A Holistic Way For Dealing With Suburban Poverty

http://www.citylab.com/2014/10/how-to-tackle-growing-suburban-poverty/382104

Baker-Ripley Neighborhood Center
Houston, Texas
houston.eventful.com

Hello Everyone:

Today we are going to look at something a little less weighty, suburban poverty.  In particular, what the City of Houston, Texas is doing about it.  Amanda Kolson Hurley's recent article for CityLab titled "How to Tackle Growing Suburban Poverty," looks at how Houston's neighborhood centers are addressing a growing, yet hidden, problem across the United States.  When we think of the suburbs, the image that often comes to mind is affluence.  This idyllic vision has taken quite a beating in the past several with the collapse of the home mortgage industry.  Ms. Kolson Hurley paints this picture,

Think of a nonprofit that serves the poor, and the first image that comes to mind will likely be distinctly urban: an old, brick YMCA building, maybe with a neon sign announcing it to passerby, or the line for a soup kitchen spilling onto a city side street.

Ever since European immigrant flooded into American cities in the lat 19th century, the charitable organizations that serve the vulnerable have clustered in urban centers,  After World War II, white flight and the explosive growth of the suburbs only served to sharpen the divide.  The suburbs were doing fine, it was long assumed, while hollowed-out cities needed help. 

Right?

Neighborhood Center
cbofinancial.com

Now, the situation is reversed; city centers are experiencing a revival and the suburbs are seeing a quickly growing poverty rate.  Experts in the field are concerned that the traditional urban safety net that low-income people rely upon may not be enough to meet the needs of suburbia.  Ms. Kolson Hurley wonders, "...How do you get to a distant clinic or food bank when there's no bus, and you don't have a car?  Can vast counties and unincorporated towns rally to the aid of their neediest residents?"  She points to the success of one Houston area nonprofit organization, Neighborhood Centers, which offers an example of how to alleviate poverty and build communities throughout a sprawling urban region.

Clinic entry at a Neighborhood Center
picthepix.com

The nonprofit Neighborhood Centers was established in 1907 as the Houston Settlement Association, part of the Settlement House Movement which tried to improved the condition of the urban poor through education and social welfare.  Neighborhood Centers is currently the largest nonprofit in Texas, with more than seventy locations spread out over sixty counties, serving about half a million people annually.  The size of the organization is not merely an indicator of need, but has become a potent tool on its own.  Quoting CEO Angela Blanchard, "Over the years, we've learned there are advantages to size...You can take on big regional challenges like helping people settle into Houston who came here after [Hurricane] Katrina."

Angela Blanchard
CEO Neighborhood Centers
speakerpedia.com

Dealing with regional problems means having to wring funds from a myriad of governments, agencies, foundations, and other sources.  Neighborhood Centers's skill in wresting efficiency from necessity has earned it praise from both the Brookings Institute and the White House.  The organization has also been able to take advantage of its size, enabling them to take a more holistic approach to providing a broad range of services to assist whole families.  Quoting Margie Peña, who works at the Cleveland-Ripley Center in Pasadena, Texas, "It's not unusual for us to work with families of five generations, all at one time."

Integrated services breed success: Parents are able to get help with tax preparation or sign up of English as a Second Language class, if they are conveniently located in the same place as their children's charter school.  Further, integrated services is an absolute necessity for helping clients reach specific goals.  For example, passing the General Education Development exam in Texas requires both academic preparation and computer literacy-the exam is computer based.  Fortunately, the Neighborhood Centers can help achieve this goal.  Ms. Blanchard stresses, "...most of the nonprofit's working-age clients are in the workforce: Houston has a low unemployment rate.  But they tend to be underemployed, and in an era of rising inequality, can't ascent the ladder to middle class."  More succinctly. "We have a very large number of people working very hard to be poor."

Baker-Ripley aerial
concordia.com

One of the key issues the Neighborhood Centers regularly contend with is some of their clients have a limited grasp of the English language, an obstacle to their earning potential.  Ms. Kolson Hurley cites the Migration Policy Institute statistic, "Greater Houston has close to 1 million people with limited English proficiency...they are more likely to live in poverty." (http://www.migrationpolicy.org)  Other clients work two and cannot spare the time or the monetary outlay to develop their skill.  Neighborhood Centers instituted a new program that would help with cost of living expenses while they go to school or attend training.

Children playing in front of a Neighborhood Center
flickr.com

 The staff understands that poverty is multi-faceted, thus strategies to combat it are diverse and sometimes surprising.  Sometimes the best way up the socio-economic ladder is buying a car.  Purchasing a car, increases a person's access to employment in an area with little mass transit.  According to Ms. Blanchard, "The No. 1 product of our credit union is a car loan."  However, what really sets the nonprofit apart is its philosophy, which rejects the idea that underscores so much of philanthropic work: "that places where poor people live are inherently broken and need fixing."  Rather, the organization makes us of "appreciative inquiry," a method that assesses the strengths of a particular community through resident interviews, then collaboratively builds upon them to develop an action plan.  Once an action plan is put in motion, the outcome is rigorously monitored.

Gulfton/Sharpstown Neighborhood Center
Houston, Texas
asakurarobinson.net

One example is the Gulfton area of southwest Houston.  The area is best known for its high crime and gang activity.  In conducting their "appreciative inquiry," the Neighborhood Center discovered a community culture defined by strong family values and parents who worked hard to give their children a better life.  The collaboration with the Gulfton community resulted in the opening of a Baker-Ripley campus in 2010, one of five full-blown centers in the metropolitan Houston area.

The village-style campus has become the type of center that many suburban communities are wont.  The campus features: a charter school, health clinic, credit union and tax preparation center, immigration information center, classroom, a community green field, and more all based on resident input.  Transportation was a major issue, therefore, a bus service is available to take residents to where they need to be.  Amanda Kolson Hurley cites the recent Houston Chronicle comment calling the center, "the keystone of a revival of the Gulfton area."

Houston, Texas aerial view
city-data.com

All of this is fantastic news for Houston and there is another reason the policy experts and President Obama are paying attention.  Ms. Kolson Hurley cites Jennifer Bradley of the Brookings Institute, "Houston is America on demographic fast-forward."  As proof, in the first decade of the millennium, Houston's foreign-born population blossomed 48 percent.  Sixty percent of metropolitan Houston's population are people of color.  In the past few decades, suburban areas such as Pasadena have transformed from overwhelming white, middle class to majority-minority coupled with a significant rise in poverty.  According to demographers, this is a harbinger of things to come.

Amanda Kolson Hurley gushes, "So it's fascinating to hear what Blanchard has to say about the 'new' problem of suburban poverty.  For her and her organization, it's not new at all.  'It's never been that of a picture...'"  Ms. Blanchard points to policies that were implemented in cities such as Washington when the reverse was true.  She also believed that county officials in Texas fully comprehend that they have poverty.  In other parts of the country, this awareness is beginning to catch on.  Houston can looked on as a model for dealing with suburban poverty.  It is a wonderful model worth emulating.