New Kid on the Blog

Ever feel like you don’t have enough time to do the things you want or hope to do?  Most of us in today’s hectic, technology riveted world can relate to this feeling of being at least slightly overwhelmed from time to time.  Just a little more time for exercise, for family, for just simply doing nothing would be a good thing.  I hope we can add one more thing to this list – exhibiting more compassion in our lives.

Compassion is defined as the sympathetic consciousness of others distress together with a desire to alleviate it.  The important facet to the definition is the overt link of the feeling to action.  Both elements are required for true compassion to be exhibited.  Now, I clearly understand the challenges of our daily lives for kids, work, extended family, friends all dominate our waking moments and our emotional energy.  In my own life, I am today trying to balance the relentless forward movement of my father-in-laws Alzheimer’s, my 23 year old’s frustration about his college degree not being worth much in today’s economy, my 16 year old son’s challenge of trying to determine what he wants to do for the rest of his life and how I might pay for his college, my 14 year old daughter just left for Florida with a friend and her family for spring break, my own stress of running a not-for- profit organization and my wife’s stress for all of the above.

I do remind myself frequently that, even with this list of stresses, that fill my day that I am lucky.  I try to view each person I come into contact with as someone who has all the same kinds of challenges that I do.  I try to show them that I recognize their humanity and that they have value.  Further, I try not to become immune to the grim realities of the world in which we live.  Everyday in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, there is a section on page 2 ironically called Law and Order.  Each day, they report on violent crime from the day before and some court action on prior violent crimes.  Just about everyday in the greater St. Louis metro area someone is shot and killed.  Most are unknown to us.  Most will be forgotten quickly from our consciousness.  If we are to be more compassionate, we need to not let the loss of life at the hands of another be forgotten or, even worse, not care in the first place.  The much harder charge is what we do to alleviate mindless violence.  There is no easy answer; but, it is abundantly clear that reducing the level of poverty and increasing the quality of life in neighborhoods is a great step in the right direction.

If a horrific event like the killings of 16 innocent people in Afghanistan by a soldier or the terrible murders in Norway or anything local occurs, we should be moved to compassion, first and foremost, for the lost lives and not to policy implications for our country or our own community.   We can get to the policy work; but, we should not lose sight of the humanity behind the event.

Transitions in life, no matter how normal or not they may be, are really difficult.  Transition is defined as a movement, development or evolution from one form, state or style to another. One issue in my personal life and one in my professional life reminded me about how challenging transitions can be. Continue reading →

Much has been written and spoken about the tragic death of young Trayvon Martin.  So, I will not add to that part of this sad story.   I do, however, want to talk about how we move forward.   On Tuesday, March 27th, Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush went to the floor of the House of Representatives in a hoodie, in honor of Trayvon, and spoke of justice using biblical verses.   One in particular caught my attention.   Congressman Rush quoted Micah 6:8 which said, “What does the lord ask of thee?  Act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God”.   As we seek the truth and the corresponding justice for Trayvon, I hope we can seize the moment to look at the way we all lead our lives.   The Micah quote implores us to treat the people we meet and/or interact with kindness and love.  We are asked to have humility in our day to day existence.   One of the implications that stems from this is how we perceive people and how that perception causes us to treat them.  Young African American males in our communities are treated different simply because of their age and race.   I hope the next time each of us sees someone who looks different than ourselves, particularly young African American males, that we act justly, love mercy and walk humbly.   This will take effort.   This will mean we cannot forget about Trayvon. Continue reading →

One of the things that anyone in the field of not for profit work has to do is fight the negative perceptions about those we serve or the neighborhoods we work in.  The glorification of the negative by the media fuels the misperceptions that many people have. What’s the old television adage? “If it bleeds, it leads.”  This is no way to get information that is factual and not tinted with the lens of hype and outrageousness.  Concurrently, many in our community have not spent time with folks who are significantly different than they are.  Nor do they spend time in communities where poverty and its associated problems exist.  Assumptions are made based upon the stereotypes that are perpetuated by the media and our own ignorance.  I say this knowing clearly that bad things happen in the communities where Beyond Housing works; but, I allege they are infrequent and not isolated to these places. Continue reading →

I’m flying back to St. Louis after a quick two day trip to LA for a series of meetings with a number of my peers from across the country.  I am always amazed by the passion, creativity and commitment to making a difference in the lives of so many people that my friends exhibit. Like so many other sectors, the world of housing and community development is facing many challenges.   The issues of unemployment and foreclosure have hit the families and communities we all serve in a very dramatic way.   The increasing need for our work has been ironically met with a pull back of many important resources when they are needed the most.

My peers from the National NeighborWorks Association and senior staff from NeighborWorks America concluded that not enough people care about our work in large part due to our own messaging.   The members of Congress, philanthropic leaders, local officials, community residents and John Doe citizens need a better sense of not only what we do, but why we do it and why it matters. Continue reading →

I was listening to an interview this past weekend with Nicholas Kristof, the award winning journalist for the New York Times. Kristof is renowned for his coverage of human tragedies all across the globe from the genocide in Darfur to the Tiananmen Square uprising to the Arab Spring. He has seen the worst of our collective humanity and has attempted to document it. The images he paints about the unfathomable struggles that many across the globe face daily can be emotionally draining. Given this knowledge about his work, I heard an interview where he said something about sweat shops that simply made me stop in my tracks and then relate it to some of the work of Beyond Housing. Kristof stated,

“I’m one of the few Americans who is truly sympathetic to sweatshops really because of the time I spent in Asia and seeing the way they became an avenue for people to ride the escalator up and that they provided a lot of employment for people, which tended to be wretched jobs, but usually not as wretched as working in a rice paddy or in construction jobs or selling cigarettes in the street or, you know, a million other jobs that tend to be available. My fear has been that the hostility to sweatshops has meant that manufacturers don’t go to Africa. I mean, Africa’s problem isn’t that it has sweatshops; it’s that it doesn’t have any sweatshops. And typically, the only thing worse than a sweatshop is indeed no sweatshop at all, no employment whatsoever.” Continue reading →

Big headlines everywhere read five biggest banks agree to $25 billion settlement on fraudulent foreclosure practices. Wow, that sounds great doesn’t it? It will certainly help a lot of families who are currently in jeopardy of losing their homes and that is absolutely a good thing. It will also help families who are not behind on their mortgage but owe more than the house is worth, again, absolutely a good thing. My frustration with the settlement is that like so many of the other attempts to address the foreclosure crisis and the devastation it has caused to families and communities around the country, this settlement is being oversold as a great panacea for the problem. It is not. There are many more families who see the headlines that will not be helped, than those that will.

Here is a quick recap of the four things the settlement can do:

$17 billion
To homeowners, with the bulk of it to be used for principal reductions.

$3 billion
For refinancing the mortgages of underwater borrowers.

$1.5 billion
For payments to consumers who lost their homes to foreclosure.

$2.6 billion
To states for foreclosure prevention.

$750 million
To the federal government.

Here is the rest of the story: Continue reading →

“Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that do the same.  It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom.  No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts.  An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.”

Those are the words from President Obama during the State of the Union address to all of us.  It struck me that the essence of our country is the opportunity to live a successful life – no less, no more.  We all want a realistic chance to live comfortably and raise our family without unbearable daily challenges.  Today this chance is not afforded to all Americans. Continue reading →

Late last week the Labor Department reported that 212,000 people became employed, lowering the unemployment rate from 8.7% to 8.5%. The announcement came and went pretty uneventfully. There was more focus on the Republican primaries, the European debt crisis and other less relevant issues. What struck me about this was how numb we are, collectively, about the lives of our neighbors.

Over 200,000 families were going to have a paycheck coming into their households. Imagine what this could mean for them. That money could keep that family in their home and avoid foreclosure or eviction. Losing your home through foreclosure is one of the most stressful and emotionally difficult things for a family. While getting a job and that paycheck does not immediately make all the problems in your life go away, it does let you breathe again. It allows your children to stay in their schools. It hopefully prevents a family from draining whatever savings they may have and it avoids the extremely challenging question of where does one live if they have lost their home or have been evicted. Continue reading →

My apologies for the long gap in my blog posting. There is no singular reason for my inability to be more consistent in writing but rather a number of work/family/life issues that have prevented me from being more vigilant in sharing my thoughts. As I write this, I sit in the Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. waiting for my flight home. I have time to write only because my flight is delayed due to weather back home in St. Louis. How ironic that it takes something out of my control, like a problem in my transportation schedule, to give me the time to reflect on my work and sit still long enough to write!!

Beyond Housing continues to be not only resilient in difficult times but we are actually thriving! As of today, we have over $11 million of construction and rehab underway across our mission delivery systems. This includes our 4 story 42 unit senior building with a full service bank on the bottom floor which is across the parking lot from our grocery store, a ten home for sale development and a six home, for sale rehab project. While that covers the housing part of our name the beyond part includes our after-school program serving over 30 children every day, our first time homebuyers program that will help over 170 families achieve the American Dream this year, our foreclosure counseling work that will help over 800 families stay in their home, or the nearly 100 families that will receive gifts for the holiday season from our Holiday Friends Program, the 115 Normandy High School students saving for their college education in our Viking Advantage Program, our ten day care partners working with the Child Day Care Association in their program Achieving Quality in the Normandy School District and the 24 cities in our 24:1 Initiative that are working together to be more effective and efficient in the delivery of service to the almost 40,000 residents who live there. Continue reading →