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Bridges Update

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Bridges Update, 2-12-10

If you haven’t yet seen the Oscar-nominated film “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” about an illiterate, obese black teenager who has two children by her father, we urge you to go. For us, it portrays formidable challenges facing people in generational poverty with stunning accuracy. The movie is a stark corrective to success-oriented middle class assumptions about the conditions with which people in poverty contend; it’s only when you’re faced with others’ situations that you realize how much you’d mapped over from your own experience.
 
Wanda discovered this “when I did home visitations working as a supervisor for a mental health community support team. I realized that for most all of my career as a social worker, people had come to me, to my office, rather than my going to them. I went to visit a woman who had been homeless for years due to her mental illness. She also had multiple health issues and was a kidney dialysis patient. She was living with an ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. It was early March and still cold outside. I walked into the house and her bed was right by the door. The first thing I noticed was that the bed did not have sheets or an adequate blanket. She used a wheel chair and there were several steps to get into the house, I wondered how she managed that with no wheelchair ramp. My goal was to interview her for immediate needs and introduce myself as the new supervisor. Within a few minutes there I got very cold. The woman was talking to me but I could not concentrate because I was so cold. All I could think about was finding a way to get their gas turned back on. It struck me after I left that I did not really hear a thing the woman had said because I was focused on being cold and wanting to get warm. I realized that this is how many of our clients felt when they come to us for help and their focus is only one survival and their immediate needs.   I felt it was ludicrous of us to expect people to be present when they are in survival. The first thing I did for that woman was a referral to get the gas turned on before I visited again.”
 
Not that “Precious” is without serious flaws. The poor people are primarily African American and the people who help Precious are white. In an op-ed piece in the New York Times (Feb. 5, 2010), prominent African American poet and author Ishmael Reed notes that “Judging from the mail I’ve received, the conversations I’ve had and all that I’ve read, the responses to “Precious’” fall largely along racial lines. Among black men and women, there is widespread revulsion and anger… This use of movies and books to cast collective shame upon an entire community doesn’t happen with works about white dysfunctional families… Such stereotyping [about incest in black families, for instance] has led to calamities being visited on minority communities…white characters are always portrayed as caring. There to help. Never shown as contributing to the oppression of African-Americans. Problems that members of the black underclass encounter are a result of their culture, their lack of personal responsibility.”

 
We agree that “Precious” stacks the deck racially. Yet we also believe it possible to keep these flaws in mind and view the movie through the lens of poverty. It’s painful to do so. Although Reed points out the fact that whites are not shown as contributing to the oppression of African-Americans, we think it is fair to say that most people who are not in poverty might play the role of contributing to oppression of those who are in poverty -regardless of race. Those issues portrayed in the movie “Precious” are typical issues that women in poverty could face and we have worked with women of all races to verify that “Precious” could be the story of any woman in poverty. 
 
We also recommend you see “Million Dollar Baby” and pay particular attention to the scenes with the lead character’s family. In this movie the lead character’s success is not supported but mocked by her mother. They both reject her and try to rob her of her resources. Both of us know many situations where someone trying to move out of survival is rejected by her family and friends. If you’re relationally based and rejected by the very people around whom you’ve built your life, the challenge to get out is enormous. 
 

 

 

Bridges Update

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February 4, 2010

What’s in a name? A great deal, if lots of people know it! And plenty of people DO know the name Class Matters, the title Wanda Anderson and I gave to the six-hour training we developed from Bridges Out of Poverty, the nationally renowned education and community action movement sponsored by Dr. Ruby Payne’s aha! Process, Inc. When we first began four years ago, we felt that offering the formal two-day Bridges training would not attract many takers; we worried that even six hours would be asking more of people than they’d be willing to do. Fortunately, that proved groundless, as we have been exceedingly busy offering this first stage training to our partner congregations, social service organizations, governmental agencies, and educational institutions. Class Matters became well-known in Charlotte, and the invitations keep coming. We are gratified by your response – especially in terms of volunteering and financial support of programs working to help people who are poor attain and maintain economic stability.
 
Recently, one of our partners asked us to make good on our promise to develop Part Two, and we have done so, presenting it for the first time two weeks ago. Now we must make a name change to be accurate and in synch with our national affiliation. From now on, we will call all our trainings BRIDGES OUT OF POVERTY, and subtitle them as follows:
            Bridges Out of Poverty, Part 1 – Class Matters
            Bridges Out of Poverty, Part 2 – Building Relationships
            Bridges Out of Poverty, Part 3 – Building Community
 
Part 2 – Building Relationships, further develops the practical applications of mental models, hidden rules, and resources in working with people who are poor - and with people who are not; we also explore the significance of mediation and the theory of change.   If your members or staff have taken Part 1, which introduces the complexities of economic class and the art of building relationships across economic class differences, then Part 2 will deepen your ability to apply the Bridges concepts to real-life situations and give you more tools for deeper understanding and more effective relationship-building. 
 
All trainings offered our partners are free of charge, save the one-time $20 cost of providing copies of Bridges Out of Poverty for each participant. To receive more information or to schedule either Bridges Part 1 or Part 2, contact Paul at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
 
   

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Last Updated on Thursday, 04 February 2010 13:55

Bridges Out of Poverty seminars offers  paradigms for understanding and addressing the dynamics which characterize life for people in poverty – and make it so difficult for people to break out of the poverty culture.  For more information or to register for an upcoming seminar, contact Paul Hanneman - 704-926-0612 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

One of the difficulties facing our generation may be that we are living between meta-narratives or, as someone has said, “between dreams.” It is hard living between dreams. The older dream is tempting for its familiar comfortableness. The newer dream draws by its promise. We do not even have a vocabulary for the new, evolving dream. The shape of the new dream will come more and more to the fore through that segment of society that will step back, look deep inside, and be prepared to wait it out as the new vision morphs from a common awareness. 
 
The old American dream focused on self-sufficiency, on pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps. It was, as one panelist said last night at a community forum on meeting basic human needs in Charlotte, a meritocracy, and it was based on the assumption of equal opportunity. And if a person didn’t take advantage of that opportunity, then it was their own fault. You earned your way through your own hard work. Self-sufficiency, independence, personal achievement – all marks of the old dream.
 
The current recession has given the old dream stress fractures. For not only the poor but the very wealthy have suffered losses, often through no fault of their own (see Robert Samuelson’s article in the July 20, 2009, NEWSWEEK (www.newsweek.com/id/206160). Could it be that some who have lived out the old dream might begin to see some kinship with others who never prospered under it?
 
We’re beginning to hear the words “civil rights” attached to housing. Housing provides the basic stability necessary to move toward economic self-sufficiency. What we’re discovering in the Housing First pilot project here at the Urban Ministry Center is that housing means much improved healthcare, means education, means getting clean and sober, means working on the issues that made and kept people homeless in the first place.
 
Nationally, experts are saying similar things about others living in poverty. During the last three recessions, the number of Americans living in poverty — and the number living below half of the poverty line — has risen markedly, with the largest increases occurring in recessions with the highest unemployment. Families with incomes below half of the poverty line face the greatest risk of becoming homeless, as they have the most difficulty paying rent. 
 
According to Jill Khadduri, noted researcher and former HUD Policy Director,
An extensive body of careful research has demonstrated that housing vouchers are critically important both for preventing families with children from becoming homeless and for helping those who enter the shelter system to leave it for permanent housing and not become homeless again.
 
Seems to us that the slowly emerging new American dream may incorporate housing as a foundation on which sustained self-sufficiency might be possible for more of our citizens.
 

Update 8/21/09  

The most difficult domestic issues of the past and present centuries are race, poverty, and health care.  The US has passed legislation to address the first two (with some notable successes and a lot more failure); crafting health care reform has proved far more difficult.  FDR couldn't pass health care legislation, nor could Truman, Nixon, Carter or Clinton. Other presidents didn't even try.  And President Obama’s efforts have generated a firestorm of protest from both ends of the political spectrum.  
 
Virtually everyone agrees that something must be done, and the three bills currently making their way through Congress (H.R. 3200; Senate Finance Committee; and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee) are mostly in agreement.  We’ve found the following sources helpful in unpacking the proposed legislation:
 
 
 
 
 
Living in poverty is directly linked to serious ssues.  Dr. Janelle Goetcheus is the founder of Christ House, a medical ministry of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC, that cares for homeless people who are too sick to stay on the street.  She told Sojourners’ Jim Wallis, "People don't seem to understand that this really is a life-and-death issue. People who have good health insurance will live and live longer; those who don't will die and die sooner."
 
According to a 2008 report issued by the Boston Public Health Commission, the neighborhoods in which Boston Medical Center patients live have some of the highest rates of low birth weight babies, asthma hospitalizations for children under the age of 5, tuberculosis, substance abuse treatment hospitalizations, infant mortality, and overall mortality.
 
Most of the people BMC serves are on Medicare. Genevieve Preer and Dr. Chén Kenyon senior pediatric residents at BMC, report that Medicare reimbursements to BMC are currently at 64 cents for each dollar expended, a fiscally untenable position.  “Our patients, who carry such an unequal burden of disease, desperately need the unique, high-quality medical services that BMC offers. But if BMC does not receive fair Medicaid reimbursement, we cannot continue to provide our complicated and vulnerable patients with the services they deserve. Simply carrying an insurance card does not guarantee good healthcare. BMC requires equitable funding if it is to continue to deliver high quality, comprehensive medical services to our patients.”  
 
The Center’s Homeless To Homes, a housing first project, has shown that stable housing itself is healthcare for chronically homeless people.  The thirteen people who have been in permanent housing for more than a year now have made major strides in their health – chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure have been stabilized, visual and dental issues have been addressed, people have gained weight through better nutrition and regular meals. 
 

Update 8/7/09 - 

The most difficult domestic issues of the past and present centuries are race, poverty, and health care. The US has passed legislation to address the first two (with some notable successes and a lot more failure); crafting health care reform has proved far more difficult. FDR couldn't pass health care legislation, nor could Truman, Nixon, Carter or Clinton. Other presidents didn't even try.  And President Obama’s efforts have generated a firestorm of protest from both ends of the political spectrum.  
Virtually everyone agrees that something must be done, and the three bills currently making their way through Congress (H.R. 3200; Senate Finance Committee; and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee) are mostly in agreement. We’ve found the following sources helpful in unpacking the proposed legislation:
 
 
 
 
 
Living in poverty is directly linked to health issues. Dr. Janelle Goetcheus is the founder of Christ House, a medical ministry of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC, that cares for homeless people who are too sick to stay on the street. She told Sojourners’ Jim Wallis, "People don't seem to understand that this really is a life-and-death issue. People who have good health insurance will live and live longer; those who don't will die and die sooner."
 
According to a 2008 report issued by the Boston Public Health Commission, the neighborhoods in which Boston Medical Center patients live have some of the highest rates of low birth weight babies, asthma hospitalizations for children under the age of 5, tuberculosis, substance abuse treatment hospitalizations, infant mortality, and overall mortality.
 
Most of the people BMC serves are on Medicare. Genevieve Preer and Dr. Chén Kenyon senior pediatric residents at BMC, report that Medicare reimbursements to BMC are currently at 64 cents for each dollar expended, a fiscally untenable position. “Our patients, who carry such an unequal burden of disease, desperately need the unique, high-quality medical services that BMC offers. But if BMC does not receive fair Medicaid reimbursement, we cannot continue to provide our complicated and vulnerable patients with the services they deserve. Simply carrying an insurance card does not guarantee good healthcare. BMC requires equitable funding if it is to continue to deliver high quality, comprehensive medical services to our patients.”  
 
The Center’s Homeless To Homes, a housing first project, has shown that stable housing itself is healthcare for chronically homeless people. The thirteen people who have been in permanent housing for more than a year now have made major strides in their health – chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure have been stabilized, visual and dental issues have been addressed, people have gained weight through better nutrition and regular meals. 
 
 

Update 8/7/09 - 

Affordable Housing - Key Component to Ending Family Homelessness
 
A recent review of existing research on family homelessness has affirmed that the primary cause for most homelessness among families is the inability to find housing they can afford. As such, for the vast majority of unsheltered American families, homelessness can be alleviated through rental subsidies.
The review of existing research was commissioned by Enterprise Community Partners (“Enterprise”) and the National Alliance to End Homelessness (the “Alliance”). Conducted by leading homelessness expert and researcher Marybeth Shinn of Vanderbilt University, the brief – Ending Homelessness for Families: The Evidence for Affordable Housing – affirms what advocates had long been touting: access to affordable housing is the solution to homelessness.
“The difference between homeless families and other low-income families is nothing more than the housing they can afford,” said Nan Roman, president of the Alliance. “In this time of economic uncertainty and financial hardship, more and more families are struggling to make ends meet every month– and it is our responsibility to help those families most in need of public assistance. It is critical that Congress fully fund the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program and 200,000 new rent vouchers to assist homeless and severely rent burdened households.”
The release of this review comes on the heel of another release: the 2008 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) [cf. http://www.hud.gov/news/release.cfm?content=pr09-108.cfm]. The report concludes that while overall homelessness in America held fairly steady from 2007 to 2008, the number of homeless families increased by nine percent overall, and by nearly 56 percent in suburban and rural areas.  “In recent years, we’ve seen a persistent increase in the number of families needing homes they can afford. And this problem has only been exacerbated by the decrease in the affordable housing stock nationwide,” said Doris Koo, president and CEO of Enterprise. “By creating more affordable housing, family homelessness is something we can, and should, solve in America.” 
HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan also announced that HUD will, for the first time ever, begin measuring homelessness on a quarterly basis to gain a better understanding of the impact of the current economic crisis on homelessness.
Key Findings of HUD's 2008 Annual Homeless Assessment Report
  • About 664,000 people nationwide were homeless—either sheltered or unsheltered—on a single night in January 2008, down about 7,500 people (or one percent) from the previous year.
  • The number of people using homeless residential programs during the course of the year remained steady. Between October 1, 2007 and September 30, 2008, approximately 1.6 million homeless people used shelters or transitional housing programs at least once.
  • While the number of homeless individuals in shelters in 2008 was about the same as in 2007, the number of people in families increased by nine percent to 516,700, suggesting that family homelessness may be on the rise.
  • Family homelessness increased most especially in suburban and rural areas, by nearly 56 percent between 2007 and 2008. During that same time, the number of homeless individuals in suburban and rural areas increased by nearly 34 percent (see exhibit 4-2 and 4-3).
  • Homeless persons in shelters and on the street continued to be most heavily concentrated in urban areas. One in five people homeless on a single night in January were located in Los Angeles, New York, and Detroit.
  • However, in the twelve months ending on September 30, 2008, the number of people who accessed residential programs in suburban and rural areas increased substantially, from 23 percent in 2007 to 32 percent in 2008.
  • There were early signs that the economic crisis may be affecting trends in homelessness nationally. Notably, a greater share of people accessing the homeless system in 2008 came from stays with friends and family and from places where they had lived a year or more, suggesting that people who had been stably housed were becoming homeless after exhausting their housing options. 
Add the people who are in serious danger of losing their housing to those who are already homeless, and the crisis at the bottom of the economic ladder looms far larger.  One of the key operating assumptions of Class Matters is that attaining and maintaining economic stability depends in large part on affordable housing. 
 
 

 

 
The most difficult domestic issues of the past and present centuries are race, poverty, and health care.  The US has passed legislation to address the first two (with some notable successes and a lot more failure); crafting health care reform has proved far more difficult.  FDR couldn't pass health care legislation, nor could Truman, Nixon, Carter or Clinton. Other presidents didn't even try.  And President Obama’s efforts have generated a firestorm of protest from both ends of the political spectrum.  
 
Virtually everyone agrees that something must be done, and the three bills currently making their way through Congress (H.R. 3200; Senate Finance Committee; and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee) are mostly in agreement.  We’ve found the following sources helpful in unpacking the proposed legislation:
 
 
 
 
 
Living in poverty is directly linked to serious ssues.  Dr. Janelle Goetcheus is the founder of Christ House, a medical ministry of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC, that cares for homeless people who are too sick to stay on the street.  She told Sojourners’ Jim Wallis, "People don't seem to understand that this really is a life-and-death issue. People who have good health insurance will live and live longer; those who don't will die and die sooner."
 
According to a 2008 report issued by the Boston Public Health Commission, the neighborhoods in which Boston Medical Center patients live have some of the highest rates of low birth weight babies, asthma hospitalizations for children under the age of 5, tuberculosis, substance abuse treatment hospitalizations, infant mortality, and overall mortality.
 
Most of the people BMC serves are on Medicare. Genevieve Preer and Dr. Chén Kenyon senior pediatric residents at BMC, report that Medicare reimbursements to BMC are currently at 64 cents for each dollar expended, a fiscally untenable position.  “Our patients, who carry such an unequal burden of disease, desperately need the unique, high-quality medical services that BMC offers. But if BMC does not receive fair Medicaid reimbursement, we cannot continue to provide our complicated and vulnerable patients with the services they deserve. Simply carrying an insurance card does not guarantee good healthcare. BMC requires equitable funding if it is to continue to deliver high quality, comprehensive medical services to our patients.”  
 
The Center’s Homeless To Homes, a housing first project, has shown that stable housing itself is healthcare for chronically homeless people.  The thirteen people who have been in permanent housing for more than a year now have made major strides in their health – chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure have been stabilized, visual and dental issues have been addressed, people have gained weight through better nutrition and regular meals. 
 
 

 

 

One of the difficulties facing our generation may be that we are living between meta-narratives or, as someone has said, “between dreams.” It is hard living between dreams. The older dream is tempting for its familiar comfortableness. The newer dream draws by its promise. We do not even have a vocabulary for the new, evolving dream. The shape of the new dream will come more and more to the fore through that segment of society that will step back, look deep inside, and be prepared to wait it out as the new vision morphs from a common awareness. 
 
The old American dream focused on self-sufficiency, on pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps. It was, as one panelist said last night at a community forum on meeting basic human needs in Charlotte, a meritocracy, and it was based on the assumption of equal opportunity. And if a person didn’t take advantage of that opportunity, then it was their own fault. You earned your way through your own hard work. Self-sufficiency, independence, personal achievement – all marks of the old dream.
 
The current recession has given the old dream stress fractures. For not only the poor but the very wealthy have suffered losses, often through no fault of their own (see Robert Samuelson’s article in the July 20, 2009, NEWSWEEK (www.newsweek.com/id/206160). Could it be that some who have lived out the old dream might begin to see some kinship with others who never prospered under it?
 
We’re beginning to hear the words “civil rights” attached to housing. Housing provides the basic stability necessary to move toward economic self-sufficiency. What we’re discovering in the Housing First pilot project here at the Urban Ministry Center is that housing means much improved healthcare, means education, means getting clean and sober, means working on the issues that made and kept people homeless in the first place.
 
Nationally, experts are saying similar things about others living in poverty. During the last three recessions, the number of Americans living in poverty — and the number living below half of the poverty line — has risen markedly, with the largest increases occurring in recessions with the highest unemployment. Families with incomes below half of the poverty line face the greatest risk of becoming homeless, as they have the most difficulty paying rent. 
 
According to Jill Khadduri, noted researcher and former HUD Policy Director,
An extensive body of careful research has demonstrated that housing vouchers are critically important both for preventing families with children from becoming homeless and for helping those who enter the shelter system to leave it for permanent housing and not become homeless again.
 
Seems to us that the slowly emerging new American dream may incorporate housing as a foundation on which sustained self-sufficiency might be possible for more of our citizens.

 

   

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