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Maybe City Planners Think Your Arms Are Tired

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 3 Comments

I’ve always thought of London as a friendly city. The only city to thrice host the Olympic Games, London hails itself as an welcoming destination city. That is, if you’re an Olympian, or a tourist. Not if you are experiencing homelessness. 

Recently, London installed spikes outside apartments to prevent anyone from sleeping on the ground. The instillation came about a month after one man was seen sleeping outside. The one-inch spikes are not the first of their kind, and are known to exist in other parts of the United Kingdom and Canada. London mayor Borris Johnson, to his credit, called the spikes not only “anti-homeless” but also “stupid.”

He was not the only one. You may have even seen the spikes on social media, as outrage spread across London and internationally. Perhaps it was the political shaming, or the large-scale social media blitz that protested the spikes, but news reports indicate they were removed earlier this week.

This is hardly the first example of creating an environment unsuitable for homelessness. If you have ever looked at a park bench or a subway stop and wondered why the city planners were so worried about people having a place to rest their arms, they probably weren’t. Benches with multiple armrests, divided only wide enough to sit, are too narrow to lay or sleep on, dissuading homeless people from staying the night.

photo: TimberForm

Among all this techniques for making cities unwelcoming, a Canadian company created an installation that is both humanitarian and an act of advertising genius. Notice that not only do these city benches not have intrusive arm rests, but they actually prop open to create a temporary rain shelter. Inside are directions to a RainCity Housing, an organization that specializes in working with low-income individuals to meet basic needs.

vancouver homeless bus bench

photo: Huffington Post

Decisions as small as armrests matter greatly if that armrest ruins your bed for the evening. The steps we as city planners, politicians, social workers, and concerned citizen take to develop and improve our hometowns truly do affect the lives of many people, and these small injustices could easily go unnoticed if you are not the person impacted. This time, Toronto leads the way in providing both shelter and dignity to homeless individuals in Canada- perhaps other cities can also design a place for all residents, giving even the impoverished a place to call home.

 

 

Hashtag: #EndingHomelessness

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 2 Comments

You won’t find out what I’ve done today by checking my facebook statuses. I’m comfortable with social media, but I try not to get too comfortable. No “woke up, ate eggs, went to work, looks like it might rain” information from me. I’m on the quieter side – both in real life and when it comes to posting what I’m thinking about, which is perhaps why I struggle when I see my friends and colleagues use their twitter feeds as a platform for social advocacy.

As #Bringbackourgirls, the hashtag protesting the kidnapping of more than two hundred girls in Nigeria, exploded this past week, I wondered if I should be tweeting the same thing. I read up on this travesty, and felt outraged at this human rights violation, but I struggled to connect how my tweeting – even with a hashtag used by hundreds of thousands of other users – might lead to justice half a world away.

This week, Twitter made an announcement that really connected the dots for me, and showed how a platform made up of 140 characters can make a difference online and off. The microblogging giant announced plans to open and operate a tech center for individuals experiencing homelessness in the San Francisco area. Computers are increasingly relevant to the job market, both in finding available job opportunities and in possessing basic computer skills, but poverty creates a “digital divide,” and people from lower income backgrounds have less access to computers as they grow up, making the internet a scary place.  The space, called the Twitter Neighborhood Nest, will be open to individuals as well as families, with tech skills offered to any age group. For adults, this will include computer literacy as well as job searching skills.

Twitter is the place for the newest information, where the news is splayed across your screen in tiny snippets. So it is perhaps somewhat surprising that the platform for all things instant is partnering with a service organization that is more than a century old. Compass Family Services will work with Twitter to create the new technology center, as the nonprofit currently coordinates services for more than 3,500 individuals experiencing or on the brink of homelessness.

This partnership is an excellent move, one that gives The Twitter Neighborhood Nest a strong foundation. This seems to be much more than a one-time donation or a publicity move, because Twitter has sought input from people who know the demographic they hope to serve. Partnerships – especially the unlikely ones – are the key to having enough knowledge and resources to overcome the digital divide and overcome homelessness.

 

An Immodest Proposal: A Better Bet for Warren Buffett

By | An Immodest Proposal, ChangeEngine | 7 Comments

The trouble with poverty is that there’s no money in it. Unlike, say, NCAA basketball – a business worth almost a billion dollars a year. And though Warren Buffett’s cash was safe long before UConn cut down the nets on Monday, the world’s fourth richest man was willing to shell out a billion dollars of his own should any of us have come up with a perfect tournament bracket. Shabazz Napier, the transcendent point guard who led UConn to victory and helped make the school, its sponsors and the NCAA hundreds of millions of dollars, struggled during his time there to afford food. In the United States, one in six people and a quarter of all children go hungry, and almost 50 million Americans live in poverty. Globally, hunger kills more than three million children a year and over a billion people live on less than a dollar a day.

So here’s an immodest proposal: why not make poverty pay? Or, to put it more precisely, why not give eradicating poverty some clear market value? If Buffett is willing to reward a lucky guess with an astonishing fortune, how about a billion bucks for the person who alleviates the wretched conditions of the most unfortunate? Why is that not a bet worth making?


As it stands today, the fight against poverty is driven by charity and goodwill. Any kind of profit motive is considered unseemly. Helping the poor is a testament to how much you care, in which effort and good intentions are applauded no matter the result. It’s where scoundrels go for redemption and goodie two-shoes go for a spit-shine ethical polish. If we fail, no-one loses, other than the poor of course. It’s not as if anyone’s going to lose a billion dollars over it, or a shot at a billion dollars.

There’s no doubt that anti-poverty crusades are noble, Buffett’s own efforts included. But while we’ve made gains in reducing global poverty (largely due to China’s industrialization), this system on the whole doesn’t work very well. How could it? It’s based on the kindness of people’s hearts, and kindness doesn’t pay the bills or get me a shiny new iPad. That’s not a condemnation; it’s just a fact.

The profit motive is one of the most powerful forces known to human history. It drives capitalism, moves mountains, and conjures fierce competition, economies of scale, creative destruction, iconoclastic visionaries and innovative ideas. Some would say it’s the cause of poverty in the first place (including Buffett’s own son) but good luck extirpating it. Instead, why not try to harness it?


So how would this work? Well, pick a metric. Any metric. Malnutrition, household income, a solid roof over a child’s head – whatever suits your fancy, or a billionaire like Warren Buffett’s. That metric now equals revenue – this much poverty reduced equals this much money, like a bounty for the death of a rogue gunslinger or a unit price. Appoint an auditor to impartially determine whether gains have been made. Pool the money from as many billionaires and corporate behemoths (and governments) as necessary to create the payout fund. Announce, award, repeat.

Before this starts to seem implausible, consider the precedents. The Google Lunar X Prize will award $20 million to the first team to land a robotic spacecraft on the surface of the moon. We’ve spoken in this space before of the need for a moon-shot for justice, “a space race for social change.” Well, what’s more worthwhile? To put one small unmanned drone on the moon or take a giant leap forward out of poverty for all mankind?

Only that space race can unleash the energy and ambition we need to radically impact poverty. Whether it’s cheap, sustainable generators for the developing world, a farming system, or a jobs scheme, the prospect of riches would attract the best and brightest and encourage the most effective and efficient solutions so as to maximize profits. Entrepreneurs could take on venture capital in anticipation of reaping great rewards. “Social return on investment” would finally have real meaning rather than a fuzzy feel-good vagueness. Anti-misery magnates and transformative tycoons would take greater risks and try bigger ideas. Wheat would separate from chaff.

As one participant at the Ashoka Globalizer on Economic Inclusion said: “wouldn’t it be great if ‘billionaire’ was re-defined to mean someone who had improved 1 billion lives?” Yes, but wouldn’t it be even better – and a greater incentive for greater solutions – if that person could make a billion dollars from improving those billion lives? It seems odd that the rewards for helping to rid the world of the scourge of poverty should be dwarfed by the proceeds from creating the Shake Weight or the ShamWow!.

The Nobel Peace Prize cash award won by Muhammad Yunus was about a million dollars for a lifetime of battling poverty. Warren Buffett makes more than that in an hour. The Hult Prize gets closer: “the annual competition aims to identify and launch the most compelling social business ideas—start-up enterprises that tackle grave issues faced by billions of people. Winners receive USD 1 million in seed capital…” But that’s still chump change. And for the most part we get this: “By taking part in Activities, students can earn points on their way to become an Anti-Poverty Crusader. We will share the hard work of the winning school via our website, email database and social media. In addition, your school will receive a framed copy of one of the photos featured in the Make Poverty History photo exhibition.” Hardly a Lamborghini and a solid gold jet, or the cover of Forbes magazine.


Think of all the anti-poverty start-ups that might emerge if kids knew those points could be profits. Better yet, think what a person living in poverty might do if we weighted the rewards even more greatly for the poor to create those businesses and ideas themselves. There’s nothing to be lost with this model – the risk is entirely on the entrepreneurs and their backers; no results, no payout. Sticking with the current system is far more of a risk. The poor will continue to rely on the largesse of the rich and languish in the back of our minds as a guilty afterthought. Selfishness will run rampant and charity will continue to be seen as a speeding ticket or a piddling penance on the way to acquiring sybaritic fortunes.

Solving poverty is currently a hobby of the wealthy, let’s make it an industry for the innovator. Let’s make it everyone’s business, and whether or not it’s our problem, let’s make it our profit, until there’s nothing left to gain. Let Warren Buffett bet us all that we can’t eradicate poverty and have him pay out for our million and billion-dollar ideas. On reflection, the wealthiest might consider this quite a modest proposal. Because the only other solution for the poor masses gorging on the air promise-crammed and told for centuries to eat cake might just be to eat the rich.


Nothing New Under The Sun … Except A Ray of Hope

By | #SaveBmore, External Monologue | 5 Comments

This past week or so, the ChangeEngine crew has been debating how to “save” Baltimore. This city, like many others, faces severe challenges, from crippling poverty to crumbling public schools to gun violence and blight. Many of these issues go far beyond the city itself, echoing much larger social and economic trends. The debate rages on as to what can free us from our plight — more bike lanes, get rid of the Baltimore Development Corporation, overhaul the tax structure with a hand grenade. But the truth is that the larger trends are difficult for one individual and maybe even once city to overcome, and that none of them are new.

America’s cities have been afflicted with poverty since the start of the industrialized age. This country has gone through at least four cycles of extreme inequality in that time. Rockefeller and the robber barons, their wealth adjusted for inflation, are still to this day the richest individuals that ever lived. They had more money than the Pharaohs of Egypt, Britain’s Royal Family, and many other historical figures most would consider extraordinarily wealthy and powerful. To give an idea of the wealth these men had: in 1893 the economy crashed, and J.P. Morgan bailed out the government. That’s right — a private individual bailed out the U.S. government. For all the spectacular wealth amassed by private individuals before the most recent financial crisis, it was the government that came to the rescue of J.P. Morgan Chase — the banking leviathan founded by J.P. Morgan himself. The roaring twenties caused inequality to balloon up once again, and the stock market crash of 1929 created another great glut of despair. We are at a similar point now. Not to get all Battle­star Galactica up in here, but “All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.”

Or perhaps not. It’s true that we are approaching Gilded Age levels of inequality. Our social and economic system has created an enormous disparity in wealth not only between individuals, but also between local municipalities and cities. While “world cities” like San Francisco, Chicago, D.C., New York, and Boston have transformed themselves, rising out of seemingly irreversible chaos and decline in the 1970s and 1980s, others like Detroit, Cleveland, New Orleans, and of course Baltimore are struggling to attract new residents and find employment for those that remain, further perpetuating the crisis. But just because a cycle exists, doesn’t mean we can’t break it. In fact, that same dire history might show the very path to salvation. All hope is not lost. Our wretched circumstances may be just what we need to wake us from our slumber.

The economic crash of 1893 helped galvanize the first progressive movement. The 16th, 17th and 18th amendments were passed, allowing for the income tax, direct election of senators, and women’s right to vote. Democracy and equality rose from the excesses and collapse of the Gilded Age. Since we are now in an age quite similar — hell I will go as far to call it the Second Gilded Age — maybe we should take some cues from the past. We need to demand more accountability and transparency from our local governments, change our electoral laws so a person with only 25 percent of the vote cannot become the defacto winner of a council seat, and, most of all, pressure the federal government to live up to their end of the bargain and allow programs like Social Security to be extended or radically changed. We need to leverage the power of our online and offline social networks to rally around causes and create the transformative change that has so long eluded us.

True, some of these issues are bigger than Baltimore and need bigger solutions. But many of those larger solutions can start right here at home. More democracy, accountability and participation can save Baltimore, and might just save us all.

IMAGE CREDIT. [Wikimedia Commons].

Don’t Ask Me, I Don’t Know

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 3 Comments

Maybe you believe in miracles. Maybe you believe in Santa Claus. I believe in Baltimore. At ChangeEngine, we’ve been wondering what will save Baltimore. When I moved here a year and a half ago, it was because I was given the opportunity to be in a place that needed changing — and wasn’t ashamed to admit it. When I interviewed with the AmeriCorps program that I eventually was accepted into and moved here to join, my program leader — a Baltimore transplant herself — described Baltimore as a city evolving. “People talk about the murals here because the art is cool,” she said to me, “but the theme I see over and over again in the art here is Believe, and I think that people here really, actually, believe in their city. And that’s not true everywhere.”

I didn’t move here because I thought the city was broken. Individuals far more talented than myself have been charged with saving a city and buckled under the pressure. I moved here because I liked that Baltimore wasn’t afraid to admit that there is room to improve. Eighteen months later, I’m proud to wake up in a city with a new festival every other weekend, great places to eat and endless neighborhoods to explore. But I’m not proud to go to sleep in a city that leaves more than 4,000 individuals without a stable place to stay — and I know we can do better. But how?

There are some proven, crucial steps that this city can take to provide increased affordable housing to all Baltimoreans. The city needs to provide enough living-wage jobs so that individuals can afford to pay rent. There need to be enough safe, affordable housing units so that individuals and families are healthy and strong enough to get up each morning and go to such jobs, and there needs to be reliable transportation to get them between the two.

Is that the answer? Barely. All I’ve given you is a pathetically simplified look at what basic necessities individuals need to survive. You knew that. I didn’t say anything revolutionary. And while I really believe that these three pieces will fit together to create a much healthier, thriving city, I’m not sure about any further ideas. Do we need new technology? Streamlined nonprofits? Should everyone give more to charity? At the risk of losing everyone who has ever read any post in The Race to End HomelessnessI’d like to admit that I’m no expert. I’ve never experienced homelessness. To me, the answer to homelessness — the way for a city to win the Race — is to provide basic human needs for everyone that calls Baltimore home. But this isn’t enough. So where can we get new plans?

To really find the new ideas, the creative ideas — the ones that might actually change and save the city we all share, we need to turn to those experiencing homelessness — and listen. In many ways, a mid-Atlantic city with 4,000 people homeless is a travesty. Some are keen to dismiss them from the population. New York City adopted a program to fly, ship, or bus its homeless anywhere they chose, just as long as they get out of the city. This is a mistake; not just a moral and social infraction, but a mistake that weakens the personal infrastructure of the city.  I’d like to point to the homeless population as the truest population of Baltimore.  This is not a warm city; this is not a city that is low on crime or particularly inexpensive. This is not a great place to be outside, yet this city is home.

Individuals without housing in this city have a rich history of organizing, advocating, and working toward social change. Imagine what such talented minds could come up with if they were warm, safe, and financially secure. If Baltimore hopes to save itself, the truest Baltimorians have ideas, plans, and hopes everyone needs to hear. The city just needs to believe in those that call this place home.

Holiday Canned Goods

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 2 Comments

I started at my job this summer, so I’m excited for the holiday season in a new place . Some of my more festive coworkers have already organized both Secret Santa and a holiday potluck. I was a big believer in workplace holiday spirit, until I heard about the tradition of an Ohio WalMart. The Cleveland store asks staff to donate not to a potluck or a dinner — but canned foods to other employees in need this season. To many people, a practice like this one might seem shocking, but let’s not pretend we haven’t all heard the horror stories about the working conditions of the country’s largest retailer.  Working a minimum wage job hardly leaves an employee enough money for a lavish holiday celebration, especially if they are supporting a family.

One study reports that more than twenty-eight percent of individuals experiencing homelessness do work — but a paycheck isn’t always a ticket out of the shelter. This number might seem small, until we consider that many factors that lead to homelessness also prevent an individual from working —  disabilities, mental illness, domestic violence. Many who can work, do work, but as WalMart demonstrates, the income doesn’t always cover every expense, especially around the holiday season.

While every WalMart employee has their own budget and their own expenses, it is worth noting that the donation boxes are placed in staff locker rooms, not the corporate lounge. The company is asking its employees who are slightly more financially stable to steady their coworkers. This is heartwarming in a community-building, lean-on-me kind of way, but it is far from a sustainable way to put food on the table.

Except that maybe it is.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that the middle class give and donate more frequently and more generously as related to their income than more wealthy individuals. States with lower household incomes — Utah and Mississippi — gave more than twice as much of their annual income away than more wealthy northern states. This might not make much financial sense, but — as WalMart and many other groups that target lower income individuals realize — those who understand poverty are the most likely to offer help to get through it.

If only that generosity and knowledge could trickle up. Maybe the best way to make this a happy holiday is for the canned goods — or even fresh food — to come from those with the means to provide lasting, sustainable services to hardworking individuals experiencing poverty and homelessness.

 

 

Powered by Poverty

By | Social Enterprise, The Thagomizer | No Comments

“Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” – Walt Whitman

Last week and throughout my Thagomizer posts, I often give glowing reviews to social enterprises. However this week I’d like to look at the failures of many of the businesses I’ve praised. While social enterprise has provided a new way of funding social change, it has not been as effective at producing impact. Sure most social enterprises have positive outputs: shoes provided to the poor, increased availability of affordable health services, microloans for businesses. However while models like Toms Shoes provide a way forward for funding, it also represents a step back in the way we address poverty.

I was reminded of this when watching The #GlobalPOV Project video on “Can We Shop to End Poverty?” As U.C. Berkeley professor Ananya Roy eloquently explains, while our purchases for good make us feel better, they aren’t actually ending poverty; they are perpetuating it.

The point Roy makes is that while opportunities to help people in poverty are increasingly visible while we shop, the root causes of poverty and inequality are hidden. The workers who make the goods we shop, the people helping us at checkout, the farmers who grow the food, are all hidden from us. Toms Shoes is a great example of this. While pictures of their “shoe drops” and founder Blake Mycoskie giving shoes to poor children litter their website, there are no pictures of anyone who actually makes the shoes. On the website you can find pictures of the office staff, of the communities they give shoes out to, but not the people who assemble and create the raw materials for the shoes. Yet it’s in the making of shoes, not in giving of shoes where Toms could have the most impact on people in poverty.

Most of Toms Shoes are not made in the communities they serve. Toms does make sure they have ethical business practices throughout its supply chain by requiring suppliers to sign a Code of Conduct ensuring fair wages and benefits, standards of health and safety, and no child labor.  But giving out shoes made outside of the community has the potential to undercut domestic entrepreneurs.  If they focused on not just giving people in poverty shoes, but giving them the opportunity for a steady paycheck they could do a lot more good. This is an opportunity Toms is now seeing. Mycoskie has even announced that by the end of 2015 they will produce one third of their shoes in the places they serve.

The hazards of giving have been well documented in the world of international aid. The influx of donated rice into Haiti to aid those affected by earthquake hurt domestic farmers who relied on people buying their rice. Toms Shoes might have been innovative in figuring out how to pay for social good but their model of creating social good is outdated. What we need is more support for long-term, systematic solutions but instead most social enterprises focus on immediate results that look good on an infograph.

The narrative social enterprises provide to the consumer is a compelling one, placing you as the hero in someone’s life. However while your purchase may help that person, there is also an unseen narrative. Our wealth is created on the backs of many in this country and throughout the globe. Our purchases perpetuate the cycle of poverty. Until we examine the systematic inequalities, until we zoom out from giving shoes and focus on why people don’t have shoes, social enterprise won’t change the world. We need more social enterprises not just using business for charity but advocating for changes in the way we do business to create a more equitable system. Ananya Roy quotes a U.N. official in her video: “policy not charity is what rich countries can do for poor counties.” I would say the same of social enterprises. It might not make for the best photos but advocacy could change far more lives than a pair of shoes.

The Architecture of Our Psychological Health

By | Health, The Global Is Local | 4 Comments

A beautiful old mansion would be easier to redevelop than a home where someone was murdered.

This week’s post by Lindsey Davis spurred me to think again about how our environment influences the way we experience the world around us, and the impact it has on our lives. Lindsey points out the balance that is struck when planners and city leaders determine that a neighborhood or area of the city would be better demolished than repaired.

Perhaps, she argues, these parts of the city should start a new story, free from the architecture that haunts their past.

I think she is probably right. Their present is the part that I have been thinking about, though, and the impact that living with a history and an environment may have upon the residents in any neighborhood. Each of us experiences Baltimore in a different way, and so that architectural impact is different for all of us, depending on our habits and our pre-existing constitution. Many of us cut a fairly narrow slice of the Baltimore pie (or whichever city or pastry you live in), because of where we work, study, play, or live, and the locations and routes between these activities vary for all of us.

This past weekend, the Baltimore Marathon (which I watched, but did not run) wound it’s way through much of the city, hitting the Inner Harbor, Druid Hill, Waverly, and many miles in between. The Baltimore Bike Party often has a similarly winding route, and I appreciate that both attempt to expose both residents and guests to parts of the city that typically do not get seen by tourists, commuters, and — more often than not — white people like myself.

There is no way to understand the city from the Johns Hopkins Homewood campus, or from the Inner Harbor, or from the Under Armor headquarters. The particular portions of the city that Lindsey makes reference to are not pretty, and in fact may be derelict or downright abandoned, but are integral to understanding what makes this place. Neighborhoods stricken by urban blight have an enormous impact on the financial, social, and psychological health of the city.

From a public health standpoint (which, I have argued before, is perhaps the best lens through which to analyse a human population), there are a number of concerns that urban blight brings up, including correlation with poverty, high disease burden, low literacy rates, crime and violence incidence, access to food and services.. the list goes on, of course. However, an issue that is harder to quantify is the psychological impact of a blighted neighborhood.

A 2002 article in the British Journal of Psychiatry linked found statistically significant associations between the built environment and rates of depression. Another study published in 2002, this one in the Journal of Social Science & Medicine,  found that “neighborhood disadvantage was associated with higher rates of major depression and substance abuse disorder” among other negative psycho-social conditions.

This is not surprising. Think about your own home, and your favorite room or space in it. What are a few of the things that you like about it? Pick two or three of them and then meet me at the next paragraph…

Hi, welcome back. Although I can’t be sure, I strongly suspect that the things you like about your favorite room in your house have to do with beauty, comfort, positive memories or associations, or attractiveness. Now reverse that scenario, imagine your least favorite part of your home, and I would again be willing to bet a bowl of freshly roasted pumpkin seeds that the space you just identified has negative connotations, gives you feelings of dread, disappointment, or even disgust (if you’re struggling to get your walls out of the 1970s, I hear wood paneling looks great with a coat of white paint). Now scale these impressions to a street or a neighborhood, and the correlation with psycho-sociological outcomes starts to make a lot of sense.

It all comes back to the poverty/wealth disparity, in my opinion. Will money make you happy? Certainly not in isolation, but if it buys/rents you a decent place on an attractive street in a part of the city with strong civic engagement, then you’ve probably got a head-start on happiness compared to someone who lives sandwiched between abandoned buildings, has to rely on an unpredictable bus system to get to their job, and lives in one of only a half dozen occupied homes in a three block radius. Besides, once you’re in that nice neighborhood, there’s a good chance that grocery stores will be easier to get to, crime rates will drop, and transportation options will be better (well, maybe that last one is a stretch…).

The question that lingers for me is one that Lindsey also raised — is there a point where the “institutional memory” of a place is so malign that the only recourse is to remove the architecture of those memories? According to Lindsey, that may be the case. The individuals who collectively hold and live these institutional memories may be the most compelling reasons of all, however. Preserving a neighborhood of decay and bad memories is no way to effectively raise morale and standard of living. Instead, city planners may hope to cause social change through infrastructure improvements, a tired, but tried and true strategy that has had positive results in the past.

Sibling Rivalry: Ending Homelessness

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 4 Comments

Last year, I spent a lot of time planning an event that ended up going terribly. Between a water break road closure on North Avenue and a flat tire, two of the five presenters I’d scheduled to speak on homelessness at a local middle school cancelled an hour before the event. Because the format involved the speakers rotating through separate classrooms, someone needed to fill the vacancies. Reluctantly, a coworker and I stepped into the slot of the presenter. We offered up what we could about homelessness in Baltimore City and provided some information about different service providers and volunteer opportunities in the area. It was a lesson in both “how to fake your way through a presentation”, and “how to really confuse middle school students.” 

“Does anyone know of any homeless service providers in the city?” we’d ask, hoping to generate participation.

No response.

In order to get the ball rolling, we’d mention some well- known organizations.

“Has anyone heard of Healthcare for the Homeless? … or My Sister’s Place?”

“Your sister has a place?” Yelled one student. “Why don’t people go stay with her?”

The class was laughing at this jokester and chatting away amongst themselves before we could explain that My Sister’s Place is actually a transitional housing facility for women with mental illness, not a house run by any sibling of mine. At least that’s what it is in Baltimore. In Washington D.C., that’s the name of a housing center for women experiencing homelessness and domestic violence. There’s a My Sister’s Place in Gainesville, Georgia and Hartford, Connecticut. And it isn’t only female siblings that are getting support. My Brother’s Keeper is the name of agencies in Baltimore, Massachusetts, Texas, and beyond. Some focus on treating addiction, some on mental illness. Whatever the specialty, it is clear that there is an emphasis on supporting homeless individuals like they are family. For many individuals, people experiencing homelessness are family.

It was an offhanded comment, but the middle school student from last fall had a question I hear frequently. All he said was “Why don’t people stay with her?” But  the idea that “I could never let my son/mother/cousin/friend live on the streets,” is a sentiment I’ve heard many times. Usually, it is from someone who does not happen to have a family member on the brink of becoming homeless. While the words are meant to show support for a loved one going through a hypothetical tough situation, it is an easier promise to make than to keep. If you can financially and medically support someone who is struggling at the poverty level, that is excellent. But why should solving homelessness be the responsibility of the nuclear family of those with a mental illness, an addiction, or those who are unable to work?

I am certainly not about to waste time asking for minute changes from successful programs across the country. But if I were, I might suggest a better name for these sites would be “Your Sister’s Place or “Our Brother’s Keeper.” It might create a little less confusion about exactly who is responsible for ending homelessness.

 

This is Your Brain on Wealth: How Money Hacks Your Brain

By | Social Enterprise, The Thagomizer | 2 Comments

For ages when we talk about wealth inequality we focus on the effect it has on the poor. Yet, this video from PBS Newshour, made me reflect this week that perhaps we need to also start talking about how wealth inequality impacts the rich:

The video cites various studies connecting wealth with a lack of empathy for one’s fellow man. For example, one study shows that people with luxury cars are less likely to stop for pedestrians, while another reveals students from wealth are more likely to take candy from children. The results seem to suggest one conclusion: money turns us into less compassionate, more immoral, selfish people.

A study from Harvard University and the University of Utah showed that simply having money on the mind changed the way participants made decisions. One group was given phrases like “She spends money liberally” to get them thinking about money while another group was given neutral phrases like “She walked on grass.” The two groups were then given a slew of tests that determined whether they would engage in immoral behavior such as stealing paper from the school copier or deceiving a friend for financial gain. Those who were thinking about money were more likely to make immoral decisions to the detriment of their social bonds than those who were given neutral phrases. As one researcher concluded, “These findings suggest that money is a more insidious corrupting factor than previously appreciated, as mere, subtle exposure to money can be a corrupting influence.”

Does this mean we are better off living without money? Money allows us to get everything we need without much social interaction. We no longer need to depend on each other to survive. Wealthy people do not need to rely on social bonds. Perhaps this is why upper class people are less able to pick up social cues and exhibit empathy with others who are suffering as found in research from UC Berkeley. “These latest results indicate that there’s a culture of compassion and cooperation among lower-class individuals that may be born out of threats to their wellbeing,” said one researcher describes. While viewing a video showing a family dealing with a child with cancer, lower-class participants were more likely to lower their heart rate, a sign of compassion, while higher-class participants were more likely to remain neutral. “It’s not that the upper classes are coldhearted,” the author of the study said, “They may just not be as adept at recognizing the cues and signals of suffering.”

While I believe there are other ways of transaction that better strengthen social bonds and build community, I think the real problem is not money, but the abundance of it. What concerns me is the skewed perception we have of wealth and those who have it. The changes that occur in the participants are a result of the power we perceive comes with wealth, a greater power than that of our social bonds. Part of this connection between power and wealth is forged by a strong belief in the American Dream. This national fable teaches us we can achieve whatever we want if we make enough money through hard work. It also teaches us that those who are rich must have gotten there through their own hard work, and not a set of advantages they were born with. One study featured in the video above involves a rigged monopoly game where one participant gets an extra dice to roll and double the money of the other players. Even though this participant is far more likely to win the game, when they were interviewed afterward they would attribute their success to their individual skills and talent. They would feel like they “deserved to win” the game.

Our perception that wealth is created solely through hard work doesn’t take into account the many challenges people in poverty have to face that those with money do not. Just as the abundance of money changes the way the mind works, so does the lack of it. Humans have a limited mental bandwith and when our minds our focused on getting our basic needs, we are less able to focus it on other higher orders of thinking.  A study recently  published in Science showed people concerned about making ends meet made worse decisions, were more forgetful, and were less likely to notice things. The impact of poverty is equivalent to losing 13 IQ points. “All the data shows it isn’t about poor people,” one of the researchers said, “it’s about people who happen to be in poverty.” 

The staggering wealth inequality in the United States creates unhappiness not only for the poor but for the rich. Research shows that the happiest countries in the world are those with the most equality. As the saying goes “money can’t buy you happiness.” Happiness comes from both money and from social bonds. The poor lack money to sustain themselves, yet create a strong community. The rich on the other hand maximize their wealth while destroying relationships. The kind of wealth had by the 1% at the top is making no one happier. Not the haves, not the have nots. A study from Princeton showed that after you reached a salary of $75,000, having more wealth didn’t continue to increase your happiness. Having a ridiculous amount of wealth doesn’t really make any one happier and makes rich people into worse human beings, it’s a pretty raw deal for all involved. It’s seems to me like it is time for a new American dream.