Restoring At-Risk Communities: Doing It Together and Doing It Right by John M. Perkins

Author:John M. Perkins [Perkins, John M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL016000
ISBN: 9781585581481
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 1996-02-01T08:00:00+00:00

7

Redistribution

Empowering the Community

Mary Nelson

I went up to the lookout of a drug pusher, who had flashed the “dope for sale” signal to our car as we came to the office, and said, “We’re trying to make it better for your mother and children and the whole neighborhood. Please move.” His response was that he was just trying to make a living, even if it wasn’t an honest one. “At least,” he said, “I’m not bopping you on the side of the head or robbing you. I’m just trying to provide for my children.”

Christian community developers see unemployed people standing on the corners and know the pain this causes them and their families; we sense the hopelessness and lack of future our youth feel when looking at what’s open to them in the job market; we want to do something about it. Some people seem to have too much of everything; other people don’t seem to have enough of anything. Economic development or job creation is the new buzzword.

In Beyond Charity,1 John Perkins describes the evolution in thinking regarding redistribution. In the 1960s the motto of community development was “Give people a fish, and they’ll eat for a day.” In the 1970s it was “Teach people to fish, and they’ll eat for a lifetime.” In the 1990s the focus has turned to “Who owns the pond?” Perkins goes on to say, “The challenge for Christian community-based economic development is to enable the people of the community to start local enterprises that meet local needs and employ indigenous people.” He goes on to describe Thriftco, an enterprise of Jackson, Mississippi-based Voice of Calvary Ministries. Jobs are created in this business when manufacturers and major retailers donate extras and slightly damaged new clothing overruns, which are then sold at reduced rates. First efforts to operate this enterprise as a co-op with no profit and no dividends had to be modified because five years and nine managers after opening, the operation was $250,000 in debt. But strong management was brought in, and persistent leadership evolved, so that in its fourteenth year it is now a strong enterprise with thirty-six employees and gross sales of $350,000 per year.

Bethel New Life, a church-based community development corporation (CDC) in Chicago, started in its low income urban community with a commitment to provide affordable home ownership and community development without displacement of people. After the first several housing projects, with massive efforts to bring down the costs, Bethel soon found out that even the most affordable housing isn’t affordable if one doesn’t have a job. So, job creation in the community became the important focus. The two-pronged effort was both on establishing employment services to help people get into livable-wage jobs and on creating jobs in the neighborhood utilizing the assets of the community. These efforts led to the creation of an enterprise that provides home care services for the elderly, a business that now employs over four hundred people. It also led to industrial development around recycling and reprocessing.

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