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Posts Tagged ‘inequality’

Revisiting a Youth Art Program

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 14, 2024| 1 Comment »

Photo: Artists for Humanity.
At Artists for Humanity, teenagers are able to express their artistic creativity and talents while also earning money, bridging passion and profit.

Today’s story is about a wonderful nonprofit I visited several times in the years I was working at the Boston Fed. Its mission to involve urban kids in making art — and earning some money from it — is still sending joy into the world.

Kana Ruhalter and Arun Rath have an update at GBH radio.

Artists for Humanity (AFH), they report, has been giving “talented teens — most of whom are people of color from low-income communities — the opportunity to earn and create. 

“Through murals, sculptures and more, Artists for Humanity … brings joy, beauty and a sense of belonging to their community. And, by paying its artists, they’re addressing economic inequities as well.

“Anna Yu, the executive director, and Jason Talbot, co-founder and managing director of program, joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to discuss the decades-long history of the nonprofit. …

“Jason Talbot: Back in 1991, they had just defunded art in schools. I was a Boston Public School student at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, and [AFH’s] former executive director, Susan Rodgerson, came to the King School to reintroduce art. … I found her willingness to hear out my ideas and implement them in projects was super refreshing. We continued to work together with the other fellow co-founder, Rob Gibbs, in a studio over in SoWa [South of Washington Street].

“There were just us six boys in that studio, and we painted and we created a gallery exhibition. It just showed us the capabilities of art, it helped us understand this artist community and we just loved doing work there.

“Our organization has evolved over the years. We’ve built in this entrepreneurial aspect where we’re producing and selling art to clients. It’s just been an extremely enriching experience. …

“Arun Rath: Anna, tell us about that enrichment. How has the organization evolved since that? …

“Anna Yu: While the core of the model is essentially the same — meaning this radical idea of paying teens to create client project work that is of the quality of a professional — that piece is always running through our work. But today, we are the largest employer of youth in the city of Boston, which is over 400 teens that we employ.

“[Today] we not only provide after-school employment, we also partner with schools during the school day in a program we call Co-Lab. …

“Rath: What are some of the success stories? …

“Talbot: Teenagers — one thing that’s pretty universal is they really are looking for adult experiences, you know? So to be in the workplace, to be respected, to be able to attend meetings, to be able to propose ideas, it really gets our young people super excited about having a career and really re-invested in their education.

“And teens are graduating at a higher rate; AFH graduates 100% of our high school students, and we’re able to offer secondary education to 100% of our teen artists. …

“Rath: Tell us about the business side of this. How do you get these young artists paid? …

“Yu: Something that is so radical about the organization — it’s hard to believe that Artists for Humanity has been doing this for 33 years — is that clients actually hire us to create work for them. So it’s often beautifying office spaces, it’s creating a unique or custom piece of art for them, it can even be branding and promotional materials. It could be a website.

“The beautiful thing is they are paying teens to do this work, and they are valuing their voices, their creativity. And they’re getting a very unique product at the end of the day. …

“Rath: Talk about the collaborative process between these young artists and the professionals.

“Talbot: Well, AFH is a tremendously collaborative organization. … Our clients really get visionary work. Our teens are up on the latest trends. They’re digital natives — they know what’s going on — and they’re really able to help our clients have some really great new innovative ideas. …

“Rath: You’ve seen so many go on to become adults and blossom in amazing ways. Are there any moments of joy you’d like to share? …

“Yu: The beautiful thing about Artists for Humanity is that a lot of our alumni are actually not just artists. Many of them do become artists. Many of them actually pursue a career in STEM, or some of them go on to become lawyers. We have [one] who’s actually on our board of advisors right now, and she’s a lawyer at the Fed. … We have someone who is an alumni from AFH and is at Harvard Medical School. So it’s really this idea that by opening up these pathways, by inspiring them to think creatively, by building that confidence, they can really achieve anything.”

More at GBH, here.

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Land Trusts and Housing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 22, 2022| 7 Comments »

Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/CSM.
Meidan “Abby” Lin poses in her apartment in Boston’s Chinatown. She and her husband bought the unit with help from the Chinatown Community Land Trust, which aims to stabilize the community through affordable housing, ownership of land, control of public lands like parks, and the preservation of cultural and historical sites.

One of the biggest challenges for America in these times is housing. Housing can help people with addictions get clean. It can reduce the need for long, polluting commutes to jobs in expensive urban areas, it can give people breathing space to pursue their interests and make better lives for their children.

One of the current experiments in providing housing that people can afford involves community land trusts.

Jocelyn Yang and Alexander Thompson write at the Christian Science Monitor, ‘In March 2016, [Meidan ‘Abby’] Lin; her husband, Yin Zheng; their young son, Yuchen; and Mr. Zheng’s mother left Fuzhou, Chin, … for another port half a world away on the Charles River in Boston.

“They shared their first apartment in Boston’s Chinatown with another family. During nights in that cramped space, Ms. Lin started dreaming of a place she could call her own. But Boston’s soaring real estate prices seemed to put that dream out of reach. Mr. Zheng works at a restaurant. Ms. Lin works at home.

“Then a friend told Ms. Lin about the Chinatown Community Land Trust. … The group was selling apartments at discount prices, and Ms. Lin jumped on the waitlist. But there was only one apartment big enough for her family. ‘I didn’t think we were able to get it,’ she says. All she could do was hope.

“Community land trusts [are] buying their own properties to preserve them as affordable housing in perpetuity and give residents more say over what happens in quickly changing neighborhoods. 

“That mission has gained new urgency over the past year as homeowners reap the rewards of a red-hot real estate market while renters are hit with steep rent hikes, deepening the divide between the housing haves and have-nots. …

“ ‘As neighborhoods change and gentrify really fast, the idea of having community control and having more say about how neighborhoods are changing and who’s going to be able to live in the neighborhood over time, from an affordability perspective, I think becomes really important,’ says Beth Sorce, who works with community land trusts nationwide at the Grounded Solutions Network, an affordable housing advocacy group. …

“Land trusts raise money from donations, grants, and government funds to buy property. Then they lease the house or apartment to a buyer well below market value, but the trust retains ownership of the land.

“This way, occupants typically get an ownership stake in their homes. They build equity over time, but at a rate that is often capped at 1% or 2% a year. The trust, which is governed democratically by residents and neighbors, can decide to whom the dwelling can be sold and at what price, usually through a covenant in the lease. This ensures the property remains affordable.

“The land trust idea was imported to the United States by civil rights activist Charles Sherrod in the early 1970s from the kibbutzim of Israel. Mr. Sherrod saw land trusts as a way for Black Americans to buy agricultural land in the South. …

“Andre Perry, a housing policy expert at the Brookings Institution [has shown] that an ‘intrinsic value of whiteness’ persists at almost every step of home buying from the appraisal to the sale. Minorities, but especially Black people, must pay more and get less. 

“By taking property out of the traditional market, land trusts reduce the discrimination baked into that system and empower communities to actively fight it, Dr. Perry says. …

“In California, justice is what drives Jacqueline Rivera and her fellow housing activists in San Jose. In the heart of Silicon Valley, where even high-paid tech employees struggle to find housing, development was pushing out vibrant Black, Hispanic, and immigrant neighborhoods.

“In community conversations Ms. Rivera and her colleagues held around the city in 2018, land trusts kept coming up. Ms. Rivera grabbed hold of the idea, and by 2020 she was heading up the South Bay Community Land Trust.

“Success has not come easily, though.  By definition, land trusts do not make profits, and fundraising is the biggest challenge they face. To buy their first property, a fourplex in downtown San Jose, they need to fundraise at least $1 million, on top of the half million dollars they need to pay professional staff and make the organization run. Speed is a problem, too. Developers snap up properties with cash in a matter of days, while the land trust moves ‘at the pace of community,’ Ms. Rivera says. 

“Yet, in order to disrupt traditional real estate, land trusts ‘still have to play in the real estate game,’ she adds.

“Advocates stress that land trusts are just one tool in a broader approach to the affordability crisis, but it could be a more effective one with government help. Ms. Sorce, of Grounded Solutions, says state and local governments should invest money in land trusts and change appraisal policies so land trust properties aren’t paying taxes based on their speculative value. With or without such help, land trusts must innovate to succeed.

“ ‘When we think about community land trusts, so many times we think about just the homeownership level,’ says Sheldon Clark, who recently served as president of the board of the Douglass Community Land Trust in Washington, D.C. ‘And that really just doesn’t cover the housing needs that we have.’

“Douglass has units it’s maintaining as permanently affordable rentals and other properties set up as cooperatives. They’ve also helped tenants take advantage of a District of Columbia law that entitles them to buy their unit if their landlord plans to sell.

“Really, land trust leaders say, homeownership is just one aspect of their focus on what Mr. Clark calls the ‘big C’ in community land trusts: the community.

“Douglass organized food drives during the pandemic and helps connect residents to credit unions, as many are unbanked. In Boston’s Chinatown, the land trust helped save a local park.”

Find other examples of how land trusts strengthen communities at the Monitor, here. No firewall; nice photos.

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Dutch City Goes “Big Picture”

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 28, 2021| 4 Comments »

This interesting story about reaching for a more egalitarian type of economics says that capitalism got started in the Netherlands in the 17th century, but a very good book says that says it started with the enclosure of commonly used pasture in England in the 13th century. (See Steven Stoll’s Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia.)

Whenever capitalism started, it’s past time for a look at whether it inevitably caused the extreme inequality we see today.

Ciara Nugent writes at Time, “One evening in December, after a long day working from home, Jennifer Drouin, 30, headed out to buy groceries in central Amsterdam. Once inside, she noticed new price tags. The label by the zucchini said they cost a little more than normal: 6¢ extra per kilo for their carbon footprint, 5¢ for the toll the farming takes on the land, and 4¢ to fairly pay workers. …

“The so-called true-price initiative, operating in the store since late 2020, is one of dozens of schemes that Amsterdammers have introduced in recent months as they reassess the impact of the existing economic system. By some accounts, that system, capitalism, has its origins just a mile from the grocery store. In 1602, in a house on a narrow alley, a merchant began selling shares in the nascent Dutch East India Company. In doing so, he paved the way for the creation of the first stock exchange — and the capitalist global economy that has transformed life on earth. ‘

“[But, asks Drouin], ‘Is it actually making us healthy and happy? …

“In April 2020, during the first wave of COVID-19, Amsterdam’s city government announced it would recover from the crisis, and avoid future ones, by embracing the theory of ‘doughnut economics.’

“Laid out by British economist Kate Raworth in a 2017 book, the theory argues that 20th century economic thinking is not equipped to deal with the 21st century reality of a planet teetering on the edge of climate breakdown. Instead of equating a growing GDP with a successful society, our goal should be to fit all of human life into what Raworth calls the ‘sweet spot’ between the ‘social foundation,’ where everyone has what they need to live a good life, and the ‘environmental ceiling.’ By and large, people in rich countries are living above the environmental ceiling. Those in poorer countries often fall below the social foundation. The space in between: that’s the doughnut.

“Amsterdam’s ambition is to bring all 872,000 residents inside the doughnut, ensuring everyone has access to a good quality of life, but without putting more pressure on the planet than is sustainable. Guided by Raworth’s organization, the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), the city is introducing massive infrastructure projects, employment schemes and new policies for government contracts to that end. …

“Raworth says DEAL has received an avalanche of requests from municipal leaders and others seeking to build more resilient societies in the aftermath of COVID-19. Copenhagen’s city council majority decided to follow Amsterdam’s example in June, as did the Brussels region and the small city of Dunedin, New Zealand, in September, and Nanaimo, British Columbia, in December. In the U.S., Portland, Ore., is preparing to roll out its own version of the doughnut, and Austin may be close behind.

“The theory has won Raworth some high-profile fans; in November, Pope Francis endorsed her ‘fresh thinking,’ while celebrated British naturalist Sir David Attenborough dedicated a chapter to the doughnut in his latest book, A Life on Our Planet, calling it ‘our species’ compass for the journey’ to a sustainable future. …

“Amsterdam is grappling with what the doughnut would look like on the ground. Marieke van Doorninck, the deputy mayor for sustainability and urban planning, says the pandemic added urgency that helped the city get behind a bold new strategy. … She says, ‘I think in the darkest times, it’s easiest to imagine another world.’ …

“Raworth published her theory of the doughnut as a paper in 2012 and later as a 2017 book, which has since been translated into 20 languages. The theory doesn’t lay out specific policies or goals for countries. It requires stakeholders to decide what benchmarks would bring them inside the doughnut — emission limits, for example, or an end to homelessness. The process of setting those benchmarks is the first step to becoming a doughnut economy, she says.

“Raworth argues that the goal of getting ‘into the doughnut’ should replace governments’ and economists’ pursuit of never-ending GDP growth. Not only is the primacy of GDP overinflated when we now have many other data sets to measure economic and social well-being, she says, but also, endless growth powered by natural resources and fossil fuels will inevitably push the earth beyond its limits. …

“The doughnut can seem abstract, and it has attracted criticism. Some conservatives say the doughnut model can’t compete with capitalism’s proven ability to lift millions out of poverty. Some critics on the left say the doughnut’s apolitical nature means it will fail to tackle ideology and political structures that prevent climate action.

“Cities offer a good opportunity to prove that the doughnut can actually work in practice. … Van Doorninck, the deputy mayor, says the doughnut was a revelation.

‘I was brought up in Thatcher times, in Reagan times, with the idea that there’s no alternative to our economic model. … Reading the doughnut was like, Eureka! There is an alternative! Economics is a social science, not a natural one. It’s invented by people, and it can be changed by people.’ …

“When the Netherlands went into lockdown in March, the city realized that thousands of residents didn’t have access to computers that would become increasingly necessary to socialize and take part in society. Rather than buy new devices — which would have been expensive and eventually contribute to the rising problem of e-waste — the city arranged collections of old and broken laptops from residents who could spare them, hired a firm to refurbish them and distributed 3,500 of them to those in need. ‘It’s a small thing, but to me it’s pure doughnut,’ says van Doorninck. …

“The doughnut model doesn’t proscribe all economic growth or development. In her book, Raworth acknowledges that for low- and middle-income countries to climb above the doughnut’s social foundation, ‘significant GDP growth is very much needed.’ But that economic growth needs to be viewed as a means to reach social goals within ecological limits, she says, and not as an indicator of success in itself.”

More at Time, here.

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Joyful Abandoned Buildings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 20, 2018| Leave a Comment »

3776Photograph: OST Collective
A Brussels nonprofit that reactivates abandoned buildings offers “free space to whoever wants to organize regular activities that are open to all.” Here you see young people practicing capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art, in one of the free spaces.

When I had lunch with Kai recently, we talked about his work investing in real estate for a publicly traded Chinese company. Progressive by nature, he tries to ensure that any gentrification of an urban neighborhood honors the needs of the local community. It’s not always easy.

I thought of Kai when I read about a Belgian approach to managing space during the period between abandonment and development.

Laurent Vermeersch writes for the Guardian, “When industrial activity moves out of central urban areas, property developers tend to move in quickly to build high-end housing. But things don’t necessarily have to turn out this way. With financial support from the city authorities, a group of enthusiasts in Brussels turned exactly this kind of site into a socio-cultural activity centre to benefit local youth.

“ ‘Young people need space. Space to play, party and express themselves, but also to experiment, fail and learn. The problem is that access to space is not democratic,’ says Pepijn Kennis, a 27-year-old member of Toestand (meaning ‘state of being’), a Brussels non-profit that specialises in the reactivation of abandoned buildings and places. ‘We give free space to whoever wants to organise regular activities that are open to all.’

“Toestand’s biggest project yet is Allée du Kaai, a complex of several warehouses and open space along the Brussels canal, a rapidly changing part of the city. Just across the street is Molenbeek … which suffers from high levels of poverty and unemployment. Although much of the area surrounding Allée du Kaai is marked by deprivation, with families cramped into tiny housing units without access to good public space and services, there are also pockets of gentrification. … Toestand’s goal has been to bring together different population groups in a city facing growing inequality.

“The Allée du Kaai site has been active for about two years. … Walking around it on a busy day, you can feel a sense of creativity and potential in the air. There’s a bike repair workshop taking place, as well as a cooking class. Elsewhere kids are skating, or learning to print on T-shirts. A local band is rehearsing in a back room. There is even a tiny cinema in a former city bus. Others are playing ping-pong, strolling on the waterfront, or just hanging around against the backdrop of big graffiti walls. …

“Toestand is actually paid by local authorities to manage the site. ‘We have a contract with the Brussels Region Environment agency,’ says Kennis. ‘They are planning to make a park here, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon, so in the meantime they wanted to do something meaningful with the place.’ …

“As is the case in many other cities around the world, pop-up culture has taken root in Brussels – but many examples tend to be very commercial. … The kind of social calling that Toestand brings to the table, however, can probably only exist with support from city authorities. Private owners are usually extremely reluctant to make buildings public, even if they’re abandoned. They fear the temporary occupants won’t vacate the place as soon as more lucrative plans take shape. Allée du Kaai is also exceptional in the sense that the land it occupies will remain wholly public after Toestand’s activities move on, because the buildings will give way to a park. …

“To bring together different people in Allée du Kaai, Toestand decided to work together with associations active in local communities, but at first it wasn’t easy to engage people from the neighbourhood and build a network. The skate park, however – as well as hip-hop and breakdance events – proved helpful in attracting a variety of young people.

“Another people-connector are the rabbits on the site. ‘They were brought here by Ismaël, a local teenager, and his dad,’ says Kennis.

“ ‘They were keeping rabbits on the balcony of their tiny flat and asked to bring them here as soon as they heard about our space. One day the chef de cabinet of the regional minister of environment was visiting and started talking with Ismaël. Turned out they both know a great deal about rabbits, so they talked for quite some time about how to feed them. This is at the heart of our philosophy: creating a space where people can meet and interact. Even people who’d probably never cross paths in the normal world.’ ”

More at the Guardian, here.

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Silent History of Dollhouses

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on December 30, 2016| 8 Comments »

The Concord Museum has an exhibit on dollhouses right now, and I walked over to check it out. I’ve always liked dollhouses and even sought out one for Suzanne  when she was in utero.

At the museum, children were playing happily with the sturdy contemporary dollhouse they were allowed to touch, but I suspect the people most intrigued by the glassed-in displays from the Strong Museum and various private collectors were the adults.

The Concord Museum is a history museum, and so I was less troubled by the accurate recreation of inequality in the miniature scenes than by the lack of relevant commentary in the placards. I couldn’t help thinking, for example, that some of the black schoolchildren who pass through the museum might be troubled by one dollhouse and might appreciate some discussion of the life of the servants in the attic and kitchen. But the placard was silent about wealth, poverty, and the legacy of slavery.

Another aspect of social history that seems fundamental to a discussion of dollhouses involves the many women who created them as a hobby.

Women who had servants in the attic and the kitchen were not folding the laundry. They were not cooking or tidying up. They were not raising their children. They did not have jobs. In short, they had almost nothing useful to do — a recipe for depression.

I often wonder about the psychological constraints that kept such women from giving themselves permission to go out into the world, as Jane Addams or Beatrix Potter did, each in her own way.

If making exquisite little worlds at home gave the dollhouse creators and their friends and families pleasure, that is a great thing in itself. If it represents a determination to create something fine when hardly any meaningful activity was allowed, then that is an even greater thing.

The dollhouse exhibit is up through January 15. Related events may be found here.

122916-dollhouse-reflects-unequal-history

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Solar Technology Powers Poor Schools

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Global Envision is part of an effort at the nonprofit Mercy Corps “to foster a richer conversation about global poverty.”

Last fall, Global Envision’s Erin Butler set off to investigate technologies that help schools in impoverished parts of of the world.

“For some students, hopping on the school bus is hopping into the classroom. Four communities are using solar-powered mobile classrooms to overcome inaccessibility to the power grid.

“Last week,” writes Butler, “we looked at a bus in Chitradurga, India, that brought modern computer technology to students in energy-poor rural schools through solar power. SELCO, a private energy company, engineered the bus with 400 watts of solar modules, 10 laptops, fans, and lights.

“Circumventing the area’s erratic power supply with its solar panels, this bus provides much-needed modern computer education and exposure to the advantages of solar energy. Motoring through rural villages in Chitradurga since January 2012, the bus has reached ’60 schools and 2,081 children,’ the New Indian Express reported in early September. …

“Where there’s more water than land, boats replace buses, and with rising sea levels, low-income Bangladeshi students have difficulty getting to school altogether.

“Pushed to inaccessible riverside settlements that lack basic infrastructure, students often can’t get to school due to monsoon flooding. Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, a nonprofit organization started by Mohammed Rezwan, rides the rising tides with his solar-powered floating schools.

“Trained as an architect and personally experienced with soggy school disruptions in Bangladesh, Rezwan rode a brainwave that led him to floating schools. Combining the best of traditional boat design and modern sustainable practices, the organization’s 54 boats have been operating since 2002 and have served over 90,000 families.”

Read about the other solar-powered schools here.

Photograph: Jayanta Shaw/Reuters/File
Students in Kolkata, India, check out their solar sunglasses as they prepare to watch the transit of Venus across the sun. The sun is being harnessed in India and Africa to power mobile solar classrooms for students.

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Poet Laureate

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 21, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Philip Levine, 83, is a poet laureate for our times. He expresses, as the NY Times puts it, the “gritty voice of the workingman.”

“Half an hour to dress, wide rubber hip boots,
gauntlets to the elbow, a plastic helmet
like a knight’s but with a little glass window
that kept steaming over, and a respirator
to save my smoke-stained lungs. I would descend
step by slow step into the dim world
of the pickling tank and there prepare
the new solutions from the great carboys
of acids lowered to me on ropes — all from a recipe
I shared with nobody and learned from Frank O’Mera
before he went off to the bars on Vernor Highway
to drink himself to death. A gallon of hydrochloric …”

Read the Times article.

Levine’s appointment as poet laureate feels timely to me for several reasons.

While income inequality in the country has become increasingly pronounced over the last few decades, public attitudes toward the labor unions that worked to level the playing field have become markedly negative. Are unions really no longer needed? Certainly, there have been abuses of their power: for example, the way some teachers unions have protected bad teachers. And weak government officials in Central Falls (RI), having routinely succumbed to the demands of public safety workers, now find there is no money to pay the promised benefits. This summer Central Falls filed for bankruptcy.

But intensely hostile antilabor actions in Wisconsin, Ohio, and even Maine are like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

A balance between workers and other stakeholders seems to make more sense. Workers are still sometimes abused, after all. That’s why I was happy to see unions helping out foreign “cultural exchange” students to protest conditions at a Hersey’s plant in Pennsylvania last week. (I blogged about that here.)

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