Poverty, Planning & Politics

In a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri called Clayton, Panera Bread just opened up a new store that runs completely off of donations from its customers. The motto over the counter says “Take what you need, leave your fair share." It seems like a pretty ambitious project. The hope is that while poorer customers will be able to access new food options while leaving what they can, the wealthier clientele will be able to leave a little more money to keep this social experiment in business.

This kind of project has great potential to help alleviate poverty by offering more substantial, healthy meals to poor families who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford them. And if it were to spread, then crime would no longer be the alternative to hunger in many cases. People would always be able to eat whether they were low on cash or not.

But, if this experiment spread to other stores and services, how far would the generosity of the wealthy spread with it, when it is a model based purely on the goodness of others? Would people who have always lived so easily be willing to start spending more on everything, or is their generosity limited to the occasional stop at Panera because it makes them feel good about themselves without having to face the reality of how extensive poverty in our country really is? Just how far can this model expand?

The new bakery is called “St. Louis Bread Company Cares,” based off of Panera Bread’s original name, which they still go by in their hometown of St. Louis. However, the experiment isn’t being funded by Panera Bread, really. The company’s nonprofit foundation is covering the operating costs, and if the project fails, the foundation will absorb the costs. But if the trial succeeds, Panera Bread will be expanding this “pay what you can afford” model to communities all over the country.

It seems as though the first of these stores was set up in Clayton after much thought and deliberation, as it is a community with a high percentage of people capable of giving back a little more. The suburbs of Clayton are no ghetto. But if the experiment were expanded to areas where there are more people in need than there are people capable of giving more, would it be able to sustain itself? And will it even be able to sustain itself in the rich suburbs of Clayton, where people can most certainly afford to help those in need, if they wanted to?

According to Denise Cerreta, the founder of a similar restaurant that has been able to stay afloat since 2003, “ultimately people are good.” I guess if Panera expands this experiment and funds restaurants like this one all over the country, we’ll see just how good people are. I hope Cerreta is right.

Thanks for reading. The photos above were provided by Lisa Watson of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

- David

Going green and affordable housing have been two practically contradicting terms for way too long. This group, called Enterprise Community Partners, have developed a list of criteria necessary to build affordable, green housing, and they finance developers willing to build according to these standards.

To strengthen these criteria, Enterprise conducted a study and found that developments built according to their standards cost 2.1% more in upfront development costs. But these developments pay for that and more in the long-run because of the way they are built, due to long-term operating cost savings.

When affordable housing developments are built green, they also provide health, economic, and obvious environmental benefits as well. To bring these benefits to low-income residents, Enterprise breaks their criteria into eight categories: (1) integrated design, (2) location and neighborhood fabric, (3) site improvements, (4) water conservation, (5) energy efficiency, (6) building materials beneficial to the environment, (7) healthy living environment, and (8) operations and maintenance.

If you’d like to learn more about specific findings, you can check out the abridged version of their detailed report.

Every donation helps to finance more low-income housing units built in a sustainable, energy-efficient and healthy way, and if there’s one thing we know it’s that there aren’t enough low-income housing units in America for families going through hard times right now. To donate, please go to my donation page!

And if you need any other reason to donate besides helping needy families move into much-needed housing or my eternal thanks and appreciation, for every donation of exactly $9.00 you get entered into a chance to win an Apple Macbook Pro.

Cool, huh?

Thanks everyone.

- David