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Clergy gathered Wednesday morning in East St. Louis to celebrate a new agreement between IDOT and labor unions to include more minority and women-owned businesses in projects. Is this kind ...... Esteban Mainzer east st. louis? no, that has to be a mistake. they got all that hope and change a few years ago.

At the Third Annual Breakfast Fundraiser for the Faith Coalition for the Common Good (FCCG) on Mach 14, 2013, Sr. Marcelline Koch (FCCG member of Pax Christi Springfield) greets Springfield Dominican Associate Leroy Jordan (FCCG Rail Task Force).  Several Sisters and Associates Candidates mixed with community organization leaders and faith-based leaders in the Springfield, IL area to promote public interest projects that a create strong sustainable community.

The Sisters in attendance representing Springfield Dominicans were: Sr. Maira Barry, Sr. Margaret Ann Cox and Sr. Bernice Juip.  Sr. Marilyn Jean Runkel represented St. Patrick’s School.  Sr. Marcelline Koch represented Pax Christi Springfield.  Sr. Mary Jean Traeger and Sr. Ann Elizabeth Little were part of the membership representing St. Katharine Drexel Parish.

Guests of the Sisters included Springfield Dominican Associate Candidates Karen Siciliano and Sharmin Doering.   Aaron Tebrinke, Multimedia Specialist for Dominican Sisters of Springfield, was in attendance as well.

WASHINGTON, D.C  --An estimated 700 African Americans and Black immigrants from the Caribbean, Africa, Latin America and throughout the globe join Clergy United to Save and Heal, a Caribbean Clergy Faith Based Network for a pro-immigration rally in D.C. on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
The ‘Black Communities for Immigrant Justice Rally’ aims to demonstrate the strength and unity of black immigrant groups on the immigration reform debate.

While the debate has been driven by the Latino community, Black immigrants in the US make up approximately 10 percent of the foreign-born population. However, black migrants (from Africa and the Caribbean) face unprecedented adversity and are often forgotten in the immigration debate, said Clergy United to Save and Heal. Below Photo: Univision D.C. interviews Ana Garcia-Ashley

Univison National News Interviews Ana Garcia-Ashley (Univision National has a larger news audience than ABC, CBS, and NBC national news combined).


Policy Mic reports:
Immigration Reform 2013: Women Lead the Charge For Commonsense Reform
By Johnathen Duran

"When it comes to organizing, it's easy to organize a rally and have thousands of people show up and they scream and yell. But to organize a group of people that's committed to work—that's more difficult," said Pablo Tapia, co-founder of Asamblea de Derechos Civíles. Tapia was speaking at the “A Dream for All" immigration forum on March 3 at Incarnation-Sagrado Corazon de Jesus Church in Minneapolis. Instead of screaming, the approximately 100 attendees seemed to leave the event eager to commit to working on immigration reform.

The forum was held through the partnership of several local organizations, including unions, clergy, Asamblea de Derechos Civíles, as well as Gamaliel, a national faith-based organization that works on various social justice issues. Panelists included representatives from the Latino Communications Network, Minneapolis City Council, Communities United Against Police Brutality, and the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.

The climax of the event featured a dynamic in which participants simulated a tug of war between "justice" and "injustice." When the side of "injustice" easily won, organizers questioned participants: "Why didn't you come up to help fight for the side of justice? Was it more comfortable staying on the sidelines?" Organizers named excuses as the number one reason why there was a lack of support representing the side of "justice," and compared the dynamic to past efforts to organize people to support immigration reform. They were quick to then remind attendees that the dynamic need not be repeated and broke the group up into small action committees to plan future participation.

Various attendees reported feeling motivated and optimistic following the event. They requested their names not be used out of fear for themselves or their family members. "Daniel," an undocumented immigrant from Mexico reported feeling," Very optimistic. I'm excited by the fact that for the first time immigration reform sounds like a real possibility." He plans to attend rallies and prayer vigils organized by Gamaliel in the near future. "Elizabeth," a documented immigrant from Mexico whose sister is an undocumented immigrant, described the event as, "Beautiful. We can all work together to get a reform that's needed." She plans to discuss the issue with, "friends, family, people on the street."

Father Kevin McDonough of Incarnation-Sagrado Corazon de Jesus Church, reiterated that the event demonstrated what he sees as a recent "groundswell of Spanish-speaking folks to get organized amongst themselves as they now have the economic and political realities to make that possible."

Future events planned by Gamaliel include other church forums in the Twin Cities, events with allies such as the local Carpenters Union, and meetings with local political leaders on both sides of the issue of immigration reform. Pablo Tapia described the forum as "the beginning of the resurrection of the immigration issue in Minnesota—reviving the hope."

Event photos, audio, and recap http://milwaukeesynod.org...

Dreaming  Dreams, Releasing Vision, presented by Great Milwaukee Synod with Keynote Ana Garcia-Ashley  Workshop and program hosted to teach young people to develop their voice as future community leaders.

“And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.” 

Joel 2:28, NIV

Philanthropy needs to step up its efforts to influence policy if it expects to produce big changes on pressing issues like poverty, criminal justice, health care, the environment, and education, government officials told an audience of grant makers, nonprofit leaders, and scholars this week at an event on philanthropy and politics.

Read Article...

(Chicago, Ill) Gamaliel of Metro Chicago (GMC) held a press conference at Gamaliel of Metro Chicago's Immigrant Legal Clinic with affiliate organizations simultaneously taking action across the country.  Together, Clergy, community residents, and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students gathered to share their stories and demand President Barack Obama keep his promise and act now on comprehensive immigration reform.

Lansing groups gathered Monday to celebrate a victory for what many hope will be the beginning of widespread U.S. immigration reform, starting with students.

Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson announced Friday the Department of State will issue driver’s licenses to young immigrants who are part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program implemented last June.

Read Story...

RACINE — The Racine Interfaith Coalition annually selects a few key issues to focus on, and this year one of the biggest pushes is for voter engagement.

Voter registration, transporting electors to the polls, poll-watching — “We’re very busy,” said Tamerin Hayward, coalition president.

Read More...

We see a lot of handwringing about societal issues from handouts to handguns, with focus on all the pitfalls of offering a hand up. In the view of Chicago’s legendary Soft Sheen haircare company founder Ed Gardner and a groundswell of individuals and organizations across the country, the best answers to that conundrum have been staring us in the face.

The Rev. Rickey Sanders of AAABNA and young men from the West Side

Former U.S. Sen. Roland Burris talks with Malcolm Crawford Jr. about how this march is about the future

So, on a bright Sunday at the end of September, 87-year-old Gardner invited others to join him after church at the retailer’s construction site. Nearly 1,000 did – among them long- time friends equally distinguished in their fields, elected officials, activists, tradespeople who had been turned away, as well as residents just plain fed up with having their noses rubbed in opportunities so close yet off limits to them. Their protests resulted in the retailer’s commitment to ensure a more equitable distribution of jobs.

My chest swelled when I heard about Gardner’s stand. Gamaliel, the faith-based network I serve, had just launched a national campaign inspired by such everyday heroes who encounter a problem and return with solutions. Called Fire of Faith, it seeks to galvanize 20,000 supporters at 30 public meetings into helping move 1 million people into living- wage jobs over the next three years.

Ricky Brown of the Westside Historical Society with young men from the West Side

The last five years gave us confidence in our ambitious goal. During that time, our affiliates directed $16.6 billion into infrastructure development, education and transit that created and saved more than 639,000 jobs. Community Organizing As Job Creator: An Investment That Works For All documents how we achieved those results in the public sector through winning funds, finding revenue sources and changing policy.

Chicago-based Gamaliel actually originated in its home state what has become known as the “Missouri Model,” in collaboration with one of our former organizers — then U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). He introduced language in the 2005 surface transportation bill SAFETEA-LU allowing one-half percent of federal transportation dollars to be set aside for pre-apprenticeship and job training for low-income workers, people of color and women on specific highway or bridge projects.

Malcolm Crawford and Members of AAABNA

In early 2006, Illinois Gamaliel affiliates moved quickly to have the new legislation apply to the $524 million Interstate 64/US 40 project in Missouri. The process used on that side of the river has been praised for producing exceptional workforce diversity, while coming in under budgeted time and cost. It has been successfully tailored to issues in neighboring states, the Northeast, as far away as California and Hawaii.

Meanwhile, United Congregations of Metro East (East St. Louis), Faith Coalition for the Common Good (Springfield), Quad Cities Interfaith (Moline) and Gamaliel of Metro Chicago have negotiated with the Illinois Dept. of Transportation for over a year to fulfill a project labor agreement passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Pat Quinn in June 2011. It requires specific goals, which must incorporate strong language about diversity, given past exclusionary practices on state-funded construction.

U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis in the crowd

First in ideas, last in results? We can no longer afford that. Frankly, there are no more excuses. We have the will, the model and the money to bring economic dignity to families in Illinois and beyond. We have proven fairness does not cost too much – certainly far less than the loss of life, homes, educational opportunities and more that comes from inability to earn a decent living. We need grassroots leaders like Ed Gardner and those in the Gamaliel network to continue showing the difference between handwringing and a hand up.

Ana Garcia-Ashley is executive director of Gamaliel, which has assisted grassroots leaders become independent forces for tackling local issues since 1968 and currently encompasses 60 racially diverse, multi-faith community organizations in 17 states. Visit www.gamaliel.org for further information.

From http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/

L to R: Conan Smith, Mark Hackel, Bob Daddow, Chris Brown testify in support of the regional transit authority

The Detroit Bus Company’s converted school bus was a little like the DeLoreon from Back To The Future yesterday morning. 

Literally speaking, the bus transported a group of metro Detroit transit advocates—the group included suburban businessman, a UAW retiree, and representatives from M.O.S.E.S. and the Michigan Suburbs Alliance—to Lansing for a Regional Transit Authority hearing before the House Transportation Committee.

But, really, this bus was taking its passengers 30 years into the past to correct a grievous error, back to a time when metro Detroit should have (like other major municipalities) created a regional governing authority for public transportation.

Regional transit authorities have been best practice in metropolises across the country for decades.

Typically, things in metro Detroit are a little different. Twenty-three times lawmakers have tried to regionalize metro Detroit’s transit system and 23 times the efforts failed. SMART and DDOT buses continue to chase each other up and down major thoroughfares as the two agencies maintain redundant bureaucracies.

“We are the only large metro that doesn’t have a mass transit system,” testified Rep. Jim Townsend (D-Royal Oak), an RTA legislation sponsor.

This time, however, things may be—or should be—different. The coalition backing the current RTA proposal reaches far beyond the grassroots activists who traveled to Lansing via the Detroit Bus Company.

Business leaders like Rock Ventures CEO Matt Cullen also spoke in support of the RTA legislation.

“The business community really believes strongly that regional cooperation and coordination of the transit system is critical to building an economic revival and strong region,” Cullen said.

Perhaps more impressive than the corporate support was the bipartisan array of local officials including Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel, Washtenaw County Commission Chairman Conan Smith, Detroit Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown, and Oakland County Deputy Executive Bob Daddow who spoke in favor of the RTA.

Daddow, who raised some concerns about the current legislation’s details, said his boss, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, backs the concept.

“We support the bill,” he told the House committee. “We are asking for some changes…for example right now the authority is developed through a local act. That allows itself to be subject to challenge. Shifting it to a constitutional authority…would provide a level of permanency to the authority.”

Chris Brown nodded his head in agreement with Oakland County’s suggestion, as Daddow explained their constitutional authority modification.

The broad support for the plan, which would pave the way for a high-speed regional bus rapid transit system, the M1 street car, improved bus service, and a greater share of federal transit dollars coming to Michigan, as well as the absence of any counter-argument against the proposal is as much the RTA plan’s weakness as well as the strength.

It’s not often anything has unanimous buy-in from metro Detroit’s top political leaders, the business community’s endorsement, and the support of a well-organized grassroots. Yet, RTA has been stalled in Lansing for most of 2012. Even at the conclusion of Thursday’s impressive display of support, the Transportation Committee could only commit to holding addition hearings on the proposal’s “technical” details.

What more will it take to make Lansing see this as a major and overdue priority?

Megan Owens, executive director of Transportation Riders United, acknowledged after the hearing that the RTA plan’s fate may come down to the whim of two men—Speaker Jason Bolger and Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville.

“The frustrating thing is it maybe doesn’t matter that we have this incredible support at every level if the two men who can make it happen, Bolger and Richardville, refuse [to bring the RTA bills up for a floor vote] then game over.”

Still, despite that potential roadblock, activists on the Detroit Bus Company ride back from Lansing said they believed the hearing was a positive step toward getting RTA approved. And they used the trek home to strategize winning support from skeptical legislators.

“We can make sure the case has been made crystal clear about the benefits, answers the questions and concerns that are raised, we can rally support,” said Owens. “You can lead a horse to water.”

Given the consensus around this issue, one might assume it unthinkable that this 24th attempt at an RTA would be left wither on the vine, but here we are. Such is the nature of dysfunction in our state’s capitol at this moment in history.

It’s easy to turn the 23 failed RTA efforts into a punchline, but our collective incompetence comes at a great price.

The story of transit in Detroit is a story of lost infrastructure and opportunities.

Bill Rustem, a policy advisor to Governor Rick Snyder, noted in his testimony Thursday that one failed RTA effort championed by the Ford Administration would have funded construction of a rapid transit system. We muffed that effort and ended up with the People Mover as a consolation prize.

“At the time, put on the table by the Ford Administration, was $600 million in federal funds to help build a regional transportation system in southeast Michigan,” Rustem said. “There was one condition at the time, the Detroit Department of Transportation and the Southeast Michigan Transportation Authority were required to merge but disagreements between the city and its suburbs over the question of control resulted in failure. Those federal funds were spent elsewhere.”

A century ago, the interurban and streetcar systems moved people throughout southeast Michigan. Former Macomb County Commission Chairman John Hertel recalled riding on Detroit’s last streetcar run in 1956 during his pro-RTA testimony. He also talked about his grandmother’s memories riding the interurban.

“She said when I first came here from the thumb 'I was 18,' she said, 'I could get back on weekends to Sanilac County by taking something called the interurban',” he said. “It was literally a light rail service that ran from Detroit to Ann Arbor, from Detroit to Port Huron, Detroit to Flint, and it even ran from Detroit to Toledo. That was torn out after World War II. We had had one of the best transit systems in North America.”

The RTA plan represents the best opportunity since Jerry Ford to begin rebuilding that infrastructure. The stars are aligned for a rare moment in metro Detroit, all that’s left is for a state legislature to, you know, do its job. Or rather, it needs to finally do the job legislatures past.

The value of community organizing was perhaps never questioned as much as when Barack Obama became a candidate for president in 2007. A field that was largely misunderstood (or even unknown) was suddenly thrust upon the American people as the professional making of their potential president and leader of the free world.  For the first time since community organizing emerged as an identified field, the nation began to question what qualifications community organizing gives a president and what value it gives a nation.

A new study released by Gamaliel, Community Organizing As Job Creator: An Investment That Works For All, offers a new perspective to consider. Community organizing is about understanding people’s needs and motivations and looking for new opportunities, not trying to salvage a sinking ship. Community organizing lets leaders approach policy from an entirely new viewpoint, one that grasps the complexities, passions, and desired outcomes of people. Amazingly, the study proves, in very tangible terms, that this really works.

Community organizing can now be understood not simply in terms of rallying the disaffected but in jobs created, dollars gained, and percent of increase in GDP.  The report documents multiple case studies demonstrating the impact of local campaign victories by community organizers. These jobs have come through ballot initiatives, workforce training programs, and increased legislative funding of state and city transit, education and human services reform.

One particular area of focus has been on securing funds for public transportation and infrastructure, which have been proven to have significant returns on investment. The report notes that for every dollar invested in transit and infrastructure, the GDP increases by $1.44 and $1.31 respectively in the following year.

For example, Metropolitan Congregations United (MCU) in St. Louis won a major victory in ensuring the collaboration of government and transportation projects in employing local workers.  MCU worked with then-Sen. Christopher Bond and then-Sen. Barack Obama to introduce policy language in the bill Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) to urge state departments of transportation to utilize more equitable hiring practices to benefit local communities.  MCU used this policy in 2006 to involve key stakeholders and the public in providing pre-apprenticeship and on-the-job training for low-income individuals, people of color, and women for the largest highway project in Missouri history.  The project met its goals, was $11 million dollars below budget, provided jobs for those in Missouri who most needed them, and helped stimulate the local economy.

New approaches like these, which address community need and public service, can provide well-paid, sustainable jobs for the individuals who need them most, and their work can benefit entire communities.  In the past five years alone, Gamaliel community organizers throughout the U.S. have developed nearly 594,000 jobs from transit and infrastructure victories and well over 45,000 jobs in education.

Community organizing utilizes a practical vision to promote future-oriented policy that works to meet the needs of today. The essence of community organizing is democracy, and the report demonstrates that investing in community organizing is the most cost-effective way for government leaders to create a stable future. According to the National Center for Responsive Philanthropy, every dollar invested in community organizing resulted in $115 in community benefits. It creates jobs, stimulates economic recovery, and builds a sustainable and equitable economy.

As we enter the final election season, and debate hotly over whether Obama has secured sufficient jobs, perhaps we should start hoping that Obama does what he does best: organize. As much as we need jobs, we need local and national leaders with the ability to determine the people’s self-interest and future direction. Jobs for creation’s sake will not last, but jobs that will employ the people that most need them, meet existing needs, and transform this country to achieve the future we hope for will be the biggest contribution a community organizer—or a president—can offer.

Photo by André Natta (CC BY)

An organizing drive in Hawaii has forced the hand of America's largest bank, achieving a breakthrough that has slashed foreclosures.

By Stephen Boykewich

This had catastrophic consequences. At least 2.7 million households that had entered mortgages from 2004 to 2008 lost their homes to foreclosure by February 2011, according the Center for Responsible Lending, with African-

American and Latino borrowers twice as likely as whites to lose their homes or fall into serious delinquency.

But while most states have struggled to turn the tide—and the National Mortgage Settlement seems to have left no one fully satisfied—an organizing drive in Hawaii has quickly generated concrete results.

Common Stories

In 2010, Hawaii was suffering from the ninth-highest foreclosure rate in the country. Throughout the 41 faith congregations and allied community groups who were members of Hawaii’s Faith Action for Community Equity, a faith-based organizing group affiliated with the Gamaliel network, families were struggling to hold onto their homes.

One of them was Honolulu resident Melba Amaral. Amaral and her husband ran into difficulty making mortgage payments after her husband was injured in a car accident and lost work hours and benefits. Amaral ran a childcare center in their home, meaning a loss of the house would shutter her business as well.

“I had an obligation to let my clients know two months in advance if the center would have to close,” Amaral said. “We have a daughter in high school. We were terrified.”

For more than a year leading up to that point in late 2010, Amaral and her husband had sought a loan modification from Bank of America. “It was a nightmare. We would FedEx all our documents to one Bank of America office, then we’d get a request from a different office asking for identical information,” she said.

After the Amarals had corresponded with 11 different Bank of America offices on the mainland, “they eventually said we failed to qualify. We had to come up with $20,000. The representative told my husband, ‘Why don’t you go borrow it from your friends and family and call us back?’”

FACE director Drew Astolfi had heard stories of struggles like the Amarals’ from across the state. He and FACE organizer Kim Harman decided to conduct a statewide study on foreclosures as the first step of an organizing campaign. Their research showed that the Amarals’ case was hardly unique.

“We found that 97.5 percent of the foreclosures were being driven by the big banks on the mainland” such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo, said Harman. “Local banks were very careful because they knew the people they’d be foreclosing on. Most of the big banks didn’t even have loan offices on the islands.”

In addition to identifying the big banks as the real culprit, “the study surfaced leaders who were dealing with these issues,” Astolfi said. FACE had the core of a campaign; the next step was going public.

FACE planned a series of public events to build pressure on the big banks and galvanize support in the state legislature. The timing was right, as the legislature wanted to act, but had been “flooded” with contradictory anti-foreclosure bills during the 2010 legislative session, according to state Rep. Robert Herkes.

The Power of Speaking Out

But FACE had one major obstacle to a public campaign: the lack of a public voice.

“Getting people to come forward is not easy,” says the Rev. Bob Nakata, former president of FACE Oahu. “People want to meet their obligations—especially financial—and they’re embarrassed when they can’t do that. One of the most powerful weapons on the other side is shame and stigmatization.”

Nakata said that clergy were in a unique position to reassure people that their financial struggles were not a moral failure: “That’s why it’s important that a faith-based organization took this on. Pastors have a little more credibility than most in saying, ‘It’s not your fault. It’s the system that failed.’”

Amaral was wrestling with her own feelings of shame, isolation, and anger when Harman, the FACE organizer, called. Harman was looking for a community member who could share a powerful personal story at the campaign launch on December 10, 2010. She had heard about Amaral’s struggle from another FACE leader.

At first, Amaral was hesitant to open up. “I thought, ‘Should I tell her?’ I feared the scrutiny and the name-calling. I was afraid my childcare clients would go into panic mode,” Amaral said. “But something was telling me, ‘Talk to her.’ We were on the phone for about five hours after that.”

“In the end, I decided I was ready to fight,” Amaral said. She added that her clients were so supportive that they encouraged her to bring their children with her when she joined other FACE members in testifying at the State Capitol.

Amaral’s testimony brought forth a flood of support and inspired even more FACE members to come forward. Leaders were working every day, testifying at actions, going to legislative hearings, and raising awareness. As a result, the state legislature formed a Foreclosure Task Force, which drafted a 15-page bill that ultimately ballooned to 100 pages as FACE members testified.

The bill included the requirement that lenders sit down face-to-face with homeowners for mediation before foreclosing. It also placed a temporary moratorium on all new non-judicial foreclosures, and raised standards for lenders to show that they truly had the right to foreclose.

One source of the crisis, Rep. Herkes noted, was that the big banks “had retained mortgage servicers who got a commission on foreclosures,” he said.

“Foreclosure doesn’t only affect one family: it affects the whole community,” Amaral said. “The bankers and the lobbyists fighting the bill had to see that.”

As momentum grew in the legislature, FACE kept the public pressure up with a series of public demonstrations—a total of six on three islands—demanding that the big banks meet face-to-face with homeowners facing foreclosure. The public events “were the muscle of the campaign,” said FACE’s Harman. “They created tension, got media coverage, and forced the banks to the table.”

In March 2011, Bank of America representatives sat down with FACE and offered settlements to several dozen of the group’s members, including Amaral. “I got the settlement packet and showed it to an attorney friend. She said it was one of the best deals she had ever seen,” Amaral said.

That May, Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed the anti-foreclosure bill that FACE members had helped shape. In terms of protections for homeowners, it was “the strongest thing imaginable,” MSNBC commentator and mortgage expert Martin Andelman told Honolulu’s Civil Beat.

The new law, called Act 48, gave owner-occupants of residential property in non-judicial foreclosure the ability to meet face-to-face with their lenders to modify their loans or work out a payment plan within three months. Banks were barred from carrying out non-judicial foreclosures without the face-to-face sit-down, and any previous foreclosure proceedings were frozen during the three-month process.

Foreclosures in Hawaii dropped by more than half from May 2011 to January 2012. “Personal bankruptcy rates plummeted, and the Council of State Governments recommended that every other state adopt a similar law,” says Rep. Herkes.

For Amaral and other FACE leaders, it was a triumph. “In the supermarket, a high school friend I hadn’t seen in almost 20 years came up to me and said, ‘Thank you! My sister saved her home because of you,’” Amaral said.

“It really put FACE on the map,” Nakata said. “When we started out, people said, ‘You’re going to take on Bank of America? Are you crazy?’ The win gave us a lot of credibility.”

When Hawaii joined the $25 billion mortgage fraud settlement deal in February 2012, Hawaii Director of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Keali’i Lopez called the deal “long overdue,” but noted that the state had not waited for the settlement to address Hawaii’s mortgage problems. Many of the key provisions in the settlement, Lopez said, were addressed last year with the Mortgage Foreclosure Dispute Resolution Program and with Act 48.

Harman said the most important result of the campaign was that it restored to thousands of Hawaiians something even more important than the ability to stay in their homes: their dignity. “These banks had set up a dehumanizing process,” Harman said. “The actions we held let homeowners talk directly to another person. The law lets them do that too. It was the dignity of the person that was being violated in the banks’ setup. We helped put an end to that.”

Published by the National Housing Institute

“Question people who have authority, because they tend not to use it well unless you stay on top of them.”

That’s what Ana Garcia-Ashley learned from her grandmother, a seamstress and a teacher in the campo of the Dominican Republic. She was a woman who taught by example, challenging anybody in her small village who misused power. “She would not tolerate anything,” remembers Ana. “She took on whomever—even priests.”

And you can say the same about Ana.

Throughout more than 30 years of community organizing, Ana has put her Catholic faith into action by holding people in power accountable: standing in protest at state capitols, stopping predatory lenders, and blocking deportation trucks by laying her body in the road. “To me there is only one way to be a Catholic,” she says, “and that is out in the public arena, doing something.”

Kansas City’s Christopher S. Bond Bridge connects both sides of the Missouri River. Now the programs that prepared workers to build the bridge can connect women and minorities to job opportunities in transportation projects all across the country.

With the nation’s unemployment around 9 percent, while highways, roads, bridges, airports and transit systems are in urgent need of repair, our nation’s leaders are getting ready to make major investments in transportation infrastructure as a path to job creation.

Read article...

By David Robinson

A coalition of community activists renewed its push Thursday for National Fuel Gas Co. to make changes in the utility’s customer energy conservation program to focus more on weatherization programs for low-income consumers.

The National Fuel Accountability Coalition, made up of more than a dozen community organizations, held a “stakeholder meeting” in the afternoon to publicly repeat its call for reforms to the company’s Conservation Incentive Program, which is funded by ratepayers.

The Rev. M. Bruce McKay, pastor of Pilgrim-St. Luke’s United Church of Christ in Buffalo, said the group would like to meet with top National Fuel executives to discuss their ideas for the conservation program. National Fuel representatives, including Donna L. DeCarolis, its vice president of business development, met in December with members of VOICE-Buffalo, a faith-based community group.

“In many ways, what we’re asking is not outrageous,” McKay said. “We’ll continue to push for a hearing that the [state Public Service Commission] would hold on the allocation of these funds.”

The PSC in November agreed to add $150,000 to the budget for low-income weatherization work through National Fuel’s $10 million Conservation Incentive Program. But the increase was just a fraction of the more than $10 million jump in funding that the lead activist group, People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH), had sought in its high-profile and controversial push to expand the Amherst-based utility’s conservation program.

“The Conservation Incentive Program is not a housing rehabilitation program and should not be repurposed as one,” said Karen L. Merkel, a National Fuel spokeswoman. The program “is designed to advance energy efficiency for all National Fuel customers across all income levels.”

The accountability coalition on Thursday also called for a reduction in executive compensation at the company. David F. Smith, National Fuel’s chairman and chief executive officer, received more than $7 million in total compensation last year.

The group also called for National Fuel to scale back its rapidly growing natural gas drilling operations in the Marcellus Shale region in northwestern Pennsylvania, where the company controls the drilling rights on nearly 750,000 acres of land.

Instead, National Fuel is stepping up its Marcellus drilling. The company on Wednesday said it had agreed to sell its oil and natural gas wells in the Gulf of Mexico in a $70 million deal that will raise additional money for its accelerated Marcellus drilling plans in Pennsylvania.

Merkel said National Fuel disagrees with PUSH’s tactics, which it believes are designed to divide the community and “erode the public’s trust” of its conservation program.

Original Article: http://www.buffalonews.com/business/article364165.ece

By Tom Tolan of the Journal Sentinel

http://www.jsonline.com/features/religion/117033323.html

Inside Out: Thrive from Church Action on Poverty on Vimeo.

Gamaliel affiliate Church Action on Poverty's Thrive Project were featured in the BBC Program "Inside Out." The organisation mounted a campaign to tackle high interest lending in the impoverished areas of Northern England.

BY JON OLSON

jolson@kenoshanews.com

Fourteen members of an interfaith coalition gathered outside Congressman Paul Ryan’s Kenosha office Sunday night in support of the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act, a proposal being considered by Congress.

Holding up large red letters that spelled out DREAM Act, members spoke in favor of the act, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to bring before the Senate before the lame-duck session ends.

The vigil — a 20-minute demonstration — was called by Congregations United to Save Humanity, which claims a membership of 10 Kenosha congregations.

Those present Sunday heard informal speeches and prayed in union.

“I think it’s finally time for Congress to pass the DREAM Act,” said Jose Varible.

“We should pray to change the minds” of elected representatives, he said.

Path to citizenship

The DREAM Act would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented aliens who entered the country before the age of 16.

Candidates must have lived in the United States for at least five years before enactment of the bill; have graduated from a U.S. high school, received a GED, or been accepted by a college or university; must be between the ages of 12 and 35 at the time of application; and have “good moral character.”

Those accepted would be granted conditional permanent residency. They would be required to enroll in a college that grants bachelor’s or higher degrees, or enlist in the U.S. military. Candidates would be given six years to complete two years in the college or the military, and then may be eligible to apply for citizenship.

The proposal has received support in the Senate from members of both parties.

‘Secondary citizens’

“We don’t want a whole generation of secondary citizens in this country,” said the Rev. Bill Hayward of Holy Rosary Parish.

He evoked a story from the Gospel of Luke of a young Jesus talking with scholars in the temple.

“Learning took place,” he said, and, in the same way, he asked those present to pray to change minds of those in Congress resistant to the DREAM Act.

He led the group in a prayer spoken in unison for immigration reform.

Pursuing the dream

One person present said he stood to benefit from passage of the DREAM Act, as he came to the United States when he was younger than 16, has a high school diploma, is enrolled in college, and yet is undocumented.

“We’re trying to pass the DREAM Act so we can go on with the American Dream” he said.

Ryan’s office was chosen because it is conveniently located, said Dave Misur, CUSH’s immigration task force chairman.

Ryan’s congressional website does not address the DREAM Act specifically, but in his page on immigration policy it says, “I believe new legislation should require illegal immigrants seeking a green card or citizenship to leave the United States and reapply in their home country. After illegal immigrants have reapplied, their petition would be placed at the ‘back of the line,’ behind all other legal immigrants’ petitions.”

Ellwangers win Zeidler award

By Tom Tolan of the Journal Sentinel

When Joe Ellwanger retired at the end of 2001 as pastor of Cross Lutheran Church, the central city congregation he'd served for 35 years, he took on a part-time job with WISDOM, the statewide church-based social justice organization.

Well, not exactly part time.

"Technically it's part time," says David Liners, WISDOM's lead organizer, "but half of Joe's time seems to be more than the full time of most people."
 
Ellwanger - who with his wife, Joyce, received the city's Frank P. Zeidler Public Service Award this week - works to organize social justice organizations all over the state and has had a hand in creating six of them, with two more in the works.

"If Joe's on the way somewhere and he stops for gas, you'd better watch out," jokes Liners. "There will soon be a social justice organization there."

Ellwanger, 77, also coordinates WISDOM's Treatment Instead of Prison efforts, advocating for state legislation to divert offenders with drug and alcohol problems away from incarceration.

And he has another "part-time" job as an organizer for the Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope, or MICAH, of which he's a founder.

"He's larger than life," says Sharon McMurray, MICAH's office manager. "His energy, his passion - he just goes."

Or as Joyce Ellwanger puts it, "Joe's not a part-time kind of person. He doesn't count the hours."

Seeds of social action

The Ellwangers came to Milwaukee in 1967 to take over at Cross Lutheran, 1821 N. 16th St. The church, they say, was looking for ways to reach out to its neighbors in an increasingly African-American area.

They came with excellent credentials for that. He had been pastor at an all-black Lutheran parish in Birmingham, Ala., where he had worked in the civil rights movement with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Joyce had walked between hostile crowds with him in a historic march in Selma, Ala., while she was pregnant with their first child.

In their 3 1/2 decades at Cross, they watched the congregation change from about 90% white to about 80% black at the time he left, he said, and they helped it become a citywide center of social action, civil rights and service to the poor.

The organization that became today's Hunger Task Force got its start at the church, in a group that advocated for breakfasts in Milwaukee Public Schools.

So did Project Return, a program that helps 3,000 to 5,000 prison inmates each year re-integrate with society, according to its executive director, Wendel Hruska.

The church was active in the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s, when congregations around the country defied U.S. authorities by taking in refugees from war in Central America. That helped launch a partnership that continues today between the Lutheran Church in El Salvador and the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Active in outreach

When they retired in 2001, they stayed in their north side home just two blocks from Cross, but became members of Hephatha Lutheran Church, Cross Lutheran's neighbor to the north at N. 18th and W. Locust streets.

There, says Pastor Mary Martha Kannass, the two run the adult education program on Sundays. Joe preaches sometimes and fills in for Kannass when she's gone, and he brings four prisoners from the nearby Felmers O. Chaney Correctional Center to participate in class and services each Sunday.

The couple also helped start a program called Serenity Inns, a residential transitional center for men recovering from alcohol or drug addiction.

And Joyce spearheaded an effort to bring healthier foods to a nearby corner store.

"They've helped our congregation become more active and faithful," Kannass said.

Outside the parish, Joyce, 73, just returned this week from the annual protests at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly the School of the Americas) the U.S. military facility at Fort Benning in Georgia that trains Latin American civilian, police and military leaders. She and other demonstrators accuse its graduates of human rights violations. (A few years ago, she spent six months in federal prison after one of these demonstrations.)

She's a facilitator at the district attorney's office's Community Conferencing Program, a restorative justice effort that gets nonviolent offenders together with their victims and community members.

And she goes out with a group that holds vigils and prays at most homicide scenes in the city.

Meanwhile, Joe is working on a book, the working title of which is "Transforming Church" - not a memoir, he says, but a volume "laced with stories" from the couple's nearly 50 years in Birmingham and Milwaukee.

The title's significance?

"It's a double meaning," he says, "the idea being that the church - when it really is the church, living into the Gospel - transforms us; but we, as people in the body of Christ and the church, need to be engaged in transforming the church as well, because the church certainly is not perfect and needs transforming and reforming constantly."

Speakers at the awards program Tuesday, including civil rights lawyer Art Heitzer, the award committee's chairman, spoke about how the Ellwangers are similar to the award's namesake, former mayor and longtime public activist Frank Zeidler, and his wife, Agnes - in that they have a global vision but are actively involved locally. Heitzer called them "people who are in it for the long haul."

Said Kannass: "Joe and Joyce in their retirement do more than other people would do in their peak productivity."

The Ellwangers are the second recipients of the award. The first were Jack and Lucia Murtaugh in 2008.

Frank Zeidler died in 2006, Agnes in 2009.

BY JESSICA STEPHEN

jstephen@kenoshanews.com

Food and family history mingled Sunday as Congregations United to Serve Humanity gathered to give thanks for the diversity that is America. From the generations of Italian and Jewish families who helped build Kenosha to the new immigrants building lives here after coming from Mexico, ethnic diversity, history and our bond as Americans were celebrated during America’s Table.

About 60 people attended the interdenominational Thanksgiving event Sunday evening at Trinity Lutheran Church, 7104 39th Ave., in Kenosha. “We are such a diverse nation, and there are so many ethnic groups and religious groups that we are enriched by,” said Rabbi Dena Feingold, one of several local clergy members who led the event.

“This is designed to bring the whole community together about all the things we are thankful for, including appreciating America for its diversity,” Feingold explained. Visitors brought ethnic foods, from Jewish Mandel bread, a biscotti-like dessert dusted with sugar, to lefse, a traditional Norwegian flatbread.  People also shared their experiences as immigrants or the descendants of immigrants to the United States.

Here are a few of their stories:

Juan Carlos

When Juan Carlos arrived in the United States, he spoke no English. He also didn’t have a visa.

“I know I broke the law, and I felt bad about that,” he said. So he worked hard to learn English in school and connect with his community, which has grown to include CUSH.

“It’s not easy for immigrants to live here, especially when you have no family,” Juan Carlos said. “But when I see people like you, I feel more strong.” He encouraged the group to consider that most Americans came from somewhere else. “If we’re not from other countries, we’re from other states,” he said.

And he urged people to reach out to the newest generation of immigrants to this land.

“I invite you to find someone from another country. It’s no matter from where. You can see what we are about.”

Olga

After more than a decade in the United States, Olga still didn’t seem clear on what was scarier: leaving Mexico with four small children — ages 8, 6, 3 and 10 months — or doing so with the help of a 14-year-old smuggler, who ran at the first sign of immigration officials. “He was more afraid than we were,” she said.

Olga fled Mexico to escape domestic violence. With help from other relatives in America, she raised $5,000 for a “coyote,” or smuggler. Then, they started walking.“We walked and we walked and we walked,” she recalled, only to be abandoned near the border.

“Now, it seems kind of funny, but at the time I was so frightened,” Olga said. Today, she has five children — ages 21, 18, 17, 13 and 9 — and a new life. “I’m very grateful to people like you and the life we’ve been able to have here,” she said. “I really am thankful.”

Mary Ann Passarelli

Her grandparents didn’t talk much about the old country, but all Mary Ann Passarelli had to do was look around her Kenosha neighborhood to know she was from Italy.Tomatoes overflowed in gardens. Bread was baked from scratch. Neighbors bought grapes in October to make wine and took turns buying a pig in January to make sausage.On Sundays, children awoke to the smells of onion and garlic in olive oil and the sizzle of fresh meatballs.

“Americans were people who ate peanut butter and jelly on mushy white bread that came out of plastic bags. I was Italian,” said Passarelli, a second-generation Italian.

In her neighborhood, that meant a community that shared one push mower, one bush trimmer and one extension ladder. It meant living with your grandparents or, if you’re grandparents lived a few houses away, visiting at least twice a week. It also meant stopping in for ice cream with “grandma” and “grandpa,” even though the owners of the corner shop weren’t even Italian.“Our neighbors were one big family,” she said. Today, life is different, but some things haven’t changed.

“We’re all Americans now. Irish, German, Polish, Jewish — American citizens all,” Passarelli said. “But, somehow, I still feel a little bit Italian.”

Nathaniel Lepp

Nathaniel “Bud” Lepp might have grown up Nathaniel Lepkovski, if his family name hadn’t been shortened when his grandparents came to America. Lepp’s family fled Poland in 1902 to escape “the persecution and death of Czar Nicholas,” Lepp said. They came to Kenosha because they had a cousin here, a farmer in Pleasant Prairie.

In 1918, B’nai Zedek, Kenosha’s Orthodox Jewish synagogue, was formed, and Lepp’s grandfather, Lewis Lepkovski, became its unofficial rabbi. “I could never speak to my grandfather because he only spoke Yiddish,” Lepp explained. Lepp’s father, Charlie, delivered kosher meat with a little red wagon and went to college with his brother.

“They went to Madison with hand-me-down clothes, no money and lived in an unheated attic,” Lepp said. Lepp’s uncle became a doctor in biochemistry and discovered vitamin B6. Lepp’s father became a lawyer and practiced in Kenosha for 50 years. “That’s my story,” he said.

The Rev. Willie Brisco stood in the crowd outside the Talgo Co. train plant this week as hundreds rallied in support of a proposed high-speed rail line and the jobs it's projected to bring to Milwaukee.

An associate minister at New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church, Brisco lent his voice as the incoming president of MICAH, an interfaith coalition that has been at the forefront of most social justice issues over the last two decades, from housing and job initiatives to immigration and health care reform.

Demonstrations like the one at Talgo are important, Brisco said, if only to show there's strength in numbers. But for real progress, he said, MICAH will need to leverage that strength with power brokers in the city and state.

"I look back at Dr. Martin Luther King and all the marches and all that he stood for, and it was always about jobs," said Brisco, a retired county corrections officer-turned minister who took over this week as president of MICAH - Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope.

"Would he be proud that we're marching today? A little," Brisco said.

"But he would want us to be in the boardrooms now. To have real success, we'll need to be in offices of business leaders and legislators, even in the office of our governor."

Spirited session

Brisco was installed at a spirit-filled annual meeting Thursday night that drew more than 400 people, including religious and civic leaders, from around the Milwaukee area to New Covenant, at N. 38th St. and W. North Ave.

One-by-one, representatives of its 32 member organizations took the microphone to herald MICAH's successes over the years and announce, amid thunderous applause, "I am MICAH" and "I am here to do what's just in Milwaukee."

The meeting showcased some of MICAH's latest initiatives, including a partnership to create a community school at Hopkins Elementary on Milwaukee's north side; and the recent allocation of $300,000 in Milwaukee County funds to renovate facilities at Lindberg Park near N. 15th St. and W. Keefe Ave.

Brisco comes in at a time of both challenges and promise for the 22-year-old organization. Hit hard by the recession, it lost significant financial support, leaving it in a deficit the last two years and forcing it to eliminate staff.

But membership is growing again with the addition of five new congregations in 2009, and it hopes to hire a full-time organizer in January.

Brisco's priorities, he said, would be to collaborate with other like-minded organizations and increase MICAH's membership.

"You wouldn't believe the number of churches that say 'That's not our mission.' But how can it not be? Everything we deal with at MICAH and in ministry - poverty, drugs, lack of education and opportunity - is tied together," he said.

Corrections post

Brisco retired in 2008 as assistant superintendent of the House of Corrections amid controversy about its management. He's been criticized by both Sheriff David A. Clarke and the corrections officers union for problems there, including mandatory overtime and low morale.

"He ran the place into the ground," said Kevin Schoofs, president of the corrections officers union Local 567.

But others defended his work there.

"He did the best he could with the resources available to him," said Milwaukee County Chief Judge Jeffrey Kremers, who attended Thursday's MICAH meeting.

Former MICAH President Joe Ellwanger, who recruited Brisco two years ago, said he was drawn by his "passion for justice and for people who experience challenges and injustices in their lives."

"He sees a clear connection between his faith and doing justice in the public square."

That, said Brisco, grew out of his work in the House of Corrections where he saw first hand the misery wrought by poverty, drug addiction and lack of opportunity.

"I saw so many talented, intelligent men who made the wrong turn," he said. "I've also seen people that jails were designed for, but they're not the majority."

The Rev. Willie Brisco stood in the crowd outside the Talgo Co. train plant this week as hundreds rallied in support of a proposed high-speed rail line and the jobs it's projected to bring to Milwaukee.

An associate minister at New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church, Brisco lent his voice as the incoming president of MICAH, an interfaith coalition that has been at the forefront of most social justice issues over the last two decades, from housing and job initiatives to immigration and health care reform.

Demonstrations like the one at Talgo are important, Brisco said, if only to show there's strength in numbers. But for real progress, he said, MICAH will need to leverage that strength with power brokers in the city and state.

"I look back at Dr. Martin Luther King and all the marches and all that he stood for, and it was always about jobs," said Brisco, a retired county corrections officer-turned minister who took over this week as president of MICAH - Milwaukee Innercity Congregations Allied for Hope.

"Would he be proud that we're marching today? A little," Brisco said.

"But he would want us to be in the boardrooms now. To have real success, we'll need to be in offices of business leaders and legislators, even in the office of our governor."

Spirited session

Brisco was installed at a spirit-filled annual meeting Thursday night that drew more than 400 people, including religious and civic leaders, from around the Milwaukee area to New Covenant, at N. 38th St. and W. North Ave.

One-by-one, representatives of its 32 member organizations took the microphone to herald MICAH's successes over the years and announce, amid thunderous applause, "I am MICAH" and "I am here to do what's just in Milwaukee."

The meeting showcased some of MICAH's latest initiatives, including a partnership to create a community school at Hopkins Elementary on Milwaukee's north side; and the recent allocation of $300,000 in Milwaukee County funds to renovate facilities at Lindberg Park near N. 15th St. and W. Keefe Ave.

Brisco comes in at a time of both challenges and promise for the 22-year-old organization. Hit hard by the recession, it lost significant financial support, leaving it in a deficit the last two years and forcing it to eliminate staff.

But membership is growing again with the addition of five new congregations in 2009, and it hopes to hire a full-time organizer in January.

Brisco's priorities, he said, would be to collaborate with other like-minded organizations and increase MICAH's membership.

"You wouldn't believe the number of churches that say 'That's not our mission.' But how can it not be? Everything we deal with at MICAH and in ministry - poverty, drugs, lack of education and opportunity - is tied together," he said.

Corrections post

Brisco retired in 2008 as assistant superintendent of the House of Corrections amid controversy about its management. He's been criticized by both Sheriff David A. Clarke and the corrections officers union for problems there, including mandatory overtime and low morale.

"He ran the place into the ground," said Kevin Schoofs, president of the corrections officers union Local 567.

But others defended his work there.

"He did the best he could with the resources available to him," said Milwaukee County Chief Judge Jeffrey Kremers, who attended Thursday's MICAH meeting.

Former MICAH President Joe Ellwanger, who recruited Brisco two years ago, said he was drawn by his "passion for justice and for people who experience challenges and injustices in their lives."

"He sees a clear connection between his faith and doing justice in the public square."

That, said Brisco, grew out of his work in the House of Corrections where he saw first hand the misery wrought by poverty, drug addiction and lack of opportunity.

"I saw so many talented, intelligent men who made the wrong turn," he said. "I've also seen people that jails were designed for, but they're not the majority."

Original Article:

http://www.jsonline.com/features/religion/109360264.html

The 2010 election cycle has been a strange one. There have been many outside groups moving into Hawaii over the last few months whose purpose has been to insert a distorted interpretation of Christianity into our gubernatorial election, bringing a message that separates and divides God's children.

First it was the Christian Voter Academies that were held in church after church, and then it was the outrageous statements of both the Republican Party chairman and the Hawaii Family Forum leaders.

Now it is a whisper campaign on the Internet and in the pews about who is the right candidate for governor. The International Transformational Network, famous for its link to the death penalty law for gays in Uganda, is the most extreme; it is working against civil unions. But there are a host of others, including Focus on the Family.

Looking at the mainland where bullying has led to a number of suicides, where extreme right-wing evangelicals are protesting at the funerals of fallen service men and women, and where far-right pastors threaten to burn the holy books of other faiths, it is easy to say again "lucky we live Hawaii." Hawaii has long been a beacon of tolerance. The men and women who built our state were conscious of this and hoped for Hawaii to be a light to the rest of America. Think of the late Gov. Jack Burns' work during the war to dampen the anti-Japanese hysteria (much like the anti-Muslim hysteria today) and Congressman Tom Gill's hard-nosed work to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, among many others.

As pastors and citizens of Hawaii, we are proud of our reputation for tolerance, for the way we participate in living aloha. But we are concerned about the fact that in this political season, more than any other in our lifetime, so many people have tried to use religion to divide us.

In the past, Hawaii has suffered when the flames of religious intolerance have burned hot. In St. Damien's day and before, Roman Catholics suffered persecution at the hands of the Protestants, and Mormons had to flee their homes in Illinois and Missouri, later finding homes in places like Utah and Hawaii. During the 1930s and 1940s, Buddhists were persecuted severely.

Many religious leaders in Hawaii affirm religious freedom, and we reject any attempt to rigidly define any faith as belonging to something as transitory and secular as a political party. God is not a Democrat or a Republican, and God is not making endorsements in Hawaii's 2010 election.

Finally, a word to our fellow Christians. We beseech you, our brothers and sisters, to not conflate the transcendent message of Jesus Christ with the platform of the Republican or Democratic Party. Tying God to a secular power didn't even work for the ancient Israelites; how much less will it work for you? Worse yet, demonizing gays, or Buddhists, or Muslims, or any group of people, does not serve God. Instead it serves God's Adversary, as it promotes hate instead of love, fear instead of hope, and bigotry instead of charity.

Jesus Christ brought people together. He did not separate people. As disciples of Christ, this is our purpose.

Originally appeared in the Washington Post on 10-13-2010.

By Ovetta Wiggins

Less than a year after Prince George's County lost millions in federal housing aid, a report is calling on the next county executive to revamp the housing department by conducting a national search for a director, setting up a local trust fund for housing needs and offering more rental housing.

"One of the most important actions is for the county executive to put in place a highly qualified leader for this department, given all the problems this agency has had in the past," said Cheryl Cort, policy director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, one of the authors of the "Building Stronger Communities" report.

The analysis, which was released Wednesday by the coalition and the Partnership for Renewal in Southern and Central Maryland (PRISCM), offers a sobering picture of the housing situation in Prince George's.

Nearly half of the county's residents spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs, an amount considered unaffordable by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the report says. The county counted 45,300 troubled home loans according to an Urban Institute report cited in the analysis, and about 40 percent of renters cannot afford the median monthly rent of $1,131, the report says.

The authors said the county Department of Housing and Community Development has been "ill-equipped" to handle the housing crisis because it "lacks leadership."

But Jim Keary, a spokesman for Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D), said the report appears to be based on old data.

He said that reforms have been implemented in the agency and that Johnson fired the former director, Thomas Thompson, in June 2008. James Johnson was appointed the acting director.

Keary said the county is properly dispensing money given by the federal government to address the county's foreclosure crisis. Last week, Prince George's provided assistance to 600 families through its Down Payment on Your Dream program, which is funded by the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The Neighborhood Stabilization Program is designed to shore up areas hit hard by foreclosures. Prince George's has the highest number of foreclosures in Maryland.

Despite that investment, a PRISCM official said the county still needs a new director.

"We need someone who is going to bring better housing options and stabilize the living situation in the county," said the Rev. Michael Turner, president of PRISCM and pastor of Miracle Center of Faith Missionary Baptist Church in Capitol Heights.

The analysis comes on the heels of reports about problems in administering federal money earmarked for affordable housing. In January, the county had to return $2 million that federal housing officials had granted for affordable housing projects because the county didn't spend the money within a five-year period. And in October 2008, the county nearly lost $5 million in HUD's HOME Investment Partnerships Program.

Coalition and PRISCM officials said they know that Rushern L. Baker III, who won the Democratic nomination for county executive last month, has a host of challenges facing him when he takes office in December, including improving education, expanding commercial development and lowering crime. But they hope that housing will be at the forefront.

Baker and his transition team will review the report, said James Adams, a spokesman for Baker. The county's overwhelming Democratic majority makes the de facto general election.

The report also recommends that the new director assess the housing department to "ensure that previous weaknesses that led to underperformance are corrected."

It also suggests that more quality rental housing be made available to low-income families. "While homeownership is a desirable goal, the high foreclosure rate shows that homeownership is not always the best housing option," the report says.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth and PRISCM also want the county to provide more foreclosure-prevention counseling, implement a law similar to one in the District that allows tenants to buy their building if it is offered for sale and develop a dedicated source of local funding for affordable housing.

Original article can be found here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/13/AR2010101302192.html?hpid=newswell

It's been a busy decade for the United Congregations of the Metro East. Since its founding in 2000, the group has grown from a fledging grassroots organization advocating social issues to a major regional voice on everything from affordable housing to the role of minorities and women on construction projects.

Today, the group has 26 congregation with 23,000 members.

To recognize the organization's anniversary, a public action rally is planned for Sunday, Oct. 10, in Granite City.

The organization was started by former Granite City resident Herb Reisinger, now of Glen Carbon.

"I saw a real need in some of our communities where poverty is a real problem," he said. "I knew we could do something about it if churches came together."

An activist with the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, he started talking to congregations in 1999. By spring 2000 he had six - enough to join the Gamaliel Foundation, a nationwide grass roots social justice organization.

Today, the group has member congregations in Madison and St. Clair counties. It has a budget of about $95,000, two full-time staff members and offices at the Greater St. James United Church of God in Christ in Madison.

Reisinger said the group's support of drug courts in Madison and St. Clair counties was "the centerpiece" of efforts. The court diverts non-violent drug offenders into treatment and counseling rather than the criminal court system, with an emphasis on rehabilitation.

Third Circuit Court Chief Judge Ann Callis called the group an "integral part of the support when the drug court was first started."

"It saves taxpayers dollars in the end, because to house these people costs a lot of money in our jails and prison system," she said.

The group has also been a vocal supporter of the Madison County Child Advocacy Center, the Madison County Shelter Care Home, and the creation of the former charter school in Venice.

"Our real purpose is advocacy. We're about making changes that improve the system, rather than just dealing with problems in the system," said Ron Trimmer, of Mitchell, who has been with the group since the beginning. "We do a good job of having food pantries, but we haven't done as good a job helping people develop their skills so they can get good jobs and don't have to go to food pantries."

Originally appeared on STLToday.com on October 4th, 2010.

http://suburbanjournals.stltoday.com/articles/2010/10/04/stclair/news/1006gcj-ucm.txt

“New York is a great city to live in if you can afford to get out of it,” wrote

American author William Rossa Cole.

The same thing works the other way around too. The wealthier you are, access to the city becomes easier.

Manhattan (the cityʼs richest and whitest borough) is abundantly better connected to trains and buses than any of the other boroughs. In fact, when the Metropolitan Transit Association cut its buses and train lines, the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens felt it the hardest.

Minorities and other low income groups, who overwhelmingly live in the outer boroughs, are far more affected by transit cuts and increasing highway spending than their largely white counterparts who live in wealthier neighborhoods. And thatʼs a problem.

Title III of the Civil Rights Act prohibits state and municipal governments from denying access to public facilities on grounds of race, religion, gender, or ethnicity, where as Title VI, prevents discrimination by government agencies that receive federal funding. If an agency is found in violation of Title VI, that agency can lose its federal funding.

While the cuts were not made to be discriminatory, in practice they violate both the above titles.

With 84 percent of U.S. transit agencies facing service cuts and fare hikes, we are witnessing how this trend is far more widespread than New York alone. In the larger context, it becomes a very serious form of discrimination. As Laura Barrett, director of the Transportation Equity Network, quoted Dr. Robert Bullard in the Huffington Post:

Nationally, only seven percent of white households do not own a car, compared to 24 percent of African American households, 17 percent ofLatino households, and 13 percent of Asian American households. African Americans are almost six times as likely as whites to use transit to get around. In urban areas, African Americans and Latinos comprise over 54 percent of transit users (62 percent of bus riders, 35 percent of subway riders, and 29 percent of commuter rail riders).

This argument goes beyond race, of course. The cuts exacerbate the exclusion of all the protected classes including low-income groups, immigrants, the elderly and the disabled, since their access to automobiles is that much more difficult.

In fact, Bay Area Rapid Transit lost $70 million in stimulus funding in violation of civil rights laws for its Oakland Airport Connector project because it failed to study how the project would affect low-income and minority transit riders.

But this isnʼt only about the transit cuts. Itʼs also about how our transportation funds are spent in the first place. Even though a poll by Transportation for America found that 82 percent of voters thought the United States would benefit from an expanded and improved transportation system, such as rail and buses, our current spending on infrastructure skews so heavily towards highways. In the past 18 months, President Obamaʼs Department of Transportation has given out $38.6 billion to more than 14,600 projects, unfortunately more than 70 percent of the money is going to highways; and the rest on all the other transit projects combined.

A program that caters to the automobile so heavily, by default begins to cater to a largely white, higher-income bracket.

Public dollars should be used to balance the playing field, not make it worse.

While weʼre paving better roads to get to the fancier parts of town, weʼre asking everyone else to wait an extra half hour for the bus, or to walk for miles. With apologies to George Orwell, some peopleʼs time is clearly more equal than others.

Rosa Parks was asked to wait at the back of the bus, now weʼre even taking away the bus.

by AMI CHOLIA on Wednesday, September 15, 2010 at 3:20 PM

Metro on Monday will make good on its promise to restore much of the bus service that at one point appeared long gone because of chronic budget shortfalls.

St. Louis County voters' passage of Proposition A in April boosted the sales taxes dedicated to transit in the county, and also triggered collections in the city of St. Louis because of a voter-approved tax passed in the 1990s but never enacted.

"It is one of the more hopeful things going on in the region right now, especially when you look at the budget cuts that are happening at the state level," said Katie Jansen Larson, executive director of Metropolitan Congregations United for St. Louis, an interdenominational coalition.

Larson's group was one of several that pushed Proposition A this spring, saying that building up service was key to helping people get to jobs and schools.

With the new influx of money, Metro intends to restore 97 percent of the service miles that were in place before cuts were made in March 2009, said Ray Friem, Metro's chief operating officer of transit services.

Riders should expect added trips throughout the area and better connections between bus routes, Metro officials said. Metro started rolling out its first phase of added bus service in late June, and Monday's additions will complete the restoration.

"There are a lot of changes," Friem said. "It's just about every corner of the system."

Metro's plan will feature some new wrinkles.

Some of the longer bus routes — including those serving Earth City, Lindbergh Boulevard and Manchester Road — will be split into multiple routes. Friem said splitting routes will allow Metro to keep more buses running on time, make it easier to schedule drivers and offer more direct service.

But the job will be complicated by a lack of buses. That's because the agency's financial problems in previous years threw a wrench into its bus-purchasing cycle.

Two 24-bus orders were canceled, and another was deferred. Metro is now scrambling to find replacement buses. Friem hopes the first batch of new buses will reach the region before the end of the year.

"I'm hitting the street (on Monday) about 50 buses short of what I was in March 2009," he said.

Metro will have to leverage its bus fleet to step up service. In order to put the additional buses on the street this year, Friem said, the agency will increase the average number of miles a bus is driven in a year to 60,000, from 48,000.

Metro expects to have 118 more bus drivers than it did before the passage of Proposition A.

"The clear beneficiaries are the people who are going to be using the public transportation system to get where they need to be," said Washington University Chancellor Mark Wrighton, who helped oversee the Proposition A campaign and whose students and employees are frequent users of the transit system.

Donald Walker of Wellston, who began studying computer programming at ITT Technical Institute in Earth City on Monday, said he hopes the new service will reduce his wait time. Now, he said, it takes him about 45 minutes to take two buses and MetroLink to school.

"This works out pretty good," he said.

The changes will not affect MetroLink train schedules. A major rehab project on the Eads Bridge prevents more trains from being added to the schedule for now, Friem said.

Metro is trying to get word of the bus changes to riders. Agency workers have been handing out new schedules and fliers for the last two weeks. This week, Metro employees will be at MetroLink stations and transit centers throughout the region.

Original Article:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_26cb84f4-7083-5be3-8e17-ce9a4524b638.html

© 2010 syracuse.com. All rights reserved.

This article originally appeared at http://www.syracuse.com/kirst/index.ssf/2010/04/acts.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/us/21atlanta.html

Mark Doremus, president of the organization, said "SOPHIA puts people of faith face- to-face with decisions makers." He also refers to the biblical passage from the book of Micah: ". . . and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God."

Current members of the organization are Ascension Lutheran Church, Christ the Servant Lutheran Church, Community of the Living Spirit and First Congregational United Church of Christ, all of Waukesha; Galilee Lutheran Church, Pewaukee; Church of the Resurrection, Delafield; St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, New Berlin; Waukesha catholic Worker; and Waukesha Temple.

On Dec. 13, SOPHIA held a public ceremony and reception to present Waukesha Circuit Court Judge Kathryn Foster with its Civic Leadership Award for helping to create and maintain an innovative alcohol treatment center in Waukesha County. Under this program, the court gives third-time drunken drivers judicial supervision and treatment for one year instead of lengthy jail sentences.

The first step is required jail time. Following that, offenders wear an alcohol-monitoring bracelet for a few weeks. Then - under careful scrutiny by Foster, who meets frequently with offenders to ensure they are clean and sober and following program requirements, including regular meetings with a case manager and counseling - they resume normal activities.

They are required to work, go to school or do community service. If they are successful, the level of supervision is reduced. If they do not follow the rules, they may be put out of the program and required to serve additional time.

A three-year, $450,000 federal grant underwrites the court. Participation is voluntary and limited to non-violent offenders over the age of 18. Although the court started last summer, it already is at capacity with 60 participants.

Because she was the chief judge at the time, Kathryn Foster worked with the Waukesha County Criminal Justice Collaborating Council to win support from county officials. She is currently handling the entire caseload. Although the work is demanding, she is able to help participants change their lives. Her goal is to help the community by lowering correction costs and reducing repeated criminal behavior.

Also speaking at the award ceremony were Jim Bickel, pastor of the Ascension Lutheran Church; Betty Groenewold , vice president of SOPHIA; Judith Williams of Waukesha catholic Worker; and Jeff Wartgow, pastor of First Congregational United States of Christ.

By Lorayne Ritt, Posted January 20th, 2007

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=554346

"I was hesitant because of the stories I'd heard and afraid of what I might see,'' the Milwaukee preacher told me over the telephone late Tuesday night. "There was some ambivalence on my part.

"I had mixed emotions.''

Listening to the Lexington, Ky., native, I could understand his predicament. I'm sure you would, too.

Jackson, the pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church in Milwaukee, had come south earlier in the day. On his way to his hotel, he could see some boarded-up buildings. He could also see evidence of the patched-up repair work that had taken place.

And, he told me, "There was a slight stench in the air.''

Jackson was in New Orleans when he called my house Tuesday night. He and about 30 other African-American ministers, mostly from the Midwest, had come to the Crescent City to mark the upcoming first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina with "A Season of Prayer"bus tour of the Gulf Coast region, "highlighting poverty and lack of opportunity'' in the United States.

The group had a press conference yesterday in New Orleans with local activists, public officials and clergy. After leaving New Orleans today, they'll go on to Baton Rouge and Biloxi, Miss.

"We came to be our brothers' and sisters' keepers,'' Jackson told me. "We're also down here to

deepen our understanding of the analysis and actions needed to reverse conditions that predated Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"And we're down here to support institutional relationships and coalitions that raise up people and communities that are drowning on dry land from concentrated poverty in the Gulf Coast. We want to push the government.''

Push the government to do more than what it has done so far to help get the lives of the people pushed out by Katrina and Rita back together. All of us remember how slow the local, state and federal government reacted to the hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast last year.

"The flood uncovered and exposed some of the issues such as poverty and segregation,'' Jackson said as we talked.

I remembered hearing Ann Bludsaw telling me, after she and other family members fled to safety in Nashville from New Orleans immediately following Katrina, that it was tough for her to watch television accounts of people being stranded at the Superdome and the city's convention center.

"Seeing them stranded and being without food and being without water, that really touched my heart,'' Bludsaw said in September. "No one did anything to help these people. And I know a lot of people said they should have evacuated, but these were the majority of people who did not have the transportation to leave the city.''

Are things any better today?

"Such a disaster could come to Milwaukee or to Nashville,'' Jackson said. "What kind of people would we be if we just stood and watched?

"If Iraq can be rebuilt, then home should be our top priority. We want to walk the talk. We want to be there for all people who need our help and support. We have to give more than lip service. We want to see some changes.''

Jackson is right. Home should be a priority. But more importantly, home should have been a priority before Katrina and Rita hit.

If it had been, perhaps we wouldn't have seen the terrible scenes that Ann Bludsaw recalled so vividly, scenes of people standing on rooftops pleading for someone to save their lives.

We saw them, too, and as the first anniversary of Katrina and Rita is talked about and written about over the next week or two, it will be interesting to see just how much has changed since last August and early September.

Whatever has changed, I'm willing to bet that the Rev. Joseph Jackson and other ministers on his bus tour will find out that it's not nearly enough. Just watch and listen for yourself.

Originally appeared in the Tennessean on Thursday, 08/17/06.

Standing outside the flood-damaged Mount Nebo Bible Baptist Church on Flood Street in the Lower 9th Ward, members of the Gamaliel Foundation's African American Leadership Commission said they are on a fact-finding mission, dubbed the "Drowning on Dry Land/Connecting Covenant Visit," to learn how they can provide continuing support to the people of the Gulf Coast, particularly the poor.

"We're here to support the faith community, allies and organizations in their ongoing Katrina/Rita restoration strategies," said the Rev. Joseph Jackson Jr., pastor of Evergreen Missionary Baptist Church of Milwaukee, Wis., and co-chairman of the commission. "We're here visiting with clergy, public policy and public officials to pursue a unified national strategy for releasing all of the resources -- real money -- to rebuild the Gulf Coast and, more importantly, the people."

The Gamaliel Foundation is an organizing network of more than 60 affiliates in 21 states in America and five provinces in South Africa, according to its Web site, www.gamaliel.org. The foundation represents more than a million multifaith, multiracial church people who work on social justice campaigns. The African American Leadership Commission comprises mostly black clergy and lay leaders whose mission is to address issues and concerns of the black community.

One member of the tour, Deacon Gerry Hughley of Cincinnati, Ohio, said he couldn't believe the devastation left by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "This is blowing me away," he said. "This is a year later. I'm really blown away by that."

The Rev. Sharon Smith of East St. Louis, Ill., treasurer of the AALC, said the commission "needed to come to New Orleans." She said the AALC has been "agitated" by the "outrageous inadequacy of our government's action in response, recovery and restoration."

Smith said the AALC stands ready to go to Washington, D.C., to demand that the federal government rebuild the Gulf Coast. Storm survivors are weary and losing faith in the government, she said, and "it is time for the church and the people of faith beyond the Gulf Coast . . . to come together in faith rebuilding the Gulf Coast. We stand with and for the survivors of Katrina and Rita," Smith said.

This is what Mount Nebo's pastor, the Rev. Charles Duplessis, wanted to hear. He said he needs help to rebuild the church he has led for the past 19 years.

"I believe these are people of integrity," Duplessis said. "They didn't have to come here. My faith says they are going to do something."

Duplessis, who also lost his Lower 9th Ward home, is temporarily living in Tuskegee, Ala. He said he wants to rebuild his church but plans to put up a tent on its grounds to resume services as soon as the land is cleared.

He said he is part of a group called Churches Supporting Churches, a program that will partner 36 local churches with 360 national and international churches to rebuild Gulf Coast communities and their places of worship.

The Rev. Marvin Turner, pastor of Mount Arart Missionary Baptist Church at 2525 First St., also was encouraged by the AALC's visit. His church suffered wind damage and minor flooding, but the cost of repairs has exhausted nearly all the church's money.

He said it is important that churches be rebuilt because they are "the central building block of the black community."

Commission members also are scheduled to visit Biloxi, Miss., and Baton Rouge. On Friday the Rev. Dwight Webster, pastor of Christian Unity Baptist Church in New Orleans, will be the keynote speaker at a closing dinner.

To observe the first anniversary of the storm, the ministers also are requesting that clergy nationwide commemorate Katrina this Sunday and Aug. 27 by urging their congregations to make the rebuilding effort a movement.

Originally appeared in the Times Picayune on August 16th, 2006.

http://www.nola.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news-6/115580211260150.xml&coll=1

So he called Call to Renewal, one of several faith-related groups touring the country this election year to draw Americans together from both sides of the ideological divide for polite conversation, social cooperation or both.

Geisler, who pastors in a once-prosperous steel town that has rusted alongside its shuttered mills, appreciates Democratic attention to health care and other safety-net issues. But he also finds merit in Republican efforts to encourage marriage and discourage abortion.

He hadn’t decided which presidential candidate to vote for. And he rejected both election-year stereotypes of “godless liberals out to destroy the family” and “quasi-fascists dropping bombs for Jesus.” Adds Geisler: “This polarization is tearing churches apart, tearing our country apart. Each side wants winner-take-all. We don’t seem to want to see win-win anymore.”

Addressing those culture clashes, at least three religiously motivated groups have traveled about representing a new brand of peacemakers. Each group has its niche, but they share an overarching goal of increasing civility:

• Call to Renewal’s “Rolling to Overcome Poverty” bus tour holds rallies and prayer meetings to encourage Christians with disparate worldviews to work together to help the poor.

• “Red God, Blue God” forums bring a religious liberal and a religious conservative together for civil debate about the role of faith in politics and public policy.

• The Gamaliel Foundation trains local religious activists to identify and address pressing community issues that might otherwise be neglected by both sides of the aisle.

Jim Wallis, an evangelical minister, founded Call to Renewal in 1995. It includes Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelicals, Pentecostals and leaders of historically black churches and peace churches. One sign of its appeal is that the conservative National Association of Evangelicals and the liberal National Council of Churches sit at the same table.

Participants have worked together and lobbied Washington on behalf of social welfare policies. “The cry of the poor rings from cover to cover in the Bible. It’s clear that God hears the cry of the poor and wants us to as well,” Wallis said.

The group has backed some Republican initiatives, such as President Bush’s proposal to expand funding to faith-based social services. It has also taken the Democrats’ side, backing expansion of the child tax credit to the poorest working families.

“God is not a Republican or a Democrat” reads a headline in the organization’s ads.

“The Democrats have a long way to go before they will be seen as champions of the poor,” Wallis said. “And we are challenging the Republicans to make good on the promise of compassionate conservatism. That was strong language, but it hasn’t produced many results this first four years. There are things Republicans can and should do on the issue of poverty.”

Wallis traces religious polarization over the candidates to what he sees as inflexible Democratic Party support for abortion rights. When he was invited to address the Democratic platform-writing committee about economic and foreign policy issues, he also challenged its members privately to appeal to Democrats who oppose abortion.

“I think some smart Democrat someday will figure out how to bring pro-choice and pro-life people together by actually targeting a reduction in the abortion rate,” Wallis said. “I think there’s a middle ground, but the extremes on both sides want to use it as a litmus test.”

Finding a middle ground wherever possible also concerns the “Red God, Blue God” forums, which have toured through several presidential swing states.

The forum’s name comes from colored maps used in the 2000 presidential election, and from polls showing that white churchgoing Christians frequently back Bush. The Red God, Blue God Forum was founded by Democrats to say that not all religious people vote Republican. But the panels, which include a religious liberal, a religious conservative and someone adept at interpreting surveys on faith and politics, aim to puncture several stereotypes.

Shaun Casey, who teaches Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, cofounded the forum with former Clinton press secretary and Kerry adviser Mike McCurry, an active United Methodist.

The two men wanted to show journalists that people of strong faith could vote for John Kerry. But Casey, who belongs to the theologically conservative Churches of Christ, also wanted to counter media stereotypes of evangelicals as uneducated and unconcerned about social welfare issues.

Representation on “Red God, Blue God” panels tilts left but always includes a recognized conservative, such as Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, or Michael Cromartie, director of the Evangelicals and Civil Life project of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington.

“The reality is that evangelicalism is irreducibly plural and complex in America. To say that [Jerry] Falwell and [Pat] Robertson speak for all evangelicals is just laughable,” Casey said.

One goal of the Chicago-based Gamaliel Foundation is building relationships between people of both parties in order to address social issues. Its “Rolling Thunder” tour has gone cross-country to train people to identify community problems.

“Our mission is to bridge the gaps where people differ,” said Evans Moore Jr., executive director of the Pittsburgh Interfaith Impact Network, a Gamaliel partner. “We all realize that social injustice is not something our faith embraces.”