100 East Geer Street
“For a lot of our clients, they don’t really care if Durham is written up in the New York Times”, says Eliza Bordley of Inter-faith Food Shuttle, one of the non-profit agencies located on the 100 block of Geer Street. She is alluding to the creeping tide of gentrification happening in and around this part of Durham. Walk a few blocks west and you encounter a sprawl of trendy cafes, craft breweries, and restaurants with valet attendants. Walk just one block east and you have entered census tracks 9, 10, and 11, consistently the poorest tracks in Durham. The businesses located on this short block of Geer are well aware of this dichotomy pressing in on Durham. Their work focuses on the underserved communities that were in Durham before its rebirth and before the demographics started changing. Their goals focus on the rehabilitation of existing infrastructure, the development of affordable housing, and the establishment of a local, urban food system.
The 100 block of Geer Street sits on a hill, the west end of the street higher than the east end. At the top runs Mangum, a major thoroughfare going one-way into downtown. At the bottom of the hill runs Roxboro going north out of downtown. It is a quiet street yet the hum of the city is evident and there is an increasing amount of foot traffic. Occasional cyclists whiz by and residents walk their dogs. This was not always the case when most of the buildings were abandoned a decade or more ago due to “zombie foreclosures”. Banks foreclosed, then abandoned the buildings. In came urban blight, open prostitution and daytime drug transactions. “When we started the revitalization there were over four hundred 9–1–1 calls at the corner of Geer and Roxboro for 5 years in a row.” says Peter Skillern of Reinvestment Partners. Most of the development and revitalization along Geer Street is due to Peter’s work at Reinvestment Partners, whose mission is to advocate for economic justice and promote wealth in underserved communities. Reinvestment Partners, with help from the City of Durham has contributed to most of the rehabilitation on this block. Two of the historic homes now sit beautifully appointed and are being used for good cause. One, a stately, brick apartment building from the 1920s is serving as Reinvestment Partner’s offices. The other, a bright yellow traditional house with a covered porch is home to Sunrise Recovery Resource Center, a branch of the Alcoholic Drug Council of North Carolina. Sunrise serves from 5 to 50 clients daily, providing substance abuse counseling, group classes, and a business office used for job hunting. Recovery Coach Erika Williams, says, “We love it here on Geer Street. We are central to the population we are serving. They can take the bus or walk here. Sometimes our clients just want to have a place to hang out and feel connected”.
On the opposite corner of Geer Street, an old Gulf gas station has been reborn as Bull City Cool, Durham’s first food hub. A fresh layer of white and green paint and two large sliding garage doors give a contemporary feel to the retro building. The small parking lot fills daily with colorful vans loading and unloading fresh produce. Bull City cool is Reinvestment Partner’s most recent project. It is part of a plan to establish an interconnected, urban food system, offering a central location for cold storage for nonprofit and for-profit food organizations. Most of the food hub tenants are sourcing from local farms and donating or selling to various agencies in Durham. Inter-Faith Food Shuttle is one of the six tenants and their mission is two-fold — to create sources of healthy food in every low-income neighborhood and grow opportunities for people to provide for themselves by learning job skills or growing their own food.
The Food Shuttle also operates the Geer Street Learning Garden, a half-acre patch of green across the street, providing the block with a natural oasis and a place for social connection. At the Learning Garden, tilled rows are ready for spring planting and small greenhouses and compost piles are being tended. Eliza Bordley, Urban Agricultural Programs Manager at the Food Shuttle explains their goals. “There are two food stories in Durham. We have positioned ourselves near the poorest tracks of Durham and are engaging the elementary schools, focusing on young kids. We hope to affect eating habits, and get the kids excited about food. Research shows if kids catch the bug, parents catch the bug.” The Food Shuttle is renting the land from Peter. “Peter believes that local food is an integral part of the community fabric.” Eliza says. “He’s a community partner. He gets it”. On Wednesdays, the clients at Sunrise Recovery are invited to volunteer in the garden and in turn, the Food Shuttle shares some of their bounty with the chef at Sunrise Recovery. These types of reciprocal relationships help make the organizations on Geer Street thrive. Although real challenges remain and there is much work to be done by these innovators, the 100 block of Geer Street is a success story that demonstrates the power of urban renewal and community connection.
