[Mb-civic] Empowering the poor - David T. Ellwood - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

Empowering the poor

By David T. Ellwood  |  September 27, 2005

IT TOOK A terrible hurricane, but the poor in America, who have 
languished largely unmentioned by politicians of both parties, are 
visible once again. President Bush called upon the nation to ''confront 
this poverty with bold action." Bold action is precisely what is called 
for -- and courageous action as well. For even with the president's 
pledges and resolve, we are poised at the edge of ignoring the lessons 
of Katrina and missing a historic opportunity to tackle the deeper 
causes of poverty.

The obvious lesson that some people are already grasping is that 
evacuation and rescue plans need to take account of the enormous variety 
of people and the sharply limited resources of many. There is far less 
room for error when people are living on the margin. Families who wonder 
how they will get through the end of the month (and Katrina hit on Aug. 
29!) do not head down to Home Depot for plywood, load up the minivan, 
and then drive to a motel. People without cars and cash were left 
largely on their own to find their way out or get to an ill-prepared 
Superdome.

But the overriding lesson about poverty is much deeper. Many of the poor 
in New Orleans were left on rooftops for the same reason they were 
isolated in ghetto neighborhoods on the days before the storm: There was 
no realistic way out. The painful truth is that through policy choices, 
racism, class antagonisms, and neglect, we have concentrated the poor 
into dangerous areas with limited jobs, poor schools, no real employment 
networks, too few role models, and too few routes to the mainstream.

Our last significant effort to deal with the poor was welfare reform. 
The plan was to solve poverty by moving people from welfare to work. The 
old public assistance system was never the root cause of poverty, but it 
certainly did little to help people move ahead. The reforms did indeed 
move many into the workforce. Poverty fell sharply, but it has started 
rising again. What Katrina put in such stark relief is that for many, 
the move to work by itself did not move them very far along the ladder 
toward real security and independence.

The rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast offers a truly unique 
opportunity to begin tackling some of these much larger dilemmas. 
President Bush calls for more opportunities for homeownership, 
incentives for small businesses -- including minority-owned business -- 
and Worker Recovery Accounts to provide funds for training or child care.

While these can be positive steps, they really are not as novel or as 
bold as this catastrophe demands. The massive scale of destruction 
offers an opportunity to give the poor a real chance to learn skills and 
get jobs that can take them up the ladder, to find ways to deconcentrate 
poverty, and to create vastly more viable neighborhoods.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/09/27/empowering_the_poor/
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