People’s Economic Stimulus Plan

The People’s Economic Stimulus Plan

Operation Welcome Home
Madison, Wisconsin
July 24, 2009

Contact: Cynthia Lin (M.S. Urban and Regional Planning) at 608-695-3757 | operationwelcomehome@gmail.com

What is the People’s Economic Stimulus Plan? The People’s Economic Stimulus Plan is an articulation of the problems and solutions around homelessness, unemployment, and affordable housing, as they have been identified by people most affected by these issues. Rather than a direct response to or analysis of how economic stimulus programs have been implemented at federal and local levels, the Plan offers a grassroots perspective of the foundations that are necessary to support social justice and economic resilience from the ground on up. As community members, constituents, and taxpayers these are our messages of hope for all of the Madison community. We hope that this Plan is a work-in-progress and the beginning of sustainable and fertile partnerships.

Summary of the People’s Economic Stimulus Plan
• Because of the inconsistent lives of homeless people and the histories that lead to homelessness;
• Because we seek to invest in people as SOLUTIONS and not PROBLEMS, recognizing that BEHAVIOR can be problematic but PEOPLE are not;
• Because of ongoing legacies of historic racism and criminal justice disparities;
• Because of a lack of support for Mental Health Issues, AODA issues and adequate education;
• Because of the recent recession and downturn in the economy;
• Because of a stratification of wealth where the richest rich are continuing to get richer, and rather than creating opportunities for all of us as theorized by the concept of “trickle down economics” the money that the rich make accumulates for them alone, and the poor are getting poorer:

We propose the People’s Economic Stimulus Plan. The Plan is comprised of four interrelated approaches:

1. Support and strengthen programming and leadership development activities for homeless people in public spaces and community spaces
2. Support and strengthen Housing First programs
3. Support plans for developing a community-based cultural center with a Day Labor Program
4. Follow the leadership of a “Homeless Clients’ Advisory Council” to engage in discussion and planning with agencies, services, and policies affecting homeless people.

About Operation Welcome Home (OWH):
Operation Welcome Home (OWH) is an organization of homeless people and their allies in Madison organizing around the root causes of homelessness. We are fighting for affordable housing, jobs, and an end to the criminalization of poverty. We are homeless and formerly homeless, low and no-income, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people working in collaboration with community allies. OWH is a program of Freedom, Inc., a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that address violence against women, youth empowerment, and racial and economic justice in low-income communities of color in Madison.

Operation Welcome Home began in July 2007, when an endeared member of the homeless community, Miss Arlene, passed away at Brittingham Park. People who lived in and used the park shelter started to get together to respond to the criminalization and stereotyping of homeless people. Since then, OWH has been successful in creating power by self-determination, so that homeless people can speak for ourselves in determining the needs of our community and how best to meet them! OWH holds weekly meetings, in which we work to develop leadership skills, organizing skills, and political education. For more information, please visit: www.operationwelcomehome.info.

Plan Process:
This Plan reflects two years of dialogue within the Madison homeless community, and with allies and community partners. We have had weekly meetings during these two years to identify problems and solutions around the root causes of homelessness. Questions addressed during these meetings include: How did you become homeless (and/or unemployed)? What keeps you homeless (and/or unemployed)? What efforts have you made to get off the streets, and what are the barriers? What kinds of support does your community need? What changes (and to what/whose responsibility) do you see need to happen for those kinds of support to exist? What can we do to participate in those changes?

The Plan also incorporates issues that have been identified through OWH’s participation in planning, coordinating, and visioning activities about homelessness and affordable housing. These include: Homeless Services Consortium and other coordinating activities facilitated by the City of Madison Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program; the People’s Affordable Housing Vision facilitated by the Affordable Housing Action Alliance (AHAA); collaboration with Madison-area Urban Ministries (MUM), Freedom, Inc., Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice (ICWJ), and other community organizations. Our proposals are inspired by Housing First initiatives, Day Labor Programs, and other homelessness and economic justice efforts in other cities (including San Francisco Day Labor Program, Voz Worker Rights Education Center in Portland, Seattle Housing First programs, among others).

I. INTRODUCTION:
THE NEED FOR THE PEOPLE’S ECONOMIC STIMULUS PLAN

In a time of deep economic recession and insecurity, poor and chronically homeless people are most vulnerable due to the decrease in already scarce opportunities, pressures to cut key services and basic needs, and a climate of fear.
The current crisis is the consequence of failed economic, social and political relationships that are national scope, and the consequences are borne on the backs of the poor in all local communities. We need to take a close look at changing these relationships as the only way to move beyond perpetual instability, insecurity and scarcity, which is masked by moments of economic upturn for an elite portion of the general population.

That said, we would also like to emphasize that poor people have been experiencing recession during their entire lives. We need support for ground-up solutions in the face of on-going threats to community self-determination, which include: the criminalization of homelessness and poverty, displacement, and the lack of efforts to engage people in decision-making as solutions rather than as problems.

Criminalization of homelessness and poverty

During the fall and winter of 2007-08, Operation Welcome Home members and allies met regularly with a roundtable of city agencies, police, and homeless services partners, facilitated by mayoral Aide Joel Plant. While the people around the table expressed many different views about approaches to homelessness, we found that we—from police officers to social service workers to city staff to OWH organizers—agreed strongly on one principle: Policing cannot be the only solution that we rely on to address homelessness.

In spite of this affirmation, we’ve seen an ongoing criminalization of homeless and low-income people—or those who fit this profile, especially people of color. There are two intertwined root causes to this: One is the prevailing negative perception of homeless people as criminals and ¬¬bums who are unwilling to help themselves, get a job, or be positive members of society. This contributes to the second, police targeting of low-income people and people of color for being present in public places and/or trying to meet their basic needs. OWH members report being ticketed, arrested, and/or harassed by law enforcement for offenses which include: “unlawful use of bus shelter,” “lounging in a park,” “spitting,” loitering near a bus stop, and sleeping in public areas. This criminalization only intensified with highly publicized police and community responses to the tragic murders of Joe Marino and Brittany Zimmerman in Spring 2008. The media attention was spread nationwide and a fear campaign targeted those of us here in Madison who appeared to be homeless. We were shunned by neighbors and profiled and harassed by the police. We were used once again as a vulnerable community to appease the public need for blame without due process.

In Wisconsin, 47% of Black Men between the ages of 25-29 are under the supervision of the Department of Corrections either in prison or on parole/post-prison supervision. Low income communities, communities of color and homeless people are hit hardest by the department of corrections. This week, Madison Police Chief Noble Wray publicly recognized that cultures of fear and racism contribute harmfully to profiling and criminal justice disparities: “Race, poverty, immigration, and a clash of cultures play into Madison’s perception of its crime problem.” (WSJ July 20, 2009). We need to make drastic changes for accountability and transparency within this flawed system.

Displacing ‘Problems’ vs. Engaging People as Part of the Solution
In Madison, poor and homeless people are constantly displaced from public spaces through intensified police pressure and homeowner resistance, as happened at Brittingham Park in 2007. We are seeing this currently at the downtown Lisa Link Peace Park, where two decades of redevelopment ideas—motivated in part by a sense of urgency to remove people responsible for “undesirable behavior” from the downtown area—are slated to come to fruition this year through a $1 million investment of public and private funds. Redevelopment partners have reassured us that there is no plan to kick anyone out of the park. However, attitudes and rationale surrounding this and similar projects have made clear that downtown revitalization that “cleans up” social problems by removing them from sight is prioritized over the deeper challenge of investing in addressing the root causes of why certain behaviors—or people—are perceived as “undesirable.” Even an Urban Design Commission member acknowledges: “If you’re building just to move people away, you don’t really solve problems. You just move them from one spot to another.”

The reality is that people on the streets are victims of historical and deeply-embedded disparities, and they show symptoms of these injustices in their behavior, self-perception, and life barriers. People on the streets are then re-victimized and criminalized for displaying these symptoms, which include:
Mental health issues. Mental health issues are common among homeless people, both from the de-institutionalization of mental health services as well as the emotional pressures and traumas of institutional violence and surviving on the streets (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Chronic Depression, etc. exacerbated by a lack of supportive resources).
Substance addiction. Usually directly hand-in-hand with emotional health trauma, alcohol and other substance addiction is a serious and very real problem. People on the streets urge allies to see addiction as a condition that requires treatment as well as community support, rather than behavior to be criminalized.
“Quality of life” crimes or crimes of poverty. Homeless people, in their efforts to meet their basic needs, commit “crimes of poverty” like sleeping in a park, urinating in public, storing items in a park, fishing without a license, stealing food or basic necessities, etc. Their human dignity is often at risk when these offenses are criminalized and remain on their record in ways that affect their long-term access to opportunities and resources.

We need to be willing to recognize as an entire community that BEHAVIORS are problematic, but PEOPLE are not. Furthermore, the driving forces that KEEP people in situations of poverty and homelessness must not be tolerated. It is a mistake, on either end of the picture, to pit making public spaces inviting for families AND safe for homeless people against each other. Both of these things need to happen, and we propose approaches that lay key foundations for this (see more in Part III.).

The City of Madison is willing to put $1 million into prettifying Lisa Link Peace Park, with underlying (and at times explicitly stated) motivations to make it an unfeasible hang-out place for poor and homeless people. At least $650,000 of this includes public money through Tax Increment Financing (TIF), funds allotted for redeveloping economically blighted areas. Too often in the Madison metro area and nationwide, low-income communities of color are displaced through economic development projects implemented with funding leveraged in their name, because gentrification and new land uses make their livelihood untenable. Recognizing 1) that currently Peace Park is underused as a public park but also 2) that it is already far inadequate and now under threat as one of the only “safe spaces” for people on the street to simple exist during the day: We urge support from the City of Madison and other partners to find ways to match that investment with support for projects that address the root causes of homelessness. Specifically, we need: 1) Support for programming and leadership development activities for homeless people in public spaces and community spaces; 2) Support for Housing First programs; 3) Support for plans developing a non-profit community Center and Day Labor Program; 4) A “Homeless Client’s Advisory Council” to engage in discussion and planning with agencies, services, and policies affecting homeless people.

Ongoing criminalization and displacement will only result in shuffling the problems around in circles, from park to park, and from generation to generation. We need to engage people as human beings, and to treat and invest in them as solutions. We also need transparency and accountability in how decisions, policies, and investments made that affect the lives and livelihoods of low-income communities and communities of color.

II. BUILDING ECONOMIC RESILIENCE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE:
NEEDS AND GAPS IN EXISTING PROGRAMS AND STRATEGIES

1. Recognize and be accountable to the leadership of people most affected by homelessness, criminalization, and displacement

Too often, solutions to social problems are about ‘helping’, ‘speaking for, or even “creating empowerment” for low-income communities of color without actively engaging their own agency and self-determination, and they are implemented in ways that do not address the root causes of structural economic and race oppression. We are heartened to see agencies such as the WI Division of Housing & Community Development and the Madison Office of Community Development emphasize “consumer involvement” in planning and decision-making as criteria for receiving funding for homeless services.

Counter to criticism of homeless and poor people for not taking responsibility for their own lives, we need to make visible the incredible efforts that these community members take in order to get “back on track” in their personal lives AS WELL AS the systemic barriers that they face in their attempts to do so (lack of opportunities, criminal justice system-related, transportation, waiting lists, re-victimization). As activists and advocates for their own community, OWH community members are committed to creating systems change for economic resilience and opportunities for all people affected by the root causes named above. They represent an incredible wealth of knowledge and power, and city officials, service agencies, as well as community allies need to recognize and follow that leadership.

The Operation Welcome Home community builds personal transformation as well as community transformation. That means people like politicians, community leaders, homeless advocates, social workers, police officers, parole officers, judges and landlords transforming to understand the power that they have as well as people who are staying in shelters, incarcerated, “clients” of social workers, or on W-2 also understand our power while transforming as people. This is the hand that we were all dealt and we must take responsibility for our relative privilege, and those of us with facing oppression must work to transform the institutions that keep a system of unbalanced wealth, privilege and power in place to truly bring equality and justice. We believe in solidarity not charity.

2. Alternatives to criminalization: Community accountability and criminal justice accountability
2a) Support community accountability through leadership development (Jobs Not Jails, Leadership not Displacement)
Operation Welcome Home recognizes and addresses the needs for leadership development, mentorship, and mutual support within the homeless community as the necessary foundation for deeper community change. For us, these include the work of healing from oppression and past trauma, which often lead to addiction and mental health issues. Our work is rooted in building a strong, supportive, loving community in which we actively care for one another’s well-being. Both Brittingham Park and Peace Park, respectively, have been key sites for OWH community members to build and strengthen this work, and in both cases our presence in these public spaces have been threatened—directly or indirectly—by actions and decisions aimed to “clean up” these spaces.
2b) Criminal justice accountability
We applaud the DOC’s current actions toward lowering the number of people on criminal justice supervision, as well as Chief of Police Noble Wray’s acknowledgment of disparities due to stereotyping, and that “Just arresting more people is not going to be the answer.” Our community needs to see much more support for systems of community accountability, as described above, and for building preventative measures rather than reactionary oppression. We need to see build capacity and accountability to stop the profiling, scape-goating, and criminalization of homeless and poor people, and people of color. We also need more support for those re-entering into the community. To be dropped of at a hotel known for drug transactions and prostitution with $30 in the dead of winter with no winter coat and no support other than a PO whose job is not to support but make you follow next to impossible rules, is the reason that so many people are in Prison on revocation. We oppose any form of enforcement that targets people trying to survive a deepening global economic crisis, and are in solidarity with migrant rights movements.

3. Gaps in holistic services and support, basic needs and opportunities, and self-determination

MORE ACCESS TO PUBLIC SERVICES
• SSI. We need to shorten the time between initial application for SSI/SSDI and final approval for benefits. There are many people who are eligible for benefits who need to be outreached to and need to be given a clear and easy access to receiving these benefits which can prevent a person from becoming homeless and shorten a person’s time on the streets.
• AODA treatment. We need to increase the availability of residential and outpatient drug abuse treatment services for those are homeless. The waiting lists must be limited. When a person who is in an unstable living situation decides it is time to check into an AODA treatment program, there needs to be resources readily available to accommodate that person. It’s very difficult for homeless people to wait around to get into AODA treatment, because there is no place to wait around! We also see this as a reason to develop a Wet Shelter, with a strong emphasis in accessing resources for recovery.
• Mental Health Services. We need Mental Health services that are comprehensive and extensive for people who are homeless, targets of racism and poverty, targets of class discrimination.
• Welfare. We stand in solidarity with all people on public benefits. We need increases in the availability and level of support for families, mothers, children, and single men in terms of living wage income, adequate food share, child care, and employment opportunities. We are heartened about the amount of Stimulus dollars directed toward employment and homelessness prevention, and hope to see these efforts complemented by community-building efforts and leadership programming so that the impact can be felt across all affected communities.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING
• We fully support the Housing First Initiatives that have been successful through the United Way YWCA, Road Home, Salvation Army and Porchlight. We see that OWH’s model of leadership development housing is a crucial piece to add to the Housing First Initiatives. In addition to a place to stay and get on your feet OWH offers AODA treatment recovery, Mental Health recovery support, self-esteem building, community building, leadership development, political education, community organizing, political participation placing people in jobs and creating employment opportunities. We fully believe that homeless people are experts on homelessness and must be the voices that are leading the struggle to end homelessness. Our program cultivates this leadership and puts it into action.
• We agree with the HSC that we need to increase the number of existing rental units that are affordable to low-income households through the use of Section 8 vouchers, locally designed rent subsidy programs such as that of the Housing First initiatives, and by advocating for increases in federal and state funding. The real benefactors of subsidized housing are the property owners that are building so many condominiums around the city. Instead of giving huge amounts of TIF tax dollars to these condos and high priced apartments the city needs to build subsidized housing to limit the waiting list for subsidized housing around the city. We demand that Section 8 be funded and reopened. For every condo and high priced apartment build there needs to be 15% of TRULY affordable housing with the same price requirements of Subsidized Housing and Section 8.
• We need better legislation to end discrimination based on tenant evictions that are due to inability to pay rent.
• We fully endorse the Housing Consortiums 2006 Plan to End Homelessness. We agree with their vision that “All households in Dane County should have the opportunity to secure and maintain safe, stable, affordable housing”.

4. Right to public spaces and community spaces
• In general, we need to see more viable public spaces and community spaces for homeless and low-income community members to engage in positive, community- and accountability-building activities, and leadership development work.
• Those who refuse (or are refused the right) to sleep within the shelter system, we need the right to sleep or live on any public space. We have been harassed and ticketed for sleeping in public places such as Brittingham Park. These “quality of life” citations and criminal action are band-aid solutions that chronically harm long-term opportunities for homeless people.
• We need to explore the possibility of using vacant and/or foreclosed properties to fill dire housing shortages. As banks and mortgage firms have been irresponsible with their loan practices we see the necessity of moving people into houses. This will help protect the property from destruction and robbery, it will keep the house in working condition as the water and electricity will be used. It makes no sense to have homeless individuals and families on one side of the street while there is an empty house on the other side of the street all because of financial institutions’ short-sighted reaches for wealth.

III. THE PEOPLE’S ECONOMIC STIMULUS PLAN PROPOSALS: STIMULATING THE ROOTS OF REAL GROWTH, SELF-DETERMINATION, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Because of the root causes, gaps, and needs identified in the previous two sections;
Because of the inconsistent lives of homeless people and the histories that lead to homelessness;
Because we seek to invest in people as SOLUTIONS and not PROBLEMS, recognizing that BEHAVIOR can be problematic but PEOPLE are not;
Because of ongoing legacies of historic racism and criminal justice disparities;
Because of a lack of support for Mental Health, AODA, and adequate education;
Because of the recent recession and downturn in the economy; and
Because of a stratification of wealth where the richest rich are continuing to get richer, and rather than creating opportunities for all of us as theorized by the concept of “trickle down economics” the money that the rich make accumulates for them alone, and the poor are getting poorer:
We propose the People’s Economic Stimulus Plan. The Plan is comprised of four interrelated approaches:

1. Support and strengthen programming and leadership development activities for homeless people in public spaces and community spaces

2. Support and strengthen Housing first programs

3. Support plans for developing a non-profit community center and Day Labor Program

4. Follow the leadership of a “Homeless Clients’ Advisory Council” to oversee agencies, services, and policies affecting homeless people

1. Support and strengthen programming and leadership development activities for homeless people in public spaces and community spaces

As described above in II. Needs and Gaps 1) and 2a), Operation Welcome Home has broken fertile ground in developing programming that creates safe spaces for people on the street to be during the day AND ALSO centers for positive activities and behavior that supports community accountability and solution-building. Such approaches reduce the need—real OR perceived—for the City to rely on policing as a primary solution to homelessness. That’s one real benefit that programs like Operation Welcome Home can bring, by supporting people in healing from addictions, getting mental health support, building capacity for conflict resolution and non-violent communication, building trust, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. This is all grounded in processes for popular education and collective healing from past trauma and oppression, by being vulnerable with one another, by addressing the root causes of homelessness and poverty. They strengthen leadership development, mentorship, and mutual support within the homeless community as the necessary foundation for deeper community change.

There is a lot of healing to do, and OWH and community partners have successfully created spaces for that through our Housing First and Leadership Development programs. Meet us in the middle and support this movement!
2. Support and strengthen Housing First Programs
Housing First Initiatives include getting people into housing first rather than shelters and also providing support from Allies or case management, peer support to do holistic healing from the pain of homelessness and the struggles involved with homelessness. OWH has been successful with our six-bed program over the past two years. Combining Housing First Initiatives and Leadership Development has been powerful due to the quality and level of peer support, group therapy, access the leadership development and community organizing training. It is a powerful model of support for people to get their minds, bodies, and souls together by being off of the street, having an address to get mail, being able to shower and feel stable to get employment, having case management and community support for navigating service system, and offering mutual support, accountability, and non-violent communications. We want every homeless person to have the option to be part of both Housing First Initiatives (like ours, as well as the United Way, YWCA, Salvation Army, the Road Home, Porchlight) and Leadership Development opportunities.

3. Support plans for non-profit community center and Day Labor Program
To complement available services and spaces but also to fill key gaps in the downtown and Southside areas, we propose developing and strengthening a grassroots-driven, community-led cultural center, which would also house a Day Labor Program. The Center would be a space where members of homeless, formerly homeless, and other vulnerable communities can find and give support to each other in getting off the streets, and also engage in positive activities and community change. Such a Center would be an extension of leadership, cultural, and accountability programming in an intentional space, as well as a place for cross-community and intergenerational collaboration.

In addition to being a space to come together, connect to social services, gain peer support, and participate in leadership development opportunities, we need a Center that houses a non-profit Day Labor Program. Homeless people and other extremely marginalized potential workers face an intersection of challenges that are unique when compared with other low-wage workers. Homeless people, for example, often demonstrate intense and extreme forms of alienation or isolation. People are likely to be filled with fear and anxiety, wary of new challenges, coping with depression, and undergoing intense economic and social pressures. Moreover, homeless people and other extremely marginalized potential workers experience high rates of depression and struggles with both mental health issues and/or substance abuse. This community is often transient. The mobility of the population hinders efforts to provide ongoing training programs to the same group of workers. It will also give marginalized workers a space to get employment they can succeed with, earn money, while developing job skills, and self-esteem to continue in this troubled economy. It will also help boost the economy by creating jobs and bringing foundational money into the city.

4. Follow the leadership of a “Homeless Clients’ Advisory Council” to engage in discussion and planning with agencies, services, and policies affecting homeless people.
The City of Madison needs formal structures for people affected by homelessness, housing, unemployment, and criminal justice issues to be involved in planning and decision-making around issues that affect them. As other cities have done (e.g. New York City in partnership with Picture the Homeless, we would like to establish a “Homeless Clients’ Advisory Council” that would work closely with local merchants, neighborhood residents, employers, City Departments/Officials, and Program participants to create a team that can bring forward these concerns and work collectively towards their resolution.

CONCLUSION AND NEXT STEPS

We invite you to join with us in making this vision a reality! We are not asking for money for our projects in full now, nor next week. The capacity that we bring is people power, good will, positive energy, coordination, and vision. We’re asking you to meet us in the middle and form long-term, resilient partnerships in order to make Madison a truly welcoming, health, sustainable, and just place for all people, including homeless, formerly homeless, formerly incarcerated, and low-income people.