Ok – so I heard about this from 3 or 4 people before it was in the newspaper and its been bugging me, but when you put it in context, it gets even sillier.
The CDA and United Way think that if poor people only managed their money better they wouldn’t be poor. Um . . . no amount of financial management classes is going to “fix the problem” that if you get $673 per month for your “volunteer”/community service work on W-2 and your rent is $550 you have $123 left. Foods stamps will get you food, and badgercare will take care of health needs, but the $123 isn’t even going to cover many childcare subsidies people are paying these days. Maybe you’re one of the people who got lucky and won the “lottery” to get on a waiting list to get section 8, but that’s all you got, you’re on a waiting list. That’s why when the United Way and CDA trumpets their $50,000 per year that they want to spend to help people in Allied Drive manage their money, it just makes we want to laugh. Or, roll my eyes as I did on Stuart Levitan’s show when he asked me about it. Or cry.
Add to this, the new report that being black in Wisconsin is the worst place in America to be black. Or worse, you could be one of those hard working people who wasn’t born here that makes a minor mistake with big consequences. It just adds to ridiculous fiasco of spending so much money to create housing that isn’t guaranteed to be affordable to those who need it the most, people below 30% AMI. We aren’t addressing the real underlying issues, we’re just making things look good and pretending that we’re “fixing” the problem. Meanwhile, real people are living real lives that this financial counseling and “affordable housing” won’t do a thing for them. And, most of them are still black (or may be “illegal”) in Wisconsin.
When we will we get serious about addressing these serious issues? When will we start providing people with services that they need – meaningful job training, case management to address various issues, affordable housing, childcare subsidies, bus routes that don’t take an hour to get most places, etc etc etc – instead of doing things that have the appearance of helping or adding more police to arrest them? And can we talk about the impact that race/immigration status has on all of this?
