New York City            

            This was not the standard Citizen Wealth talk, because there was a specialized interest in my two hitches at Williams before winning long term parole as an organizer a million years ago.  So, I got to tell the story of dropping out to organize welfare rights in Springfield, Massachusetts at 20 and then ACORN at 21.  It was a polite crowd and very mannered and attentive.

            In the same way that my friends in the Tea Party and the 912 project have been helpful in giving me a window to peep through to understand the alienation and anger among conservations, some of the inquiries in the Q&A period reminded me how dim the view is from the upper stories as well.  Talking about the way that voter registration works, a scrimmage broke with the crowd going back and forth at each other about their different understandings – and expectations – of how hard they felt it should be for a lower income citizen to be able to vote.  One woman told of going to City Hall in New York to register, and it became pretty clear that she really wanted everyone to share that same experience come hell or high water.  When I asked if she realized that the burden was different if someone had to lose pay and risk getting fired in order to register and that posed an obstacle, she clearly did not get it and had no appreciation of the problem.  Voting for her was a privilege, not a right.  Some others snapped back with different views.  Others offered her safe haven. 

            Paul Lieberman, who had extended the invitation for me to speak, tried to bring it back to his feeling that there was a real “natural suspicion” of any and all efforts to register voters as being somehow illegitimate and problematic, but it was really clear he already had his answer.  In a rare experience for me I was the peacemaker by simply saying that we needed to agree that there was a gulf of understanding about the lives of low and moderate income people that we seemed not to be able to get every one across.  That worked, but it created a sad cloud over the rest of the session, which was hard not to remember.

            The questions were interesting about international organizing reflected a wider ranging attention and diversity.  A young woman wrestled with the question of whether or not organizing made sense in the face of oppression and risks in authoritarian countries.  My answer that there were few choices but to organize inside countries to try to move people to protect themselves and win governmental accountability, though one had to be mindful of the risks and not assume that the same tactics worked there as here, was obviously not totally satisfying for her, but I left still believing she was more uncomfortable agreeing to legitimizing oppressive governments and understanding that we are called to organize, because there simply is no choice.

            I walked into the night air with vivid memories of some of the old exhilaration of some of my brief college debates with other students with different lives and backgrounds as well as the huge frustration with willful decisions made by some to simply not understand that any life was different than their own or to learn the least empathy for others.  All of that forced me to have to either act or go mad decades ago, and some of these questions and failed efforts to span the gulf of communications reminded me how ill suited I was to Williams then, and probably still.

Probably “or what?”

Looking county-to-county and expounding on the research of Professor Mark Rank of Washington University in St. Louis, there are plenty of “I told you so” points the story makes:

• • Almost 1 in 8 people in the USA are on stamps.  More than 36 million people.
  • Almost 25% of the nation’s children are on stamps.
  • Cities like Memphis, New Orleans, and St. Louis have more than half of their children on stamps.
  • Racial differences in participation are significant with 28% of African-Americans, 15% Latinos, and 8% whites.
  • The head of the federal program is clear that, in the words of Citizen Wealth, we need “maximum eligible participation,” and must enroll the 15-16 million people who are not yet enrolled.
  • The key one can find in reaching many of the new enrollees, as I have demanded in Citizen Wealth, is outreach.

I could go on, but it would get boring, and the point of this piece is not crowing.  Quite the opposite.

Reading the article, just like being on the streets and out on the trail, I could not find the any real evidence for the proposition that the “stigma”  of receiving food stamps is fading, as trumpeted by the headlines.  In fact the actual interviews in the story, particularly with recent white participants who have signed up for the program, all seemed to carry the weight of regret, shame, and sense of exceptionalism about their own participation in the program that I have found talking to my Tea Party friends.  Where whites are still 1 of 12 compared to blacks now moving to almost 1 in 3, the stigma still seems certain and stunning, and a huge barrier to enrollment.

The barrier seems to only collapse for two reasons from what I can tell on close examination of the story’s argument:  (1) desperation pure and simple (which hardly reduces the stigma) and (2) outreach where someone convinces a recalcitrant but eligible family that they need to enroll for the good of their family, particularly the children.

Nothing about this story signaled to me “problem solved.”  Instead the only real point seemed to be that in one beautifully written sentence:  “Across the country, the food stamp rolls can be read like a scan of a sick economy.”

Where Under Secretary Kevin Concannon is right, and the article (or at least the gratuitous and missleading headline is wrong!) is that now is an opportunity to finally have the federal, state, and city governments put up, so that others will shut up about the fake dependency of receiving some benefits that help working families take care of their families.  There is something so fatally wrong about a society that would invest more weight (and the attendant psychic damage) in having people care about what their neighbors think and their potential scorn, than in the first priority of making sure that your family is taken care of fully no matter what.

Changing the name of the program from food stamps to SNAP, and talking about nutrition rather than hunger, are not real changes, nor will they help us get the rest of the job done and done permanently, not just during these desperate times.  We need a real effort that puts thousands of staff, volunteers, and others on the street and in the job centers to make and win the case to get all eligible families enrolled.

Stimulate that, Obama Administration!

Williamstown

• The Mohawk Trail between Greenfield and North Adams really is beautiful in a wild and rugged way that I didn’t remember.  I was so committed to seeing New England as elite and precious back then that I missed some scenes that seem taken whole and dropped here from my years in the West.
• North Adams was a grey, beaten up de-industrializing mill town then, and now it’s doing its darnedest to rebrand as an arts haven with lofts, museums, and whatever.  Who would have guessed?

• In dinner with Professor Ed Burger’s small multi-departmental class on innovation, I was first surprised when one student in this seemingly apolitical group of art, math, English and philosophy majors so clearly analyzed the need for a book on what is happening in contemporary organizing and the assault on ACORN to focus on a discussion of power and then intrigued by a round robin argument all of us had about the value of Facebook activism and the need to build internet connectivity tools for the low and moderate income constituency around North America and the world where I organize.

• In visiting with professors and students after speaking about Citizen Wealth at Griffin Hall at Professor James McAllister’s invitation, there were two stunning insights, one, when it turned out that half of the group really had no idea about the current pimp-prostitute scam/scandal at ACORN, and in talking about the strategies for dealing with crises faced by the organization, the differences in out “insider” oriented decisions would be made versus “outsider” based analyses.

And, though it hardly felt comforting, I had to both appreciate the manners and grace, and realize the terrible historical truth that I was reminded of by Professor Cathy Johnson:  a 40 year life span is amazing and rare for pressure and interest groups in American civic and political life.

It’s hard to handle that kind insight though while reading the papers and internet alerts arguing about ACORN’s lawsuit challenging the recent Congressional defunding action as an unconstitutional bill of attainder and the rightwing blogs and releases by Congressmen Issa heralding what they believe is now some kind of impending bankruptcy by ACORN and already counting coup.

Williamstown and Williams are probably fine places.  They just didn’t work for me, it seems.  One professor offered that the cultural shift of dropping me in this odd stew in a remote corner of the Berkshires might have helped propel me towards organizing.

If true, I have a debt here larger than any others walking around with a diploma and a number behind their names.

The producer was an advocate for her cause.  The format would be a “relaxed setting” with the interviewer and me sitting in chairs in a studio.  I told her my policy over the last year had been to not comment or get involved in any discussion of ACORN’s actions after I resigned, so they quickly agreed that there would be no question to me about anything after I left.  She is sending me an example of what kinds of questions they would have for me.  Hmmmm.

Most communications pros these days advise you to go on the air with the hateraters, because they have a significant audience that includes regular folks and that is who you try to connect with directly.  Judy Duncan of ACORN Canada and I were sobered when we asked our great Toronto leaders Marva and Kay and both of them said, “Yes,” they watched Fox News even in Canada.

Most of my friends and all of my family, say, “whoa, nelly,” ride past this dude.

The cons are that the incoming is ugly making it not fun.  Of course they will say the same with a picture of the book and a background picture of me anyway, whether I’m on or not.  The pros might be some big league exposure for the book, a chance to connect with friends and neutrals, and speak past the din to folks willing to listen and support the work.
Heads or tails.   What’s your advice?

Rome Labrino was designed as a plan for a new city (la nuova citta) by the famous architect, Kenzo Tange, and his associates based in Tokyo in the early 1970’s.  Groundbreaking on the first building was in 1976.  This was a grand plan designed for 70,000 people.  There were ten sections of Labrino which would each house between 6 and 7000 people in a combination of cooperative housing and public housing.  There was supposed to be green space, sporting areas, markets, community buildings, and other amenities.

Some of those things never came to pass over the last more than 35 years.  Reading the document description the one certainty though is that this project was a boost to the local architects, engineers, and consultants who occupy almost 2 full columns of tiny type at the back of the brochure.  Some of these ideas died quickly even though they appear like Roman antiquities along the landscape.  Near the expressway at the base of Labrino was a giant, empty parking lot, which had been thought to be space for a “park-and-ride” area, but never caught on.

I met with staff and leaders of the CGIL, a left trade union, with an office on the 1^st floor of one of the Labrino buildings.  Later we had lunch with other officials including some occupants of Labrino.  The idea had been to create a model development of mixed lower income and moderate income housing on what had been an agricultural hillside on the edge of Catania.  The dominant buildings were low rises 6-7 stories high with a couple of larger towers in some of the islands.

The reality in a little more than three decades mirrors so much of what has happened in highly concentrated housing developments and projects around the world that it was almost banal in its predictability.  In the public housing only 20% of the tenants are estimated to be paying rent.  Another 30% of the tenants have stopped paying.  The last 30% are simply squatters.  The city of Catania has been broke for years and unable to hold up its end of the bargain either.  In an 18 month period over 2008-9 there was no street lighting in Labrino, because the city did not pay its bill to provide the lights.  Predictably there is pricing pressure on the co-ops with fewer families interested in buying in, though I was told that occupancy rates in the co-op housing are still hold strong.  I would bet that is temporary unless something happens soon.

My friends and informers believed the mafia was behind much of this, particularly the squatting, and had various theories and conspiracies ready and raring to explain the squatting and why it was being tolerated.  I found myself feeling too old for Labrino and too jaded as I looked at the scene.

Labrino was unkempt and signs were everywhere of the lack of maintenance, but I have been in hundreds of housing projects in America and elsewhere that were worse.  We drove by one tower where the 1^st floor had a bombed out look.  My friends freaked when I went to take a picture, because there was drug activity there, but it was lightweight when I think of neighborhoods in the States or even “The Wire.”

I seemed to be looking at the classic early to mid-point stage of urban disinvestment.  With my union brothers I sketched out their alternative options:  organize the 20% of the tenants who were paying and force the city to move them into buildings they were willing to maintain and save and allow the city to tear down the rest,  or, unite the 20% with the 30% of the tenants not paying and given them an option to move into maintained buildings with “forgiveness” on a trial basis to pay within a new regime, or, finally, combine the 20% with the co-op owners in a similar plan to save what one could of Labrino as affordable and decent housing.  They reminded me that they had few members there and though they supported the citizens organization it was small, and they were busy.

I felt lucky that I was catching a plane out of Catania later than afternoon.  My friends and generous hosts were uncomfortable when I kept saying that the city had clearly already made a decision to tear down many if not all of the public housing buildings, they just had not been transparent with the community or revealed their plans.  I could see no other explanation.  I talked to them about the lifespan of these kinds of buildings and the need to find out something about the housing finance schemes in Italy for remodeling particularly since many of the buildings would require gut rehab to be saved given the collapse of plumbing systems.

I almost wore out my welcome by saying that, “yes, they could blame the mafia, but…” the real criminal element here was the City of Catania.  Mafia, gangs, whatever they might be called in the local context whether it is the Robert Taylor Homes of Chicago, Pruitt Igoe in St. Louis, or Desire and Fisher in New Orleans, this only happened once the responsible governments made a decision to disinvestment and flee the scene.   The local context of Sicily with its healthy and constant awareness of the mafia was distorting the ability of the planners and students from seeing nothing more than the garden variety tragedy of urban disinvestment and malign neglect of government.

I took no pride as we drove from Labrino as I looked over my right shoulder and saw an area of clear ground a couple of kilometers away with several cranes against the beautiful, hot, clear sky of Sicily.  I asked my friends the planning students what was being built there.  One answered without irony, “oh, that’s “new” Labrino.”  I was no prophet and could take no pleasure in having only minutes before “told them so,” but financed by the federal Italian government, the Catania was building a “new” Labrino at the foot of the old and accelerating the disinvestment process in Labrino, once the new city on the hill, and now a problem to be shelved rather than solved.

This could and should be a huge fight, but right now it’s just another urban tragedy unfolding quickly in broad daylight within sight of the Catania airport.  I could weep if I weren’t so jaded and angry at how much we know and how little we’ve learned and shared even while the same new urban crimes are committed on the poor and working families in front of our very eyes.

New York I awoke this morning to a pleasant surprise as I hustled to fly to Sicily.  Sammy Ndirangu, one of our ACORN Kenya, organizers sent a half-dozen pictures of his first organizing committee meeting in the Highridge section of the Korogochu megaslum where we are launching the first two community organizations.  There were 50 people who came together to organize this first group.  Discussion on the issues and the drive were excellent, and 28 of the 50 signed up as members of ACORN Kenya.

This is encouraging and exciting, as Sammy and David Musungu, our first organizers dig into the hard work of building an aggressive, membership based organization in Nairobi.  More reports will follow but I had to share this.  Looking at the calendar, I notice this also marks the 39^th anniversary of when I arrived in Little Rock to begin organizing ACORN in the United States.

What a great journey!