Shame on Us

What kind of a society do we live in? No, really, I want to know. We allow politicians to cut budgets at the very agencies that do the difficult work of providing a safety net for the most vulnerable among us — children — and then, when the all too predictable happens and the now-porous net frays, we want to point media fingers of blame at the dedicated professionals we’ve charged with the impossible task of being perfect … of being 100 percent right, 100 percent of the time in their decision-making processes regarding children of the fragile families who are in their system.

It’s not only grossly wrong for us to demand such accurate (and humanly impossible) foresight… it actually borders on the incredulous, and here’s why: As long as we focus the conversation on fixing a somewhat antiquated, under-funded system whenever it breaks down (a system that by its very nature was only designed to apply tourniquets to the worst hemorrhaging cases of child endangerment), we’ll continue to fail to implement a program that has proven it can and does work: The Harlem Children’s Zone.

Instead of going in and repairing families after they breakdown and are ready to disintegrate (which is the core mission and responsibility of social service agencies), the Zone’s strategy is to prevent families from becoming damaged in the first place — prevention, not remediation. When the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) implemented such preventive and farsighted programming, funding was cut. Go figure.

Let’s just pretend for a minute that the two mothers, one who allegedly killed her child, and the other who supposedly starved hers had not done so; let’s further say they never had a case on file with DCFS, they weren’t on anyone’s radar. Does it then follow that they were going to raise successful progeny that would be a credit to society? No. Ill-raised, borderline dysfunctional parents (most of whom never come into contact with child welfare authorities by the way) simply — in the vast majority of cases — don’t have the requisite skill sets to do anything other than to raise failures … the new, next generation of teen mothers and convict fathers.

If a program like The Harlem Children’s Zone had been in place when these two mothers had their first child (and they had been participants in said program), not only would the chances of them birthing a second, third and fourth child gone down dramatically, but the children that were allegedly harmed by them, in all likelihood, would not have been. These women would have known how to be better, more stable parents.

When Geoffrey Canada, the director of the Zone, came to the City Club last year and explained how his highly successful program operates, I thought there would be a groundswell on activity on the social service front to bring a replica of his operation here. As of this writing 20 other cities around the country are in various stages of such implementation, President Obama has publicly taken positive note of the effort … but other than from my representative on City Council, TJ Dow, I haven’t heard anything about it from anyone.

However, just let the current under-funded system break down and we all hear plenty … much of it unfair and virtually none of it useful because it fails to move us toward permanent, lasting solutions that break the generational underclass chains, poverty cycles, and cradle-to-prison pipeline once and for all.

The top floors of the now-shuttered Wilson Middle School, a hulking edifice that sits on E 55th between Superior and Payne Avenues, could be converted into efficiency apartments where at-risk expectant mothers could go to live, and then to stay and raise their children and send them to school downstairs under the watchful eyes of 24/7 mentors. This, then, would become their permanent home … they would not go back to the projects, the mean streets, or the dysfunctional family structures that failed them so miserably. In effect, both the parent and child would be raised at the same instance in a safe, nurturing and stimulating environment … just like you want — nay, demand — for your own child. But this is a powerless population, a disenfranchised demographic I’m writing about.

Indeed, we already pay for these services to be delivered to underclass parents, all we would be changing is where and how the services are delivered. Such a program would prove far less costly than it appears at first-blush, but the real savings — in terms of less poverty, crime, and incarceration — would accrue for decades to come; indeed, forever. The cycle would be broken.

And the school doesn’t have to be staffed full-time by a set of professionals … in some cases just everyday retired people, with common sense and decent values, could teach these young mothers everything, from how to eat right to bring a healthy child in the world, to the right way to change a diaper, and to — most importantly — refrain from ever hitting or otherwise abusing their child.

The first objection I always hear is that young mothers-to-be will not care to participate, and that we can’t force them to; true, but we wouldn’t have to … they would be breaking down the doors to get in, and that’s a guarantee. Here’s why: Mother Nature has it fixed in the DNA of every mother on the face of the earth, no matter the species (human or not), a certain something that causes them to instinctively do everything within their power for the well being of their offspring, and underclass mothers are no different, other than being poor. And all of the mothers certainly would not be black or brown — dysfunctional families come in all races, colors or creeds.

In some cases the new mothers will need to be taught how to read to their children, because — sadly — many of them don’t have the best reading skills. Why? Because no one read to them when they were children; it truly is generational. But breaking this cycle is exactly what has been happening in New York and other cities around the country … why not here? It’s a matter of will, political will.

For those who say we can’t afford to bring a Harlem Children’s Zone-type program to Cleveland, I say we can’t afford not to. Quite literally, lives are at stake. The only other answer is to give social workers crystal balls.

Loopy Logic

Fellow travelers from down Columbus way sent me a newspaper op-ed column written by my State Representative Sandra Williams. Now, let me say from the giddy-up that I think I have one of the brightest and hardest working representatives in the State of Ohio … I just happen to disagree with her vociferously on the issue of payday lenders.

Recently she penned a piece for the Columbus Dispatch, that, unless I’m dyslexic, says something to the effect of … poverty abounds in Ohio, and since we can’t stop all of it at once, at the same time, why pick on payday lenders who rob people and make them poorer? The editors of the Dispatch should really be ashamed of themselves for publishing such nonsense and calling it legitimate commentary. Check$mart must have purchased a humongous ad that week.

Let’s run that one past just one more time. Her argument, as I read it (I sincerely wish someone would correct me if I’m wrong … and I just know that someone will attempt to show me the flaw in my thinking — a debate I would just love to have in a public forum) was that, in spite of the fact the folks of Ohio voted overwhelmingly to stop payday lenders from breaking it off in poor folks’ butts, unless we can end all poverty, and do it all at once, why are we picking on these nice businessmen? Wow.

If someone put an issue on the ballot to end poverty, you can just bet your sweet ass that most folks in the state that I know would vote for it. I’m certain that I would. Of course the payday lending folks might not, seeing as how they depend on people being financially up against the wall if they are to continue to make an ungodly high profit off of them and their penury. The rich get richer … and the poor just get more babies.

That fact is, we can’t control poverty (even with a vote of the citizenry), but like many other states, we can control payday lenders if our elected officials would just do what we told them to do via the ballot box. Under Representative Williams’ rubric, however, payday lenders would be forever exempt from regulation … that it, until all poverty is wiped out. Anyone have a timetable on that?

It really is the height of insult for elected officials to find clever ways to skirt the will of the people, and even more of an insult to — in essence — piss on us and tell us it’s only raining. But they know they can get away with it because most voters are so soundly, blissfully and permanently asleep. Maybe the electorate will wake up just in time to go out to the airport to wish their elected officials who keep this issue bottled up in committee a “Bon Voyage” as they jet off on their vacations, perhaps paid for by the payday lending lobby. I can only pray their plane has a rough and scary landing.