East St. Louis was once an industrial leader and job generator, but with the shift of heavy industry, the city's health waned. Decades of disinvestment and systemic racism eroded occupancy and sources of employment, resulting in sub-standard infrastructure. In 1989, a Housing and Urban Development official referred to East St. Louis as “the most distressed small city in America.” Today, the zip codes within our target neighborhood reflect exacerbated disparities. The unemployment rate is nearly 20% as existing jobs are often unavailable or out of reach for unemployed residents due to the need for additional skill-building or job-training programs. Philanthropic funding is often out of reach for East St. Louis; while just a river separates the city from St. Louis, MO, most foundations only provide funding in Missouri. The city’s distance from Chicago often leads to it being overlooked. In short, the city finds itself in a philanthropic desert.  

The FBI and Uniform Crime Reporting data indicate East St. Louis is statistically among the most violent cities in the country. Although statistics for cities with a population of less than 100,000 are uncommon, East St. Louis has had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation for years. For example, in 2019, East St. Louis, with a population of approximately 26,000, had 37 homicides, translating to a homicide rate of roughly 28 times the national average.  

This area is a microcosm of the overall demographics; the population is 96% Black/African American with a median age of 33, and 39% of residents are under 24. The city struggles with a myriad of risk factors related to violence. Census data indicates that 56% of families with children under 18 live in poverty, with 1 in 3 youth living in households with incomes of less than $15,000 per year. More than 4,100 housing units are vacant (21%), and the average median value of owner-occupied housing is $54,700, less than half of the median value in St. Clair County. According to the 2018 Illinois Report Card, only 11% of elementary and middle school students within East St. Louis School District 189 met reading standards, only 5% of high school students were college ready, and the high school graduation rate stood at 73%. 

Our children cannot flourish if our community is unsafe and not economically thriving. East Side Aligned (ESA) is guided by the ESA Roadmap, developed through an intensive 18-month planning process co-led by youth. The Roadmap serves as our community’s shared agenda and is made up of 14 sub-goals and over 180 interconnected strategies. In 2015, the sub-goal “All children and youth feel and are safe” was unanimously identified as the number one priority. As such, ESA began working to mobilize resources and facilitate collaboration to advance strategies to reduce violence. 

The ESA seeks to develop a data-driven, place-based plan to reduce crime, increase trust, and improve community safety through the following strategies:  

• Facilitate trust-building and reconciliation activities among residents, law enforcement, and other stakeholders.  

• Develop a logic model and evaluation framework with clear, measurable deliverables and performance measures using a racial equity lens.  

• Conduct a comprehensive inventory of the types and quality of data sources available, and establish a data collection and analysis plan.  

• Identify and pursue opportunities to align existing resources to support the project. 

East St. Louis Police Department, Illinois State Police, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois