Plans to Increase Income Must Include Financial Literacy Education

The Allied Drive Task Force recently produced a report that serves as a reference toward responding to employment and employability issues on Allied Drive. I forwarded my thoughts on the report for the Task Force to consider as follows:

To Whom It May Concern:

Upon reading the Employment and Training Report that was prepared for the Allied Task Force, I wanted to extend my appreciation to those who participated in the production of the comprehensive report that serves to coordinate many of the great services available to residents on Allied Drive. As an Allied Drive-city property resident with formal and informal experience with employment and job development for Allied Drive residents, I had one thought that I wanted to share with the Task Force to consider working into the report.

I have worked for nearly three years helping Allied Drive-area residents connect with employment opportunities working as a job developer to support employment and training staff on Allied Drive, and also as a resident, I have socialized with many of my neighbors through the years. One observation that I have made is that even with best programs and the best resources, it is very hard to meet employment objectives without addressing the need for a shift in cultural and societal values among my neighbors.

I have participated in professional and personal outreach among many communities on Allied Drive, including the expansive Latino and Asian communities. It saddens me that although ethnic cultures and even the languages we speak can be so different, one thing can remain so constant - many of us are in a crisis/survival mode that causes us to fail to look at the big picture. We are often so focused on the crisis of the day, whether it be the threat of our lights being turned off or an eviction notice, or any other such mishap, we often fail to have to ability to look three years down the line and make decisions that would benefit our long-term future.

More times than I can count, I have witnessed my neighbors not showing up to work because they were offered a one-day job that offered cash on the spot. It may not make sense to an outsider looking in, but it is very likely that individual needed cash today, and waiting for a first paycheck in two weeks was not feasible for the crisis being dealt with today. I have been in similar crunches, and in hindsight of my own situations, I can think of many responsible ways I could have responded to the crisis at hand that would have prevented financial devastation caused by things such as payday loans. However, when you are in the heat of the moment within an air of crisis caused by being around so many other people who are also in the midst of a crisis, there is a lack of sound rationale to help us navigate around financial emergencies so we often make decisions without fully evaluating the long-term impact of our decisions.

They say that the average American is two paychecks away from being homeless. I firmly believe that many Allied residents are only one paycheck away, and I speak of this from experience. In the three years that I have lived in what is now the city-owned properties, the financial fires I put out are barely at bay. My income is not the issue, rather the errors in judgment I made in my past haunt me constantly. Many of my neighbors have similar skeletons, whether it be enormous restitution fees owed to the courts, or child-support that is backed up to five-figure amounts. Our past skeletons serve as barriers in allowing us to move forward in more ways than one, and just getting a good job is not the full answer. Many of my neighbors have tried to go back to school but were ineligible for student aid due to past defaulted students loans. We can't legally drive because of thousands of dollars owed to the state for various past driving violations. We need financial education to help us learn how to legitimately navigate around these issues, many of which have easy solutions that we could easily learn with the right training.

The line between our day-to-day survival and being homeless and penniless is very fine here. In many of these situations, income is not the issue. I, along with many of my neighbors have household incomes (sometimes reportable, sometimes not reportable) exceeding $50k per year, however if our liabilities exceed our income, it really does not matter, we are all still in a big hole.

In my opinion, if we are unable to manage our income and expenses while making $10k per year, it is highly unlikely that our spending habits or our money management skills will improve with more money. It is necessary for all of us to gain an understanding of how to really manage money, and furthermore, how to effectively build wealth. Many of the crisis situations my neighbors and I experience are rooted in finances. If we can somehow invest some time and energy in teaching ourselves good financial habits, many of those crises will be eliminated, and perhaps we will make sound financial decisions that will impact our long-term future.

There are many financial literacy programs in Madison, and there are also many successful residents on Allied Drive that have gone from making $8/hour to $15/hour in less than a year. All these individuals need to be identified and I think that they would be instrumental in helping their neighbors achieve similar successes.

In conclusion, I would say that we need two things: firstly, residents need counseling to determine if full-time hours are feasible for them within the lifestyle they are currently living within. If not, then a part-time job could be springboarded into a full-time opportunity after several months of easing into a job-centered lifestyle. Secondly, financial literacy training that relates to the residents and responds to the sorts of crisis we face is required. I would urge the program to include education that would help residents proactively respond to festering situations before they explode and ultimately exercise sound judgments in the future on their own.

Thank you for considering my ideas and I look forward to seeing the fruits of our labor!

Move Forward and Move Out, If You Really Want The American Dream?

They say that a component of what is considered the American Dream is home ownership and those of us in the city properties who aspire to buy a home and want to own a stake in this community feel like we are being somewhat punished for wanting it. The way the development plans are unfolding, those who qualify for Section 8 or prefer rental housing are offered an opportunity to move into the new developments first. The rest of us who aligned with the city’s idea of facilitating property ownership among the community’s residents will have to wait for an undisclosed amount of time for our opportunity to move.

If the new properties are ready this summer, they will be literally 25 feet from my front door. I wonder how I am going to feel, seeing a beautiful living space with gardens and all this great architecture that only accommodates Section 8 and rental housing, and does not provide a viable option for people like me who want to own a place in our next move. The architects who are designing the new buildings are very talented and the new properties are going to look spectacular. It’s going to make my current apartment look, for lack of a better term, shitty. And it’s going to be right there in front of me to salivate over every time I come in or out of my apartment.

I may be inclined to move into the new rentals. I’ll think, hell, if I am renting, I might as well rent something nice! But then something is going to nag at me, hey, why I am moving into a rental? I should be looking at buying a piece of property. Just for kicks, we may see if we can get pre-approved for a mortgage and if by chance we do, we will be faced with the difficult decision of whether we should move into a nice house anywhere in the city now, or should we continue living in a crappy apartment for that undisclosed amount of time and wait for the privilege of being one of Allied Drive's first home owners. I am thinking that the only reason I would wait for Allied Drive would be if there was a complete lack of mortgage brokers who are willing to work with first time home owners with challenges. I don’t know ...

The State Journal recently interviewed a landlord out here who expressed that the city should consider building homes immediately because there is already a ton of low income housing out here. They say that Allied Drive is over 65% vacant – I remember one of the architects early on explained to us that if they cut off the top floors of all the buildings on Allied, there will still be vacancies out here. Currently, everything out here is rental and low income. Our Alder was quoted in response as agreeing in the concept of home-ownership, however stating that the community really wants rentals to drive the first phase of the project. Who? The community? What about those of us who live in the buildings that you bought? I guess we are all the red-headed step-children who have to wait until everyone else is appeased before our needs are met. God, this feels like a really unfulfilling relationship that I have with the city. I fantasize about a mortgage broker in shining armor riding up here on a white horse to sweep me away.

The ideal would be if the city would start building the owner-based properties right away with the rentals, and the options would be lined up for us when the new properties are unveiled. This all reminds me of when we first moved into our apartment and we had no furniture whatsoever. I had some friends back in Chicago who offered me some really nice furniture, I just had to rent a truck and get some help to move it. There were a lot of challenges in doing that due to finances and mobility restrictions I had to abide to. Just to get some basic furniture, I went St. Vincent DePaul and got pretty much everything that I immediately needed. My intention was still to get the really nice furniture and donate my interim furniture back to St Vincent’s.

Three years later, I am still sitting on my St Vincent’s couch and the furniture in Chicago is still sitting in storage. I’ve had opportunities to get the new furniture, but for one reason or another, I never did. I guess because I didn’t really need it and I was comfortable with what I had.

It’s one of the tragedies of missed opportunities ... The city is making us move, that is inevitable for all of us here. However, if they really want to guide us into home ownership on Allied, they should relish the opportunity of lining up the timelines to make it convenient for us to do so. Have both options ready at the same time so that no one has to wait for an undisclosed amount of time to move into a house. If the city makes the home ownership option difficult for those of us living in their properties, my suspicion is that someone else in Madison will make it easy. We’ll all be dispersed throughout other areas of the city, and in the interest of building stability in the Allied community, it will be a missed opportunity.

Community Blogging Could Lead to Some Economic Sustainability

I have always wanted to help people in my community become a little more technologically literate. Nowadays, there are so many legitimate ways to earn money online simply by being engaged with a little ingenuity. The Internet is global so what could be a barrier in your local community, could be a strength in your global community. It does not matter where you are from or what language you speak, the Internet serves a purpose of bringing everyone together. I really want to make an effort in 2008 to identify some people in my community who could commit to learning some new skills and one of the things I thought I could do is teach a group of residents how to maintain a blog. What goes with that is learning how to get paid for blogging. I am working on reaching out to people in the community and I hope that this time next month, we will be able to make some headway on getting a class of some sort going. I'll keep you all posted!

Community Services, For Us, By Us

Recently, Madison Voices reprinted an article that I wrote for India Tribune about my take on Community Services as it affects us on Allied Drive, coming from a multi-cultural prospective of an Allied Drive resident. My main point in the article is how I wish more agencies would listen to residents, and I wish more residents would take a more proactive role in the area of social services. We may not always be able to help ourselves, however we should always have a stake in it. My biggest pet peeve involves agencies that hand-hold residents to the point of paralysis. For example, if I had a driver who took me everywhere I wanted to go, after years and years of being chauffeured around, driving is going to be a very big deal for me. I am very proud to be on the board of the Wellness Center, an organization that offers a great example of how an organization that serves a neighborhood should function. About a third of our board consists of neighborhood residents, and I think it makes a big difference in how our organization functions. It may be frustrating for the rest of the board at times to have to deal with Allied Drama time to time, however the personal touches of our board members add the neighborhood flavor that I often see missing in community efforts that our driven by those outside of our community. Here is the article that was printed in the last Madison Voices:

Working for a non-profit that focuses on ethnic minorities, as well as serving as the minority representative for the Community Services Commission in my city of residence, I tend to view pretty much everything through a lens that identifies differences based on race, ethnicity and culture.

Perhaps Chicago has spoiled me. I am accustomed to our community taking initiative to address the needs of our people. Needless to say, it is annoying to me when I see outsiders of a culture attempting to address a need without fully understanding the cultural dynamics of a community. For example, I live in a small pocket on the outskirts of a capital city, and it seems as no coincidence that my entire neighborhood of about 8 blocks consists predominantly of African Americans, Latinos, Asians and low-income whites. I did not choose to live in this neighborhood. Various circumstances seemed to lead me here, as if the arm of our city’s capital ushered me to this neighborhood because this was where I belonged.

This small roughly 8-block community is fully saturated with a plethora of community organizations. Considering the lens I see things through, it is hard not to notice that most of the organizations are led and executed by middle-class white folks who have said, “I will not be afraid.” Despite the inflated rumors of fights, thugs, and prostitutes and gangs and whatever else the imagination can muster up, they decide “I want to save those people.” Yes, we really are often referred to as “those people.” Without really understanding our backgrounds and our various cultures, the journey to end social ailments proceeds.

They identify what we need. More disability checks. More food pantries. More vouchers for this and that. Can anyone say “crutch”? The Desi-scene in Chicago is not like that. There are still tons of services for our people. Apna Ghar, Indo American Center, and so many others are run by us, for us. If anyone unfamiliar with our culture wants to contribute, they are welcomed, but they have to conform to our culture. Not the other way around.

There needs to be a consciousness of the constant pressure placed upon us all to assimilate into one with some influences being stronger than others. Be conscious of the way you look at things and make conscious decisions that reflect our cultural values. Sometimes that may mean we have to stand up and be the oddball to say “This is how it is. Deal with it.” This voice is so important. We are in the first, second and third generation of Indians here. Our decisions will base how tenth, eleventh and twelfth generation Indians reflect our culture.

I recently visited an Asian-run organization that serves after-school programs for East Asian middle school girls in an effort to address self-esteem and foster self-image consciousness. They were addressing some performance that the girls recently made that was considered provocative. Maybe it was, I don’t know, I was not there. However, I wanted to know whose standard the girls’ performance was being based on? Nearly every Bollywood movie features a sexy, enticing dance scene, and we encourage our six-year old daughters to replicate those dance scenes on stage at our events. Those unfamiliar with our culture may very likely think we are exploiting our children. Were the young Hmong girls interpreting a cultural dance influenced by MTV and hip hop? I don’t know, but that question needs to be asked. Who knows, maybe Asian girls are a little more self-assured than they are given credit for. Is low-self esteem really an issue among Asian girls? Or are we attempting to treat another more predominant culture’s ailment without fully examining its existence within our own?

I live in a community that attempts to convene to address the needs of our neighbors, however our efforts are often seen by others as inefficient and ineffective, and it is often thought that all we do is argue and fight and we don’t get anything done. When you have a dozen or so people representing two generations and cultures encompassing four continents attempting to resolve a problem as something like, oh I don’t know, poverty? Disagreements are bound to occur. However looking at the results of our actions through a different lens, you may see that we all love one another and we do make things happen. We may not hold meetings that are called to order via motions and Roberts Rules. However, is that the only way to make an impact and serve needs? They say Rome was not built by having meetings. Maybe, just maybe, there is some truth to that.

WTF? How About Some Clear Direction?

So across the street from where I live, on the 2400 block of Allied Drive, these signs just recently propped up. The first thing I thought of when I saw the signs is the City. You know, when people say things that they have heard about Allied, especially the city-owned properties that I live in, they will often say, "The city says ..." I know from serving on two city commissions and somewhat following the actions on one or two other city bodies, it is very important to know who in the city is being referred to, and what role do they play in the actions being claimed? We are all subject to very mixed information on Allied Drive. Some time ago, the big news was that the city was going to put out all the city residents after they bought our buildings out. Then the word was that the city was going to give us all 30-day notices sometime before the end of the year. Then some people were saying that they are moving all of us to Avalon Village and giving us $300 if we stay. The truth of the matter is that the exact plan of action has not quite yet been determined, but we have all been promised that the course of action will be reasonable and that we will be given ample time to prepare (and I think we have made ourselves clear that we need a little more than 30 days to prepare for a move). If you live in the city properties and you want some real answers, talk to the right people, because believe me, even within the city, it is easy to get mixed information. Talk to people with authority:

Mark A. Olinger, Director of Planning and Community Development: 608-266-4635
Percy Brown, Community Development Supervisor: 608-266-6558, x311

Both of the above individuals have indicated publicly and privately that they are open to speaking with residents. If you live in the city-owned properties, don't freak out about anything you hear until you speak with one of the above individuals, because as the picture above reflects, information out here can be skewed. Be proactive and certain that you are acting on accurate information. In other words, don't pack and move because you think you are getting put out until you know for sure that you are getting put out.

And by the way, who is the brain-wizard who came up with the placement of the above one-way signs?

Payday Loan Store Alternatives

Following is a link to an article that just ran in the Wisconsin State Journal on payday loan stores ... very timely after my rant on these stores in my last post!

http://www.madison.com/wsj/topstories/index.php?ntid=250197&ntpid=1

Survival of the Fittest on Allied Drive?

I participated in an Employment and Training Open House today at the Boys and Girls Club, and it is always nice to do the work that I do in the community that I am connected to. As the appointed MC for the event, I navigated the various training programs available to residents in the community while making my best effort to keep the attendees engaged. All but one attendee was from the Allied Drive community and all but three attendees had been out of work for at least 90 days. One of the comments that consistently came forward was the need for a job now, today, yesterday. Rent is backed up, lights are about to be turned off, a baby is on the way. The question we were confronted with was how can we expect anyone to go to school for even as little as 3 weeks without pay? “What kind of job do you want” was not even a question to ask. Many in this room were willing to do absolutely anything at all that would offer a paycheck. How does that get anyone ahead? We cited success stories of other residents who sat in the same very seats months ago and made commitments to enroll in training programs and are now working at places like US Cellular, The Isthmus and Wisconsin Department of Revenue. It can happen, however it will be an uphill battle, and I was able to guarantee everyone in the room that at least ten things will pop up and attempt to block graduation from any program. It takes a lot of perseverance and a lot of determination to get ahead around here.

Much of that can relate to anyone’s life, however what makes Allied Drive unique is that everyone is in survival-mode, everyone is in crisis and everyone is pumped with serotonin in this grand effort to make it to the end of the day. When you live in such an environment, I swear, it impacts your ability to think straight. All the crisis situations I have been in out here were followed by this urgency to fix the situation with the most accessible solution. Nine times out of ten, that solution was self-destructive in some way, but it pushed the problem to bay. And though I knew it was self destructive, I opted for it anyway. I don’t know why. It has only been recently, through very strict discipline and consciousness, that I stopped myself from taking out a payday loan or going to that auto title loan place down the street whose signs scream at me as I am pulling down Allied Drive EVERY DAY. All these words screech, like "Fast Money," "No Hassles," or "Up To $10,000 NOW." Something makes me want to go in there and something makes me think that I would actually qualify for something close to that $10,000, and that would somehow solve all or most of my problems – can you imagine a $10,000 pay day loan? It would take decades and the value of a house to pay that off!

There is some kind of essence that breeds on Allied Drive and shifts us to this mindset that we are on the verge of collapsing. That distorts our ability to respond in a sound manner. They say that crisis meets everyone at some point in time, but imagine being confronted with it at the same time as all your neighbors, every day at every hour! Have you ever seen “28 Days Later”? That is what life out here feels like every day, all the time.

Allied Drive = Political Exhaustion

On top of living on Allied Drive, my job in part involves employment on Allied Drive. Add to that, being on the board of a non-profit that serves Allied Drive, serving on two city commissions that devote a good chunk of time "dealing with Allied Drive" and writing for the neighborhood paper, Voices. In between all of that, I try to keep up with community events and this blog – at the end of the day, I am often tired of Allied Drive myself. Needless to say, if I see anything involving Allied Drive running in circles, I really don’t want too much to do with it. This whole CDA thing, to me, feels like a big semi-truck coming at us 90 miles-per-hour. We can stand out in the street with our hands out gesturing for it to stop and hope for the best. Or we can pick up our prized belongings and get the hell out of the way, and hope there will not be a whole lot of damage at the end of it all. I have heard the pro-CDA and anti-CDA arguments, and from my observation, there really is no purpose in sitting on the anti-CDA side. For real, if you pick up a carton of milk at the JFF office with an expiration date that is 5-days old, are you really going to drink it? Are you going to call Deans to complain about your milk chug? No, you put it aside, and come back the next day and hope they have something for you. Similarly, this whole CDA thing, is just too big and seemingly too powerful. I am hopeful that when the truck passes through the neighborhood, there will be some goodies that fall out of the back for us, and if not, such is life. Considering that we are not property owners without any real stake in the community, what can we really do? Speaking of … I better go pull my credit report, I think I have about a year now to get ready for a first-time mortgage. Maybe on Allied Drive, maybe somewhere else. As any resident on Allied Drive, I think I have to remain open-minded.

Move Forward and Move Out

Yesterday was this big Allied Task Force meeting where I was hoping to catch the unveiling of the newest proposed plan for what they will be doing with the buildings I live in. I have been trying to keep up with the development plans so that I can guage what my living plans will be, as I hate having to move under the gun, as do most poeple. Anyway, while waiting for the unveiling of these big plans, there was this circus that took place within the Task Force surrounding alders and Task Force members battling over resolutions calling for RFPs and master developer negotiations. One resolution was drafted by the alder that represents our district that called for the city to begin negotiations with CDA to be the master developer of the properties I live within. Some say that the CDA will gentrify the neighborhood and screen people out. Maybe the tactic of the city is to draw this whole thing out until residents get so tired of hearing about all these strategies and just let happen what was likely intended to happen from the very beginning, back in 1991. As it stands now, the voices fighting the fight are not those that will be directly affected by the development about to take place. The residents within my building and the other city buildings have household incomes that are three times the rent (Hauk property rents are between $490 and $715), which was the requirement prior to moving in, and I know for my household, we are not too concerned about getting put out if that is what happens. How can you get mad about getting put out of Allied Drive? That is like getting mad about buying a burrito from Taco Bell and accidently leaving it on the bus. So what? Life will go on, we'll get another place to live that will likely be better than where we are living now. That really goes for all residents. They talk about displacement and we are all holding onto our neighborhood like it is paved with gold. Give me a break! I have mold all over my apartment and who knows, maybe that is the reason I can't stop coughing. Whatever the case, if anyone wants to come down here to take my moldy apartment from me, be my guest. I will be more than happy to get steppin'! In the meanwhile, these arguments over who develops what and who gets to put their hands in the pot of money that is at the root of this revitalization plan is exhausting. There are so many overlapping interests that are unclear here and it is no wonder that the actual residents do not get involved. I have never seen any City property residents at a Task Force meeting. There was one motion that took place where it was pointed out that all the residents voted against it. The sad thing was that none of the residents were really residents of the properties being discussed. I've asked actual residents to come out and when I bring it up, they ask why? What is the point? I guess I see where they are coming from. I don't know who let all the dogs out, but I think we'll just let them fight it out and we'll come out when it is all over and see what is left.

Where Do You Want To Go Today?

Nearly five million Americans can’t vote because of a felony conviction. The fancy word for that is disenfranchisement. The concept of disenfranchisement applies not only in politics and the right to vote, but also when it comes to technology. There is a term that computer geeks throw around called "digital disenfranchisement." It is more than a clever phrase – it is a scary reality that faces our community today.

There is a forecast that as technology develops, those of us that lack the technological savvy will be left behind, in every sense you can imagine. Some readers may be able to relate. If anyone has ever tried to apply for a job across the street at Cub Foods, there is no way to apply unless you sit at a computer and enter the information into a Web-based form. Similarly Copps, Staples, Home Depot and many other major employers in Madison summoned paper applications into the not-so-distant past. It is sometimes scary how fast technology is moving because not everyone is keeping up.

Prior to working in the non-profit world, my career was rooted in technology and the Internet. I was very fortunate when I was homeless and in line at the Hospitality House trying to get funding toward an Allied Drive apartment. I had this power that many other homeless people did not have. I knew my way around the technological world.

For me, that meant that I was able to utilize the Internet access at Hospitality House and other various agencies to hustle up money by selling things I no longer needed on eBay and I was able to talk to business owners and convince them to give me some money in exchange for a fully-functional Web site.

In the long run, technology allows literally anyone to make money through the Internet through PPC advertising, blogging, and even MySpace has income potential if you can be creative. I often tell people that the power of technology comes with the ability to do what you really want to do in life. I work a full time job at a non-profit agency because I love what I do. However, if it came down to money, I can tell you hands down that I would make double the money if I were to sit at home all day on my computer. Those who want to make money on the Internet will know what PPC advertising is, how to build a Web page, and have stories to tell. That could be anyone on Allied Drive.

It’s not easy and it could take years to really understand what you are doing but the point is to start. Begin by spending time with like-minded people and learn what you can at every moment that you can. Free Internet access is everywhere, Boys and Girls Club, the library, Urban League, the Job Center. Learning technology is easy. All you have to do is click. As Microsoft would say, where do you want to go today?

This column was originally published in Madison Voices, Allied Drive's community newspaper. Visit their Web site at: MadisonVoices.com

Who Can Save Us?

I have been living on Allied Drive for almost two years now, and one thing that I found somewhat irritating back when I came up here was the notion that we must be saved. I have had several conversations with "activists" who don't live here, but assume a duty to come here and fight for us (implying that we can't fight our own battles?), and they often relate that they have always wanted to work with the poor. It led me to question where their duty would lead them if we were no longer poor? Observing the interests that advanced, the leaders that are designated, the programs that get funded and the inflated sense of empowerment that arose when a resident was able to negotiate a whole book of bus tickets, as opposed to just two tickets, was enough for me realize that Allied Drive is a beast that can only tame itself. It is only through residents who live here and care enough to build stake in this community that we will be able to make anything of this neighborhood beyond a social service pot that every bleeding heart could dip into in the name of saving us lost souls.