Chapter II Oh, to save the world
After graduating wet behind the ears and verbose, I moved to the slums of liberal New
York City.
A Baptism by fire
Living in slums
I wanted to learn about ‘the downtrodden victims of society who lived in abject poverty.’ I lived in Spanish Harlem and the lower eastside – both in New York in the late 60sand later behind the capitol in Wash. D.C. in the early 70s.
Rather than ‘the pitiful and oppressed poor held down by the establishment,’ I found something different. Cars were benches - people sat on them, which ground the grit into the paint.
Some stood or walked on them. Occasionally a car found itself up on milk boxes in the morning with the back tires off. The next day the front tires and engine parts disappeared, and later kids used it as a jungle gym. Some were set afire.
So much trash and litter filled the gutters, the streets were almost level with the sidewalk, although cleaned every two days.
You knew you were in the slums when coming up the subway stairs. When your eyes came to the level of the street, they saw broken glass, litter, and sidewalks darkened by gum and fuel oil. I got so used to it, when I came up the stairs in a clean neighborhood, it was a pleasant shock.
When furniture caught fire or was unwanted, it was thrown on the sidewalk. People ‘air mailed’ trash out the windows. Many phone booths didn’t work, were used as urinals, and were vandalized for change.
I couldn’t get insurance on my apartment. When I had people over, they had to come by cab. Kids didn’t yell when playing; they screeched. You never knew when it was an emergency. The laundromat had plexiglas windows and ‘iron putty’ covering the bolts holding the washers down.
Once I stopped a 7th-grade boy from beating a terrified girl. He couldn’t understand what I was doing.
The local SAFEWAY was the only supermarket in one neighborhood. It had Plexiglas windows. Kids ran in and out flirting, chasing, and stealing. People double parked, left their shopping carts in the middle of the aisle, and coughed on you in the slow-motion line.
A nearby social agency sent around flyers saying, ‘Let’s stop SAFEWAY from abusing the neighborhood,’ ‘Let’s get SAFEWAY to lower prices and improve service.’ These came through the mail slot on a regular basis. Then a long interval. Finally one came through:
‘Since SAFEWAY closed, let’s car pool to the nearest market.’ Incredible. Instead of bugging SAFEWAY, the social agency should have been trying to keep it open.
The agency held LOUD dances. The decibels could have taken the paint off the walls. They blasted out of the building like a locomotive, practically shaking the windows across the street. Inside no one could even shout. These were put on with no notice to neighbors and lasted until 2:00 a.m.
The slums had dogs on three legs, blaring stereos and TV’s, babies crying and dogs barking for hours, rock-throwing, windows used as doors, baleful, sullen stares, graffiti, and horn blowing right outside your window in the middle of the night from cab drivers scared to leave their cabs.
The pets were vicious or spooked; and when you told a kid to stop doing something, he took it as a challenge to be smart-aleck.
Many of the poor didn’t like themselves nor each other. Life was cheap. People spat, cursed, threatened, fought, drank, and took drugs. There must have been a higher percentage of accidents.
The mailboxes in some buildings had been broken into so often, people waited out front for their welfare checks. The apathy and the danger affected teachers, police, and other city workers. Some must have done only the minimum amount of work, burned out, or transferred. Chain stores, banks, and supermarkets avoided the area because of: bad checks, shoplifting, phony accidents and claims, shopping cart losses, crime against employees, vandalism to buildings and cars, and time lost in handling food stamps. (I read Ralph’s in Calif. lost money in nine out of ten of its inner city markets.) That is why prices are higher.
The slums didn’t need the peace corps; they needed the marine corps. Everything was down 40 notches. But this isn’t what we hear. Somehow the media and academia are compelled to excuse those who live in the slums and blame everyone outside:
1 Blame ‘society’
Most of the problems are the fault of the poor. Where are ambition and responsibility? In sending to school kids who haven’t bathed in days? In the TV on all night instead of homework?In the empty library, the lack of interest in schools, markets, parks, or voting? How long do you have to live in a slum before losing ‘understanding and compassion’ for people who abuse you, their pets, kids, property, and each other? How long do you believe it is ‘racial, economic, or political?’
2 Blame the police
Some cities put their worst cops in the slums, but this doesn’t account for all the nonsense.
3 Money is the answer
False. Millions have been spent on social programs and we still have slums. In fact,
many programs have done more harm than good by causing dependence and resentment.
4 No dignity in poverty
Only partly true. Slum living and slum schooling are undignified, but being poor isn’t. I have known many who were poor in money and rich in everything else. (Many of our parents and grandparents were poor and didn’t feel they had less dignity or that the government owed them a living.)
5 The poor are ambitious
Many people, poor or not, are not ambitious.
6 Mix the slums with better areas
This is idealistic, unfair, and enrages middle class people of all colors, some of whom have worked hard to escape the slums.
What’s the answer?
a Look at history
Poverty has been helped more by capitalism than by government programs (socialism). The definition of poverty has been expanded over the years. The American poor have consistently been told they are bad off, when they live like kings compared the way most Americans lived 80 years ago. Our elderly can tell us about this (and how the poor then had more hope and pride). Our poor and are far better off than the poor of many countries
b Be realistic
Approach the subject without rhetoric or emotion. Find the literature that describes slums honestly and doesn’t excuse the poor who mismanage their affairs. Learn about the poor from merchants, insurance companies, creditors, realtors, city employees, bus and cab drivers, and the working and sensible poor. Learn that higher prices in the slums are the result of the added costs of doing business there. Study how the good people in slums there raise good kids despite enormous odds. Study how poor immigrants do the same and pass our poor.
c Avoid liberals
Most of those in the media, academia, social work, and the ACLU are liberals. Most have never lived in a slum, nor been poor. They are the ‘excuse industry.’ Even after the facts about many of the poor mismanaging their affairs are glaring clear, liberals are still turning over every rock looking for ‘oppression, cultural deprivation, inequity, exploitation, violation of rights,’ ….
d Plain Language
No jargon, rhetoric, psychobabble, feel good, or slum jive.
e Fair share
of services and competent city workers. This is difficult as better workers gravitate to better neighborhoods, and some cities dump their worst workers into the slums.
f Fix responsibility
for noise, rundown property, abandoned cars, illegal dumping, crime.
g Law enforcement
The small matters of noise, litter, parking, panhandling, vagrancy, add up. They are symbolic, they affect morale, and cleaning them up causes interest in going after bigger problems.
h Traditional values
Whether the law enforcer is from the slums or not, he has to understand the slums on one hand, but BELIEVE in society’s values on the other. He doesn’t think noise, threats, screeching, drunkenness, crime are normal. Such enforcers need maturity, confidence, and conviction as their work is all uphill and totally thankless in today’s permissive society. Such people are usually clean cut. The disheveled ones are often ineffective. They often have more problems than the poor.
i Privatize
Housing
Turn housing projects over to tenants. In part of Wash. D.C.this raised rent collections 105%, cut vacancy rates 13%, and cut administrative costs 60%, crime 5% and teenage pregnancy and welfare dependency 50%. In other cities the same arrangement cut vacancy 18%, robbery 77%, and crime 66%. Next comes tenant ownership.
Phase out rent control; it creates inequities and a housing shortage. Allow cheaper housing, urban homesteading, and subletting of rooms.
Work
Allow ‘right to work’ and ‘work at home.’ Allow kids under 14 to work part time. Study lowering (or phasing out) the minimum wage. This would create thousands of jobs for drop- outs, delinquents, criminals, derelicts, addicts, the homeless, and others - many of whom need to develop work habits. They should be able to offer their services at a competitive wage.
Education
Allow parents to teach their kids at home and to have a choice of schools with vouchers. Schools would have to compete for students and teachers.
Misc.
Privatize fire depts., parks, transportation, mail, education, justice, and charity. These have been successful. Welfare reform: see chap II, c, 4th essay All of these would let the poor who are motivated get ahead, and not be held back by those who aren’t. People could live with more dignity and hope - as they did in the past.
(Some of the above came from the N.Y. Times, G. Gilder, E. Banfield, H. Hazlitt, Wash. Post, the L.A. Times.)
Domestic version of the peace corps
I was two years out of college and floundering in social work when I got a telegram urging me to quickly volunteer for VISTA (the domestic version of the peace corps). It said my background would be good for working with migrant farm laborers. (It wasn’t, but they were looking for bodies.) This was the start of the War on Poverty in 1965.
We volunteers were flown to Oregon for ‘intensive’ training - three weeks of classes (no tests), and three weeks of living in migrant camps (best part). There some of us picked crops for an hour before we got tired, played with and taught migrant kids a few things, dug dry wells, helped a tuberculin family, looked for Job Corps prospects, looked into migrant wages and living conditions, improved privies with lumber we solicited, and worked on a contaminated water problem. Some volunteers got into a labor dispute and were kicked out of one camp.
Living with the poor and receiving volunteer wages were basic to VISTA. We were paid $l80/mo., which seemed more than what some poor families lived on.
We were asked by outsiders what we were doing and found it hard to answer. We asked our trainers what we were supposed to do when we got to our assignments and were told, ‘You’ll find out when you get there.’ When we got ‘there’ and asked, our sponsors said, ‘We don’t know; what were you trained to do?’ (while telling the papers we were receiving ‘in-service, on-going orientation.’ As it turned out, only a few volunteers were assigned to migrant farm labor.)
I was assigned to Pecos, a half hour outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. It had 1200 people (and lots of gossip). Outside town there were bald peaks of 13,000 feet and alpine valleys, quiet but for the ring of a cowbell. Six miles away was a town of 13 families without electricity, and below was the Pecos River, from which farmers channeled water with 300 year old ‘ditches,’ governed by ‘ditch associations.’ On the horizon were silent storms with constant lightning.
The reddish, clay soil when dry was like cement and when wet, was sticky enough to pull your shoes off. During the rains it washed into the river, turning the falls a reddish color.
Some of the adobe homes had this coloring, which gave them a glow at sunset. When I arrived, I drove past these becoming enchanted. It seemed like a Shangri-La. No travel loghad shown such a place (nor captured the deep gazes of the Spanish beauties. ……………. a good beginning).
The people were said to be descendants of the conquistadors; and the towns were supposed to be some of the oldest in the U.S. The people and ballot were bilingual.
When thinking about tearing down a house, they would say ‘We have to `throw’ that house.’ When going to someone’s house they’d pull up and honk for the person to come out - even in freezing weather. When invited for lunch, I was told they’d start ‘feeding’ at 2:00. They thought nothing of eating a bowl of red chili - straight.
On weekends there were dances with drinking and fighting. (The drinks cost; the fights were free.)
About half the homes used natural gas, the rest wood. I bought several cords (4 by 4 by 10 ft.) of piñon wood to warm the two room adobe I rented. I had to chainsaw it into 1 ft. lengths and chop those up. Dry wood was for starting a stove or heater and green wood was for overnight heating, during which the sap hissed gently. Cedar wood was preferred for baking. The stoves and heaters had vents that could whip the flames into a roar or keep the coals glowing. Some were highly efficient, burning most of the ashes. Water jackets heated water and provided humidity.
Some people insisted food cooked on a wood stove tasted better. I tried it once, but it was so much trouble, I ate out of the refrigerator the rest of the year. I used an outhouse, drew water from a well, and showered at school.
My job was ‘community development,’ which was made to seem exotic, but was simply working on any feasible project to promote self-help.
I moved into the less developed part of town and went around to merchants and whomever asking what the problems were (‘felt-needs’ in anti-poverty talk), saying the War on Poverty might have funds to help. I was directed to the leaders and their reaction was good. Then I went to public agencies to look for assistance.
Soon it was time to have a meeting. I made the preparations and, as the hour neared, there were a spectacular sunset, a rain, and a wedding. I didn’t expect many, but 25 came, an organization was formed and officers elected. The next meeting only four showed up, and the chairman turned to me and said, ‘What was the purpose of this meeting?’ (Oh no.)
The meetings continued and an acceptable issue came up - roads. We got ‘the county’ to help haul gravel donated by Greer Garson’s ranch. She contributed $200 and $500 was collected locally. Soon the county trucks and grader came out, and local trucks were enlisted. A compressor was borrowed from the Fish and Game Dept. for drilling boulders to be blasted.
When people saw the work start, they cooperated with money or work. It lasted three weeks and brought great improvement. A water truck was rigged to settle the gravel, and later culverts and lumber for a bridge were obtained. People came from other towns to the meetings; and later a meeting with the governor was arranged where pavement was promised. Such luck after only two months made me heady; but as it turned out, very little happened the rest of the year.
In working on these projects, I visited the homes, and noticed in talking to the man and his wife, I was soon talking to the man. Also that only two women shyly showed up at one meeting and looked like they wanted to crawl out under the rug. On the outside, it was a man’s world. I got some female VISTA volunteers to organize the women and they began to meet. Whereas the men’s meetings were formal with minutes and procedure, the women’s meetings were informal, crazy, and fun.
They had a tamale sale that quickly raised over $100, but didn’t know what to do with it. I said the men’s organization might use it on the road and asked one of the men. There was a long pause and he answered begrudgingly, ‘Well ... the women can give it to us ... but we don’t want any damn female telling us what to do.’ (Hilarious, but I bit my tongue.)
‘Community development,’ as it turned out, was anything but ‘technical.’ It meant: - making no promises, - ‘planting’ ideas so other people would think they thought of them, - a few people did most of the work, - the ones that criticized the most, did the least, - many wanted something for nothing, - you could lead a horse to water, but you couldn’t make him drink, - sometimes the boat had to be rocked diplomatically, but firmly, - 20% of those who said they would come to meetings showed up, half late, and occasionally one boozed, - everything had to be kept strictly practical as people got sick of meetings, - anti-poverty workers could be dreamers, and - exposure to the ‘outside world’ and an education enabled an outsider like myself to help with the reading, writing, math., thinking and coordinating with public agencies, (but could lead to taking oneself too seriously).
People believed everything was political (somewhat truer here), and the poor man had no chance. There was a lot of envy and jealousy. Some believed anyone who got ahead had to be cheating. He was resented and envied. Other obstacles were the spoils system, and nepotism. Those and the ‘compadre’ system of each child having a godparent, caused problems with law enforcement. Also the district attorney was said to be lenient in order to gain votes.
On the other hand, the people had superior human values. They would raise their relatives’ and other people’s children. They were gregarious, human, genuine, warm, good natured, polite, and hospitable. When there were lulls in the conversation, they didn’t feel they had to fill in; they enjoyed the quiet.
This was the War on Poverty to help the ‘poor,’ but ‘low income’ was a better term as these people were poor in money and rich in everything else - family life, friendships, enviable mental health, and a healthy, robust, close to nature, lifestyle. This was especially true of one prison guard, his wife, and 11 kids - a wonderful bunch - straight out of THE SOUND OF MUSIC. Income aside, the rich would have traded places with them in a minute.
Anti-poverty work was frustrating and disillusioning. I worked hard and was lucky; however, I had thought I’d get more done. I wasn’t surprised to hear some volunteers accomplished nothing in their year.
We volunteers got a lot out of our experience - far more than we contributed. We didn’t bring big changes, and sensible volunteers weren’t ‘radicalized’ (as claimed by one article).
A few years later at a party in New York I ran into one of the ‘field support’ people who had visited me in Pecos. She was sitting on the floor. I tried to talk to her realistically about poverty work. She didn’t want to hear it, made up excuses, and looked out the window with glazed eyes.
Later in the mid-80s I saw Sargent Shriver on TV explaining the War on Poverty and the Peace Corps, both of which he headed. I found his reasoning full of holes. These two were chasing dreams that could never be.
Later in the 90s President Clinton started AmeriCorps – which incorporated VISTA. Did his staff contact former volunteers like me or respond to copies of this article? No. Would they have taken a balanced approach to these views? No. It goes on. Dreamers go into this type of work. Some learn; some don’t.
(Note: One should also be skeptical of the claims of the Peace Corps that serves in foreign countries. Volunteers have the additional obstacles of a foreign language and a much different culture.)
B Reflections
I had accomplished some things in VISTA, so when I returned to NY, I thought my career would take off. Not so. I wished I’d seen this first:
Social work in the past
In the 19th century social workers saw some of the poor as improvident and irresponsible. If a man came to a social agency hungry, he had to chop wood to get a meal.
If a woman came, shehad to sew. This sorted out those who wouldn’t work, and made others feel they had done something to earn their meal. If a person needed further aid, his background was checked and he was categorized as:
a. Unwilling to work. b. Willing to work.
c. Unable to work, through no fault of his own, and worthy of relief.
When giving short term relief, the charity gave: - in small quantities, - the minimum, - what was least susceptible to abuse, - less than what the person could get by working, and - for the shortest period of time.
When the relief was long term, the charity would:
In those days, knowing when not to give assistance was seen as important as when to give it. This also helped fund-raising efforts, as donors knew their money was used efficiently.
These practices continued until the 1890s when the ‘Social Gospel’ emerged, claiming:
The 1960s accelerated this trend. Welfare was given on the basis of entitlement, not need, with the result that the poor became worse off, with less hope, less pride, less reason to work, and greater resentment over being dependent. Welfare has broken up families, set fatherless boys on the streets, and polarized those who work against those who don’t. Bad charity (welfare) has driven out good. We’d do well to study the past.
I went through many jobs: welfare, child abuse, narcotics, community centers, a detention center, a mental hospital ... each worse than the last. I blamed myself, but noticed no one was getting anything done.
Government money for President Johnson’s Great Society program was pouring in and everyone was climbing on the band wagon. (The disastrous results in New York are brilliantly described in THE COST OF GOOD INTENTIONS by Charles Morris.)
Many of the social workers used everything but common sense:
How not to study a gangbanger
To learn about gangs, a woman drove around a hardened 17 year old gang member named Faro, who had 60-year old ‘graveyard eyes.’ (She didn’t think to set conditions about weapons or risks.)
During the ride they pulled up next to two other youths, and Faro said, ‘I’m gonna look crazy at ‘em. You watch what they do.’ He did. The other driver glanced over, his eyes widened for an instant with fear. Then he looked away. Faro giggled. When the signal changed, the other driver sped off and turned the corner.
The author asked to see the look Faro gave and saw a nightmare face. She asked him what would have happened if the other driver answered the challenge. Faro said they would have gotten into it and he would have killed him. He had a gun in his shoe. A gun?!!!! She was shocked and didn’t know why. (Does someone have to tell her?) She felt betrayed and was angry. He said if you come into this neighborhood, you can’t get angry if it gets too real for you. (Nonsense, but she agreed.) He went on about how young people gangbang as they have nothing to live for. (Nonsense.) Gangbanging is a chance to get even with those who hurt your family. (Stretching it.) That, if the people you love most are dead, you might as well be dead. (Not really.) That after seeing so much death, you want to die so you don’t have to see more. (Not necessarily.) She didn’t challenge any of this. (Why not?) She accepted his reasoning, criminal behavior, and immaturity.
This is typical of many people who study crime or go into social work. In their rush to show compassion and understanding, they don’t use common sense. Another example:
Liberal psychobabble
One story on T.V. told of a housing project in Chicago. The poor there received many benefits from the government. They wanted the best for their children, but one third of the girls got pregnant by 15. They vowed not to have another child, but did. Many didn’t consider abortion because of an ‘appreciation for life.’ One had seven kids and left them with her mother to ‘self-medicate’ on drugs. (‘medicate?’) She wouldn’t change because ‘chemically dependent people aren’t ready for help.’ (When would she be ‘ready?’)
Many of the students didn’t have ‘classroom skills.’
‘It never occurs to these people to look in the paper for work because the habits of work aren’t available to them.’ (wow)
They didn’t look for work because of ‘psychological barriers’ - like racism. (Racism didn’t stop others.)
A bunch of young people looked for work. ‘One found a job; for the others, there were no jobs.’ (an assumption.)
Many people reached their mid-20s having never held a job. (Many immigrants reach their mid-20’s having never had a vacation.)
The people didn’t have the ‘resources’ to visit other parts of the city. (No shoe leather, bicycles, bus fare?)
The young people had ‘nothing to do.’ (There are jobs if others can find them, and in this case, there was a nearby vocational school with a 75% placement rate. Despite recruitment drives, it had many openings.)
The housing projects appeared ‘hopeless.’ (No mention of how tenant management of projects in other cities ha