The Looting of America And How To Stop It.

Noone is coming to save us. That's not entirely true. My experience has shown me that community's step in when government programs fail us. We step in to save ourselves and those close to us. 

If there is no community or sense of one, it is time to create one. That is right, create one. It isn't that hard. I've done it a few dozen times. 

Example: When I could not afford daycare, even though I had one professional full-time job and one part time job waiting tables and having a big mouth and a very open-door policy at my home, my neighbors and I spent a few months complaining about our mutual lack of affordable daycare. I get tired of conversations about a problem. It is good to investigate a problem, research is essential but once one knows the intricacies of a problem it is time to address how to meet the need. Seek out resources and if need be, create them. Point in Fact:

The Property Manager liked most of the tenants, was a single mother herself, and although her apartment was part of her salary and job, she too had trouble paying for and finding a daycare that was affordable. I started thinking. I was writing grants as part of my job as a crisis counselor at the non- profit I was employed so why not find a grant to cover our situation? I went in search and lo and behold found a few grants. There was a community center at the complex almost no one used. My brain started imagining a room full of kids, tables and art supplies, fun parties, holiday events, and a bus that dropped all our kids off at the center. After a few months of research and getting permission to use the center if I could pull off a grant, our Children's Latchkey program had a home, an art teacher who donated her time, three stay at home Moms who volunteered to get the kids off the buses and supervise on a rotation basis, helping the Art Teacher. That program is in effect today; I wrote the grants in 1990. No parent paid a fee for our services. No one took a paycheck. All of the grant money went to cover the cost of expenses at the center, art supplies and healthy snacks for the children. 

Where there is a will, desire and need, ideas and resources tend to show up. A little effort and it was a reality. No more rushing home in Cape Cod Tourist traffic on a Friday, my kid was safe and sound along with all the children at the complex and a small community of people came together. They started a Tenants Association to represent tenants' rights; I helped them with a referral to Legal Services to advise them on tenants' rights and individual cases. This little low-income spot tucked away from view of the Lifestyles of the Rich, white and famous, was now a community. 

It grew from there. Habitat For Humanity needed a Board Member so I joined. They helped our single parents become homeowners. A neighbor started a cleaning business for small businesses, left her abusive husband and was awarded the first Habitat House built in Sandwich Ma. Who thought this could mushroom? I didn't. Yet it did mushroom and grow.  My simple need for affordable daycare and my job as a Battered Woman's Counselor along with connections I made there and my willingness to hear my neighbors share their equal frustrations, created the momentum, timing and desire for this to come into being. It was a collaboration of many. I was just the tool. We also, as a community involved used car companies who donated and fixed up autos for our working men and women coop members. Yeah, we became a co op. Cooperation was our Motto. We had our own food pantry, potluck Sunday dinners, phone chains to reach out so no one felt alone, isolated or unworthy of friends and neighbors. We had our squabbles, but we worked things out and dispelled the feeling of being alone against the world. Sounds corny as hell but it was what happened. A host of talent emerged because we got to know one another. Quilters, Cooks, Bakers, Artists, Cleaning Experts, Carpenters and so on. 

I often told my clients I am not the person with all the answers. Will never tell you what to do, to turn left or right. Consider me your seeing eye dog, I am here to lead you into the basement and be a comfort when you dig in dark corners and get tangled in spider webs. You are the expert on you, not I. You lead the way I will guide you and warn you about danger and offer you all the options I can dig up for your specific needs. 

We are all one another's guide dogs. When the student is ready, the teacher will arrive and vice a versa. Perhaps we are, if we can quiet that nag, our constant inner dialog of naysaying and doubt, here and there, to hear our soul, our wisest teacher, break through the stone walls of our egos, our egos hinder us almost as much as our government programs and ideologies? A hypothesis I hold to this day. My true nature, I am obsessed with Justice. It is one of my areas of expertise. 

 I have learned more from my clients than any abnormal psychology course could have taught me. We journey together. The one thing I have learned is to not say NO or YES to anything until I figure out the details. An open and curious mind is likely to find the most interesting information and solutions. 

My next posting will be "Resources" both known and little known. From homelessness prevention, housing, food insecurity, grants and scholarships for degree programs, heating assistance, home repair programs both state and federal for homeowner experiencing hardships, childcare, summer camp tuition grants, etc...