The big "fix"

Horror and Hope

Hope in the Depths

If you find hope in the ground of history, you are united with the great prophets who were able to look into the depth of their times, who tried to escape it, because they could not stand the horror of their visions, and who yet had the strength to look to an even deeper level and there to discover hope.

Paul Tillich
Source: The Shaking of the Foundations

Effective action together!

John Siburt's "The View from the Square" report last Friday included the following from Edd Eason, VP of Health and Housing at CitySquare.  Just had to share this story.  Working together defines "collective impact," a value that is more and more a central part of the "CitySquare way."

 

Last Friday CitySquare received a request from Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance to assist a single mom with three children (ages: 8 mos., 3 years and 6 years). The mom and her kids had been discovered by outreach workers under the I-45 off-ramp near the I-45 and I-30 interchange. MDHA staff arranged for the mother and her children to spend a few nights in the family facility at the Dallas Life Foundation while the City of Dallas housing department worked on finding an apartment. Within a week arrangements were made for the mother and her children to move into an apartment off Northwest Hwy. where the children could attend Richardson schools. Last Friday the family moved into their apartment but had no furniture. MDHA staff and a City of Dallas case manager communicated and within two hours staff members at the CitySquare Thrift Store and CitySquare Community Health Transportation program were working together to arrange for beds, a baby crib, kitchen ware, sheets, towels, pillows and other items. As a result the family had everything they needed to spend their first night in their new apartment.

The collaboration of several organizations is starting to make an impact on those currently camping under the I-45 overpass. Led by MDHA’s new president, Cindy Crain, organizations like CitySquare and  others are working together like never before. Moving people who have been homeless for long periods into permanent supportive housing is not easy work. Affordable housing is getting scarce and It takes time to establish trusting relationships with people who have seen their hopes dashed again and again. But there is a new “can do” approach underway and their new spirit of cooperation at work in Dallas

Thank you, Edd, for sharing this story of successful collaboration. Special thanks to Will Goldman, Dale Adams and their incredible teams at the Thrift Store as well as Jesse Garcia and George Carerra in our Community Health Transportation program. Also to Jonathan Grace, and the housing case managers led by Krystal Lotspeich for all they are doing to help our neighbors under the I-45 overpass. Great work!  

Loving Joy!

Easter Exultet

Shake out your qualms.
Shake up your dreams.
Deepen your roots.
Extend your branches.
Trust deep water
and head for the open,
even if your vision
shipwrecks you.
Quit your addiction
to sneer and complain.
Open a lookout.
Dance on a brink.
Run with your wildfire.
You are closer to glory
leaping an abyss
than upholstering a rut.
Not dawdling.
Not doubting.
Intrepid all the way
Walk toward clarity.
At every crossroad
Be prepared
to bump into wonder.
Only love prevails.
En route to disaster
insist on canticles.
Lift your ineffable
out of the mundane.
Nothing perishes;
nothing survives;
everything transforms!
Honeymoon with Big Joy!

James Broughton
Source: Little Sermons of the Big Joy

Add your thoughts at inward/outward

High Hopes

Bruce Springsteen's latest gets at much of what we witness, engage and struggle with on a daily basis.

Detroit without much comment. . .

Last week I visited Detroit.

 To be more specific, southwest Detroit's inner city neighborhoods.

The photos posted here came out of my phone.

Key impressions:

• vacant land, everywhere
• devastated housing stock
• dirt, grime, trash, graffiti
• despair

I wept.

I'll have more to say soon.

Long shots are to be taken!

Hey, it ain't over til it's over!  Don't forget it!

Mr. Obama, help us!

Finally, the national elections are behind us! 

Just possibly we can return to a more civil tone in our conversations and attitudes.  I hope so.

But, with President Obama headed for his second term, I have favors to ask of him and the new Congress. 

My requests relate to my own neighborhood and to the people who live around me, my neighbors.  I'll just put my priorities in a list without much comment.

Here goes:

Sir,

1.  Please work to give us comprehensive immigration reform so that so many of us can live without the fear of deportation.  The vast majority of us work hard every day to make Dallas great.  Please give us all a pathway to legitimacy as residents and members of the labor force.

2.  If comprehensive immigration reform is not possible, then at least give us the DREAM Act to put our children in documented status so they can finish school and go to work legally.

3.  Help us obtain the workforce skills we need to land livable wage jobs.

4.  Make sure our children can attend public schools that work.

5.  Stay the course so that we can make progress in providing universal health care for all of us.

6.  Continue to fund programs like AmeriCorps, and take a look at how the programs of the Corporation of National and Community Service actually pay for themselves in public benefit and educational advancement.  AmeriCorps' ROI is astounding!

7.  Help us rebuild the blighted neighborhoods often referred to as the "ghetto," but known as "home" to many of us.

8.  Find ways to support/reward creative mayors who come up with new, innovative community renewal strategies that actually work!

9.  Incentivize the utilization of creative financial instruments like social impact bonds (SIBs).

10.  Lead the most progressive tax reform effort in our nation's history to promote policies that lift people and create new wealth at the bottom--I know those techniques exist and I know you are smart enough to identify them!

11.  Bring work back to the inner cities of the nation.

12.  Figure out how to make as many of those jobs as possible linked in training programs to the emerging "green economy."

Talk, and then there's talk

"Today it is fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately it is not as fashionable to talk to the poor."

--Mother Teresa

Hope's power

We've observed for a long time that if people have hope, life improves, no matter what the circumstance.

Working with children across the years, we've noted that if a child possesses some reasonable measure of hope about life and the future, that child will learn to read at or above grade level.

Along these lines, my associate here at CitySquare, Obinna Jon Ubabuco refered me to the following essay from The Economist.  As always, I'd love to know your reactions.

Hope springs a trap


An absence of optimism plays a large role in keeping people trapped in poverty
May 12th 2012

THE idea that an infusion of hope can make a big difference to the lives of wretchedly poor people sounds like something dreamed up by a well-meaning activist or a tub-thumping politician. Yet this was the central thrust of a lecture at Harvard University on May 3rd by Esther Duflo, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology known for her data-driven analysis of poverty. Ms Duflo argued that the effects of some anti-poverty programmes go beyond the direct impact of the resources they provide. These programmes also make it possible for the very poor to hope for more than mere survival.

She and her colleagues evaluated a programme in the Indian state of West Bengal, where Bandhan, an Indian microfinance institution, worked with people who lived in extreme penury. They were reckoned to be unable to handle the demands of repaying a loan. Instead, Bandhan gave each of them a small productive asset—a cow, a couple of goats or some chickens. It also provided a small stipend to reduce the temptation to eat or sell the asset immediately, as well as weekly training sessions to teach them how to tend to animals and manage their households. Bandhan hoped that there would be a small increase in income from selling the products of the farm animals provided, and that people would become more adept at managing their own finances.

The results were far more dramatic. Well after the financial help and hand-holding had stopped, the families of those who had been randomly chosen for the Bandhan programme were eating 15% more, earning 20% more each month and skipping fewer meals than people in a comparison group. They were also saving a lot. The effects were so large and persistent that they could not be attributed to the direct effects of the grants: people could not have sold enough milk, eggs or meat to explain the income gains. Nor were they simply selling the assets (although some did).

So what could explain these outcomes?

Read the entire essay here.