New thinking about housing

In 1977, I arrived in Rochester to start my new career as a pediatrician, serving the community around Bull’s Head which, at the time, was a predominantly minority neighborhood, financially-challenged and with a higher rate of health-related morbidity and mortality. The good Daughters of Charity, who had founded St. Mary’s Hospital as part of their mission, had decided to open an office-based multi-specialty primary care practice, one where the local population could avoid clinics and emergency rooms as the source of their primary medical care. Continuity of care was our north star.

I learned much in those first 12 years of my professional life. I learned that health was not just seeing a doctor, or getting a prescription or a referral to a specialist. I was informed by my experience, discovering that health was education, a safe family environment with opportunities for children to play, food security, behavioral health and, above all, housing, the ability to have an affordable roof over one’s head, preferably without molds or lead.

Much of the housing was old, downtrodden, and primarily on a rental basis. Often, the owners lived nowhere near their tenants, some being either in the wealthier suburbs or even out-of-state or out of the country. The city of Rochester had, essentially, been divided by a concrete moat, separating the center city and dividing Rochester by destructive incursions into long-standing neighborhoods, all for the benefit of the car. We came to call this fortress the Inner Loop.

Along with the destruction of neighborhoods came the dissipation of these cherished and cohesive neighborhoods, never to be reestablished again. With this, came the loss of housing and, more importantly, the inability to own homes and create generational wealth, something that is severely lacking, particularly in our minority populations.

In the early 21st century, plans were developed to fill in the Inner Loop and develop housing as well as opportunities for retail shops and restaurants. The eastern portion of the loop was the first to be filled in with numerous parcels of land offered up in RFPs, for development. All of the parcels were, in fact, developed by not only local developers but by the National Museum of Play, creating their Neighborhood of Play. All of the housing developed were rentals, either at market rate or mixed-income, affordable units.

However, there was one exception with one parcel remaining undeveloped … that located between Union St., Charlotte St. and Pitkin St. Plans for housing, a child care center, or other uses had not materialized, so, in late 2025, another RFP was sent out by the city government for new ideas.

One of these ideas was unlike the others and was accepted by the Rochester city government.  It was unique in that it offered affordable OWNERSHIP with the ability for purchase by those potential buyers earning no more than 60% of AMI (Area Median Income). Moreover, among  the eleven units for purchase, was the opportunity to benefit from having an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) in nine of them, giving the owners the opportunity for offering living space to extended family, use of it as a rental property (with the owner living on site), or making use of it as a studio or workshop for their trade.

The project was created by Hinge Neighbors, a not-for-profit organization and not a corporation, under the name of Hinge Homes on Charlotte. The project may be viewed online at www.hingehomes.com. The completion of the project is dependent on the sale of the parcel by the city upon approval by the Rochester City Council in April. Hinge Neighbors is also the same non-profit that has been working, since 2018, on plans for land usage when the Inner Loop North is eventually filled in. They have been actively engaged in community organizing, bringing the two sides of the ILN together.

This project does not just represent housing but an opportunity to repair the harm that was done to whole communities and their families by the “forward” thinking of the 1950’s and 60’s, steeped in the power of the automobile as well as structural racism. This is an opportunity to offer eleven individuals or families to finally achieve generational wealth as well as, to once again, join a neighborhood as a community neighbor. The “hinge” in Hinge Homes is just that, a hinge to bridge the divide of communities, long ago divided. I think it is worthy of our interest and support.

Sanford J. Mayer MD FAAP

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