things the easiest way that we can pick up the phone call somebody. And because of the trust we’ve built, we can have an action happen fairly quickly and fairly easily. Right? Not to say that this is not, it’s very, very complicated like you had mentioned, but it’s easier now that we’ve built the trust over time.

Ryan Winkle (13m 20s):
Right. And to your point about the neighborhoods and why they’re different, we can work in some neighborhoods for many years and don’t have that same connection cuz it’s I think the speed of trust, right? That idea of the speed of trust. And so yeah, this neighborhood, which we’ll pretty much focus on for most of our, of, of this conversation probably is the south side neighborhood. So

David Longoria (13m 40s):
I wanna touch on a little bit about what you mentioned in describing the area that you work in. There seems to be a strong historical tie to this area. You mentioned La Victoria, which is one of the original barrios in Arizona, not just in the Valley, but in the state and also Theto Latino that you work in the south side neighborhood as well. A lot of history in these places, right? A lot of, a lot of personal context from the point of view of the families and the generations that have sort of persisted over time. Talk a little bit about who lives there and how the locals describe their place and their sense of place for that matter.

David Longoria (14m 24s):
Well, what is it like for people and families trying to live and just get by and work and get ahead?

Ryan Winkle (14m 32s):
So when I first started working in this neighborhood, it, I was really coming at it from a, a heat and environmental justice perspective. So for me, the idea was to really educate people and then get them involved in, in what is, what is Heat and You know environmental or like refugee in the future. Like what, what does that mean to a neighborhood like this? Right? What we came to find out over time was it was very important but not understood at first. And the reasons for that is because one of the very first neighbors that I talked to, he basically just said, You know, like, it’s always been hot, it’s Arizona, that’s, I mean like, no duh man You know what I mean?

Ryan Winkle (15m 14s):
Like what do you think it’s hot You know. And then, yeah, right. And then so when I was kind of digging a little further, I’m like, yeah, but don’t you, you drive You know your kids walk to the bus station, don’t they think about this as like it could be dangerous or that there’s like a You know a future difference of, of what could happen because of this heat You know? And the, and the answer really was just no, because this area is a historically migrant worker area that a lot of the, the folks that had moved here we’re kind of allowed to move there, You know because it was the kind of industrial area where the, the Coors, I think original Coors plant was, or the Coors like bottling area was. And then same with the Sunkist factory.

Ryan Winkle (15m 55s):
And so people would gather, You know they would jump on trucks, they would take ’em all over the different parts of Arizona to work the fields and or work the different factories and different things. And so over time it became, which was I think mostly migrant at the beginning. Nowadays it’s a little bit different. Most are second or third generation, still a lot of first generation Spanish spoken mostly rentals, I Magna use mostly and stuff like that. Because normally, so my, my partner in this work, Avi Ello, who, who’s actually from the neighborhood who really actually ignited a lot of the, the work in that neighborhood, specifically after my environmental crusade. He kind of took on more of the very personal and You know societal kind of work in that area.

Ryan Winkle (16m 37s):
But he You know 70% rental roughly or more And then I mean I don’t, I think it was like 95% Latino in some way or another. You know of different types. The neighborhoods are very connected to each other. And so I would say, and this is not a factual number, but just kind of a perceptive number that there’s probably five-ish different neighborhoods in the south side, You know neighborhoods. And back in the day it was a very big gang. That’s why it was called South Side You know. Cause it was South side Mesa and the people from La Victoria didn’t go to South Side Mesa and South Side Mesa did not go to La Victoria You know, it was like the two rival Latino gangs. And back in, in that time, over time, the the moms got together and kind of got rid of the gangs.

Ryan Winkle (17m 21s):
But the police still treat it like there’s gangs there a lot. And there’s, there’s definitely stuff happens and there’s crime and whatever. But I, I mean, I wouldn’t think it was a whole lot more than somewhere else just down the street. You know the biggest point I think about this right now, to think about living conditions and You know lot sizes and walkability and health as I think there’s a 16 year difference in lifespan in, in the south side neighborhoods, which is exactly one mile away from the north side neighborhood that was built at the same exact time, right. Where the original like pioneers, like lived You know, right?

David Longoria (17m 56s):
White, white pioneers, right? We’re talking about Yes. Yeah.

Ryan Winkle (17m 59s):
Yep. Original white pioneers. I mean, and, and that was it. Even, even wiping out the I idea that the You know Holcomb or the posh or the any of the, the river peoples were, were there You know, of course.

David Longoria (18m 11s):
I love that sort of background and I love to hear you talking about the folks who are living there and just getting by and, and the density of the area in terms of the population,

Ryan Winkle (18m 24s):
Actually one of the densest in, in the East Valley, it’s one of the densest areas,

David Longoria (18m 28s):
Right? And, and so you talk about these neighborhoods who are adjacent to one another in the context of like, they’re all interconnected, right? They’re all, like, they come from different backgrounds, they come from different places. They, they’re all sort of have been brought together or thrown together, if you will, through certain circumstances or happenstance, right? But they’re all getting by, they’re all living through it next to each other. And I guess my question to you is like with your work with Rail and how, and what you’ve been doing for the greater part of the last decade, how does Rail intersect with all of this? Is there like a story that you could share or an example that captures the kind of work that Rail does to support local initiatives?

David Longoria (19m 15s):
Or how do you do it?

Ryan Winkle (19m 17s):
Okay, so I guess I would think about a couple different things. Like, there’s kind of two sides of our business model, right? One side is very much heavily into small business technical assistance with a, a heavy target on women and people of color in low and water income census tracks, right? And that is very specifically to work with, with them and either create or help or further along businesses to be able to access capital at one point and also become an income supply or a wealth builder, right? So the better those businesses are doing, the better the neighborhood is generally doing, the better their families are doing, the better their, their employees are doing.

Ryan Winkle (19m 60s):
And so on the small business side and the access to capital side, we’ve been working on that for a while since the light Rail extension of the Mesa, like we mentioned earlier. And we can come right back to that. But on the people side, when we realize that a lot of the people who work in those businesses also live generally very close, live in the neighborhoods, very close to where they are. And so, I mean, one of the stories that comes to mind as to why we really started focusing on people a lot was when we, we had a gentleman who worked with his business, we were doing all these things of business, finally got him very stabilized. He’s very happy. He’s like, yeah, we’re You know we’re doing better, we’re hiring somebody else. Great. Awesome. He’s like, and I’m so embarrassed to say this, but my house, which is almost paid off, I had to get a payday loan and they’re gonna take it from me in like a week.

Ryan Winkle (20m 47s):
And we’re like, dude, like you couldn’t have told us this like a couple months ago. You know. I know, I know, but like you’re helping with this. And I You know I like, I what was he thinking? Yeah, You know. And then, and then, so we got to work working on it and that was really our first idea. And like, we need to become a financial opportunity center of some sort and help the people, the employees, You know the owners as people, not just a business, right? And back to that whole You know comprehensive circle, right? And, and then not, not only that You know the minute we started helping him these neighborhoods and that network connection because of they’ve been there so long and we started getting other people saying, Hey, like, didn’t you help him with that?

Ryan Winkle (21m 28s):
That thing like how do we, like how do we do it You know, like cuz we have the same problem. And same with businesses that have done the same thing with their You know their businesses or properties or cars or equipments or any, anything like that. You know there’s a lot of issues that happen. And so one of the things that ties these two types of work together, the people in the, in the business side is the, is the way that we do it, I guess, right? And so back to your question is how, how is it that it’s done? Why is it getting noticed and You know why, why you, why is this, why is it special? Why is it different? We came up with kind of a model where we started doing ikas and it’s just little talks, right? Ikas little talk in, in in Spanish.

Ryan Winkle (22m 8s):
And we kind of get neighbors together and we find out You know, we watch, we observe, we listen, we go, we’re invited. And then we will notice or find a neighbor or a business owner who are really kind of like the, the Chiso You know what I mean? Or the, the person who knows the neighborhood who knows things or You know. Yeah. And then we start saying, Hey, like ever thought of having your neighbors over just to talk and talk about the neighborhood You know, we’ll help you invite ’em. Let’s do it in your yard or at your business. We did one recently at Nikki’s Hot Dogs, which is a little hot an no hot dog stand. It was awesome. We’ve done ’em in the neighborhoods too at You know the artist known as Scarlet’s House. And we buy the food.

Ryan Winkle (22m 48s):
If there’s entertainment needed, we pay for that. You know, we usually get some sort of art or act activity that’s very, it’s like involved without having to like express some political opinion or something where someone’s gonna get mad at you. Right? So you got a bunch of neighbors showing up now like, oh wow, I didn’t know, like You know, I didn’t know you and I didn’t know that person was there. I didn’t know they had died or left or whatever. And all these conversations that are happening and we just listen. And then once we listen, we start taking down these kind of notes and thinking about, okay, what is it that the neighborhood needs and, and what are they gonna tell us? Because it’s not, it’s not our job to go and do it for them. You know. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s their right to, to work on the future of their neighborhood, but it’s also their responsibility at the same time.

Ryan Winkle (23m 31s):
Cause if they’re not doing it, who’s gonna do it? You know. Yeah. Like if I’m trying to carry the torch for some neighborhood that I’m not even from, they’re just gonna look at me like I’m an idiot. And so it’s, you really need that hero, that community quarterback or whatever, whatever you wanna point, point it to You know it’s that person or that group of people. And so after we do the ikas, we start taking them on, on neighborhood walks and just saying, Hey, like what do you think about this? Why do you think that bus stop has no roof over it? Why is there no bus stop there? Why is it just a whole hole in the ground? You know. Why is there no shade? Why is there no lights if there are a bunch of lights in this area, but not the street over? Why do you think that is? And just asking questions, which then starts getting to think like, well how do we, like how do we deal with this?

Ryan Winkle (24m 12s):
And then we say, well, You know there’s a couple ways you can do A, B or C. You can show up at this council meeting. You can write letters, you can work with us on it. Or you can start working with the neighborhood on some things. In the end of all this, what happens is we build it. We really are building a community group that now wants to do something and they have a little bit of knowledge of what to do. Right? The second side of that is when we’re working with an area, we hire our organizer or people from that area. So it also gives us a little bit of that edge. Like on the south side we have Saul, right? I’ve been starting to lovingly call him south side Saul. Nice. And I love that. I love Saul. Yeah, it’s awesome. And he, he knows everybody.

Ryan Winkle (24m 53s):
And so like, and at this point, the idea of an autonomous group of people who are working together, but like he can be out doing things. He’s doing things right now that I don’t know what he is doing. I just call him at the end of the weekend. I’m like, so all these things are happening. Did this happen? Did that happen? He’s like, yeah, yeah. And guess what? This is gonna happen now. This is gonna be awesome. There’s a new mural we’re gonna do. And I’m like, all right, I we didn’t talk about that, but You know that’s awesome. That’s what the neighborhood wants. Let’s figure out how to shift something from over here to do that over there. You know. And when I say something, I usually mean You know grant funding from LISC or something, some risk Thing that’s happening. You know or yeah, so You know, that’s kind of the, the thing You know. But usually then that that funding or that resource is then multiplied by people, power, community, ingenuity.

Ryan Winkle (25m 36s):
And then some other group is like, dang, I need to fulfill my d e I requirements. How do I do that with you guys? You know or something, right?

David Longoria (25m 43s):
There’s so much in there that we could unpack that could just be a standalone conversation. For instance, this two tiered model that you have with respect to providing technical assistance to the small businesses in the area, but then focusing on You know the actual people, right? That that care that you’re putting into the recognition of the neighborhood or the community as a collection of not just the businesses or the place, the physical place, but the actual people within it. And it’s a truly empowerment or ownership model, right? It’s truly helping folks have the tools necessary for their self-determination and, and realizing their own worth So that they can then put that into action.

David Longoria (26m 30s):
And I just, I think it seems like such a no-brainer. It’s almost like going back to doing it for the neighborhood. It’s like of, it’s so, it makes so much sense and yet it’s not done. You know nearly as widely as, as it ought to be around, around other communities, certainly here, but, and around the state and country as well.

Ryan Winkle (26m 51s):
I think it’s part of a recognition of roles, right? I mean, so that’s how, I mean you got into this kind of work, I think through city work, right? Yeah. Or did or did you have other work

David Longoria (27m 1s):
Before? Yeah, so yeah, so before the, I took on the position with LISC almost two years ago. I have about 20 years of experience working in the public sector and at the local level. So I worked for 13 years in Pima County down in Tucson. And which is home for me. I mean, I cut my teeth working in the city of south Tucson in the same communities that you’re describing now, very densely populated, predominantly Spanish speaking communities, also native and indigenous communities. And, and really just like I had a mentor who was a county supervisor down there by the name of Dan Strom and who taught me everything I know about organizing and getting people together and and empowering them with the tools that they need to self determine.

David Longoria (27m 52s):
And going into like a lot of what you’re talking about with like the pletus is like going in and not telling them what we think they need, but rather just asking them and just listening. Like that simple act of listening is so, it, it’s so important and it’s so powerful and, and it goes such a long way in building that trust. But yeah. But anyway, to your point, like, yes, so I I’ve, I’ve cut my teeth on this kind of work as well,

Ryan Winkle (28m 22s):
Right? I mean, and the reason why I brought that up is cuz when we were saying like, You know this, this idea of a role recognition, right? So when you’re looking at like a city role, I mean it would be awesome if cities really work to empower neighborhoods, but for them it’s more like, Hey, we gotta function as a city. Like I Magna outreach to you, I Magna, throw some flyers at your door and tell you some opportunities that are coming up. But like, there’s like 200 other neighborhoods out here, I gotta throw flyers with them too. And so for them, we’re just recognizing that it’s maybe not their job to do that. Right? And then there’s the groups that are a little bit larger, like maybe, I don’t know what you would call them, but like these nonprofits who’ve been around forever or You know and CDCs and nonprofits and these structural things.

Ryan Winkle (29m 3s):
I, it is not lost on me that they are used to control and put neighborhoods down a lot of times. Right? They’re part of structural racism. They’re part of all these things that happen. Right? Absolutely. So I, I’m not trying to say that by any means. Our CDC is the savior. Cuz I learn every day that I don’t know a lot of things. There’s, they are the engagement people. Like, they’re like, Hey, like we need to fix your neighborhood. Like I need you to help me do this to your neighborhood. Like let’s, we’re gonna do a mural to your neighborhood. Like come with me, let’s do it. That’s the engagement folks, right? Yeah. And we like to push past that and say, no, we are like the empowerment people cuz I, I don’t even necessarily wanna do it. Like, I like doing it. I like being there. I love like the power and the, the feeling that’s there.

Ryan Winkle (29m 45s):
But really what I want is some neighborhood leader or mi mural guy, David Martinez right? Who’s now become one of our businesses on the business side also, but he picks up and does murals. He gets the community to come out a bunch of kids and You know we work with the Boys and Girls Club and You know and Danny on Grand and all these people that I can just name that I would probably never know, but now they’re, there’re somebody on that place You know.

David Longoria (30m 9s):
That’s cool. And I think you’ve touched upon something that’s really pivotal there, which is the, the magic’s already in these communities, right? These folks, they live and work and play and, and worship and do all the things already in these places. It’s really about you, like bringing it out of there almost like it’s an extraction process, right? Like the building of that trust is then over time like bringing this out. And that’s where the real spark is. And the, when, where the real magic happens is where these local neighborhood leaders who were there all along are the ones who are coming out and like really doing all of that work and really driving so much of the action behind that empowerment and that decision making process.

Ryan Winkle (30m 57s):
One of the, the funny things I remember even like on the Downtown kind of area, I was eating at one of the restaurants yesterday and one of the shop owners that came in kind of at the end of when we were really like getting finished with the work, which was really the beginning of the work, but, and we could get like, talk about that in a second, but she’s like, oh, You know. Well all those business owners we’ve always been getting together and we know each other. We’re like a family down here. And I’m like, oh yeah, I know. I remember I used to be the one walking from door to door saying, how’s business today? What’s going on? You know, are we hanging out this week with this group and blah blah, You know? And so I’m like, yeah, I, I know I remember how it happened. You know, I remember that was when that was our work You know Right? Trying to keep business in line when, when the, when the light Rail was coming through and they had it torn up and you couldn’t even enter the front door.

Ryan Winkle (31m 40s):
Right? So I mean that reminded me exactly of like, they know each other. The fact that you can go down and be norm somewhere. I like, I used to always say like, everyone wants to be norm. If you wanna win over like a community, you just have to make everyone feel like their norm. Right?

David Longoria (31m 53s):
Norm.

Ryan Winkle (31m 54s):
And I don’t know if most people know that, but You know Norm from Cheers, You know you go in, Hey Norm. No. Yeah,

David Longoria (31m 59s):
Totally.

Ryan Winkle (31m 60s):
If you walked in a place like that and you felt like that everywhere you went, you’d be like, I wanna stay in this place forever. I love it You know.

David Longoria (32m 6s):
Absolutely. Well you mentioned sort of the buildup to Light Rail in Mesa. Let’s go back to that time right now we’ve set the stage a little bit for the area that you work in. What Mesa’s like right now, let’s go back to the coming of Light Rail in the early two thousands. What was the story in Mesa at that time? What were you doing then? And, and what were You know some of the attitudes and the hopes and concerns for what Better Transit might bring to the community?

Ryan Winkle (32m 39s):
Right. So at the time, I mean Mesa still has a lot of this too, but there’s a lot of, I don’t know if You know what Agenda 21 is. Yeah. There, there’s people who Yeah, I’ve heard it. I’ve heard it sort of spoken about. Yeah. In certain, yeah. So people, people were, when Light Rail was coming to Mesa, it had originally been denied and ended in Tempe. Right? So the largest light Rail active station was the one at Sycamore Station cuz everyone from the East Valley would drive over there. It was a massive, massive parking lot. And they would take the light Rail to Phoenix to work, whatever that was. Right? And so finally we had a mayor named Scott Smith who had a vision and was like, why did, why didn’t we extend this? Let’s bring it to, to Staple, which is You know, I don’t know, maybe five, five streets down.

Ryan Winkle (33m 21s):
You know five big streets by the way. So Mesa does like mile long blocks. So You know that’s, it’s, it’s a long way. So five more miles down the road. Yeah, I don’t, I don’t remember it was five exactly. But it was a good like that amount somewhere all of a sudden everyone’s like, oh my God. Like you’re trying to make us one of those future cities and you’re gonna cause all these problems and Agenda 21. And like all these You know things are happening around like, why are you urbanizing and modernizing? We’re we’re, we’re like Mesa, like the old days. You know this kind of stuff. You know. I think we like to joke about it at that time being called Mesa Berry. Cuz it was like Mayberry, like the idea was that Mesa is like Mayberry You. know what I mean? Yeah, very sweet.

Ryan Winkle (34m 2s):
And I can go down to Joe’s and I could see an old man Joe and see what he is doing. You know what I mean? Totally. Every everybody knows everybody else. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing was that it, it was every did, but he did know everybody else. But it was also very much dying You know. Like there was, there was just not new. Nothing new was happening. No young people wanted to be there. No innovation was happening. You know that stuff. So with this new mayor, he was like, yeah, we gotta do this. We gotta bring in some universities. We have to bring in a few breweries and like, let’s just really get this Downtown going. It’s been dead too long. You know. And so with all that stuff, You know it had all these feelings and then that’s when Terry had this great idea of like, Hey, if you’re gonna do this, why don’t we plan ahead and figure out how we can save these businesses by paying for their You know electrical bills during the summertime through the City Electric, since we have our own electric grid there in Downtown.

Ryan Winkle (34m 57s):
And why don’t we only do construction during like the hottest months where no one’s going to the store anyways. And then You know, in exchange we’ll have all these businesses have to take You know better business classes and how to be a better business. And then we can lend to them throughout it to make sure that they stay there. And, and the mayor was like, ah, this is a great plan. Like why not You know, let’s do it. And then so in turn Terry was like, all right, now I gotta find people. So she found me. She found Augie, she found this guy David Crummy, who became kind of our real estate type person. She found Jen Castello, who was kind of our placemaking person. She had us all trained at Railvolution, actually, which is an interesting thing.

Ryan Winkle (35m 38s):
You know. Yeah. And NeighborWorks and some of these other things. We all went to training. We all kind of picked different areas. I kind of functioned as the organizer. And literally for the next three, four years, we did art interventions. We, we basically created the, the mural sign code to be able to do it. We created really the, the ability to do art in an area. And I’m not saying we wrote it, but what I’m saying is we created enough friction to where the city was like, all right, we have to react, so let’s give permission in these parameters. You know, between all that business work and all that things that we did, we actually, at the end of it, we were like, great success like light rails here. It’s flowing.

Ryan Winkle (36m 18s):
We actually copied the Minnesota St. Paul method of having a party for every You know every station. We actually went there to see what they did, and then also worked with some of the folks from, from that area to be really creative or, or at least copying creativity and do our own style. And then we had a net zero business loss because we had lost 10, but we gained 10 and we gained a bunch of like, buzz around what’s happening, Downtown, there’s a new light Rail, there’s space open. There’s like, man, what’s happening? Like there’s all these cool businesses that are very unique. They’re not chains. Like, we gotta check that out, right? And then at this time, some other things were happening and, and as everyone knows, the cycles of investment, people saw the light Rail like, okay, things are gonna get bad so we can swoop in and buy things.

Ryan Winkle (37m 4s):
Everyone’s gonna be scared, so they’re gonna be You know I sell all I can. Right? And then something happened, so something happened that we didn’t know would happen, which totally changed the way that we, we continued our work.

David Longoria (37m 15s):
You mentioned Terry again, and how at the time she sort of gave some really, I think, strategic and important advice was, well, if this is gonna happen, if you, if you were gonna, if you’re serious about wanting to invest in these neighborhoods through light Rail, how are you gonna prepare for it? What are you gonna do that’s actually going to, as you’re sort of preparing for the inevitability of the, of the light Rail being present in these communities, how are you going to plan to make sure that you can mitigate the effect that the, that this new infrastructure is gonna have on these communities? And obviously I wasn’t with LISC at the time, but LISC, Phoenix began investing in the main street quarter there with support.

David Longoria (38m 2s):
I think we, it was a state farm like grant that we had like in 2008. Yeah. And then like there was also the LISC Metro Edge, right? Which launched in 2005 to seed and support development, economic growth along commercial corridors, right? So then we were chosen for the corridors of retail excellence or the core initiative that focused on Main Street in Mesa. But this, but my point is, is that this idea of thinking, and we’ve touched upon this a little bit, right? This idea of thinking in the long term, right? That leads to lasting results is so crucial to supporting the infrastructure and more, more importantly supporting the communities in which this infrastructure is going to affect, right?

David Longoria (38m 48s):
So like even as far back as 2002, our partners at Native American Connections here in Phoenix, they purchased a single story building in Downtown Phoenix on the corner of Second Avenue in Fillmore, in the Roosevelt historic district, my neighborhood currently. It was all about this forward thinking. It was all about how are we gonna get ahead of this? Right? Of course, today it’s, I think that’s the location of the Urban living on Fillmore, right? So they ended up using that like it used to be across the street from where their headquarters were located. And their behavioral health center was also there as well. But they used that investment to build affordable housing on that same site, because I think it was like five years later that they moved their headquarters to over on Central Avenue and Indian School where the LISC Phoenix offices actually were for several years before coming back Downtown.

David Longoria (39m 40s):
But I mean, it’s that, it’s this sort of, it’s this sort of thinking ahead. I think that that makes all the difference, right? We may wish for quick fixes for the challenges our communities face, but we know that sustainable community development takes time, right? It takes a vision of what it could be. It takes early investments of expertise and funding. It takes being ready with the right partners to seize an opportunity. It takes longstanding commitment to see a project through to results. You know. And you can’t have these success stories without this long-term thinking that lead to these lasting impacts. And I think that’s part of what You know you’re talking about a little bit, like about how You know there was this great potential in Light Rail and how it could connect people to jobs or school in a more reliable and affordable way.

David Longoria (40m 32s):
But there were efforts that needed to be instituted to mitigate the disruption and to preserve not only the actual local businesses, but preserve the communities and themselves.

Ryan Winkle (40m 44s):
Sorry. Yeah. I was gonna say it’s like a 10 year plan, right? And I remember when Let Row was done and the businesses were like, all right, yeah. Like finally, like, customer’s gonna pour in. And we’re like, no, not yet. Not yet. You got, it’s still gonna be a couple years where people even understand what’s going on. You know. Yeah. And, and that’s when we start thinking like, all right, like what, like what is, what is the next few years look like? And not only that, the, the big piece of it that we didn’t even think about was what does the future of housing look like? What does the future of ownership look like? Cuz we knew there was affordable housing going up at that time, but we had assumed that that was gonna be kind of consistent going forward, not that it would be a one-time thing. And so there’s a lot of things you have to consider when you’re working with an area like this, right?

David Longoria (41m 28s):
Yeah. What were some of the challenges of trying to interface with such a massive project that was happening? Like, like what were you guys up against?

Ryan Winkle (41m 36s):
So when I think of, when I try to compare now on the south side to, to then in West Mesa in the light Rail corridor, like they’re two, they’re one street apart, right? And so like, it’s Broadway and Maine, right? They’re built around the same time. They have very similar features. A lot of things are similar with Broadway. Now I, I have a bigger vision. I’m like, and when I talk to the city, I’m like, so can you imagine that this could be like the Latino Downtown for the entire valley? Cuz it would be the only one kind of called the Latino Downtown, right? And they’re like, we already have it Downtown. I’m like, I know, but what if he had two You? know what I mean? Like, like it’s like have

David Longoria (42m 18s):
To be Why does it only have to be one? Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Ryan Winkle (42m 22s):
I mean like,

David Longoria (42m 23s):
I’m sorry, I’m sorry. We can only have one Latino Downtown. There’s only

Ryan Winkle (42m 27s):
One Main Street You know. And I’m like, but what if there’s a Latino version of it? And like both of them are awesome and different You know. Yeah. And equally busy and fun and You know all these things. And one of the things we’re up against is that we didn’t really think of, I mean I like, I didn’t think about it, I’ll put it that way. And us as we continued is that behind the scenes we, we should have been working on this wealth building strategy of like, how do you own, like how do you own the place you are? Cuz what we didn’t think, and we knew that all of these, like legacy owners had owned most of the buildings, which are like from the 19 hundreds and the, and the, and the Main street area. But we didn’t think that they might one day sell it and kick everybody out You know what I mean? And so I was like, oh wait, wait, what’s happening here?

Ryan Winkle (43m 8s):
We just worked for years to keep that business there and now they’re, they got kicked out. Why? Well, what happened? They’re paying their rent, right?

David Longoria (43m 16s):
Yeah. No, I mean it’s almost like gentrification is, it’s such a, it’s such a, it’s such an ominous threat, but it, it never, it like if when, when you’re in the process of trying to help communities navigate these, these really sort of tricky huge infrastructure projects, sometimes that can be like taken for granted, right? It’s like we’re gonna help these guys to stick around. There’s no way and heck that they’re ever gonna be gentrified, that they’re ever gonna be priced out or forced out as long as they play by the rules, right? And, and do everything that they’re supposed to do. And sometimes it’s, it’s funny. That can be, that can be a naive, a naive way to think right?

David Longoria (43m 57s):
It and sometimes we, we, if we’re not careful, we can miss the mark to your point about that. So, okay, we’re gonna pause here, right? So setting the stage light Rail is about to open connecting Mesa with Tempe and Phoenix, the Light Rail construction and the Light Rail transit spawns more than 400 million in new projects for Mesa, Benedictine University, ASU campus in Mesa, the Asian district investment and everything that went into there. When we come back, when we return on the next exciting episode of the Impact Podcast, we’re gonna look at the story for existing residents and businesses and the foundations of Rail’s work today.

David Longoria (44m 41s):
But before we go, a question about big infrastructure projects in general. How can communities be better able to engage and You know, you mentioned this earlier about like knowing your role and there’s a, there’s a place for like city and local government and then the, some of the other CDCs like yourself who are doing similar work. But what could cities or planners or regional bodies do to signal a relationship of trust? How, how can they better build this, this trust?

Ryan Winkle (45m 11s):
I think about this a lot because I, I won, I often wonder what would be the actual, like You know the key piece of it or what’s the end of there? What’s like the, the aha moment people are gonna have? But what I think it’s, it’s, it’s multiple things, right? So if I were to look at the city of Mesa today and their internal You know staff and the big decision makers, almost none of them look or understand, look like the people that we work with on the south side or the Asian district or things like this, right? And that is not to say that you always need a seat at somebody else’s table. It just means that you have to be able to build another table that’s awesome enough to have two tables.

Ryan Winkle (45m 52s):
And that table’s like, dang, that table looks pretty good over there. It’s different, but let’s go check it out. You know. And then at my table I’m like, well, yeah, we know, we know we’re different, but you guys have, you guys have always been at this table and it was time another table started. And I also wanna eat at your table, but we need to have something like rules of engagement here. You know. So I, I, I almost wonder, LISC has a, a decent paper out about it that talks about You know building these two power broken group power broker groups. And one is of the community from the community lived experience by the community. And one is the obvious power players who came from somewhere You know they could have somewhere in the community, You know and how those interact.

Ryan Winkle (46m 34s):
So I, I to just, just to answer, I don’t know the exact answer, but I do know what has been working as building groups of power within the neighborhoods that are the most affected.

David Longoria (46m 43s):
Nice. Yeah. I love that.

PART 2 Coming Soon…