Youth Speak Out About the Choice Between Incarceration and Social Services

By Liane Scott, on October 19th, 2011

Grace Ebiasah is an organizer for Different Avenues, a DC nonprofit working to change, improve, and protect the health, rights, and safety of women and girls in the region. She spent an afternoon at the Boys and Girls Club of Washington, Number 14 on Benning Road in Northeast. While there, Grace took the opportunity to survey some of the program participants about the budget cuts to social services that the city and federal government have been making in response to the down economy. One of the questions explored was why the government continues to cut programs such as for mentoring and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) that would help young people while continuing to increase funding for policing and youth rehabilitation. Results of that portion of her survey are in the following video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn4uaoX05w4

In the video, one of the participants asks, “Why is the government putting more money into locking up youth? How does that help our economy?” I asked Different Avenues director Kelli Dorsey if indeed locking up youth helps or hurts our economy. Her response was that it depends where you fall in the economy. Progressive organizers like Dorsey claim that the commonly-held belief that imprisonment will fix problems brought on by a lack of positive opportunities in low-income communities of color encourages government to put more money into policing those communities than it does in providing for their needs. Companies like Victoria’s Secret, which uses cheap prison labor to produce their products in California, or Bob Barker Company, Inc., America’s leading detention supplier, make plenty of money via the prison industrial complex. Youth and others who are locked up in prison do not profit from these relationships.

While Different Avenues works to change a system that would use youth in communities of color as a potential source of profit rather than as citizens worthy of support, they are also aware that young people need direction to help them keep from getting caught up in the prison-industrial complex. To that end, Different Avenues organizer Jasmine Archer has created a guide for youth who are stopped by the police. HEY GRRL! What Time Is It? Time To Know Your Rights!!! is geared toward youth but is useful for anybody who gets stopped by the police. Different Avenues is currently looking for funding to publish and distribute this guidebook. In the meantime, feel free to download and distribute it at will.

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Budget Cuts From a Youth’s Perspective

By Liane Scott, on July 26th, 2011

If the Congress and President Obama cannot agree on a plan to raise the debt limit then the Federal Government will go into default. There have been all kinds of dire predictions about what will happen to the US economy should this happen. The financial industry claims that Congress not only needs to raise the debt ceiling but they also must cut the deficit by something like $4 trillion if the US government’s credit rating is to remain in good order. In response, the Democrats have advocated raising taxes on the wealthy which, naturally, the Republicans refuse to do. So, What does all this mean for those of us whose incomes are low?

However this gets resolved, you can be sure that Congress will do it’s best to close the deficit by cutting programs that help the poor. It won’t work of course as those programs don’t make up enough of the budget to make a substantial difference in the deficit even if they were entirely eliminated. The axe will fall next on entitlements like Medicaid and Social Security which also have a disproportionate impact on low- and moderate-income folks. So, as usual, the wealthy will do fine and the rest of us will continue to struggle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6hD5A4tquk

Jasmine Archer of Different Avenues, a DC Nonprofit working for reproductive justice by and for girls and women of color, examines how the budget cuts will affect youth in the above digital story. Here’s her introduction: I did a digital story on the budget cuts and talked a little about how it’s going to affect us as a people. Image if they cut WIC (Women Infant Children) how many mothers and children will be hungry, or image if they cut health care, how many people wouldn’t be able to afford their medication. I wonder do they imagine how it will affect us as a people mentally, physically, and emotionally, or how the budget cuts can create violence and depression.

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Affordable Housing is a Nationwide Struggle

By Liane Scott, on June 20th, 2011

On April 15, 2011 the United States House of Representatives approved a Budget Resolution for 2012 proposed by conservative Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan. Ryan’s resolution, if passed, will abolish Medicare and mandate budget cuts totaling $5.5 billion to Housing and Urban Development programs starting in October 2011. All of these cuts target low- and moderate-income people and add up to more than double the amount cut in 2010.

The House budget also calls for work requirements, time limits and rent increases for elderly, disabled and low income tenants receiving HUD assistance. Currently, the House Budget Committee plans to cut 14% of HUD programs across the board, leaving 294,000 Voucher families, 150,000 Public Housing families, and 180,000 Project Based Section 8 families without homes beginning in October. If these cuts are applied proportionately to Washington, D.C., 1520 Voucher families, 1100 Public Housing families, and 1540 Project Based Section 8 families will lose their homes.

Earlier this year, the Save Our Homes Coalition—representing tenants who live in Section 8 public housing programs as well as housing voucher recipients from across the country—coordinated a national day of action to protest the proposed cuts to the HUD budget in Fiscal Year 2011. Nineteen cities participated in a series of actions that took place on Valentine’s Day, including Washington, DC. Grassroots Media Project ally, Judith Hawkins of Valencia’s It Is What It Is Mobile Talk Show, along with Project trainees from Different Avenues, Grace Ebiasah and Jasmine Archer, produced the following video.

As a result of the nation-wide “Have a Heart-Save Our Homes” rallies, like the one shown above, as well as other pressure from the Left, deep cuts to HUD rental housing programs were avoided. However, Republicans have again called for deep spending cuts. This time they are tied to the increase in the US debt ceiling, which must be voted on by August 2 to avoid a US government default. To avoid further cuts, tenants are urging support for alternative revenues by taxing the wealthy and closing loopholes for giant corporations that paid no federal taxes in 2010.

According to US Uncut, a self-described grassroots movement taking direct action against corporate tax cheats and unnecessary and unfair public service cuts across the United States, Bank of America paid no federal income taxes in 2010. In fact, BOA received a tax refund of $666 million—despite record profits and lavish taxpayer bailouts. US Uncut and others estimate that making large corporations pay their fair share would generate as much as $100 billion per year. If BOA paid their fair share at the supposed “corporate income tax rate” of 35%, $4.2 billion in cuts could be avoided—enough to prevent the deep cuts to HUD rental programs proposed by the House Budget Committee for FY 2012.

To that end, low income tenant leaders and organizations from across the nation will come together June 21, to urge the US Treasury to “Tax the Cheats and Save Our Homes.” The National Alliance of HUD Tenants and local organizations Empower DC, ONE DC and the Community for Creative Non-Violence urge everyone suffering under DC’s affordable housing crisis to join them at the following rally at the Bank of America and the US Treasury.

Tax the Cheats, Save Our Homes Rally Tuesday, June 21, 2011 10:30 – 11:30 am 730 15th Street NW (Bank of America) Washington, DC 20005

Tuesday’s demonstration will feature tenant leaders from across the nation gathered in Washington, D.C. for the annual conference of the National Alliance of HUD Tenants (NAHT), the nation’s only national tenants union. They will be joined by tenants and homeless people from DC, including Empower DC, ONE DC, and the Community for Creative Non-Violence. For more information, contact Empower DC, affordable housing organizer Linda Leaks at 202-234-9119.

 

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