At the Roots, Reaching for the Sky. John Pachak
In two neighborhoods, threatened by gentrification, neighbors asked us to help ensure they would be part of the process, beneficiaries of positive changes and not be forced to move. I agreed to help, even though we did not have a community organizer on staff. I needed to share one very important truth with our neighbors asking for help--I did not think we could win against the organizations promoting redevelopment. People trusted us enough, after years of services, programs and home visits, to believe we would stand with them. However, I didn’t think neighbors knew what we would be fighting for and who we would be fighting against.
Only he who learns to love one by one reaches,
in his relation to heaven,
God as the God of all the world…
For he learns to love the God of the universe,
the God who loves his work,
only in the measure in which
he himself learns to love the world.
Martin Buber
We are each of us angels with only one wing.
And we can only fly embracing one another.
Laceano de Crescenzo
RELATIONSHIP-BUILDING
The one connecting piece in our approach was relationship building. Everything we did was done to build positive relationships with our neighbors. There were many reasons for this, including overcoming the superficial difference of race, and the real differences of class and status. I believe people only change when they have someone to change for beside themselves. Whether this is a family member, spouse, co-worker, minister, social worker, teacher or friend, the relationship with this other is the key to change. Although people do stop using drugs or alcohol, and end spousal abuse on their own, the rate of recidivism is high. Without changing one’s social environment—that is the relationship one has to other people--it is very difficult to find the inner strength needed to change on one’s own. Helen Harris Perlman wrote in Relationship The Heart of Helping People, that relationship is the foundation of social work. I believe her book is the “bible” of social work.
As the title itself explains, she believed “relationship” was at the heart of change. She writes, “Relationship begins when a worker and the person seeking help first meet, even if the person does not expect or want it.'' She says it is important for the worker to realize “relationship is happening”. Perlman says relationship is a “necessary…condition for one’s taking in...and feeling benefited by help from another.” Because we spent years visiting people, being welcoming and open, helping without restrictions and trying to develop trust, our neighbors felt comfortable enough to ask for help when they needed it.
We had so many positive, helping relationships and saw so many people make changes in their lives; we hardly ever took time to realize what had happened. The process of helping people came from the hearts of our staff and volunteers. Many positive human relationships happened with neighbors, volunteers and staff because of the openness of our setting, and the willingness of everyone to get past superficial differences.
Just because the message may never be received
does not mean it is not worth sending.
Segalir
RADICAL SOCIAL WORK
Some social workers define “radical social work” as “…if they view the sources of the problems they already address as deeply rooted in the social order, and if their work attempts to confront those problems at that level”. Jeffry Galper, in his article from Social Policy, What Are Radical Social Services says,
“From a radical perspective, the problems of individuals are seen as ultimately not amenable to social service solutions. Social services are seen as effective in addressing these problems only to the extent that they use their point of entre with people as a vehicle to reach back or reach deeper into the social system which creates these situations”.6
Everything we did was to develop relationships with people who were forced to the edges of society. The programs and services were tasks we took on to be able to stand with our neighbors. The services and programs were very effective and well implemented. However, they were not the ultimate goal of our work. That goal was to help people address issues which kept them out of mainstream culture and treated them as less than full citizens.
Preparing clients to take on the powerful--community organizing, and social action--are social work methods which challenge the status quo and help people determined to change the power structure in their neighborhood, community, city or country. We used these techniques as our neighbors made us aware of their needs.
We once took a group of neighbors to the Barnes-Jewish hospital campus to protest how poor people were treated by this massive system. The hospital was just across the highway from one of our neighborhoods. We were part of the Community Utility Advocacy Network. We met to discuss people’s utility issues, to talk about how the system of assistance worked, and to fight how people were treated by utility companies and service organizations. With the Network we protested in front of the LaClede Gas building in downtown St. Louis after an older woman died one winter when her gas was shut off. We were hoping to get LaClede Gas to change their policy of shut-offs in the winter. Over time, the company did change their way of deciding about shut-offs, agreeing to refrain from ending service if the temperature was under 32 degrees for more than 3 days.
We rallied with neighbors for Welfare Rights and against abuse of eminent domain. Staff and neighbors rode a bus to the state capital of Missouri to march for Medicaid. Together we visited Missouri legislators asking for their support of Medicaid coverage. We helped for many years when families were being forced to move out of their neighborhoods because of gentrification. A group of 30 residents and staff attended a committee meeting of the Board of Aldermen to testify against the use of eminent domain in their neighborhood. We helped prepare residents to address these men--about their neighborhood, their willingness to be part of redevelopment, and the surety not everyone who lived there would be forced to move.
We protested in the driveway of the Missouri Botanical Garden because they were promoting gentrification in a neighborhood just north of their location. We met and talked to members several times at these protests. On Valentine’s Day two members of Citizens for a Fair Plan for McRee Town bought tickets to their event, went up to the band’s microphone, and began to talk about what the Garden was doing to its neighbors. We marched through four neighborhoods surrounding McRee Town in protest, stopping at the Alderman’s houses to give them a flower in a pot with a sign that said, “Let us bloom where we are planted”.
I found through my decades of work, the only real radical efforts are not those that use power versus power, but the power of love’s ability to help people change, adapt, relate and grow. I believe what Jimi Hendrix said, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” This is an easy thing for me to say as a comfortable, white man, but human history is about violent “solutions”. They never end the violence. Policy, voting, new laws and money have yet to create real change. They perpetuate the power versus power philosophy in which those with the most power get what they want. Almost always, this is not good for everyone. Some say the Golden Rule has changed to “He, who has the gold, makes the rules”.
Listening is one of the highest forms of hospitality.
Henri Nouwen
THE VALUE OF MIDTOWN
One President of Catholic Charities visited MIDTOWN often. He brought the conservative Archbishop of St. Louis with him to see the work of serving God’s people. This one Archbishop was the only “leader” of the St. Louis church who ever visited. He was able to meet some of the people we served. This President had the public opening of the Catholic Charities Christmas Appeal at MIDTOWN several times. He wanted the larger community to know how their money provided quality services. He used MIDTOWN for an announcement by the Archbishop. He was making a public pledge of financial support toward gas bills after a very frigid winter.
This President, who had a Master’s degree in social work and