Peacemakers Jane and Bill

JUST imagine what a powerful pair of peacemakers Bill Sackter and Jane
Addams would have been if they'd had a chance to work together.

Bill Sackter is the man for whom Bill's Coffeshop in Iowa City is
named. The coffeeshop is a tribute to the life and spirit of Bill. Tom
Walz knew Bill and is the author of a book on Sackter called The
Unlikely Celebrity. He says Bill was the most peaceful man he ever
met. In fact, he calls Bill a saint.

Jane Addams, one of social work's founding mothers, worked tirelessly for
peace throughout her life. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
Some of those who knew her also called her a saint.

Unfortunately, their lives did not intersect. And neither of them is
living now to guide us. But they did leave us a legacy. We can draw
inspiration from Bill's spirit and Jane's energy as we work for peace in our
time. Peace seems a rather unlikely prospect at the moment, but the lives of
these two and other peacemakers can guide us as we struggle to shape a
better community and world.

Would you like to talk more with others about peacemaking in the spirit
of Bill Sackter and Jane Addams? How about adding your thoughts to this blog.

Don Quixote a social worker?

Perhaps Don Quixote was a social worker early in his life. How else can one explain the exuberant "strengths perspective" he offers to everyone he sees in life.

Quixote is the main character in a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes, a Spanish author who lived from 1547 to 1616. Cervantes wrote the story in two parts. One was published in 1605; the second appeared shortly after his death.

Quixote has this irrepressible optimism about everyone and everything he sees. He rejects the idea of a "bad" person and insists there is good in everyone.

This perspective is especially vivid in Man of La Mancha, the musical adaptation of the Don Quixote story. In this stage version, Cervantes is in prison and recreates the Quixote story using those imprisoned with him.

The prisoners also play a cynical audience who loudly express doubts about Don Quixote's optimism. They initially dismiss Quixote as a hopeless romantic who doesn't understand human nature. At times, they wonder about his sanity.

But as the story unfolds, some of the cynicism melts. By the end of the play, Quxote has a group of fellow believers.

I've seen Man of La Mancha several times over the years. But I never made a connection to social work until I saw a production last year at Theatre Cedar Rapids.

One thing I think the story is emphasizing is the importance of focusing on possibilities rather than on the limitations. Isn't that what social work calls a strengths perspective? This perspective can have a profound influence on individuals, families and communities. Bill Sackter's life is one notable example of this. It got me thinking of "Quixotes" in the lives of people I know. For example, wasn't Barry Morrow the Quixote in Bill's life?

A second message from the story is that there will always be people around who will doubt the wisdom of a strengths approach. They are likely to view a "Quixote" as someone who's not very realistic about the human condition. Don Quixote is ridiculed as a silly dreamer for his insistence in seeing the potential in each person. His response: Each of us has a choice, his choice is to focus on a person's strengths and possibilities.

Ten ideas for social work

What wisdom would you offer to those about to go into social work? What are
the most important things to remember? Could you distill this advice into a brief list?

That was s topic introduced two years ago in the Bill's Coffeeshop Newsletter (www.uiowa.edu/~socialwk/bills/newsletter). The discussion here grew out of a presentation I gave to a social work class. It was titled "Ten ideas for social work" and offered in a social policy class. I offered nine ideas:

Be tolerant

Widen your circle

Have high expectations

Stay young

Find people you can trust (and trust them)

Take time to be alone

Read a daily paper

Support a public library

Have hope

Students in the class were invited to contribute their suggestions for a tenth. Many of their suggestions appeared in the Newsletter. Readers contributed more. Among the ideas:

+ Have a good sense of humor + Never stop learning + Understand and celebrate difference + Write a letter instead of an email + Be a good listener + Be passionate about your work + Let things affect you, move you.

Now seems like a good time to reintroduce this topic. So we're asking you: What's your idea for No. 10 on this list of "Ten ideas for social work?" What would you suggest to be included on a list of essential wisdom for those going into social work?

To respond, just click on the comment button below this column.

Legacy of Jane Addams: Policy & research

COFFEESHOP customers are often surprised to learn that Jane Addams imagined places like this coffeeshop as social work settings. Actually, it was one of earliest innovations introduced by her -- and the other women of Hull House.

The settlement house opened its doors on Halsted Street in Chicago in 1889. The coffeehouse opened shortly after that. It was to be a community gathering place, Addams said, where all would be welcome. The coffeehouse was both an informal drop-in place as well as the sponsor of a host of programs, including theater, music, lectures and debates.

By 1895, the coffeehouse experience was in print. It was included in one of the chapters which make up Hull House Maps and Papers. In 1910, Addams included the coffeehouse in her best-known book, Hull House Maps and Papers.

The coffeehouse idea was just one of a host of remarkable ideas from Addams and the women of Hull House. They also started a day care center for working mothers, a health clinic, a branch library and a public playground. All of these were innovations when they began more than a century ago -- new institutions which responded to specific community needs.

Addams and the women of Hull House were also involved in forming a host of community organizations. Among the best-known: NAACP, NASW, PTA, AAUW, American Civil Liberties Union and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. They also helped organize labor unions and cooperatives.

Little-known today is that all this activity was supported by anextraordinary amount of research. From the earliest days of Hull House,Addams and her colleagues were conducting research. Their first book, Hull House Maps and Papers, is a detailed study of their neighborhood including both quantitative and qualitative research. There were many other published studies by Addams and her sister social researchers, from Safeguards for City Youths (1914) to Tenements of Chicago (1936). All of this "left a legacy that formed a basis for sociology as a way of thinking, an area of study and a methodological approach to data collecting," writes Lawrence Newman in a new edition of a textbook called Social Research Methods published i 2000.

But Newman's acknowledgement of the legacy of research by Addams and the other women of Hull House is one of the few one will find in academic circles. Whether one looks in social work, sociology or urban studies, one will find little about these feminist scholars.

Another scholar, David Sibley, confirms this in an essay about research: "Virtually all texts in urban geography and urban sociology... present the same history of the subject. In this conventional account, urban studies began in Chicago in the school of sociology about 1910...In fact, there were other authors...analyzing urban problems at the same time and in the same place...These largely forgotten authors were nearly all women."

Why haven't Addams and other women scholars of Hull House received credit for their research? Blatant sexism is the most important factor, according to a number of writers.

Mary Jo Deegan reaches this conclusion in her book called Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School. "Despite her [Addams] vision and contributions... her authorship..has been obliterated from the annals of the discipline and many of her ideas were only selectively used and distorted."

David Sibley, also a sociologist, agrees, offering two quotes from male social scientists to illustrate their sexists attitudes. One referred to the women of Hull House as "the old maids downtown who were wet-nursing social reformers." A second claimed that "the greatest damage done to the city of Chicago was not the product of corrupt politicians or criminals but the women reformers."

Newman, writing in the research text, says Addams was the target of gender bias on the part of higher education and as a result was "unable to secure regular work in universities.

Dorothy Day was also a social work founder

Go to any nearly any city in the United States and you'll find a Catholic Worker Hospitality House. There's one in Davenport as well as New York; Des Moines as well as San Francisco; Cedar Rapids as well as Minneapolis; Ft. Madison as well as Atlanta.

In fact, there are now more than 200 Catholic Worker House around the United States. Most offer food and shelter to homeless individuals. Some have been doing it for 50 years or more.

These social service organizations are part of the legacy of Dorothy Day,
who started the Catholic Worker Movement in the 1920s with several friends. She died more than 20 years ago, but the social work she started is now more widespread than at any time during her life.

Despite her lifetime commitment to social work with the poor, Day is seldom mentioned in the story of the development of the social work profession. Look through social work histories and you're not likely to find any references to her or to the Catholic Worker. (There is a brief mention of her in Phyllis Day's "A New History of Social Work.)

Why hasn't social work claimed Dorothy Day as part of its history? That's not clear. Perhaps because she appears too radical -- she did ask that one live as well as work with the poor. Perhaps because of her strong religious faith -- she was outspoken in linking her Catholic belief to her work. Or perhaps because she didn't do research on "outcomes" of her work with the homeless -- she said that how you lived your life is all that really mattered.

Whatever the reasons, she is largely absent from the list of founding mothers. Yet she remains an important influence in the lives of many involved in social work. To learn more about her life and impact,check out the Catholic Worker website: www.catholicworker.org. Also look for a film called "Entertaining Angels" which highlights Day's early years with the Catholic Worker.

Living on the streets

The segment of homeless people aged 55 and over is growing. One  outreach worker has noticed that many of the older people who sleep at shelters don't need to be there.



Link: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/05/09/elderhomeless/

When zoning hurts diversity

I'D LIKE to report a theft. My neighborhood in Iowa City has been stolen. First it was alittle bit at a time, but now it's in big chunks. Even the night sky has been stolen.

But I don't know who to call. It turns out that the theft of our neighborhood is quite legal. In fact, it's encouraged by our city's zoning.

Zoning was originally created to protect people and their homes from such things as smoky factories and city dumps. The reasoning went like this: Separate the industrial uses from the residential uses and people will not only have more pleasant neighborhoods, but healthier lives.

Later, zoning was advanced as a way to bring order to the urban landscape. Urban planners suggested that stores shouldn't be in neighborhoods, but in separate areas. The idea of street corner shopping was dismissed as old-fashioned and passe.

Today zoning is still being used as a tool to reduce the diversity of aneighborhood. But now it is also being used to reduce the diversity of people.It has turned into a tool to isolate people by income.

Oh, the veneer of bringing order to urban landscapes is still there. But the reality is that zoning is now being used to cluster people of similar incomes into neighborhoods (and to keep out people of other incomes, especially lower
incomes).

It works as well as building walls or creating gated communities. But itdoesn't stir up as much controversy as "real" walls because zoning is an invisible force. In addition, because zoning can't be seen it is difficult to challenge.

Our neighborhood on South Dodge Street had long been an example of urban diversity. It's one of the streets in the city with a broad range of ages, incomes and backgrounds. There are people who have lived here all their lives and people who are living here for just a summer. There are young students and retired couples; working people and college professors.

That human diversity comes from the housing diversity. There is a range of housing from stately single family homes to homes converted into apartments, from duplexes to modern apartment buildings.

To keep that diversity in people requires maintaining the diversity on
housing. That requires zoning which protects the diversity of housing. Otherwise, the neighborhood is overwhelmed by economic interests which would replace what is here by the homogeneous housing which characterizes too much of Iowa City's newer neighborhoods.

But zoning offered no such protection to our block on our block of South Dodge. As a result, our block is underwent a striking change during the summer of 2005. Three of the houses on our block were turned into "duplexes."

But these are not duplexes in the way you and I think of them. In each case, a two story, three bedroom "box" is being added onto the back of the house. There is no attempt to match the addition to the house. Each is exactly the same, reminding one of the Malvina Reynolds song "Little Boxes": "They're all made out of ticky-tacky...and they all look the same."

Not only is the "look" of our neighborhood being changed substantially. The addition of nine bedrooms will also boost the number of people living on our block by 50 percent or more. To get an idea of the impact of this, just
imagine nine to 12 more people moving onto your block or cul de sac.

In most Iowa City neighborhoods, zoning wouldn't allow such an increase in density. But this block is in an "in between" zone -- between the suburban neighborhoods and downtown. Here the property owner is "permitted" to do this. Plus, the zoning in our neighborhood permits such additions without an
additions to parking.

But wait, there's more. Despite the size of this development and its huge effect on a single block, the owner didn't even have to consult with the neighbors before building this project. In other neighborhoods, it's likely that these three "duplexes" would have to be submitted as a "planned unit development" triggering special and carefully scrutiny. But the zoning in our neighborhood didn't require any such consultation because we're in the "in between" zone.

Finally, these new boxes have even "stolen" the night sky. I can't look out
and see the moon and stars from the second floor porch anymore. All that I see
now is a giant box.

These boxes are very large examples of the failure of zoning to protect the people on our block. Zoning is failing other people on other blocks in the "in between" zone, too. But usually, the changes don't happen so quickly. Instead, it is bit by bit, block by block.

Yet the result is the same. Zoning is pushing out diversity in the "in between" zones and replacing it with homogeneity. It is a sad legacy for a planning tool which was originally advanced as a way to protect neighborhoods.

Walk in the park & shop locally

DOWN THE hall from a classroom where I am teaching this semester is a poster which lists 100 ideas under the heading "How to build community." Seeing that poster has gotten me thinking about additional ways to sustain and renew the communities in which we live. I came up with seven ideas:

1. Walk around your block. A long time ago, I had a neighbor who would walk around the block almost every evening around 10 pm. She and her husband -- and their two dogs -- would circle the block. That's how they got to know the comings and goings of everyone. We called her "the mayor" of the block because of this accumulated knowledge. Now, as the weather warms up, is a great time to start doing this on your block.

2. Shop at locally-owned stores. These are the businesses which add stability and personality to our community. All over town there are delightful businesses waiting to be discovered. Take an afternoon to explore what's out there.

3. Do something with your block. It could be as simple as planning a similar seasonal decoration for every door. Or it could be as elaborate as organizing a progressive dinner.

4. Introduce yourself to a new neighbor. Invite them over to see you or take them out for coffee. You might even consider reviving the almost lost art of welcoming them with a hot dish or dessert.

5.Ride the bus. If you drive your car all the time, you're missing a slice of our town. A bus ride -- even on a free downtown shuttle -- will introduce you to people you would otherwise never meet. Don't have bus service in your community? Consider taking on the assignment to change that.

6. Acknowledge young people. When I talk with young people, they often ask me why adults move away from them at street corners and bus stops. There's a gap there which you can help bridge. Young people want to be recognized, so take a moment to say hi the next time you pass a teenager.

7. Go to the park. There's nothing like a stroll through one of the city parks to restore one's sanity. Every community has at least one. Many have several; one for whatever mood you might be in.

I'm sure you have many other ideas for building community. How about sharing some of yours.

Common ground and cultural blender

I'VE HEARD many neighborhood activists talk about their community work as
a search for "common ground." Recently, I read an essay which takes that idea
one step further, suggesting that community-building requires not only seeking,
but also "cultivating" common ground.

Gardening is a wonderful metaphor for working together. In a garden, there is a
kind of equality among participants. And there is a great sense of
collaboration when all are planting and weeding together.

That collaboration reaches its peak at harvest. That's the time when gardeners share their produce, trading tomatoes and jalapenos, cantaloupe and kohlrabi. You might think of this trading as a giant cultural blender.

Gardens are just one place where this blender is whirring. If you look closely, you can find this find the mixing and remixing going on all over the place.

In Minneapolis, I lived next to a Middle Eastern restaurant which specialized in gyros. But the restaurant also offered bratwurst. Down the street a Chinese restaurant proudly displayed a sign reading: Se Habla Espanol.

The recent emergence of Day of the Dead celebrations around the Midwest offers a very great example of this cultural blending. The event itself is a blend of influences which have been mixing for centuries. The festival has been a tradition in Mexico and parts of the southwest US for years. Now, it's also celebrated in cities all over the US, including Minneapolis and Iowa City.

One part of the festival is building ofrendas, small memorial altars which pay tribute to those who have died. In the past, these ofrendas have usually been tributes to family members. But in Minneapolis, I saw a public display of ofrendas which included not only family members, but also shrines to Tupac, Martin Luther King and Princess Diana.

Iowa City's Day of the Dead celebration shows another way this cultural
blending is at work. In that city, it is a very multicultural group which has
shaped Day of the Dead into a major celebration each November.

There is a liveliness in the mixing. New traditions are shaped by this blender.

But there are times where there is strong resistance to this blending. Columbus
Day festivals are one example. In a number of communities, these have become
defiant tributes to a past that never was.

Many colleges and universities have had a hard time responding to this
diversity. They have been quite willing to allow this cultural blender to operate around the edges, in such events as Diversity Day and Black History Month commemorations.

But have been less willing to allow the blender to broaden and strengthen the range of voices within academic departments. The best example of this has been the ongoing struggle to add African-American, Chicano and Native American voices to university departments. Women's voices, too, are often left out.

This is not a new problem, of course. Jane Addams wrote about this a century ago. She said universities have too often disconnected themselves from the real world outside the academy.

Hull House, the settlement she and others founded in 1889, was in part a response to this disconnection. Then, as now, many voices were excluded from the universities and museums. One response of Addams was to invite a broad
range of people to speak and teach at Hull House. It was an early example of
college extension classes. Another example: Major museums excluded the art and
culture of many immigrant groups. So Hull House opened a museum to give those
artists a place.

These and other Hull House initiatives are great examples of cultivating common ground and encouraging the work of the cultural blender. They are also models we can adapt to our time.

Breaking the pinata

Shannon never took history for granted. She's the daughter who always was asking questions about missing people and parts in the stories she heard.

What if one of the wise men was actually a woman? Couldn't Minnehaha have carried Hiawatha across the creek instead of the other way around? Those are just a few of the questions I remember her asking as she was growing up.

I was thinking of Shannon's questions the other day during a discussion about
teaching history. One model is based is based on the idea that history is the
story of wars. According to this view, history is a series of great big guys
who win battles and topple civilizations. That's certainly one view.

But it's not the only one. The author of the Chalice and the Blade suggests an alternative view. She suggests building a history based on peace. Rianne Eisler says that if one really looks carefully at past history, there are plenty of examples of societies living peacefully.

Further, she says the war-dominated model excludes many people and groups. A peace-based model of history is more egalitarian and includes many of the stories left out of the other model.

I have a friend who would say that Eisler is a great example of what he called "pinata-busters." Jose Burciaga came up with this phrase to describe people who break down the walls of old ideas. They take the risks so all of us can see better.

Perhaps that's one of the things we're supposed to be learning in social work -- how to ourselves be pinata-busters. Perhaps we are here to practice breaking down those walls which can divide us.

History is a good place to start. The way we describe our past plays a big role in the way we imagine our future. If we take a bigger, wider view of our past, Eisler says we will see that it was more peaceful and more inclusive than we have been taught in the recent past. That's not only good news for now, but also a great source of hope for a better future

With a broader view of history, questions like those Shannon asked would be answered differently. We would be able to say: Why, yes, of course, there were wise women. Let me tell you some of their stories.

My friend Kate Wakerly

I'VE always thought that social work and journalism make a great dynamic duo. Together these two have extraordinary power to carry out that noble instruction to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." Of course, this is not an original idea. Our social work founders, starting with Jane Addams, understood this.

So, too, did my good friend Kate Wakerly, who died in 2004. She was a great example of a person with the head of a journalist and the heart of a social worker. It's a combination which has left a big imprint in the communities where Kate worked. It's also a path which has been an inspiration to me and others who knew Kate.

Kate and I met at the SUN Newspapers in 1973. It was a group of about a dozen weekly newspapers in San Jose, Calif. and nearby communities. Kate and I started working there about the same time. We shared a great passion for the communities we wrote about. We worked together on a lot of terrific projects during a wonderful era at those newspapers.

Kate and I, and a lot of other young reporters, got our education in community journalism from Mort and Elaine Levine. They had started in 1955 with a weekly paper in Milpitas, a California town near San Jose. Through
the newspaper, the Levines encouraged the development of Milpitas into a tolerant and progressive community. They carried this same message to San Jose and other nearby communities as they started additional papers. It was a message which inspired and nourished us during the years when we worked at those newspapers. Those were incredible years.

For a time Kate and I even imagined taking over the SUN papers after the founders retired. We talked about it many Friday mornings as we drove to the printing plant to lay out our papers.

But it was not to be. Instead, we found ourselves set adrift after the sale of the papers to Meredith Corp., the Des Moines company best-known for Better Homes and Gardens magazine. The new owners cared little for community
journalism; they exhibited a combination of arrogance and ignorance which eventually resulted in the death of several papers and serious decline for the rest.

I nearly quit the week the Meredith people arrived. But Kate talked me out of leaving, convincing me that we should stay and continue our community journalism as long as we could. That turned out to be about a year. But
eventually, we both left.

When we left the SUN papers, we didn't follow in the footsteps of many of our colleagues who had gone to daily newspapers. Instead, we both ended up starting community newspapers of our own. There was something about this kind of journalism which we liked; something we wanted to continue doing.

In part, it was knowing -- really knowing -- your readers and advertisers. Also, it was being able to have an influence in the direction of a community.

But there were times when writing and editing a newspaper was simply not enough. You had to become more directly involved in your community. Your heart said you have to put down your pencil and notebook and do something.

Kate did this so well, in a way which not only responded to community needs but also strengthened her integrity as a journalist. I recall one example which illustrates this so clearly. While wearing her reporter hat, Kate came across a community conflict over "day laborers." In that community, the day laborers were young Mexican-American men who waited in a parking lot for contractors to come by and hire them for the day. Some members of the community wanted this practice stopped and the parking lot cleared. A classic conflict which had the potential for great stories.

But it was not enough for Kate to simply write about such an issue. She switched hats and went out and started a center for day laborers in her community. It was a great success and now part of her legacy.

Kate did things like this over and over, combining journalism and social work in such wonderful ways. She was an inspiration to many others trying to do similar things, including this writer.

Cesar Chavez: A hero for social workers

CESAR CHAVEZ died thirteen years ago. But his spirit and vision live on in the
United Farm Workers union he founded and in the Cesar Chavez holiday
celebrated at the end of March each year.

Chavez was the visionary leader behind the United Farm Workers (UFW) union.
He's also a good candidate for a social work hero.

I first heard about Cesar Chavez in the late 1960s, when members of the UFW
came to Minneapolis seeking support for a boycott of head lettuce. Later,
there was a boycott of table grapes.

The UFW didn't send just the farmworkers. Two entire families came to
spread the labor union's message. My first assignment was to find winter
clothing for the families. I went on to picketing, asking churches and
schools not to serve grapes, and urging grocers to carry only lettuce with
the UFW Black Eagle on the box.

Despite all this, I still was not prepared for the man I found when I first
met Cesar Chavez. I met him several times while serving as editor of the
East San Jose Sun, a weekly newspaper serving the city where Chavez got his
start as an activist.

For an activist, he was quite reserved. And for a union leader, he seemed quite uncomfortable in the spotlight. Yet he was very inspiring. I remember
thinking one time when I was listening to him: If there are saints in our
time, Chavez surely must be one.

Over the years, he and others told me about his life and his organizer.
Chavez moved to San Jose, California in 1952 to organize a local chapter of
the Community Service Organization (CSO). The group was born in Los Angeles,
growing out of a city council campaign there. Fred Ross, an organizer from
Saul Alinsky's organization in Chicago, played a key role in getting the
group started.

From Los Angeles, Ross went to work organizing other CSO chapters around the
state. He hired Cesar Chavez to help. Chavez moved to San Jose and organized
a CSO chapter there. At one time, the San Jose chapter was the biggest of a
string of CSOs around California. The chapter offered immigration
assistance, citizenship class and similar projects.

Chavez left San Jose in 1962, intent on starting a labor union for
farmworkers. He had been concerned about the plight of farmworkers, many
from Mexico or of Mexican descent, for a number of years. But he had been
unable to persuade CSO to become a leading voice on behalf of "campesinos." So he quit his CSO job and heading to the Salinas Valley to start organizing. He organized nationwide boycotts of grapes, Gallo wine and head lettuce to draw attention to the poor wages and working conditions of farmworkers and to pressure growers to sign contracts with the union. The boycotts were successful and the UFW signed contracts covering thousands of workers.

By the mid-1970s, it appeared that the struggle for better wages and working
conditions for farmworkers had been won. But a series of setbacks during the
1980s slowed the UFW momentum and even erased some of its earlier gains. By
1990, it was clear that some new strategy was needed. So Chavez and other
union leaders decided to return to San Jose where he had begun 30 years
before.

The last time I saw Chavez was in 1992, less than a year before he died. The
scene was a familiar one in front of a grocery store in San Jose. It was a
sort of homecoming for Chavez; his appearance brought out many activist
friends. In his talk, he linked the dreams of rural farmworkers to the sense
of justice in urban consumers. He urged us to act on our shared hopes for a
better community. Once again I had that feeling: I am in the presence of an
extraordinary person.

Chavez died in 1993. But his legacy continues, both in the UFW and in the
day set aside each March to remember his life and work. You can find out more by visiting these websites: www.ufw.org and www.cesarchavezfoundation.org

Coffeeshops key in building community

Thinking about community practice in social work? Find yourself a coffeeshop. In
communities all over the Midwest, a coffeeshop has been the anchor for community
renewal.

Each of these is a homegrown business, owned and operated by people who care
about community. The success of each goes beyond the coffeeshop itself. Each of
these coffeeshops has also been a key part of community renewal.

In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Hard Times Cafe has been one of the anchors of
community development for more than a decade. In Sioux Falls, South Dakota,
Zandbroz Coffeeshop and Variety store has been a centerpiece in the revival of
downtown.

In Decorah, Iowa, Magpie Coffeeshop is one of the newer businesses strengthening
a remarkably lively downtown. And in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Red Rooster
Coffeeshop has been part of the renewal of the city's downtown.

Here in Iowa City, Uptown Bill's has been a leading partner in the
revitalization of a retail corner just south of downtown. The Ralston Creek
Street Fair is just one example of this revival.

The success of these coffeeshops, and their role as a catalyst in strengthening
communities, suggests models for other communities around Iowa and beyond. One
community's coffeeshop could be a cooperative, like the Hard Times. Another
could be an employment center for individuals with disabilities, like Uptown
Bill's. Yet another could be a project for young people, like Magpie. Others
could be organized as typical small businesses, like Red Rooster.

There's also a coffeeshop engaged in community practice at the University of Iowa. In fact, it's a project of the School of Social Work - and it's been there for over
30 years.

Bill's Coffeeshop is a key link between the new coffeeshops of the last decade
and those of the 1960s. It's also a link between the coffeeshop as a business
enterprise and the coffeeshop as a social work setting.

Jane Addams and her friends at Hull House recognized the value of the
coffeeshop. It was one of the early experiments at Hull House and became an
integral part of the community.

The Hull House residents saw the coffeeshop not only as a place where people
could gather and talk over coffee. They also saw it as a place where people
could talk about important civic issues. And as a place where everyone's opinion
had equal importance, whatever one's background.

Bill's Coffeeshop has been a continuing experiment of these ideas. The new
coffeeshops emerging in our communities are doing the same thing with amazing
results.

One role of community practice in social work could be to strengthen this
coffeeshop work. And to transplant the idea into additional communities
which are also looking for renewal.

Life on $6.75 an hour: When ends don't meet

Minimum wage earners are often just one step from homelessness. This recent news story in the Sacramento Bee explains why.

You can read this story in its entirety on the web at:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/14269140p-15080280c.html



Monique Garcia earned minimum wage for most of a decade before
becoming homeless. She washed dishes, swept floors, collected
parking tickets, worked cash registers, staffed drive-through
windows and flipped burgers. Despite that, two months ago
the 26-year-old single mom found herself with too little
money for rent and no place to go.

Stay in touch with poverty

It's entirely possible to grow up without any first-hand experience with
poverty. Neighborhoods in so many communities are segregated by income. As a result, many of us grew up without any idea that there are people who are poor, who are even without a place to live.

Poverty is measured by income. The federal standard for the poverty-level income for a family of four is $18,850 a year.  Familes with incomes below that level are considered poor.

To earn an annual salary of $18,850 a year would require a wage of $9.44 an
hour. That assumes working 40 hours a week and 50 weeks a year. (You can
find out more about US government guidelines for poverty at this website:
http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/04poverty.shtml).

Many families are living in poverty because the parents earn less than
$18,850 a year. The minimum wage is just $5.25 an hour. A person working 40
hours a week, 50 weeks a year at this minimum would earn only $10,500 for
the year.

In addition, many hourly wage jobs do not provide sick leave or vacation
pay. So if you miss work for any reason, you don't get paid.

Health insurance? That costs extra; it is a benefit seldom offered to those working at low-wage jobs. (This contrasts with those at the higher end of the wage scale for whom health insurance is often a low-cost or even no-cost
benefit.)

There is an additional factor in the past few years which has been worsening the financial difficulties for families living in poverty. It's the rapidly rising cost of housing. Families and individuals with limited incomes are having a harder and harder time finding reasonably-priced housing in any community.

Why are housing costs going up so fast? That's a topic for another discussion.

Farmworker families remain in poverty

When you buy a head of lettuce or a bunch of grapes, chances are it was picked by a farmworker in California. Chances are, too, that this worker earned less than $10,000 a year -- working more than fulltime. And without any benefits.

One reason for such low wages is that most farmworkers are not covered under
minimum wage laws. Most aren't covered by other federal labor laws either (such as workers compensation).

Cesar Chavez spent much of his adult life trying to change that situation.
The son of farmworkers, he was an organizer of the United Farm Workers Union and president of the union until his death in 1993.

The UFW's finest hour came in 1975 when California adopted a landmark agricultural labor relations law. That came after a decade of organizing and lobbying, including nationwide boycotts of head lettuce and table grapes. It looked then as if it would be the beginning of a new era for farmworkers.

But in large part, the life of farmworkers hasn't changed in the last 30 years. A key reason is that many of the big growers in California simply refused to negotiate contracts with the UFW union. Farm workers have voted to unionize over 400 times in the past two decades, but growers have signed contracts in less than 200 of those cases.

California now has a law which strengthens the hand of the works. It calls for third-party arbitration when contract talks stall between growers and farm workers trying to organize. Such "binding arbitration" laws are common with teachers and public employee unions.

California's law has already helped settle some disputes between the UFW and growers. You can find out more about farmworkers in the US at the United Farm Workers website: www.ufw.org.

Why we must talk about poverty

Jane Addams  and the women of Hull House pioneered a model of social work practice which calls for living and working in a poor neighborhood. Many others, in and out of social work, have tried the same idea.

One of those, Dorothy Day, founded the Catholic Worker. She wrote hundreds of columns about her work. Here's a excerpt from one. Though originally written in 1952, it seems very contemporary: "We need always to be thinking and writing about poverty, for if we are not among its victims its reality fades from us. We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.

"So many decent people come in to visit and tell us how their families were brought up in poverty...They contend that healthful habits and a stable family situation enable people to escape from the poverty class, no matter how mean the slum they may once have been forced to live in. So why can't everybody do it?

"No, these people don't know about the poor. Their conception of poverty is of something neat and well ordered....Maybe no one can be told; maybe they will have to experience it.

"Or maybe it is a grace which they must pray for...I am convinced that it is the grace we most need in this age of crisis, this time when expenditures reach into the billions to defend "our American way of life."

Learning about poverty

THERE'S A limit to how much one can learn about poverty sitting in a classroom
or watching a TV documentary. To really understand, one needs first-hand
knowledge of poverty and its effects. That requires going out into the community and listening to individuals and families who are engaged in the daily struggle
to make ends meet.

How to do that? Here are ten ways to learn about poverty in your community:

1. Cook or serve dinner at your local Rescue Mission, Salvation Army or
Catholic Worker House.

2. Introduce yourself to a homeless person and take her out to dinner.

3. Bail someone out of jail and accompany him to court.

4. Spend an evening in the emergency room of a public hospital.

5. Help someone apply for TANF (AFDC).

6. Try to find health insurance for someone who has just $50 a month to spend
on it.

7. Provide a weekend of child care for a young single mother (or a mother whose
husband is in prison).

8. Apply for a job which pays only the minimum wage.

9. Accompany someone who is applying for Medicaid.

10. Work once a week for a month at a foodshelf.

Each of these are opportunities to learn about poverty -- while doing something
useful at the same time. Chances are you have additional ideas.  Why not add them to this list.

Powerful primer on poverty

CAN A family of four make ends meet on $18,800 a year in the US? That's the
question posed (and answered) in an excellent online presentation. Why $18,800?
Because that's defined as the poverty level by the US government. The
presentation was prepared by the Campaign for Human Development, an annual
project of the US Catholic bishops. You can see this powerful primer on poverty
at: www.nccbuscc.org/cchd/povertyusa/tour2.htm. Thanks to Laurel Hirt at the
at the University of Minnesota for sending this to us.

What is poverty?

What is poverty? How is it defined? Who decides on the definition?

Those are among the most basic questions in social work. We'll start with a discussion about these questions. Then we'll move on to a discussion about social welfare.