We Live Here

Spend time in St. Louis’ wealthy, old neighborhoods and you might notice something unusual. Amid all the splendor of ornate craftsmanship and tree-lined streets you’ll often happen across thick, wrought iron gates. In fact the city helped put gated communities on the map in America. The developers of these early streets also crafted racial restrictive covenants, which would spread to suburbs in St. Louis and beyond. With the help of St. Louis preservationist Michael Allen, Kameel and Tim trace the legacy of gated communities to modern day. They find that while the mechanics have changed, the ideas and beliefs that helped build some of the first gated, private streets in the country are hardly a thing of the past.

Richard Rothstein, author of 'The Color of Law,' delves into the intentional government policies that designed racial segregation in America. He critiques the myth that segregation arose from individual choices, instead highlighting historical actions that enforced racial separation. Rothstein explores significant housing policies from the mid-20th century, like the Federal Housing Administration's role, and discusses the implications for modern society. He also emphasizes grassroots movements, like Black Lives Matter, offering a hopeful perspective on the struggle for equality.

In a country where fair and affordable housing is becoming harder to hold onto each year, we profile the people who are standing in the gap: the lawyers. And we introduce you to Lee Camp, a young St. Louis attorney who stumbled upon a case that could level the playing field between tenants and landlords in Missouri — and his client Latasha Johnson, whose eviction story sits at the center.

Last episode, you heard about serious allegations against officials in Maplewood, Mo. Housing advocates say public nuisance laws in the leafy suburb of St. Louis are being used against the poor, people of color and victims of domestic abuse. But in this episode, town officials push back and say there’s nothing wrong with the way they determine who is and isn’t a nuisance in their town. We also hear more about Rosetta Watson, the woman suing in federal court after she says she was kicked out of Maplewood for calling police too many times for protection from an abusive ex-boyfriend.

Maplewood, Missouri. is a cozy little suburb at the border of St. Louis City. It has great schools, a cute downtown and one of the region’s most celebrated breweries. But in the background, some housing advocates say the town’s officials are turning public nuisance laws against people of color, the mentally ill and victims of domestic abuse. In the first of a two-part episode, hosts Tim and Kameel kick of the podcast’s fourth season by digging into these allegations and tell the story of a woman who was kicked out of Maplewood after cops came to her house too many times to deal with an abusive ex-boyfriend.

Tim and Kameel give you a preview of what is coming in show’s fourth season, with an extra emphasis on the LIVE HERE part of We Live Here.

Tim and Kameel are working hard to make shows for the next season, but don’t worry dear listeners, because it’s bonus episode time! We’re taking you allllll the way back to a little more than a year ago when we brought you an episode called “Black Girl Magic.” Some of you diehards probably remember it, if not, scroll back in our feed and check it out. The episode is all about a big effort among business leaders in St. Louis to diversify the city’s entrepreneurship scene. It turns out one young woman was listening, and the story of what she did next is pretty cool.

It almost seemed like a too-good-to-be-true Black History Month gift: the unveiling of the super-cool official portrait of former president Barack Obama. This distinct image of Obama, which is unlike any other presidential portrait, immediately caused a cultural and artistic buzz. Even better for us, it happened to be by the mesmerizing Kehinde Wiley, an artist we had on the podcast in 2016 following a controversy at St. Louis’ contemporary art museum. In that episode, titled “Museum Meltdown,” Wiley spoke to us about the complicated intersection of race, representation and art. But there were a lot of things we left on the cutting room floor. So, in this bonus episode, We Live Here cracks open its vault and shares never-before-heard parts of an interview with Wiley. He gets into the fascination people have with a black artist painting white bodies; a concept he calls “cultural policing;” and the impoliteness of exclusion.

We miss you guys! We’re hard at work getting shows ready for our fourth season, but we don’t want to leave you hanging. So, we’re dropping a little bonus content. Last year we collaborated with the very cool producers at Baltimore’s Out of the Blocks podcast and brought you voices from the Ville, a historic black neighborhood in north St. Louis. This is the second show from that podcast mashup with some extra stories at the end.

Jesus is back! Our favorite black spiritual adviser returns to judge our third season. Hear highlights from the episodes he liked, and the ones he didn’t.