Poverty's Snowball

So yesterday I had the chance to go to an event that would have been not only been a wonderful event, but a really good thing for me to do in terms of my career and in support of two great friends and supporters of mine.  The event, Reels for Rights was a small screening of several films advocating for human rights.  It was open bar and going to be packed with the whole of the NYC human rights community.  As my friend said: there will be countless important people there, and I need to come schmooze them, and get myself into job consideration.  I RSVPed weeks ago and was looking forward to it that whole time.  But when the day came I didn't get to go.  I was dealing with the trail of bread crumbs of my own poverty, the repercussions of a life as a poor person.

A year and a half ago I was unemployed, sleeping in a tent, and clutching at straws.  When I was finally offered a job I had no choice but to take it.  It didn't pay me enough to live on my own, and wasn't career oriented at all, but it was work.  There was one catch though, I had to have a car.  I of course didn't have the money to buy one though.  I had $500 to my name at the time, and a hundred dollars a week from unemployment.  I was forced to go into debt to get a car and of course got the absolute cheapest car I could get financed for.  $7,200 for 2001 Honda Accord.  It was nice enough, leather seats, good gas mileage, nice sound system... I really liked it, still do.  But it had few unknown issues at the time.  Like that the transmission was slipping, and it cost $3000 to replace it.

The job itself wore on the car too.  In 6 months at that job I put 22,000 miles on the car driving all over Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts.  I stopped working for that company last November and moved to NYC, but I am stuck with the car.  It is worth $5000 now - if it didn't need a new transmission, shocks, and have its dents - yet, I still owe $4500 on it.  Even if I could sell it, I am not going to get enough to pay back the loan.  I'm underwater on it and I'm stuck with it. 

It's a $300 a month burden that I obviously can't afford still being unemployed, so I've been doing a car share with a friend.  But is has put a lot of wear and tear on the car - a thousand miles on the car in the first three weeks of November, and Brooklyn miles.  The transmission is night and day worse and all of a sudden needs new shocks.  You give it to someone and three weeks later its rattling away....  They've gotten in two fender benders in three months, one that left a dent on the door.  Needless to say, the car's been beaten up.  It is not their car, it is like a rental.  And while I love this person like a sister, it has really been a horrible thing for me and my longer term fortunes, even if a necessary evil for my short term survival.

But I have had no choice.  I was poor. I'd finally found a job, and had to have the car.  I couldn't afford to buy or lease a good car, so I got the cheapest I could.  It was bound to have problems, just like anything you buy cheap.  Just like the two can openers I've bought at the dollar store during the last two months, both broke within weeks.  The cheap things poor people are forced to buy break much more easily than quality goods that those with money can afford.  So for a year and a half now I've been stuck with this car and its problems in New York City - the unfriendliest place in America for cars! 

So last May the car inspection was up.  I hadn't paid attention to when it was up - I was busy trying to find food and not paying attention.  When do you think about those little things when spending all of your time trying to survive?  Needless to say, I got a ticket for an expired inspection and made an appointment to get it done, but I got two more tickets in the four days I had to wait for the appointment to get it inspected.  $180.  I didn't have the money.  So I just didn't pay it.  I kept thinking about it.  Can I now?  Nope.  Food, rent, whatever.  The tickets went up to $75 each, but that was still under the $350 threshold before they tow you.  At least that was a month ago when I last checked.  I came to find out Thursday when my car was gone that they went up again. 

I saw the empty spot in front of my house at noon.  And I had a 2pm job interview to get to.  Sigh....  How can I concentrate on the interview when I'm screwed.  It now costs $700 to get it out of impound.  I don't have that kind of money.  I can't even pay rent right now, nevermind have extra cash for that.  So here I am, scratching to make ends meet, I have to triage money every day and didn't pay the tickets because food and shelter were more important.  I literally just made a decision two weeks ago.  I had $650 from working, what do I do with it?  I gave $500 for rent and kept the rest for food, phone, insurance, car payment, etc.  $650 isn't enough to live on.  I just didn't have the money to pay for the tickets, for the car that I had to get, so that I could get myself out of poverty.  And now - without that job - couldn't get rid of the car, because the only car I could afford when I was in poverty (and had to have one) has no resale value because it has too many problems.  My poverty is snowballing upon me, and driving up the costs of my poverty just because I can't afford things that will last.  And now here I am on the Friday I am supposed to be going to this career benefiting event, and instead I am dealing with the car I's rather get rid of but can't. 

I had a decision to make, do I just leave it and walk away from it?  If I do, the impound lot auctions it and covers their costs and my tickets first.  But if the the sale isn't enough I'm still saddled with that, and regardless I would never cover the value of the car and would default on my loan.  But where do I get $700 from?  If I can't I'm out of the car, the credit, and all the value included in the vehicle.  Enter the white knight...  yeah, my friend offered to pay for it.  She has really sound logic in it all.  If I go to school next year outside of NYC I'll have to have a car.  But how do I buy one with what would then be bad credit, and little money?  And what kind of car do I buy for $1000?  What's to say it won't have all the same problems this one does?  The only difference then is that I've lost every penny I put into this other one and have crappy credit.  If I can come up with the $700 I keep going, keep trying to make ends meet. 

I accept her offer.  But these kinds of things don't always come free and clear of repercussions.  Yes, I don't see this as an issue for she and I.  But it still is a burden within yourself no matter.  Taking money like that from someone else, hat in hand, desperation as your sole motivation.  More importantly though for the plight of the poor is how many people in poverty have that type of resource?  How many poor people have friends with cash like that?  And if they do, at what cost?  Someone does you a favor, gives you a loan.... what is the social cost of this exchange between friends, families?  Loan sharks, what have you.  It is a tough one to navigate.  Poverty drowns itself in its own minescule capacity. 

For me though, this decision wasn't about the car, my credit, favors, or friends, it was about  my security.  My life is very insecure.  I am living in a wholly precarious housing situation that could end at any minute.  My car has been the only steady thing I've had over the last year and a half.  I have lived in it, used it as a closet, moved with it, and escaped in it.  Without it I am truly at the mercy of my poverty.  So I took the favor, and went to get my car out of impound.  But I had PhD applications due that day, so I couldn't leave right away.  Then I rode 8.5 miles to the place to pay, then back past my house another 12 miles to the impound lot where I proceeded to stand outside (yes, there was no indoor waiting area) for almost two hours in a windbreaker and sweaty clothes.  It was dark by now and with a temperature in the 30's I was shivering and worrying about catching hypothermia while I waited.  I finally got my car, but I was deliriously cold.  I rushed in got the heat on, and left.  I get home to realize I left my bike there, so I drove back, got it and then back to Bed-Stuy again.  Twenty plus minutes each way.  I'm at least warmish by now though.  But I haven't eaten much of anything all day as I've been running around and my housing situation doesn't afford me the power to be able to cook whatever I want.  Normally I'd have a crock pot going to just be able to eat and go.  I'm famished, so I grab some pizza (which of course costs more than a home cooked meal), and need to get in the shower to warm up. 

But its 8:30 by now.  The event was from six to ten in Manhattan.  I've missed it.  Missed a chance to better myself for the simple fact that I am not already better.  My poverty has snowballed upon me, an avalanche of debt, worries, bills, and stress that consumes me to the point of near ineptitude.  Poverty sucks, is systemic, and endemic here.   But at least, despite the calamitous pressures surrounding me, I nailed the interview.  I will be taking my almost two masters degrees and eight some-odd years of international business experience, to a gourmet super market where I will be a delivery boy - yes, the same job I had while I was in High School!  I've come full circle!  But at least I'll have food and shelter... and a platform to keep fighting from!


 

Addendum to the Barriers to Entry

Ooops.....  update to the Barriers to Entry..... it seems that the $17,000 I made in 2011 exceed the $15,600 threshold I need for the fee waiver on the application fees.  It doesn't matter that in the last year I haven't made $5600 dollars, only that over a year ago I made slightly more than the threshold.  What about now?  What about that I haven't made much of anything since and have been living off of the assistance of others right now?  As if the only people that need fee waivers are the perpetually poor, not the recently unemployed or underemployed.  Does poverty only exist in line with the tax year?  No, it is endemic and symptomatic of American society, yet we can't even offer education for our citizens to bring themselves out of poverty.  Basically, the system that's fucked you, just keeps on fucking you.  That's no meritocracy.  That's capitalism.   

The Barriers to Entry

So I am applying to PhD programs again this year.  But as is the American motto, it takes money to make money (or even to try to get the chance to learn how to make money).  This is an issue for me.  I am poor.  I have made maybe 4 to 5,000 dollars this year so far.  I've been staying places for free, working whenever I could find money - political fundraising, childcare, construction, catering, whatever.  All the while looking for real work and doing volunteer stuff.  Nothing has been materializing in my over/underqualified world.

So here I am, back to the old dream and applying for schools.  This of course is met with a broad smack in the face at America's true shame: the barriers to entry faced by low income individuals.  To get into programs I need to "apply widely" (as I've been advised) to increase my chances of entry.  This is something I intended to, but did not do last year for various reasons mostly revolving around my involvement with Occupy.  But the shear barriers to be able to apply to a number of programs are immense.  Between application fees, the cost of sending GRE scores ($25 per school), and transcripts ($25 to send them from all three schools that I attended), is a lot of money.  If I want to apply to ten schools, that is $250 for the GRE scores, and then another $250 for one set of transcripts each (though many schools require you to send two), before you even look at application fees.  The cost of fees which are usually between $75 and $100.  So that's $12-1500 to apply to ten schools.  I have 18 on my short list and 12 that I feel that I need to apply to.  So I'd be looking at $1600 minimum and over $2000 to apply to the bulk of them and give myself the best shot at getting in.  NOt to mention the cost of my time to do the research and write the applications.

Now granted some schools offer application fee waivers for low income applicants.  But not all.  Three of my first six don't.  And it is $275 for those three.   I had been counting on them all having waivers, but there are solid schools for me that I really have to apply to for the best chances of admission.  Two of these I have connections at already working for me that are strongly encouraging me to apply.  But I may not be able to now.  To everyone that thinks America is a meritocracy take a second look.  I may not even be able to apply to some schools because just I don't have enough money.  And one of these mentioned is my fall back school.  I have to apply, it is the only way to try to guarantee my acceptance.  

But what if I was rich?  I could apply to 20 schools, 30 school, whatever.  My chances of getting in would be greater, thus my chances of success in this field greater.  But no.  Not mine.  I'm low income.  I have to make strategic decisions (such as the one that I made last year and then didn't get in anywhere).  I have barriers to my entry.  The Lohan's, Kardashian's, and Hilton's, and Drake's of the world throw money around on glitter, bottles of champagne, strippers, and superficial material things, yet a person looking to go back to school and make both themselves and hopefully some day the world a better places can not do it for the simple cost of one of those bottles of champagne. 

How can anyone say this is the greatest country there is?  We claim to be a place where you can do anything!  Well I may not be able to apply to go to school because I am not wealthy enough.  In most places in Europe, school tuition is free, never mind applications.  If you are good enough to go, you get to go.  I may not even be able to apply, and for no other reason than that I am poor.     

Desperation

So I have had to leave my place in Brooklyn for a couple weeks. I don't have enough money to pay for a month and the owner has someone that can come in and pay something for a bit. I knew this prior to my moving in, so I've had time to plan. But it has forced me to try to piece together places to stay and opened up some old wounds in doing so. Family, friends, whatever. It makes for a very tough time again. I seem to have isolated that one of, if not the key, to my internal feelings of security comes from secure housing or a home. Jobs, relationships, activities, they all seem to be able to come and go with normal levels of stress, but housing puts me into a different place. This last couple weeks have seen that type of involuntary emotional response and reaffirmed what I felt in August when my housing was about to run out.

I am right now writing this from my grandparents house upstate, spending time with them and my relatives from Colorado. This always provides for an interesting point of departure in an assessment of the self.  The other night I said to my Uncle, in reference to work and trying to find a way to squeeze any money I could out of things, with a sigh, “it sucks to be desperate.” He looked at me and laughed, “you're not desperate.”  Shunning off my situation with a smug chuckle.   I responded with “huh, $200 to my name, no income, and unstable housing certainly feels desperate to me.”

 So what does this mean? Am I desperate? If I have family to stay with for a few days here and there do I not qualify? In a conversation with a friend the other day I likened the way I am living right now, to a cat that has stopped grooming itself. You know, when they get sick and can no longer attend to the general maintenance of daily life but rather just making it through just that one day. All I do is make lists of things that could help me gt out of this situation and just try to get those things done.  The basic things needed to get done, eating, cleaning, etc, not remotely being taken care of as they need to.

But this is where I am right now. And I wonder if it is something that most people can really get their head's around. A situation yesterday brought this to light for me. A friend had been helping me with my prospectus for academia and amidst, uncertain housing, food, and the general difficulties of the life I am living within right now I seem to have cut corners and didn't get a response back to her right away about an extensive email she wrote to me. It was so amazing and invaluable to me, but I blew it by not thanking her immediately and trying to piece things together conceptually before I responded to her. I posted a blog post about a synthesis of my ideas and several other's (but mostly her's) before I responded to her. It didn't go over well. The writing itself as well wasn't carefully worded as it was thrown together hastily. It just failed on so many levels. But this is where I am right now. I am desperate and in survival mode. I am clutching at straws and up against walls that people don't seem to understand the height of.

My family is reconstructing their house and truly put out in their living situation, they are struggling. But they have a home and will have one. They have a place to live and food to eat. My friend that deserved a thank you and adoration for the help she is giving me, deserves better from me. Just as every job application requires more attention, and every networking opportunity, and PhD application, and, and, and....

Basically people, I can't do it. I can't live up to all of your expectations. I don't know where I will sleep tomorrow night, I don't know what I will do about food, I don't know what my future entails, all I do know is that most of the things I am doing in life right now – at least in ways that our society usually measures successes – are more failure than success. Job application after job application goes unheeded, unrealized. I am an utter failure there. I can't correspond as needed, I can't keep up networks, and friends, and family, and job prospects, and future prospects or any of that as I should or want to. I am living a life that most people seem to not understand or not want to understand. I am not the man I want to be or you want me to be. I am an impoverished, unemployed, and overqualified guy that is struggling with so many facets of his life. Yes, there are a few great people in my life helping me hold it together. But on the whole. I am sorry to everyone else out there that expects me to be more, or at minimum expects me to be the man that I have been the rest of my life. Right now I am not that guy. I am desperate. Desperate for place in this world, for an income, a job, a home, a career, a realizable purpose, whatever. I am desperate. And desperation leads to many things that do not fulfill either my or others expectations. So what else can I say, I am sorry I am not the man you want me to be. It hurts me too, but I am doing the best I can to just hold things together enough to get to the next day and to just keep trying to move forward.

I give up.

[warning parental guidance: explicit language]  At the depths of despair - even if just for a moment - words fly like the wind, and they shouldn't be tempered.  This post will probably prove to be my most blatantly raw, controversial, and even aggressive.  Never mind angry.  But this is real.  This is real emotion, and this is the world we live in.  People feel these things every day.  We just chose not to cover it, express it, or engage with it.  We pretend it does not exist.  Well it does, and on that day, and at that moment, this is the way I expressed how I felt about life, society, and the pursuit of 'happiness'.


Fuck it.  How long can I do the exact same things over and over again and expect different results?  I have been looking for work for over three years.  I have virtually nothing to show for it.  The only thing I can is when I left this country and went someplace else.  It's a disaster.  I have put in application after application and have gotten nothing.  Now today, I just got official word that I did not get the job at this second hiking store which shall now be named:  REI.  I mean REALLY!?!?!?  Read through this blog.  I am a former two sport division I athlete, I played professionally in Europe, I've hiked all over the Appalachian trail, central Europe and Italy, not to mention Sierra Leone in Africa, and bike the city over.  I also have three years of athletic retail experience with running specialty stores.... and I can't get a job at REI!?!?!  WHAT THE FUCK.  This is unimaginable.  I go into that store and I have conversations with the people working there where I end up teaching them about their gear.  Camping, footwear (which I interviewed for), biking, whatever.  I know this stuff, I am completely and totally personable, I've got retail experience, yet I still can't get this job.  They are hiring 14 people for their store right now.  14 people, and I am not good enough to be one of them!?  There is no way that the people that they are interviewing and have hired have the knowledge and skill set that I do - especially if the people in the store already don't.  I am livid.  I've had enough.

I just want to yell and scream at everyone on of those people that thinks this shit is all simple and that the world somehow is easy.  That the unemployed are that only because of themselves.  That they should have no help.  That there should be no unemployment, no social safety nets.  That everyone should just be on their own and work hard.  Fuck you.  I've worked my ass off.  School, graduate school, two years working for a later to be known criminal that trapped me in a position to work endlessly for him while he did nothing, withheld pay, stalled my visa, etc.  I lost twenty pounds because I paid an organization in Prague I was managing first before I paid myself.  I did it again at Occupy when I went all in to try to raise awareness of the plight of so many people struggling.  I sold running shoes, officiated girls lacrosse, volunteered in local government, tried to fundraise for a political party, worked at a hiking store that is still yet to pay me.  I tried to start internet businesses, retail business, a non-profit - all require money and financing I can't seem to get.  I've worked 101 hour weeks at one time doing two jobs, I've burned the candle at both ends working and reading to get better.  I've done school after school, applied to PhD programs to no avail, traipsed all over the world trying to make myself a more marketable job candidate, lay alone nearly dead in a hospital bed with malaria just because I needed to have Africa experience on my resume to be marketable.  None of it has worked.

I have no permanent place to live, am living week to week and no money to find something.  I am stuck with a car I can't sell because when I had to buy it for a job, unbeknownst to me it needed a new transmission.  So now I owe $4500 on it and its worth $5000 minus a new transmission.  I'm behind on payments, but can't sell it, it could get towed any day for a couple of parking tickets.  I have student loans that I haven't paid in years.  When is it all going to end?  For how long do I keep doing the same thing and expecting it to be different.  I have no help, only no prospects.

To say, "I've made choices, I've put myself here".  Bull shit.  That is true on so many levels, but not even remotely all of them.  Yeah, I chose to go abroad when I was 24.  I chose to follow an atypical path, but I've had good jobs since then, but now there is nothing.  What's different.  The economy, the country.  And yet here we are whining about taxes and entitlement programs.  You know what.  How many people out there are like me?  Desperate, at the end of the rope.  How many people that can't stand are you willing to look in the eye and say, pull up your boot straps and work harder.  You tell me that to my face right now and I swear I'll tear every piece of that bull shit rhetoric apart.  That unemployment, food stamps, welfare, and the such are just a bunch of people looking for hand outs.  FUCK YOU.  I need help.  And we live in the only industrialized society of any merit that doesn't offer its citizens that.  A civilized society cares for itself and its community.  The United States of America is failing its citizens.  I can't get any help.  I applied for food stamps but need proof of address.  So if you're homeless you can't get them?  And they need a place to mail the forms to, whoops I can't get that because to get a PO box you have to be legal a resident somewhere and show them a lease or something official.  I don't have that.  I can't get mail, I can't get help, and I can't get a job.  I've put in over 500 job applications which I am apparently overqualified, underqualified, or differently qualified for.  But I'm sorry this is the last straw.  REI?!!?  I'm perfectly qualified for this job in every way except what?  YOU think I may not stay?  Huh, no one thinks I'll stay, yet I'm not qualified for any jobs that think I would stay.  My experience is specific and maybe not focused on the local issues other people might have experience in.  But I can't get a job.  I can't get an entry level job.  It's been so long.  I just can't keep doing this.

What do I have to offer to the world right now?  I'm an intelligent, educated and motivated man with sooo much to offer.  I just want to settle down and find a steady career, find someone special to share my life with and maybe have a family.  But what do I have to offer them?  Sorry, honey, I'm chronically unemployed, at the end of my tether, and about to lose it and go live in the woods.  I don't have the stability I need and want to offer the world.  How do I get it?  Everyone else has a solution, but no one an answer.  I can't change my resume or my history.  I won't lie.  And if this is my crime then our society is truly lost.

I don't know where else to turn.  I don't have the skills to be employed here it seems.  Entry level and retail won't hire me because they don't think I'll stay, yet I don't have the specific skills to get work I'm on a level to do.  Basically, I'm fucked.  It's been happening for three years and I can't take it anymore.  I need help.  I need something to stabilize me while I keep trying.  And for all of you libertarians and keep your hands of my money, don't tax me, figure your own shit on your own, I only care about myself people out there:  Fuck You.  I need help and I'm not too ashamed to admit it.  To bad you don't care about people in my situation.  You only care about yourselves.  After all, you were good enough to make it happen, to make yourself successful.  Well you know what?  We're not all as good as you.  We're not all as capable of doing the things you've been able to do.  I'm not good enough.  And apparently, given my experience and the job market, it looks like it's a little bit too late.  I can't start over and all of a sudden have those other things - whatever they are - that I apparently don't have right now.  So I'm the guy that falls through the cracks.  I'm the guy that our system - you - don't care to help.  It's not that usual one 13 baby having welfare mom that lives somewhere in the midwest that people always point to, it's the army of people like me that are dieing to just get some meaningful work.  I've pieced together a life for years now.  I can't do it anymore.    

My posts are starting to suck!

Usually I write a post at some point when an idea pops into my head, then I come back to it and edit it later.  I have been systematically going through these unpublished posts and trying to edit them and get them up dated when they were written.  What I am finding is that a lot of the ones that seem to have been written of late, as in the last couples months or so, are not very good.  I always felt for such a long time that there was a critical insight, an analysis that made sense and had a point in my writing.  Much of what I have just read though in the last couple days has been scattered and fragmented, with the point getting lost somewhere between start and end.

I used to write a great deal about the conflict within us and our society.  But that is not coming out in these posts of late.  I was out there in the world, doing, working, and critiquing.  Now I am mostly holed up in a basement trying desperately to find something to do, someplace to live.  I have to say that this is dispiriting and seems to be effecting me on a subconscious level.  It is amazing to read about the unemployed and about skills being lost, while I sit in a basement without any outlet to really use mine.  I don't think I am losing anything, in fact I feel like I am gaining perspective and a deeper understanding of struggle, nevermind desire and drive (that feels more like desperation, lol).  This additional contextual clarity will aid me some day, but still, the things I am editing right now need rewriting not editing. 

Where was I when I wrote those things?  Both literally and cognitively?  Was I out and about, writing on my phone maybe?  Or more importantly, what was my mindset?  Perhaps I am or was scattered to the point of desperation.  When you have a million things to do, you just do them.  It is the stress of all these things that makes you unable to get them done, not the tasks themselves.  When that stress takes the form of not knowing where you will live, how you will pay for food, and what the future holds, not to mention the stress of the loss of a special someone all at once, things seem easily scattered. 

Basically, I guess what I am saying is there is little coherent social critique in emotions.  My feelings of stress from a lack of employment and the subsequent prospect of homelessness are just that: raw feelings.  They are not analysis.  Granted, if I could turn those feelings into an analysis of themselves, where they come from and why, I would be looking at avenues for alleviating the issues generating that stress.  But I think it takes a clear mind to provide solid analysis, and when you are worrying about food and shelter, that clarity of mind doesn't readily exist.  You become desperate, reaching for things that you think could solve those emotions, rather than the fog that makes them worse.  You want permanence and career jobs rather than the retail or server work that can replace your short term desperation with longer term despair.  But what then when they meld together over years?  Struggle compounds.    

I am seeing this transition of self expressive capacity - the the wavering between analytical writing, and desperation and the discombobulation of a page - and can't help but wonder how we can still talk about doing away with things like school lunch programs, public housing, and other such "entitlement programs" that so directly affect children coming from disadvantaged homes.  How could they not be affected?  How could they be considered to have the same opportunities as others?  When you go home to a nice happy home with a family, food, and human security, you wake up the next morning ready to go back to school - homework done, familially supported, relaxation time had.  But what about those without that?  I can physically see the toll its taken on me - and I'm an adult!  Imagine a 7 or 8 year old kid without food or stability?  Of course it is going to affect their outputs.

Anyway, again, I'm all over the place.  There is a lot of stress on me, as there is on the millions of un/under employed and poor in this country and world.  Those of you with jobs and wealth don't see it, you don't see the struggle, the pain.  You don't see the strength it takes every day.  You just want to tell us how easy it is and what to do to make it all work.  As if I had complete and total control over someone else giving me a job.  Bottom line is, there just aren't enough jobs out there for everyone, many of those that are don't pay living wages or offer career value, and there isn't enough money to get funding to start your own.  Whether I can do the work or not doesn't matter.  My biggest task has become dealing with the pain and stress of not knowing what's going to happen next...

Sympathy accepted, job interviews rewarded!!   



 

Local Development

So on Wednesday night I met for nearly two hours with Ed Lynch the city of Newburgh's Director of Planning and Development.  It was quite a good conversation.  He is a former Peace Corps volunteer that has done a decent amount of work in South America (which immediately put us on the right page).  He most recently spent 17 years in a similar position in New Rochelle and seems to have turned that city in a positive direction in terms of crime, quality of life, and economics - this includes a 40 story Trump tower there.  When I was growing up, New Rochelle did not have a good reputation, yet it seems to now.  So if blanketed results are the measure of "success", he seems to have been successful in "New Ro".  I am not sure of the specifics of how it was done, and who flourished and/or was marginalized in the process, but he has a record of change. 

While Ed did have some very interesting thoughts and ideas regarding my work in Africa, we spent most of the time on Newburgh.  Just to put a few things out there, the city had a 25% tax increase in 2010, and will have anywhere from a 61-74% tax increase this year.  The city had to borrow millions of dollars from New York State just to pay the salaries for its workers for the end of 2010.  Also (and I heard this elsewhere), there is also discussion of dissolving the City of Newburgh entirely.  Yes, just shutting the whole thing down.  It would then have to be absorbed into the Town of Newburgh - which doesn't seem to be very interested in taking over this disaster.  There has been previous mismanagement of state and federal money's due to lack of manpower and maybe even incompetence to the point that some of this money may have to be given back.  Ten's of thousands of dollars of money being wasted on national searches for individual positions, and then local behind the scenes hirings from the old-boy network.  Corruption or the implication of it, seems to be either a common perception or an assumed undercurrent in everything.  There is no supermarket, there is no pharmacy, public transport is minuscule, the streets are dilapidated, the underground economy is rampant, yesterday saw 31 gang members indicted - including three on separate murder charges, and there is no money to do anything about any of it, never mind hope.  Suffice it to say, "Newburgh" gets worse every day...  I can't even fathom how a city like this can provide virtually no services to its citizens.  It is amazing.  

Maybe we should set up a plywood factory? :(

So what next?  The city has brought in new blood to try to right the ship.  Ed is among many new faces.  He claims that 60-70% of the department heads are new and they are trying to change both the culture of the administration and a gross history of financial mismanagement.  They mostly seem to be coming from successful areas in the lower Hudson Valley.  Ed, seems to me to be a person that has a good head on his shoulders and some quality experience to lean on.  Word on the streets about him though is quite skeptical (but then again, pretty much all the words on the street in Newburgh are skeptical).  He has been in office for seven months and it is claimed by some that the stances he seems to be taking don't necessarily back up some of my initial perceptions of him.  But everyone has a point and an agenda, and Ed's position is one of trying to balance all of these.  There are inherently going to be people that don't agree with what is done.  He is part of an institution, a bureaucratic and deeply ingrained developmental institution that resonates throughout the entire US and world socio-economic system.  I for one, as most readers here know, am interested in alternative ideas and new ways of thinking.  

As with anything, I am not going to jump in and use other's interpretations to run with. Time on the ground and local interaction is the only true to way to come to independent conclusion.  There is always a million ways to do things, and within them there is never a "right" answer.  So Newburgh, I will continue to learn all I can about you, your people, and your culture...  It is going to be a fun ride. 
 

Back on the ground and walking...

So I've written this once, and thanks again to blogger, lost it all.  So we'll have to write it again, and with less time for it. 

I spent the day yesterday in Newburgh.  It was so nice to get back on foot, learning at the real pace of life...  I had a meeting set up in the afternoon and sandwiched some other informal discussion and touristing around it.  I started with the library where I was hoping to find some information or statistics on local situations, economics, crime, etc.  They really don't have anything of the sort, only a local history section, and in fact the city doesn't even have anything either.  I did however get sent to talk to the library's two people that work on outreach programs.  I had a very nice informal chat with them about the city and the goings on.  They recommended a few places worth looking into that I will get into later today or tomorrow as I have meetings over there both days.  I also met another gentlemen that works with Latinos Unidos and came to visit one of the Library workers that works with them.  They rent office space for under $300 dollars a month on broadway there in Newburgh.  They said the incorporation process was long, like five years for them.  I can't see how that is, but they are all volunteer so maybe it took a while longer. 

From there I went to my meeting with Community Voices Heard.  This meeting went quite well despite the standard overworked and no time having staff that you tend to find in non-profits.  I really liked what they are doing, trying to bring the community closer together in terms of political voice.  Some of the things that they want to do in terms of material outputs and opportunities are things that I had already been thinking about.  They could certainly be someone worth communicating and cooperating with regularly.  But I will be careful not to align myself with anyone, especially in the beginning.  From all discussion thus far it seems that sides have been taken and things are quite obstinate there.  On a positive note, I also did get to speak to two of the members of Community Voices that came in during the discussion, and while the meeting did leave many of my questions unasked, I got a little more back in terms of community input than I expected.  The meeting left a lot wanting, which is a good thing...

On the way to that meeting though I had a chance to wonder the streets a bit.  I tell you what...  Newburgh is a disaster.  I would not feel it to be a stretch at all to say that  every third building is boarded up and vacant where I was.  At Community Voices they said that the city owned something like 200 vacant properties - in a city of 4 square miles!  This doesn't even include derelict privately owned buildings.  It shows.  The streets are all but vacant (at least until it got dark), and there is this air of hopelessness that wafts through the air.  There is so much to be done.

I stopped and chatted with a cop for a few minutes as well, speaking of hopelessness.  Now, I would expect a cop to be cynical, but he said flat out: "not gonna happen, never."  He'd been working for 17 years in Newburgh, and sees no hope: "They don't want to make it better, they like the lifestyle."  "They want their handouts and they will use violence to get them".  Amazing, yet unsurprising.  Can anyone find me a cop in any city in the world that is optimistic?!  They are surrounded every day by the criminals of society, so they don't see the hope.  But everyone has it somewhere.  He did say though that, within a four block radius of where we were standing that there had been 8 murders in three years.  "Blood alley" he called it.  The street we were standing on was where they FBI made most of its arrests in the 76 person gang sting last year. 

So after those and some other words of warning, I headed on my way - wondering how in the world they would ever get people or business to locate in the city with a sales pitch like that!  This was a general theme of a lot that day.

There was however one certainly amusing moment for me on my way back to the car.  I walked by a group of youngish guys in front of a store.  I of course made my friendly eye contact and a nod.  One kid then came running over with a bootleg DVD, "The Mechanic" with my brother from another mother Jason Statham in the leading role.  I laughed, and said with a smile, yeah but do you accept EBT?  He looked at me with this puzzled look of incomprehension on his face.  Food Stamps... I said, breaking him away from his puzzlement.  A startled shiver came across his face, like, wait, but this doesn't make sense, this dude's white!!  lol!!  Yes my friend, we're all poor in one way or another these days...        

They haven't eaten all day...

Hhmmm... Can't figure out what to write for the title. I'm hungry. But not as much as these kids I'm staying with must be. I came home and usually there is food cooking or ready. Not today. No money was left for food today, so no food was to be had. They havn't eaten all day. They needed 7000 leones, $1.75 for all ten of us to eat. I gave them 10000, and it was like the alarm at the firestation had just rang. They all scatered, some for water, some for food, some to get the fire started. They were hungry, but with no complaints. This is life, their life. As the one person here said, we eat when there is food. Up to now there has been plenty, but not today... And now as I write this, it is raining. They cook outside over a fire, now they cook outside in the rain... Insult to injury...

It seems wrong to write about the other worries of my day now, but I will as it is one of the main things i'm here to do. Oh.. And pouring now!!

So I started early this morning. Straight to reading how bricks are made. Fun stuff!! ;) but whether I like bricks or not, I want to help, I want to rebuild, and this makes me a brick man for now!! I went over to the expat hangout again today. Its the only place with power, and I can blend in as if I'm a hotel guest. Pretty much only white contract workers there - to expensive for everyone else.

I spent the day reading about this machine we will hopefully get and taking this information and turning it into a business plan/costing sheet for Kaps and Kevin to research this week. We've got to get someone in here that knows how to make bricks though. It all has to be just right. They seem to think we can just make it happen, but we need expertise. And that is exactly what it is all about with this type of thing, its not whether you can do it, but whether you can get people together that can. I'm trying.

Otherwise it was like little England today. I was surrounded by bright white brits baking by the pool, and english premier league football (soccer). I wish I was surrounded by american football!! No such luck.

Very interesting these expats. Always talking about how great the "package" is. Here for short high paid stints. Not for a cause, not to help - at least much more than themselves. Not all, but virtually all. And not all brits here, but virtually all.

Africa minerals is building a single use train line from their Tonkolili iron mine (aparently will be the biggest iron mine in the world) straight to Freetown. No one else will use the train, only them. And it's immense. Looks like they are building a full interstate highway. And that's actually what the locals think. They think they'll get to use it. Nope. It is strictly so Africa Minerals can take down an entire mountain set, cart it to port, and ship it off to the highest bidder.

They've brought in workers from all over the world, even others from Africa, but don't seem to be using much from Sierra Leone. Rumor has it they will provide 11000 jobs, but I see few so far, I'm sure they will come. They will pay laborers to mine for 5000 leones a day - $1.25 - and then they will sell the iron for billions and make lots of people in the UK and wherever very rich. Taking Sierra Leone's resources and leaving only a few dollars behind for the people while they watch football and drink imported beer. There is something wrong with this, at least to me...

Struggles?

I just came across a new study that shows Sierra Leone as about the ninth worst national in the world in terms of poverty.  The Multidimensional Poverty Index is a very interesting study that gets beyond dollars and cents, and into what people actually have and how they live.  There is a brief country report on Sierra Leone right here.

If I am reading it correctly in skimming through it, the main areas effecting poverty the most in Sierra Leone come in the living standard part - electricity, sanitation, water, cooking fuel, floors, personal assets - but also in deficient schooling and child mortality.  According to this study 81% of Sierra Leoneans are in poverty - 4.4 million people.  That is the population of the Greater Boston area.  Imagine if the entire Boston metropolitan area was in the deepest depths of poverty.

Boylston Street?

Boston Harbor...  tea anyone?

A villa in Lexington or Concord?

The view from Plymouth Rock?

Paul Revere getting ready for a midnight ride?

This would never be stood for in the United States, yet across the ocean, we let it slide...

Asked again, Why Sierra Leone...

I was asked again last night "why Sierra Leone when there are so many people here in the US that need help?".  Watch the video below...  I feel bad about my disgust with this question as the people that ask it are good intelligent people, but it really bothers me.  We, as a collective whole, have no concept here in the US of what "needing help" really is.  Our education and media systems gloss over the struggles beyond our borders (unless it directly effects our national security or economic goals), and our social focus looks directly past other people and to our own seemingly fragile selves, our own unstable plights in times of economic 'crisis'.  Yet "Crisis" here, still means a MUCH better life than most people in the world.  Has our success made us entitled?  Does it absolve us of our humanity?  Our responsibility and compassion for others?

Life becomes easier when we ignore and push down our physical emotions.  We are mostly taught that it is their fault, that 'we' rose above, and that it is not wholly our concern - despite that it is our 'democratically' run country, and thus its people, that leads a globalized world that benefits us tremendously.

We are human, we have hearts, we have souls, we are made of compassion.  And that compassion does not and should not have a boundary that extends only as far as our national borders, but should extend as far as our hearts will take them - infinitely - to all places and to all people...


    
www.walkinglion.org

The Big Picture

Given a comment that I received on one post it seems that I should bump up in order of importance a post about what the ultimate goal of this whole scenario is in terms of meaning and methods.  Some of this was touched upon in 'Why Sierra Leone?'.  But to elaborate, the ultimate goal with this project is not just about Sierra Leone, it is not about child soldiers, or human trafficking, or any other specific micro issue that one might put their finger on.  The issue here is humanity.  Take a step back and look at the world in broad terms.  Less than one billion people live in 'the West', yet this area dominates the world and its socio-economic directions.  The rest of humanity has been forced/enticed into following our ways based on the material outcomes of our society.  The problem with all of this is that in order to maintain our level of dominance we in the West have had to expropriate numerous resources - both raw, manufactured, and human - from less 'developed' areas of the world.  We are doing this at great cost to the local populations and society at large.  We need to rethink our way of living together and the way we produce and reproduce things.


   
This project in Sierra Leone is not just a hiking project, it is not just a non-profit project for Sierra Leone, it is the foundational element in working towards finding an alternative way of doing things.  One that finds a balance between the individual and the community.  Communism focused on the community, and it failed for a myriad of different reasons.  Capitalism may have 'out produced' communism, and all other systems for that matter, but when I look at the world right now I do not see a blissfully utopian scenario.  I see a place where, according to the HIIK Conflict Barometer (for interactive map click here) for 2009, 365 countries maintained active conflicts: 108 latent conflicts, 114 manifest conflicts, 112 crisis, 24 severe crisis, and 7 wars.  Where the world has billions of people in need of clean food and water and estimates at the percentage of people living in 'poverty' usually starts at 25% (thats over 1.5 billion people or 5 United States - picture the entire country in poverty, x 5 !!).  The rich areas of the world and countries push around those with less and they do this by militaristic and economic bullying.  

It is very difficult to look at the world as a whole and say that it is a good place and that the Capitalist direction - based on supremacy of the individual - is going to make things better for more than a few.  We don't do much for other places or communities, because our system does not directly reward it for ourselves or our communities.  This is specifically the longer term goals of this project, to work towards finding a way for society to develop and excel in a way that favors a balance between both the individual and the community and creates a motivational and reward system from within the localized system.  When an individual does something to benefit themselves the system should also provide rewards for it to benefit the community, and vice versa.  A symbiotic relationship.

We plan to do this in practice by creating a business structure that will work to balance these rewards and motivations.  The initial entity of ownership in a business/production scenario will be the non-profit (later to be named).  This separate business entity will then grant ownership and/or controlling rights to its workers (as part of their pay or a similar scenario) and also to the local community via buy in.  Non-profit "x" would maintain a stake for a time as well and act as an incubator of sorts.  But not solely as a business incubator, but as a structural incubator designed to initiate and then maintain this symbiotic balance between company, individual, and community.  


It is an elaborate concept, that I won't get wholly into yet here.  But the outcome should be a company that is   controlled in equal aspects by the community, its workers, and the 'investor'/'incubator' (though not permanently).  The company itself would function in a manner similar to a non-profit in that profits would not go to enrich the individual stakeholders.  All proceeds would be reinvested into either the company or the community.  The stakeholders benefit is more in regards to an aspect of control than financial gain.

The principle is to create a non-governmental organization based in a specific locality that would work as an engine for the local community.  The business itself would function as any 'typical' business, working to maximize efficiency and incentivize employees in a way to be competitive in the marketplace, but its 'shareholders' (though there would be definite restrictions on transferability, etc) would not be motivated by individual profit seeking, but in terms of individual professional and subsequent local community gains.  The profits would go to provide many things considered today to be public works or 'state' provisions - sewage, roads, security, parks, clean water, etc.  The community will have a huge stake in what the company does as it is their ticket to better public works, yet it is a private entity run locally by the workers, community and external and/or local investors investors.  The business will be set up to sustain business operations, employ local people, and to facilitate local infrastructure and socio-economic development on all levels from roads to parks.  A symbiotic relationship between the business, the community, and the individual.

I am not sure that this makes a great deal of sense as I have only brushed the surface of it and there is still a great deal of work to be done on this concept.  But I believe it is a positive pathway to continue down and one that perhaps in time could eventually work as a starting point or even societal model for sustainable and productive socio-economic development.

Why Sierra Leone?

I was posed a very good question last night and thought that I should answer here on this page as well.

"You are from the US, what about looking to help the people right here in this country that need it as well?"

 I was caught a bit off guard by the question and I'm not sure why.  I ended up with pretty much a three tiered answer.  Firstly, I do not see myself as an "American".  I know that nationalism is ingrained within us all from an early age - and not just into American's, but into just about everyone.  National pride, the Olympics, holidays, school history lessons, wars, they are all laced with a "what's within our borders" versus/in comparison to "what's within their borders".  I struggle with this because, A, I am trying to minimize as much competition in life as I can, and B, what makes a person born on one side of a line in the sand more or less valuable than someone born on the other?  I consider myself a 'citizen of the world' (Though I hate the cliché), and more importantly I view us all as equal partners in both humanity and our whole ecosystem.  I believe that we all need and deserve compassion and 'human' security as much as anyone else, no matter where we come from or live.

Secondly, and probably most importantly to me, ties directly into the first one.  As I see us all as being of equal worth, then effort should strictly be based on need.  I am poor by US standards, yet I have food, shelter, familial support, education, security, etc.  There are a tremendous amount of people in the US struggling these days - especially given the economic situation we currently face - but imagine what this recession is doing to people in the developing world that rely on US and European investment when there isn't even money being spent here?  Where do they sell their goods when consumer spending is down in the rich countries?  People in poorer countries were, and are, far worse off in terms of basic human needs (as judged by our Western measures).  A great one of these measures is the UN's Human Development Report.  Just think about this, when adjusted for purchasing power (PPP) the average person makes 679 US dollars in one year!!  (in terms of per capita GDP - dividing the population of the country by it's total dollar value output). They measure it all equally in terms of what it can by, looking at each country on one scale.

Now imagine that for yourself?!   If you make $679 in one month in the US you are desperately poor, that is $8,148 annually.  Now imagine a family of four, five, six... making that for the whole year!!  The people in these developing world countries are truly poor.  Not what we consider 'poor' here in the US, we make $45,592 per year in per capita GDP and consider a family of four to be poor if they make under $22,050 annually.  The US is a very rich country (8th in terms of per capita GDP), and it ranks 13th out of 182 countries in the world as measured by the Human Development Report.  Sierra Leone ranks 180th.  Third from last.  That means that statistically speaking, of the 6.8 billion people in this world there are only .006% of people live a worse life than those in Sierra Leone.  99.99% of the world population lives at a higher standard of living than Sierra Leoneans.  They truly need the assistance more than we do.

I should also say though that it pains me to have to 'prioritize' or 'triage' the situation like this.  I read a statistic several years ago that said that 2 billion people will go either without adequate food or clean water that year - and this is a global phenomena that touches even the US.  You can go to either the South Bronx or Appalachia and you will see destitute people.  People that could use help.  Yet they have outlets, social services, food stamps, homeless shelters, educational and training services, etc.  These services are grossly inadequate in my view, but this is what a social welfare system does and can do, it helps to provide for those in need.  In Sierra Leone, none of these services exist, there is not social safety net - and they really need it.

This line of volatile thinking above segway's well into my third point.  I think that if anyone wants to help the US and its poor, that it is never going to start in this country.  The entire system is way to engrained with the arrogancy of itself.  The US is the world's super power.  It is a fully established socio-economic entity that has lead the world for a century.  It views democratic capitalism as the victor, and its political, cultural, and economic systems are far too entrenched to be able to change or experiment with on any level.  Just think of the American political debate, red v. blue, liberals v. conservatives, republicans v. democrats, and NO ONE wants to hear what they other side is saying.  There are no alternatives, mainstream or otherwise, especially and truly revolutionary ones!!    Intractable ideology and closed minds.  Need I say anything more than simply refer to the New York and California State budgets?

America is a mess, but one with such fortified positions and issues, that it is virtually unnavigable.  I believe that to bring about any change in America it is going to taken proven results from elsewhere, and a collapse of the American system and its subsequent standing in the world - which some would say is currently happening.  However, with no alternative pathways for human development and security on a larger scale right now, we are left wanting.  This is where my interests lie, looking to create new pathways to human development that break free of current ideological constraints.

This project is not just about Sierra Leone, it is about the US, it is about Europe, Asia, Africa, the whole of the Americas, everywhere.  Sierra Leone is a place that I have studied and have developed an affinity for.  It is a small country of just under 6 million people that has been devastated by a recent civil war and has a relatively cleanish slate build upon.  Yet it still maintains incredibly proud traditions and history as it was created to be a home for freed slaves, and was once considered the "Athens of West Africa".  Projects undertaken there are not only to assist the local population, but can also be used to learn from and then to be used elsewhere.  If some of the ideas that we are working with can become successful, then the whole world could benefit from them in time - including the United States.  Think local, act global.