Richard Stallings Retires in Pocatello, Idaho --
Made PNHS a Lasting Institution
by Tommy Timm

August 14, 2003 -- Richard Stallings, who in eight years as executive director of Pocatello Neighborhood Housing Services raised its image and made it a lasting institution in Pocatello, was honored by his friends and neighbors in June at a western-style retirement dinner.

PNHS President Brenda Pollard told of the many hats Stallings has worn over time –- as a high school teacher, college history department chairman, four-term Congressman, U.S. Nuclear Waste Negotiator, and leader of professional and service organizations. "Richard’s big NHS hat is going to be hard to fill," Pollard concluded.

In July, PNHS announced it had selected Cary Jones, executive director of Aid for Friends in Pocatello, to succeed Stallings. Jones previously worked as a special assistant to former Idaho Governor John Evans, served as legislative director for a member of Congress in Washington, D.C., and was executive director of a forest products trade association in Oregon.

Under Stallings, PNHS assisted 450 families in becoming first-time homebuyers, provided homebuyer counseling to 1,400 potential homebuyers, built more than 100 homes or rental units, and helped more than 200 owners rehabilitate their homes.

Focus on Neighborhoods

Stallings focused PNHS primarily on the six neighborhoods that surround downtown Pocatello, a southeast Idaho community of 51,000, and initiated many innovative projects to revitalize them. Among the projects:

• The High School House program, where PNHS, working with high school students who were learning construction trade skills through the Pocatello School District, built a new home every year.
• Demolition of an abandoned grocery store and, in its place, construction of 14 new homes.
• Restoration of the dilapidated Eagles fraternal building, across from the high school, which was transformed in a $1 million project into apartments and commercial offices, including PHNS’s own NeighborWorks^® HomeOwnership Center^®.
• Assisting owners of basement homes to complete their main level additions, after they had lived for decades in the basements.
• Promoting the development of five neighborhood associations, training resident leaders, and partnering with residents to complete projects to beautify their neighborhoods, such as the landscaping and construction of playground equipment in a neighborhood park and annual neighborhood clean-ups.
• Partnering with the city of Pocatello to make curb and sidewalk repairs and to demolish 30 blighted properties.

PNHS’s efforts increased the city’s tax base by $3 million from 1995 to 2001. "But more importantly," Stallings says, "is that we’ve empowered residents by organizing these neighborhood associations to give them some power so they can go before the (city) council, not as individuals, but as a neighborhood association."

Stallings worked hard to increase funding for PNHS. Out of a budget of $600,000, a mix of fees, federal, city and private dollars, he raised more than $95,000 in local contributions through an annual giving campaign last year.

Attracting Young Families

Stallings believes that bringing young families into PNHS neighborhoods through promoting home ownership goes a long way to revitalize Pocatello’s core neighborhoods. He says PNHS’s first mission, revitalizing older neighborhoods, is actually accomplished when its second mission, assisting first-time homebuyers, is achieved.

"We think bringing these families back into these older neighborhoods is very helpful," Stallings says. "If we’re not able to help these families, quite often these homes become vacant – or are picked up by landlords. That’s not in the best, long-term interests of these neighborhoods.

"Once you have the inner core of a city deteriorating, it impacts the rest of the city. I believe we have to do everything we can to improve these older neighborhoods which, if not helped, can deteriorate to the point where they’re uninhabitable."

Stallings was elected to Congress in 1984, defeating a seven-term incumbent by 170 votes. He sat on the Agriculture Committee, Science and Technology Committee, and the Select Committee on Aging. While on the Agriculture Committee, he drafted and enacted legislation creating the Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation (Farmer Mac), the secondary market for agricultural real estate loans, and authored successful amendments to provide for tax-free bonds for rural cooperatives to construct and operate water and wastewater treatment facilities, among other achievements.

In his "retirement," Stallings will complete his term on the Pocatello City Council, and then he and his wife, Ranae, will divide their time between their home in Mesquite, Nevada, and their Idaho cabin near West Yellowstone, Wyoming.

Tommy Timm (ttimm@nw.org) is a Neighborhood Reinvestment management consultant.

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