Most of us can readily identify some of the reasons why people in our community end up living in poverty: low academic achievement, catastrophic illness, substance abuse, lack of employment, poor life choices, immigration status, mental or physical disabilities … the list could go on and on. However, the interesting point to recognize about this particular catalog is that each item is an example of individual characteristics.
What can be more challenging to see are the structural elements that underlie poverty, the elements that are beyond the pale of the individual. For example, lack of access to quality education, shortage of employment opportunities, absence of an adequate safety net, racism. These issues all contribute to poverty, but they are elements of the society in which we live and as such transcend any particular individual.
To illustrate the difference between these two categories, let us examine the issue of employment. If someone is having a difficult time getting work, we might, if we are looking at the situation from an individualistic perspective, proscribe a vocational-training program. But if there are not enough jobs for all those who want them, then at best the person who gets the training merely takes a job from someone else. Until the structural problem of unemployment is dealt with, vocational training is more or less a shell game ... or a game of musical chairs.
This last metaphor—that of musical chairs—is particularly apt with regard to employment because it highlights the fact that the system is designed in such a way as to guarantee losers. There simply aren't (and never will be under the current system) enough jobs for everyone. It is one thing to lose at a game of musical chairs, but losing in the job market can lead to stress, depression, lack of basic needs, and ultimately, destitution.
With this distinction in mind, one of poverty’s structural realities, a reality that is easy to overlook (even though it is literally in plain sight) has to do with the physical environment of the poor. It goes without saying that all communities have both assets and deficits. For example: spread throughout a community you might find both spacious parks and toxic storage facilities. Now, most people would consider a toxic storage facility a deficit, but it might be argued that while this is true, we need it, nevertheless (toxic substances must be stored somewhere). The question we then must ask is, Where shall such a facility be located? And with this question we find ourselves in the domain of environmental justice.
Environmental justice can be defined as the equitable distribution of assets and deficits throughout a community. To see how this plays out (or rather, its opposite: environmental injustice), one could do little better than to take a drive through the neighborhood in which Sacred Heart is located, and then do the same through the adjacent neighborhood of Willow Glen. Features that would be apparent in Sacred Heart’s neighborhood are:
· High concentration of liquor stores (and the accompanying crime and violence this breeds)
· Lack of fresh produce and nutritious food (leading to poor health, including obesity and diabetes)
· Abundance of cheap motels (attracting prostitution and the parolees who are sent there on being released from prison)
· Broken storm drains (which leads to standing water, breeding mosquitoes and the diseases they bring, such as West Nile virus)
· Dearth of parks (limiting the opportunities for children to play and get exercise safely)
· Mixed industrial and residential zoning (and accompanying contaminated soil and water)
· One-way expressways (restricting pedestrians’ ability to move about their own neighborhood while allowing other San Jose residents speedy thoroughfares to and from the freeway)
As we contemplate these environmental features, the question we pose is this: Why is deficit upon deficit crammed into one neighborhood, while more prosperous neighborhoods abound primarily in assets? While working to address the challenges facing our neighbors in need, we continue to analyze the whole problem, for to ignore entire segments of our neighbors’ plight would result in inadequate solutions.
I am most impressed by two paragraphs in this entry. Mainly the "Musical Chairs" metaphor.
ReplyDeleteI live in Argentina. We are currently living, all of us all over the world, in a predatory system.Resources are to be used, accumulated, but eventually depleted.
For each winner, there are masses of losers.
I understand how important winning is in american culture. It is a motivator and a driving force to be the best, do the best, and excell, and it provides excelent results, its been proven. Personally I consider the winner at the podium the loneliest person. He has no one near him.
People are not supposed to be winners. Groups and communities have to be winners. We all need to be winners. If not, for every winner we will have more outcasts and a larger number of losers.
Personally I believe that there are two ways that can help us evolve and improve us as human beings, communities and businesses to the betterment of our communities.
One of these two is the "Degrowth" movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth) which began in France and now is also making way in Italy. The basic idea behind the movement is that we are consuming and accumulating as a society much more than what we need (and wasting too much), and by doing so we are taking away resources from those who scarcely can afford them, creating the disparity which I believe everyone is trying to shrink.
One of their main focuses is to reduce labor hours to 4 or 6 hours a day. This implies lower wages, but it also incourages full employment, instead of the current notion of a "natural rate of unemployment". This idea works only in large cities in high revenue businesses. We all need to work to have dignity and to have meals in our plates for our families, and the people involved in this movement are fiuring out ways to achieve this.
Another step in this direction is more cooperatives, less corporations. The recognition that everyone involved in a project, business or endeavour is entitled to the production of such endeavours, even stakeholders. This does not translate into socialism (I am not an idealogue, I am attempting to understand new ways of cooperating and improving all of our chances of survival). It means that salaries could be more equitable not by degree or education, but by effort and input, a better redistribution based on merit and belonging (since no man is an island). This is in no way socialism, or any other political restructuring. Is a social movement of cooperation and the willingness of a few to sacrifice that which is excess in order for all to have a better living. No authority is forcing them to, and there is no intent in enforcing such authority. This comes from the freedom of choice of individuals.
The reason why this movement came to, Degrowth, is because of sustainable growth. This is a topic that is well understood and in vogue. Carbon footprint, cleaner ways of production, etc.
But the sustainability I am beginning to research goes beyond these concepts of pollution reduction.
I will detail in the following comment (apologies for the length of this comment)
I will tell you about a local example from Santa Fe, Argentina, which does not apply directly to your community, but later I will detail how it may be useful to creative alternatives for your community.
ReplyDeleteI live in Argentina, South America. In Argentina 55% of the agricultural land is being sewn with soy beans for cattle growth in China. This is a very profitable endeavor, has almost no labor requirements, has very quick turnover, and a terrible effect on local communities. Here, Glifosate is being used as a pesticide and cancer deaths in a land where TB is still the N#1 epidemiology problem is rising to be #3.
A local community has been fighting in the courts for 10 years for the large corporations, big land owners and planting pools (which joins investors in the financing of grain production) to stop using these pesticides which are, in a very real sense, killing the community. Finally this last month a judge has prohibited glifosate in this particular community and we all have great hopes for the future.
The particular way in which soy beans are grown depletes the earth of its resources. The land can no longer be cultivated with any other seed afterwards. It relocates communities, creates unemployment, and shanty towns in the outskirts and the roads.
Alternatively there are new ways in which agriculture is taking place in Santa Fe, Argentina.
Following the idea that "we must understand nature in order to better co-exist with it" new ways of producing with the land are slowly coming about. Using Systems Theory new landowners are using their plots of lands as closed systems. They proceed as follows:
They have a few free range cows to produce milk. With the milk from the cows they produce cheese, which produces added value to the original raw material. With the Whey they feed the free range pigs. These pigs are very well fed thanks to this and are very large and of premium grade. Instead of selling the whole pig to the market, they only sell the pig meat. The bones they introduce into their "biodigestive system" (loose translation, cannot find and english word for "biodigestor") alongside all of the manure and vegetable leftovers. The "Biodigestive system" produces two separate outputs: One the one hand, natural fertilizer, which they use for their crops, which are 100% organic, and thus healthier and yummier! The second output is methane. A combustion gas that they accumulate and use in all of their machinery and for their own living accommodations. Nothing goes to waste, because in a closed system THERE IS NO WASTE. Everything can be re-used if you can think of a way of doing so. This is a very difficult task, and these people are highly trained MBAs with agricultural backgrounds, but the model can be replicated.
What I Have described is just a very small part of what these ranchers are doing with their plot.
(Still too long a comment, so it will be a three piece, apologies in advanced).
Separately, there are other artistic movements from the streets that are doing something similar. They consider their surroundings as the system for their own resources and materials for their survival.
ReplyDeleteWhat you and me consider waste they transform into pieces of art. They use waste metals to create jewelry, wood Carvings, Ceramics, etc.
This type of work requires workshops and training which I humbly suppose exceeds the range of options Sacred Heart Community Services provides. But I mention this because there are several creative alternatives to re-use what we think is waste if we begin to think of our communities as systems where everything can be re-used, not necessarily recycled far away, but re-used into a new product with added value that can provide a living chance to another person.
I do not know the inner workings of Sacred Heart Community Services, and in no way am I trying to impose or indicate routes for action. Here in South America since the late seventies (albeit 20 years of military coups that delayed these developments severely) some psychologist work with communities in a fashion that we call "investigación-acción participación", loosely translated "Participatory research-action". It is a dialect which spirals in a progression of researching and taking action upon an issue, by the community and the specialists participating in the community, and then going back to step one to re-think a new issue and resolve in dialect and action, participation.
Of the few I know about Sacred Heart Community Services, I am glad to hear of the enormous services you are providing and the fighting chance to those of us with the least fighting chances.
I imagine that much of this exceeds the resources with which you can work within your community, but the empowerment of communities and new alternatives is dear to me.
In my country our chances are much slimmer and our impoverished are being mobilized so that they are not visible to the citizens of the urban areas. Still, there is hope, because changes are happening, here in Argentina, In San José, and in the world.
I hope I haven't bored the heck out of the readers, and hopefully this will be of help, or at least question the idea for more people and institutions to create new alternatives for a better tomorrow.
WOW!
ReplyDeleteRichard, thank you for your thoughtful and though-provoking comments! It is a real honor to discuss these matters with anyone, let alone someone so far away and living in a different context.
I think your remarks can stand alone, but I do want to dignify them with a brief reply.
First, I agree that there is something fundamental in our U.S. culture about "winning", or "being on top", or at the very least, there is a commitment to the unfettered right to acquire unlimited wealth--and to the unlimited right to use that wealth in any way we choose. I think it is a cultural tendency for us to think of the individual--or at its broadest, the nuclear family--as the basic unit of society, and that this basic unit should have as close to unlimited liberty as possible, so long that it does not deprive others of this same right.
One of the challenges that crops up in our society as a result of this belief system is seen in the way we define "depriving the rights of others". Although thousands of our San Jose neighbors are each day unable to feed themselves, shelter themselves, or receive adequate medical care, most of us feel no major responsibility for this fact, for there is "no law preventing these people from doing what it takes to obtain these basic goods". Therefore, nobody is being deprived of his or her rights.
A vast number of the people living in poverty here are children, the disabled, the elderly ... people who don't have the same abilities as others to make the system work for them. It seldom occurs to us that there are laws against these neighbors of ours from eating, or obtaining shelter or medical care.
For example, if an impoverished individual is hungry and takes food from a grocery store without paying for it, he has broken a law. There is a law against this person's obtaining food (for in many cases the person has no other means).
One of our central tenets at Sacred Heart is enshrined in the first three words of our vision: "A community united ...". Part of our work is to bring about a shift in focus from "me and mine" to "us and ours"--a more inclusive view of community that will take the needs of all into consideration.
We attempt to do this by inviting those who are not living in poverty to join us in working together with those who are, creating solidarity and rapport. We want to build bridges across class lines and help the broader community to see the world through the eyes of the poor, and to then act accordingly.
In a similar attempt--and to another point you made--we are working closely with Teamworks, a program that incubates cooperatives. It is our hope that through this program we will continue developing more employment opportunities that invite equality of voice and equality of income (for more information, checkout: http://www.teamworks.coop/)--to continue challenging the hyper-individualism that exacerbates the dire circumstances of so many of our neighbors.
Thank you, Richard--I look forward to our further conversations!
I feel the need to make a quick remark.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me incredibly happy to know that these changes are taking place.
That little by little people all over the world are realizing a basic truth that is self-evident, yet sometimes veiled by the inevitable act of concentrating on one's requirements in the short run, that we are stronger together, than alone. We can accomplish more together, than as individuals.
The idea of community had slipped away, or turned into somewaht of a catchphrase. A way to refer to a space in time, rather than a group of people sharing a space and time.
It always makes me happy when I see people working together as a community, for communities are our enlarged families. Our neighbours are the people closest to us, and to whom we should have the closest links, besides our families.
I congrtulate you all at Sacred Heart Community Services for the efforts and the changes that are becoming a reality. And furthermore I congratulate all of the staffers for believeing in communities and creating wealth within the community. The wealth that comes from uniting people in communities to work and improve and give back, so that we can all be better off, socialy, emotionaly bonded, and economicaly with better services for the communities. OUR communities, for we are the community in which we participate.
Once more, congratulations!
I hope more and more individuals, NGOs and institutions recognize the enormous added value that giving back to where we belong is enriching ourselves.
Todd & Richard: bff
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