Pittsburgh Organizations and Their Websites, at a glance

The first organization’s website I chose to focus on is East Liberty Development Incorporation (ELDI). The second website I compare and contrast with ELDI is Hosanna House and the third organization’s website is Thomas Merton Center. All of these organizations are located in the city of Pittsburgh, but have very different missions.

ELDI is a non-profit organization in the heart of the East Liberty neighborhood. This organization works with the neighborhood and other agencies to enhance east Liberty in four distinctive categories: planning, advocacy, facilitation, and investment.

Hosanna House is located in Wilkinsburg and is a community center for this neighborhood. They offer this neighborhood a number of different services; Early childhood education, career development help, and food assistance programs being among the many.

Thomas Merton Center is centered towards peace and social justice. They fight for economic justice, environmental justice, human rights, and other projects to bring about peace to the world. This nonprofit organization has been around in Pittsburgh for over forty years and continues to raise issue domestically and internationally that are not inline with their values of peace and equality.

These three nonprofit organizations all have websites that are informative to their mission and values. The boards of directors for these three organizations are all volunteers. The Thomas Merton Center has the largest number of people of their Board and Hosanna House has the least number of people on their Board. ELDI and Hosanna House seem to both have people that are religiously affiliated as President of their Board. ELDI is the only website that has a short bio of each of their members of the Board. The other websites only list the names of the Board members.

All of these organizations, according to their websites, are a “horizontal” organization. This means they do not have a parent organization in charge of them. All of these organizations are different when recruiting people to volunteer. Thomas Merton Center’s website has almost twenty links to click on with how you can help their causes from your own home. These include writing to your representative, attending different community groups, and receiving their newsletter. There is a volunteer link, but it just tells you how to contact the organization. Hosanna House has a form they ask people interested in volunteering the fill out, but they do not give any additional information about volunteering. ELDI has no link and tab on volunteering with them. The closest to a volunteering opportunity I saw was their information on internships. But, this obviously does not include everyone interested in giving their time to help this organization.

ELDI’s website shows that they are interested in working with the East Liberty neighborhood to “literally invest dollars into projects as well as investing in the quality of life for neighborhood stakeholders.” This organization does not seem to directly interact with the people they serve, the residents of East Liberty. Hosanna House, however, directly interacts with the people of Wilkinsburg and helps them receive basic needs and other important services. The Thomas Merton Center is involved with numerous projects. These projects include economic justice campaigns, educating the public on certain important issues, and projects to advance the rights of prisoners. All of these organizations have very different projects that they are working on. ELDI is development and architecturally centered. Hosanna House helps people everyday and comes in contact with the people they assist constantly. The Thomas Merton Center is directly involved with some of their projects, but they are very politically active.

The Thomas Merton Center has their own newspaper and monthly newsletter to keep people up to date on what they are doing, new projects they are involved in, and things they have accomplished. ELDI does not have this but, they put a link up on their website to give people the chance to see their monthly reports. Hosanna House has a section on their website called “News and Media.” This section allows a chance for people to see what the news and media has said about the organization.  

All of these organizations seem to act in accordance with a structural approach. They see the people they serve in their present situation because of the way society is constructed, not due to their behavior or culture. All of these organizations perform and serve their populations with an asset-based model approach. Hosanna House provides extensive programs and services along with services already offered in society. They make these services fit their population to help them in a more specific way. ELDI does not directly interact with the population they serve, but they believe they are fixing the community for the good of the people. The Thomas Merton Center also uses an asset-based model, instead of a deficiency model. This is so because they believe the people that they serve are wrongly treated and that this needs to stop immediately. All of these organizations believe that the people they serve need a little extra help to get to a good place. This is due to society, not due to the choice they have made. 

Will that Actually Work?

How DO you save a city? Is it by using gentrification and pushing the old out to make room for the new? Does it work when a big business comes in and puts money into a part of town that is financially struggling? Is money the answer or can enacting policy create social change? Or are all of these little pieces of the larger puzzle?

Image Credit: farm4

Cities everywhere are trying to figure out the best way to save their city and bring struggling parts of the city up to compete with the more affluent parts. I have never really thought about this issue until moving to Pittsburgh. I grew up in the suburbs of Florida. The city problems there were how to preserve the beaches and trouble with overpopulation. But, coming to Pittsburgh has opened my eyes to how different parts of this city make you think, feel, and believe. When arriving in Pittsburgh, I was told not to travel to certain parts of the area and to watch out when going to particular places at certain times of day. I took this advice and did not even think about contesting it. But, I got involved in mentoring middle schoolers in the area of Homewood. Yes, one of those areas I was “supposed to watch out in.” Entering Homewood, I automatically looked at the abandoned buildings and graffiti surrounding me. There were no grocery stores and corner stores that I could identify. It only seemed that this area had a library, community center, a school, and the rest of the area was houses. Other areas around Pittsburgh, the Hill District, Uptown, and parts of the Northside, all seemed to be areas in a similar situation. But, on exploration, I came to see the community projects emerging amongst these areas. All of these areas were working on growing community and urban gardens. These projects have been popular in helping a community become more invested and take pride in the area they live in. They also help fight food insecurity, eliminate food deserts, and help families save money on food. A program helping Pittsburgh with this project is called Grow Pittsburgh. There are many of these programs all over the country that are helping parts of cities rise above their hardships and trying to improve the area.

Another program that is helping communities with economic insecurity and being “put back on the map” is a program called KaBoom!. This is a program that goes to communities without a playground and asks volunteers to come help build this playground in the shortest amount of time possible. Their mission is to “create great playspaces through participation and leadership of communities.” They are trying to help kids become healthier by being able to play outside and to ultimately create stronger neighborhoods.

Both of these programs, Grow Pittsburgh and KaBoom!, are helping cities become invested in certain neighborhoods. And while these might help for a short time period, do they ultimately help the community get “saved”? In Richard Florida’s article, “How Not to ‘Save’ a City,” he comments that no city has been helped by a gentrification approach. This approach, “throwing people out of their homes, neighborhoods destroyed, historic structures leveled, and the community fabric…ripped to shreds,” has never worked. He believes that we are better off helping residents with the resources to build on their community strengths and connecting them with their own community-based organizations.

This helps residents turn their community into what they see is right for the future. They need to work with local government, local business owners, and other institutions to achieve the best for their community.

Image Credit: Globalenrichmentfoundation

So is this “empowering process” achieved with programs like Grow Pittsburgh and KaBoom!? Or is this just the first step towards getting people involved in their community and then going from there? Does there need to be an advocating and political aspect to this process? Do big businesses and institutions in the area need to become involved?

I agree with Richard Florida when we says, “the most successful efforts of renewing old urban neighborhoods don’t come from top-down reclamation schemes but from organic, bottom-up, community-based efforts to strengthen and build on neighborhood assets.” This is what projects like building neighborhood playgrounds and urban gardens are doing. However, can community-based organizations achieve complete renewal by themselves? I think that urban gardens and playgrounds can do wonders on community morale, but when does the community start boosting their economy and start competing with the more affluent neighborhoods around them?

External Links:

Grow Pittsburgh- The website for the urban garden project in the Pittsburgh area

KaBoom!- The website for the playground developing program

"How Not to 'Save' a City"- The article by Richard Florida mentioned above.  

Are the children to blame? No, but...

I am currently interning at Catholic Charities in downtown Pittsburgh. I am working on a number of projects, but one in particular is called Hope Totes. This program is a weekend feeding program for children on free or reduced lunches at their schools. We are focusing on a high school near our offices and hoping that this program will provide students with food for the weekends during the school year. Catholic Charities had one of the most successful feeding programs last summer and are hoping to expand feeding children during the school year. I was shocked to learn about how many students received free or reduced school lunches in the city of Pittsburgh. High schools, in the Pittsburgh area, range from 0% to 75% of students receiving reduced lunches. The schools that do not have any children receiving free or reduced lunches are located in the suburbs and the schools with the majority of students getting these lunches are located in places like downtown and the Hill District. Hope Totes is hoping to reach at least thirty children, in its first year, and provide a mentoring program to go along with giving them a backpack of food for the weekend. The thought behind a program like this is if the children do not have enough money to pay for lunch during the week, what could they possibly be eating on the weekend? These programs are becoming popular nationwide and helping children not go hungry.

Image Credit: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Does a program like this help a certain demographic and provide them with resources that might not normally be accessible to them? There is an overwhelming amount of African American students that are receiving free or reduced lunches and that might not have access to healthy food on the weekends. Does a program, like Hope Totes, help these children get out of poverty and have a better chance to compete with their other schoolmates? How can children, who are hungry when they are trying to do school work, expect to contend with their fellow students that do not have to think about fulfilling their basic needs? My hope is that these programs help children that are in this position, but why are they in this position in the first place?

            Referring to the “culture of poverty” theory, the idea that attitudes and behavior patterns keep people poor, determines the link between why people are poor and how their culture might explain this. In the article, “ ‘Culture of Poverty’ Makes a Comeback,” by Patricia Cohen, she touches on certain aspects of people’s culture, like marriage, types of neighborhoods, and segregation, and how the views on these subjects contribute to poverty. Instead of earlier notions about people being lazy and blaming the poor for being poor, the new argument recognizes that a variety of factors contribute to poverty. The factors contributing to poverty are anywhere from political to economic reasons for the poor staying poor. The findings that researchers saw were not always parallel with what people assume. This article came more from a structuralist perspective because they see poverty as a problem occurring within society. Part of this article talks about neighborhoods that have more violence. This limits the ability for students to learn. This is because they are not able to communicate outside the family, and if the parent did not go to college, so the child does not have access to communicate on a higher level. This can be one side of the argument why these students do not do as well in school as students who’s parents went to college, but what else can attribute to this notion?

            In association with children receiving free school lunches, the “culture of poverty” cannot fully explain why these children cannot afford to buy lunch at a regular price and cannot say that their culture leaves them hungry. Some of these things are out of their control and even their caregiver’s control. So what can explain why some families do not have enough food to eat? What explains children receiving free or reduced lunches are more likely not to graduate school, or to get arrested, than students that do not?

Image Credit: Tote4Pgh
In the article, “The Poverty of an Idea,” Maurice Isserman writes about arguments for and against the “culture of poverty” theory. A book written by Michael Harrington, published over fifty years ago, says people are not poor because of the choices they have made, but because society is hindering them from getting ahead. These two articles describe the same thesis. The theorists and writers that are quoted in each article seem to define the “culture of poverty” in different ways and to use it when they deem appropriate. But, it is stated in one of the articles, that Michael Harrington was originally for the concept of the “culture of poverty” because he thought it would help the government enact more policies to help the poor. But, people used this concept to work against the poor and blame them instead of the wrongdoings of society. These two articles describe the original notion of the “culture of poverty” and the new notion for it. But, one is described in a more systemic view and the other is a cultural view to why people are poor. So, where did things get confusing and people start saying that people are to blame for their own poverty? Or, why are people not to blame for being poor?

A child going hungry, especially in the United States, is unacceptable. Programs can be started and food can be given to children in need, but does this really solve the problem? Is racism the problem that is hindering these children? Is it an institutionalized problem that hurts this population? No matter your opinion, the poor are staying poor and children are the largest population being damaged by this fact. The simple giving of food or clothing cannot solve this problem. There needs to be policies enacted and society needs to change as a whole to help this population succeed.

External Links:

'Culture of Poverty' Makes a Comeback- an article by Patricia Cohen, mentioned above, describes the new view to the "culture of poverty" thesis.

The Poverty of an Idea- an article by Maurice Isserman, mentioned above, takes the view that the "culture of poverty" theory has been misinterpreted over the years and might not mean what people think it does.

An increase in the number of reduced school lunches- an article that talks about how the number of children receiving free or reduced lunches is growing and the reasons for this growth.

A list of schools in the city of Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas that tells the percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunches. 

Image Credit: MackenzieChild

______ for Mayor!

Watch: Video for the Mayoral Debate

Last week, I attended a mayoral debate at the University of Pittsburgh. The “Pitt Political Review” and the local radio station sponsored this event. Three of the Pittsburgh mayoral candidates, Bill Peduto, Jack Wagner, and Jake Wheatley, answered questions from the audience of undergraduate and graduate students. There were a number of issues raised in this debate from how to change the morale on the police force to improving public transportation. The event highlighted the policy issues that candidates agreed upon and some they would like to change from current policy. A big topic brought up was the power of professionals and institutions in Pittsburgh. But, I was surprised on how many topics the candidates agreed on together. There were few differences between them and one of the main disparities I saw was the importance of money. This topic was brought up in reference to candidacy contributions, whether huge non-profits should be taxed more, and should there be a separate checking account for the new mayor. All of the candidates agree that Pittsburgh needs to get on board with other cities and stop living in the past.

Image Credit: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The more I thought of this debate, the more I came to think about Richard Florida’s plan to change cities to see economic growth. Richard Florida's "creative class" argument is based on boosting economy. When a city increases its "creative class," they will increase their economy. Florida states, "because new technologies, new industries, new wealth, and all other good economic things flow" from the rise in the "creative class. These candidates did not refer to the “creative class” and only mentioned homosexual couples once. They all agree that the benefits given to heterosexual couples should also be given to homosexual couples. This might attract more homosexuals than in the past and, Florida argues, a higher “gay index” is one factor that could help a city become more economically developed. But, what if the new mayor of Pittsburgh became aware of Florida’s “creative capital theory” and actually made a point to turn Pittsburgh into a more creative hub for people that are artists, authors, musicians, etc.? Could this help Pittsburgh become a stronger, more economically driven city? Would this theory help Pittsburgh became a city to live in the present or even the future, rather than in the past? 

One way that I feel the new mayor could do this is by putting money and effort into a more complex transit system. Some of the candidates talked about Pittsburgh’s transit system and how it does not even come close to being compared with other cities. They brought up San Francisco, Boston, and Washington D.C.’s transportation network and how this factor contributed to improving the city. Jake Wheatley mentioned that there needs to be a rail line from Oakland to Downtown, the two main hubs for employment in the city. This rail line will help people get to their jobs and really connect the city. The other candidates seconded this approach and felt there needed to be rail lines across all places in the city; north, south, east, and west. The “creative class” might be drawn more to a city with better public transportation and a city that takes pride in making it easier to travel to events all around the city.

Also, with more than three major universities in the Pittsburgh area, we need to keep graduates from all majors in the city to help improve this “creative class.” Not only do cities need technological or health professions to boost the economy, they need the careers that fall into more of the "arts" categories. Pittsburgh is a city of museums, music concerts and shows, and nightlife. So what else can be done to create a category of people that are drawn to this part of Pittsburgh and help promote this way of life? Richard Florida says that these groups of people are drawn towards a city that has diverse populations and a tolerant environment. The more varied the city is with foods, exhibitions, and festivals, the greater the possibility that this class will come to inhabit Pittsburgh.

Image Credit: Alphachimp Tour

Whoever the new mayor is, they need to think about this group of people and how they can contribute to the city of Pittsburgh. There needs to be greater emphasis on attracting the “creative class” from elsewhere and also for keeping them after graduation. According to Richard Florida, enhancing this class of people can help the economy, and therefore put Pittsburgh on the map as an all around transformed and vibrant city.

External Links:

Article on Mayoral Debate- An article from the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" about the debate held last week and what the different candidates think they could do to improve Pittsburgh.

"The Cities and Their New Elite"- This is the article describing Richard Florida's "creative class" notion and how this group of people will help improve cities.

For more information about each of the candidates from the debate, these are links to their websites:
Jack Wagner
Jake Wheatley
Bill Peduto

Broken Windows, Broken Rules

            Last month I had the opportunity to travel to Havana, Cuba for a spring break trip. I went with my graduate school and we were there for a little over a week. We attended lectures by professors from the University of Havana, went on site visits to numerous community projects around the city, and met many people that explained to us the nature of life in Havana. During my trip, I could not help but realize that there were two parts of town. There was Old Havana, and then there was the rest of the city. Whenever we went to Old Havana it was full of tourists, high-end restaurants, and boutique type shops. The people eating at these restaurants and buying items from these stores were not Cuban. The only Cubans I saw in this area were trying to sell items on the street to tourists to make their living. The other parts of Havana had buildings covered in graffiti and bars on windows. No one was ever out walking around and there barely any places to shop. This dichotomy made me think of the broken windows theory by James Q. Wilson. This theory states, “if a window is broken and left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken.” It means that if a neighborhood or a part of a city doesn’t clean up the graffiti or fix what is broken, the neighborhood will crumble down with it in regards to crime and violence. This theory applies to Old Havana and the other parts of the city because people take great care of Old Havana. They make a point to keep the locals out of this area and not be able to become consumers here. The rest of the city has more police standing guard. The feeling you get when you walk around there is that no one really cares if the area is kept up.

                                                                    OLD HAVANA                               

Image Credit: Mountainsoftravelphotos

                                                       OTHER PARTS OF THE CITY

Image Credit: Solsikken

           Havana is definitely not the only city where it is like this. Pretty much every large city in the world has an area of town that is more “run-down” and seems less safe. How do cities change this? Do they put more police in that area? Does the city use gentrification as a solving method? Does that really solve anything or does that just push the problem to another part of the city? There are so many questions and maybe there isn’t just one answer.

            An article, about broken windows theory, comments about how in New Jersey they thought a foot police patrol response was their way of solving crime and reducing these problems. So, five years after this started, an assessment was done to see if the foot patrol solved the issues in the area. The findings were very interesting. The assessment concluded that the foot patrol had not reduced crime, but it made the people in the area of the foot patrol feel safer. So the foot patrol did not technically help reduce crime rates, but if the people feel safe did they solve one part of the problem?

Image Credit: nicmyers
Juarez, Mexico

                     

A recent article in The Atlantic, talked about how the broken windows theory is relevant in a previously dangerous city in Mexico, Juarez. There have been a horrible number of murders in this city and there are many abandoned buildings and homes. Apparently, a new police chief was hired and started to change all of this. He started to place cops in various places around the city and have the citizens know there was now a police presence in the city. At first, there were a lot of problems between the gangs not wanting the police around. There were shoot-outs nightly and people dying daily. But, the police force kept going and rose above the problems. Now, people feel safe around their city. Almost 200 businesses have opened recently and people are moving back into the city.

           Juarez is one example of a city that needed the police around to stop crime and improve their way of life. People feel safer in this city now, so business are emerging and people are moving back again. Their broken windows are getting fixed. This could be because of a number of things, but it could be because of the role of the police in the city. To solve problems in certain cities, where people do not feel invested in their city and where crime escalates because of the lack of caring, there needs to be a number of factors working together to help solve the problems. Each city is different, but people are similar. They want to feel safe in their homes, and they need to see concrete proof that this is going to happen, or they move to another city and leave the broken windows behind. 

External Links:

Broken Windows Theory by James Q. Wilson- An article in The Atlantic about how broken windows theory is relevant to solving crime, or not, and the basis of this theory.

The "Broken Windows" Theory worked in Juarez- This is the article from The Atlantic I mentioned in my blog. It explains that increasing police presence has helped this Mexican city reduce crime and help their people feel safer. 

A sociological approach to the "Broken Windows" Theory and how each part of the theory affects the city as a whole. 

Innocent and Still Shunned

My senior year of college one of my professors asked me if I would like to help him with something. Intrigued and curious, I agreed to meet him for coffee to learn all about a project he was working on. My professor was working alongside a lawyer that helped people involved in the prison system. Both of them took cases that represented prisoners that had been wrongly convicted or that were being abused in some way or another. I was ashamed that I had never thought about what happens to an inmate that was not being treated in a humane fashion (which probably happens more than I would like to think). I spent that whole year learning about the legal system and how hard it was to represent a population that people constantly ignored.

Image Credit: Detention Ministry

One of the cases we worked involved a man that was wrongly accused of murder when he was fourteen years old. He was arrested on one person’s account of the description of the culprit. A person, apparently of this boy’s height and build, went into a local corner store to rob it. The robber set the store on fire after he robbed it and the owner’s son was unknowingly inside. The son died in the fire and our client was arrested the next day. We were working with him 25 years later, when the use of DNA was available and trying to use it to our benefit. This man was one of the most resilient people I have ever met. Yes, he was mad at his situation and upset he had spent all these wasted years in jail. But, he never gave up. We were his fourth or fifth team of lawyers he had used and he still wasn’t giving up. Long story short, DNA was recovered and the crime solved. The white store owner decided to burn his store down to receive the insurance money. He was having money troubles and decided this would be the best decision for his situation. In this process, he killed his son and sent an innocent man to jail.

Working with people who have been wrongly accused of crimes took away my naivety towards the justice system. There is no justice at all for these people. Some of them fit a mold and are immediately arrested. I know that all the people we worked with had at least two characteristics in common. They were all African American and they were all poor.

When our client was released from jail, after 25 years, he was “awarded” $1,250,000. What a slap in the face. This man had no idea what a Starbucks was, did not know how popular computers were, and did not know some of his friends had passed away. But, all of this out the window, the way he was treated when he got out of jail was horrible. He still had to put on job applications that he went to jail. This caused him not to get a call back or an interview for the job. We finally had to get help from the Innocence Project to find him a job and get his fictional criminal record expunged. 

Image Credit: Innocence Project

I know he is one of thousands of people that have been in this situation. He was innocent and treated horribly because people found out that he was in jail. Why are prisoners, after serving their sentence and getting released, so stigmatized and shunned from society? Don’t they deserve a chance to return to society and try to make their life better?

A professor at the University of Virginia Law School, Brandon L. Garrett, wrote a book about this very thing. In Convicting the Innocent, Garrett writes about how many cases of wrongly convicted people were overturned when DNA came on the scene. In an article from the New York Times, Garrett talks about his book and the statistics behind the wrongly accused. The writer says, “Of those exonerated by DNA, 70 percent were from minorities, and in nearly half of the rape cases involving blacks or Hispanics, the victims were white. Garrett criticizes the Supreme Court for allowing lineups that were unfairly conducted, and says the best way to avoid erroneous identifications is to use a ­double-blind procedure where police officers can’t influence the witness because they don’t know which person in the lineup is the suspect.”

So after you live innocently in jail for many years how does one return to society and try to make the most out of their life? Some of these people receive money for their time lost, but others do not. But, does money really make up for all those years lost? 

In an article by Fernanda Santos, “Putting a Price of Wrongful Conviction,” she says what the wrongly accused have to live with when they return to society. She refers to certain states and what they give people who have been exonerated. A Florida State Representative said, “I believe the taxpayer would be horribly offended if their money were to be spent compensating an exonerated prisoner who has a history of serious crimes.” But, these people are innocent. Why does our society have such a negative view on jails and inmates? Why do we build more jails than schools? And why do we not help these people and stop the cycle of going to jail? A forensic economist was also interviewed for this article. He believes the wrongly convicted might suffer a loss greater than death. He states,” Your earnings are going to be impaired forever, your social interactions are going to be impaired forever. It’s like being thrown into a time warp.” Only three states provide medical and physiological care when the innocent get out of jail. These are people that never committed the crimes they were jailed for, and we do not treat them like humans. People that actually do commit crimes are ignored and set aside. We have the ability to possibly help these people with a second chance. A chance to do better in society and be recognized as human beings. 

Links to get more information about the issues brought forth:

All about what the Innocence Project is actually doing and stories about people they have helped get out of prison.

Closer to home- The website from the Innocence Institute right in Pittsburgh, from Point Park University. Gives information from compensatory methods to how the justice system gets away with wrongful convictions.

An article in the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" about a project to study wrongful convictions in Pittsburgh. The team to head up this project include government officials, lawyers, a priest, and even an exonerated death row inmate.

Working Together

Last May, I had the opportunity to travel to a completely new world for me. I spent two, life-changing, months in Kenya. Kenya is on the east coast of Africa and draws all sorts of people year around. We realized most tourists were there to go on a Safari (which translates to journey in Swahili). But, we saw a number of muzungus (white people) that were in Kenya to volunteer their time for the Kenyan people. At first, I did not know what to expect when we got to this country. I had my preconceived notions about developing countries and the pictures I have seen online or in documentaries. But, I wanted to experience first hand what it was like to be in this country. My friend and I met people from all walks of life. We met businesspeople, pastors, school children, women dying of AIDS, and homeless and orphaned children. This trip was not easy to enjoy. I did not realize how impoverished these people were and the true meaning of what it means to go hungry until I met people from this country. But, there was something else, something on the other side of the spectrum. These people were the most giving, thankful, and faithful people I had ever met. You really see what is important to you, when you do not have much of anything.

I kept asking how Kenya, and most of Africa, got into this cycle of poverty that they can never seem to stop. There obviously isn’t one simple answer or even just one answer. But, obviously us muzungus coming into their land and trying to “fix” them was not working very well. What was a system or way of doing things that could really help these people? I got some answers to my questions when we helped out with one organization while we were there. This organization, ZOE, helps orphans sustain themselves and helps them with accumulating a skill to make an income.  We talked to orphans that successfully went through this program and now are able to feed themselves and their siblings. One boy we met, who was only eighteen, starting tearing up when he said because of the business he started, he could afford the school uniform and shoes for his siblings. They had never had shoes until he got this opportunity. But, what was special about THIS particular program? It wasn’t an idea that had never been tried before and it wasn’t hard to teach people a skill. So what made this organization so successful?

This is one of the orphans that this organization has helped in creating a better life for himself and his siblings.

The key to this success was that they worked with people from the community the orphans came from. These people were taught specific tools and trades from “professionals” and then could help these kids help themselves. Once I realized that people from the United States were funding the project and teaching people in the community how to go out and help these kids, this all made sense. How can we expect to go in and change this cycle if we do not even know the first thing behind their lives, their hardships, and their culture?

The role of non-professionals AND professionals, in this setting, was the only thing that would have worked. I do not even know how people think of a program without including the people they want to help. Just because you received an education, have money, and the right resources, does not mean that your target population cannot contribute to your efforts.

This is not only for organizations and endeavors abroad, this is relevant for problem solving in the United States as well. In the words of Richard Florida, “we’d be much better off enabling residents to take control of and build on community assets, engaging them in community-based organizations that can spearhead revitalization and build real quality of place.” This is what the organization in Kenya did, and now it is helping children in over six African countries. They were not afraid to take a step back and realize that the “professionals” did not have all the answers.

When professionals and non-professionals work together, a population can be assisted with gaining greater access to vital resources. The orphans in Kenya have this access now. Not only do they just have access to food, clothing, and shelter, they are creating the resources to give them these basic needs. It’s fine to go into a community, where people are starving or being taken advantage of, and bring them temporary supplies. But, when you teach people the tools to create the     resources for themselves is how you really improve their lives.    Image Credit: Digitalgroundup

In the article, “Culture of Poverty Makes a Comeback,” it is interesting to note that the writer argues that there is something to be said for the idea that people’s attitudes and behaviors keep them poor. She quotes William Julius Wilson’s definition of culture. He says culture is when “individuals in a community develop an understanding of how the world works and make decisions based on that understanding.” This point does make sense, but I believe people’s understanding of the world can change. This can happen when professionals work with people in the community they want to help. By working together, people can change the perception of what they think they can accomplish to what they can actually accomplish. The culture of poverty is one of the theories of poverty. But, what if people took the time to change this culture to one of success and I can do this, and not failure and I can’t do this. I cannot imagine growing up in a community or area that people do not believe in themselves and think that this is the life that they were meant to live. If just a few of those people’s mindsets changed, this culture of poverty could be dramatically reduced. This brings up the theme that Maurice Isserman writes about in his article, “Poverty of an Idea.” Isserman shies away from the idea of poverty as a culture. Instead, he argues that poverty is situational and that poverty is more about society and larger institutions. No matter the take on poverty you agree with, people have to work together to rise from poverty. The professionals that have the resources, the education, and the money can spread it amongst the non-professionals with the love and knowledge of the community and it’s people. Together is the only way to fight poverty and completely transform people’s lives.

Image Credit: Cleaningcredit

Links to get more information from the issues touched upon:

Zoe Ministries Website- an overlook on what this organization's mission and accomplishments are. It highlights their programs around the world and what they are doing to help orphans in many countries in Africa.

A blog about the Culture of Poverty from an organization called iOnPoverty, an organization that participates in impact videos to help spread the word about poverty and what we can do to stop it.

A very interesting article from Mother Jones, that breaks down the Culture of Poverty theory and asks for a contemporary take on this idea.

Then Versus Now

When I visited Los Angeles a few years ago, all I could think about was how independent everyone lived. It seemed like everyone lived in a sort of bubble away from everyone. If you did not want to interact with another person, you didn’t have to. How many other places are like this in the United States? People just get in their cars everyday and go from their home to work and back home again. It does not surprise me why parents are scared to have their kids play outside and the lack of knowledge neighbors have of one another. No one knows each other anymore. There is no sense of togetherness and unity amongst people that live in a community. Is there even such thing as a “community” anymore?

Image Credit: Calendow

I always hear my grandparents say, “Everyone use to know everyone.” I grew up hearing stories of my parents getting in trouble because their teacher would seek out my grandparents at church on Sunday and explain something they did wrong during that school week. This would probably be very rare now. When and why did this change? It seems that people use to be at the forefront of a community. People use to define a community and make it what it was. Now, a community seems to be labeled on geographic constrictions. We define our community by our zip code. We have fallen out of touch with our surroundings and the people that make up the area we live in. This can have several repercussions. Our community can be safer, more economically resilient, our children can have a better future, and many other factors can come about if we try to strengthen our communities.

Growing up in the suburbs, this sense of “unattached community” was all around me. I walked to school when I was older and played outside with the neighbors that were the same age as me, but this was pretty much the only interaction I got with my community. I was involved with church and band, but this only included certain people in the community and definitely wasn’t very diverse. We had a community center with a swimming pool, tennis courts, and community events. Sounds great, right? It was great, if you could afford to pay a membership fee every month. I grew up always wanting to go to the swimming pool because people at my school went or going to a concert that was coming there. But, the people that could afford to use it were the only ones who used the community center. This definitely didn’t create a unified community.

Image Credit: Forbes

John McKnight and Peter Block’s article, “Abundant Community,” brings up the idea that our lives would be more fulfilled if we created a community amongst each other. They argue that seven elements create an abundant community and help everyone in all areas of their lives. These elements bring up very important factors that not all communities possess. One of the elements that stuck out to me was “we are local people who must raise our children.” This was a very interesting point to make in our current communities, if they are communities at all. The writers say that we pay professionals that do not even know our children, to raise them. It used to be that family members or close neighbors would raise our children. Now, we are so out of touch     with people around us, we don’t allow our children to be immersed in our surrounding areas. I kind of took this element differently than what they describe. I think of it as how children use to be outside from the moment they came home from school until darkness or dinner was ready. I barely see children playing outside anymore, if at all. There are a lot of reasons this has happened, but a major one is that no one knows each other anymore. And if people in a community do not know each other, there is no trust. Parents do not trust the people in their neighborhood to look out for their children and therefore do not let the children play outside, away from their parent’s awareness. Children miss out on so many things because of the lack of trust in their communities. They miss out on meeting people different from them. They miss out on learning about where they live and the beauty that is all around them. They miss out on being independent and making up games in the street. 

Even though this element is only one of seven, I think it paints a picture of what McKnight and Block are trying to accomplish with this article. They end the article by saying, “when we fail, no organization or government can succeed.” This is a very powerful statement. Is it true? How can we make sure that an abundant community becomes relevant today?

I started thinking about current situations that could be defined as communities in today’s terms, and in McKnight and Block’s terms. I thought of university and college campuses and of retirement communities. The video clip is pretty cheesy, but it puts the idea of retirement communities into plain terms. Basing off of the seven elements of an abundant community, it seems that retirement communities possess most of these. Is this the future of our communities? Fake, and pre-structured places of living? 

This piece of literature talks about how retirement communities historically came about and the need that the elderly population needed this sense of community. They would rather live in these places with people acting, looking, and living exactly as they do. But, these might be the future of “community”, as we know it, if we do not start changing how we live. We are missing out on important and life changing aspects because we, as citizens, are not making an abundant community a priority. 

John McKnight and Peter Block's website is also a useful tool to learning more about the "Abundant Community."

Image Credit: PLPNetwork 

Links to go more in-depth on the issues:

An article from the "LA Times" about the history of some retirement communities and the progress they have made over the years.

A short bio on John McKnight and what he is currently involved in at Northwestern University.

Blog posts by John McKnight and Peter Block in association with the "Huffington Post."

When will it stop?

I am currently interning at a major non-profit organization that has offices in every major city in the United States. At our branch we help anywhere from senior services to budgeting and networking classes. It is safe to say that there are a lot of clients in and out of those doors on a daily basis. I am assisting with starting a weekend feeding lunch program for high school students, working with new refugees in the resettlement process, and helping seniors receive funds to pay for their various needs. I am never bored and always busy. But, I was thinking the other day about why social service agencies exist, and if they will always be around. The existence of social services makes my current career plans, to become a social worker, possible. I was thinking about how people come into our agency and receive, lets say money to pay their electric bill. There is a whole process between the client, the electric company, and our agency to get this job done. It is not a fast process and it is not an easy process. And I would like to note that probably 60% of the people that come in for some sort of help have had an unforeseen circumstance come up. They might have lost their job, had a loved one pass away or had medical expenses they had to pay for. But, the other 40% of people have no income, except for maybe food stamps, and go to social service agencies for help on a monthly or weekly basis.  I was trying to put myself in that situation and could not imagine a harder life. Why do they need to go from agency to church to family member constantly for help? Was it something they did? What is paying one bill going to really help their situation? Nonetheless, most of these people do not know how they are going to find food to put on the dinner table and need help from somewhere, but where? We come across these people everyday. They are living amongst us and contributing to our society. How can we help them?

I cannot imagine how many people all over the United States live like this and what they go through on a daily basis. I was trying to think of what the agency I work for is doing, and how it only provided temporary support. What if we changed the whole system so people could live on a long-term basis, not a short-term one? I’m sure I am not the only one, no I know I am not the only one that has thought like this before.

                                                   Image Credit: Productive Flourishing

The first thing that came into my head was the cycle of poverty I learned about in school, and how if we do not break this cycle then people will be eternally in poverty. There are some people that have the will and the way to overcome the terrible situation they were born into and to say good-bye to poverty. But, this is very hard and maybe impossible to do by yourself. How can we make it easier for people to be forever helped and escape the life they were “given”?

In David K. Shipler’s article, "Total Poverty Awareness", he talks about how poverty is closer to an ecological system than a culture. He brings up great points about how every person in this system needs to work together to help get people out of poverty. He states:

But poverty is not a culture. It's more like an ecological system of relationships among individuals, families and the environment of schools, neighborhoods, jobs and government services. Professionals who aid the poor witness the toxic interactions every day. Doctors see patients affected by dangerous housing, erratic work schedules, transportation difficulties and poor child-rearing skills. Teachers see pupils undermined by violence at home and malnutrition.

                                                            Image Credit: Tucson Sentinel 

                                                        

He then brings up that we need to change the system and make services interlinked. I completely agree. People go from one agency to another and have to fill out application after application. Apparently, there were community action centers that did just this. These were developed under a program in the War on Poverty. Shipler talks about this in his article and says that politicians disliked these centers because they “were doing something very good.” The money eventually ran out. This goes to another reason I was thinking on why people are still living in poverty. Maybe, there are people that do not want the system to change and think that the class system is not only fitting, but also essential to keeping the world as it “should be.” Messed up as that might be, I cannot think of another overarching reason why there are still people living this way in the richest country in the world. 

An interview with David K. Shipler talks about his book,The Working Poor, Invisible in America, and more about the ecology of poverty. In this interview a quote jumped out to me that went along with this blog subject. He said, "We can afford a lot of things that we could not probably afford if people were paid a living wage, a much higher wage." This is a big motive for the system not changing because it will impair the middle and upper classes from living how they want to live. 

I also thought it was interesting to see where David Shipler came from and how he got involved in researching people in poverty. This blog gives a brief history of David Shipler and a time line on what he has been involved in during his life.


Links to go more in-depth in the issue:

The Shipler Report- David Shipler's very own blog updated frequently. This is where he shares some of his thoughts, ideas, and insights.

A recent interview with David Shipler by "Guernica" an art and political magazine. Very interesting interview about his thoughts on our current president, everyone having a right, and power.

A book review by the "New York Times" on David Shipler's book, The Rights of the People. Talks all about this book that Shipler has written and gives a good insight into the reviewers thoughts.