Half in Ten: From Poverty to Prosperity

If you are reading this blog because of an interest in the issue of poverty, here is something that may interest you. We'll be keeping an eye on it here at CAH:

Half in Ten is a new campaign, spearheaded by former Senator John Edwards and supported by a number of national anti-poverty advocacy organizations, to cut poverty in half within ten years.

The campaign has three primary goals:
(1) Elevate and sustain a focus on the situations facing the poor and middle class today
(2) Build and strengthen an effective constituency to demand legislative action on poverty and economic mobility
3) Advance specific legislative and policy proposals that will deliver real benefits to struggling American families

For more information on the Half in Ten campaign, check out the campaign's website at www.halfinten.org
The campaign is linked closely to the work of the Center for American Progress, which has published a report entitled From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half. This report can be accessed at http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/04/poverty_report.html.

Let us know if you have an interest in getting involved in efforts such as this. We'd be very interested in hearing from you.

People as Infrastructure

It’s been a couple weeks now since the Holland area vote on the Tulip City Airport millage. Few subjects have generated the level of interest this issue has, and few other community issues have generated as many letters to the editor. As I read the numerous letters in the Holland Sentinel, on several occasions my thoughts strayed to the more general question of what constitutes the essential infrastructure of a community. Many of those expressing support for the millage proposed that the Tulip City Airport, even though it is used almost exclusively by businesses and private users, is a critical component of the community’s infrastructure. I found myself generally agreeing that in Holland’s case, a viable airport of a certain quality provides a necessary ingredient of our community’s essential infrastructure.

In my opinion, infrastructure deserves to be thought of as all those essential elements and services that allows for a community and all of its individual members to be able to function in a healthy and productive manner. Most of us, but certainly not all, see the collective value in funding street and sidewalk repairs, public safety, K-12 education, libraries, parks and public transportation, even though not everyone utilizes or directly benefits from each of them to a similar extent. Even so, each of these is generally understood as being important to the health and functioning of a community. We learned last week that the majority (by a fairly narrow margin) feel similarly about enhancements to the airport.

But what about the individuals and families that make up the community? Shouldn’t the people also be considered as part of the community’s infrastructure? They certainly make up an essential component. A community may have first class streets, top notch public safety and a well-stocked library, but these have diminished value if there are families and individuals who lack the ability to benefit from them due to, for instance, family conflict or economic distress. A community that values all of its members as essential ingredients of its infrastructure will do what is reasonable to address the issues that prevent certain members from either contributing to the functioning of the community or from benefiting from all that a community has to offer. When parts of its infrastructure are found to be lacking, it seems prudent and reasonable for the community to invest its resources in building them back up. The City of Holland does this through a relatively small proportion of its budget by investing in services such as food pantries, homelessness prevention, homeownership education, employment assistance, youth development, senior services, and so on. City funds are used to fill in critical gaps left by state and federal funding, or to provide the necessary “match” dollars to allow other grant funding to come into the community. The likely dividends of such investments are many and varied, but in the end they amount to people being given the opportunity to overcome their challenges but also to feel as though they matter and are an important part of the community.

I’m concerned with thoughts I hear from time to time, such as I recently read in a guest editorial in the Sentinel written by a local township official, that the City of Holland’s financial support for social services is an example of it’s inability to “live within [its] means,” and suggestive of the city’s need to join a 12-step program to battle its spending addiction. If we allow ourselves to think of the people that make up the community as essential parts of its infrastructure, we will recognize that the city’s support for social services is not simply a nice thing to do but is in actuality a critical investment, one that is of equal importance to repairing potholes and keeping the library well-stocked. Everything’s connected. It all fits together as working for the common good.

(Mark Kornelis)

How To Do

I heard the following poem read by the author, Cornelius Eady, on NPR's Fresh Air (May 5, 2008) and thought it was blog-worthy. The poem, "How To Do," can be found in a newly published collection of poems by Eady, titled Hardheaded Weather. Cornelius Eady is the director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Notre Dame.


How To Do

It embarrasses my niece to think of her mother
walking the streets with a cart
picking up empties
for their deposits,
but my sister knows how to do,
which was all our mother asked of us.

She's learned how to do,
which is both a solution and a test,
so I stand in line with my sister
at the supermarket.

Today is the best day of the week
to bring the bottles in.
It is a poor people’s science,
a concept that works until someone
with power notices it works
and then it doesn’t.