intersections

Sojourners on Faith-Based Community Organizing

I was interviewed back in June for this Sojourners article by Daniel Duncan Collum, "Why Does Glenn Beck Hate Community Organizers?" (a question that the article never attempts to answer, except in the tagline.).

I appreciated the opportunity to share how community organizing has invigorated our ministry in Hollywood. Hope you enjoy it!

Why Does Glenn Beck Hate Community Organizers?

The Main Reason: They upend the power structure to give people at the bottom a better chance.

By Danny Duncan Collum

When Ryan Bell took over as pastor of Hollywood Adventist Church in California, it was a withering congregation with only about 50 active members. And, he says, “We had a homeless ministry we couldn’t afford and a debt that was about to kill the church.” Bell reluctantly closed the feeding program for the homeless but resolved to find a more practical way to address the issue.

Soon he discovered LA Voice, a congregation-based community organizing federation affiliated with the PICO (People Improving Communities through Organizing) National Network that was working to have the city create permanent supportive housing for the homeless in Hollywood.

The Adventist congregation threw itself into that effort, which succeeded against intense local opposition. After that experience, Bell told Sojourners, he went to the Voice organizer and said, ‘Where do we sign up to join?’” But the organizer told him that there had to be a committee of lay leaders involved. “I just groaned,” Bell remembers. “I thought, ‘That’ll never happen.’” But Hollywood Adventist is now an integral part of the LA Voice federation working for affordable housing.

Read the rest here

LA Voice on the cover of the LA Times

Prayer Rally for Health Care Reform tomorrow!

Tomorrow I have the privilege to speak at a prayer rally in Hollywood in support of health care reform. This event is being put on by LA Voice and our 25 member congregations. I and a few other clergy will pray and speak to the issue from a moral/faith perspective.

Members of our congregations will tell their personal health care stories and then two of our elected officials will speak: Congressman Xavier Becerra and Congresswoman Diane Watson. Ms. Watson represents the area when I live and where the Hollywood Adventist Church is located.

If you live in the area and are available at 10:00 am, please come to:

Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church
6657 Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood, CA 90028

If you want to learn more about PICO's work on behalf of health care reform visit: www.coverallfamilies.org

Also check out this short piece at NPR's news blog.

PICO: Economic Recovery Summit in Washington, D.C.

Last week I participated in the Faith and Families Economic Recovery Summit along with nearly 300 other leaders from PICO affiliates around the country. I traveled to Washington, DC with our executive director, one organizer and two other leaders from LA Voice.

The PICO National Network is made up of 53 affiliate organizations in 17 states around the country, representing over 1 million American families. Our national work achieved a major victory when, on February 4, President Obama signed the expanded S-CHIP legislation into law, effectly opening the way to provide heath care coverage to 4.1 million additional children (read more).

Now the PICO Network is turning their attention to two primary issues at the national level: universal health coverage and an end to unnecessary home foreclosures. Below are several videos that will give you a little taste of what our week was like.

Click here to read a report of this most recent PICO event in Washington, DC.

We FINALLY get S-CHIP passed

I don't have time to create links to all the posts I've written about S-CHIP over the last two years, but I traveled to Washington, D.C. with people from the PICO Network three times to fight for this bill, which expands health insurance coverage to millions of children who are currently without it.

Today, the Senate passed a strong bill with bi-partisan support. The change just keeps coming! This victory was a bit belated (with two vetos by former President George W. Bush), but, as they say, it's better late than never.

Read more here.

Explaining Community Organizing

My friend, and PICO National Staff member, Gordon Whitman, sent this statement to the network this morning. I found it so powerful and compelling I wanted to share it here. Here are a couple of excerpts. Read the entire statement after the jump.

Americans have been organizing to build community and hold government accountable since our nation was formed, but last week there was more talk in the national media about modern community organizing than at any time in recent history.

When speakers at the Republican National Convention repeatedly mocked Senator Obama's work as a community organizer many of us witnessed not just another political attack, but mean-spirited disrespect for people who give of themselves to improve communities and expand opportunities for families.

As Bishop Roy Dixon, former president of the PICO board of directors, said, "As a life-long Republican, the comments I heard last night about community organizing crossed the line. It is one thing to question someone's experience, another to demean the work of millions of hard working Americans who take time to get involved in their communities. When people come together in my church hall to improve our community, they're building the Kingdom of God in San Diego. We see the fruits of community organizing in safer streets, new parks, and new affordable housing. It's the spirit of democracy for people to have a say and we need more of it."

Fr. John Baumann, who founded PICO 35 years ago, said in an Associated Press story that ran in papers across the country that "If people in office were doing their jobs, perhaps we wouldn't need community organizers."

<snip>

For PICO, every aspect about the work of community organizing – from taking the time to listen to people, to researching solutions to problems, to bringing people together across race, religion and party affiliation – is engineered to develop the skills and leadership of ordinary people.  PICO teaches that devoting yourself to developing the leadership skills of others is what a true leader does.

In PICO we don't ask whether someone is a Republican or Democrat, but whether they are doing their job.  We reject any suggestion on the right or the left that community organizing belongs to any one political party.  All across the United States both Republican and Democratic elected officials have worked with PICO organizations and other organizing groups to reduce crime through community policing, build public will for schools reform, revitalize neighborhoods and create affordable housing.

There are always those in power who dismiss people who want to get involved. That arrogance is folly.  Those who understand the history of the United States, those who hear the call to witness God's love in the world, realize that mayors and governors and presidents alone cannot solve the problems we face as a nation.  Only when people get involved, only when people have the power to hold the powers that be accountable can we create a world that respects each of us in God's image.

Affordable Housing Victory in Los Angeles

Today I had the privilege of participating in something truly historic in our city. The Los Angeles City Council today enacted two ordinances aimed at curtailing gentrification in the city. These are complicated issues, but I feel that my role is to stand with the poor and the disenfranchised whenever I get the chance.

The main issue before City Council today was an ordinance that essentially protects "residential hotels" from being demolished or converted into luxury condos or other market rate housing. The folks at LA CAN (Los Angeles Community Action Network) have been leading the charge on this issue for something like 6 years. I spoke for a grand total of 1 minute before the City Council members who were mostly chatting with either other and their staff. Nevertheless, good organizing finally won the day and we have successfully protected over 18,700 affordable units from being lost forever.

Residential hotels in the City of Los Angeles are basically "housing of last resort." If these units are converted to market rate housing the people who currently live there will be homeless. They have nowhere else to go. By preserving these units we essentially prevent thousands of people from becoming homeless and insist that the working poor have a place in our city.

Read the Los Angeles Times report of this ordinance and the other ordinance referred to as an anti-mansionization ordinance. I'll let you figure out what that means.

No on 98/Yes on 99

/Apologies to all non-California residents while I dip into a state political issue for a minute.

So, I'm driving back to my office today after having lunch with my dad and I hear the new Yes on Prop 98 radio ad and it just drove me crazy. I hate to even send you to the Yes on 98 website, but it's the only way I can figure out how to have you hear the ad yourself. So, click here and have a listen.

The whole thing is done my children who claim ask, with tears in their voices,

"You mean we're never going to see our friends again?"

Proposition 98 is being billed as an anti-eminent domain law, but what they don't tell you on their website or anywhere is that it will effectively destroy rent control laws in California. Once a tenant moves out of a rent-controlled apartment that unit will never be under rent control again. Little by little rent control will be a thing of the past. This is one of the last safeguards of affordable housing, especially in the urban areas of California.

So, the League of California Cities, Governor Schwarzenegger, and literally dozens of other organizations (including LA Voice) have stood up to oppose this horrible proposition put forth by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. Not only this but a counter proposition has arisen - Proposition 99. You can read more about Prop 99 here, but it accomplishes many of the good things about Prop 98 without destroying laws protecting renters.

So, Californians...when you go to the polls on June 3rd (that's right, there's an election on June 3rd), please vote NO on 98 and YES on 99. Protect renters!

Bush's SCHIP policy violates law

This is perhaps old news by now, but on Friday afternoon several media outlets, including The Hill, reported that...

The Bush administration’s limits on expansions of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) are unlawful, according to Congress’s investigative arm.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) unlawfully bypassed congressional review when it issued a directive to states in August alerting them that federal authorities would seek to restrict raising the income eligibility level for the program, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded in a report issued Thursday. [Read the whole thing here]

We have known for some time that the Bush Administration has little regard for the law - a deep irony given that the GOP has long been touted as the party of "law & order". This is just the latest example and one that touches close to me because of my work with the PICO Network to expand SCHIP coverage so that all children in America can see a doctor when they need to. Our campaign was ultimately unsuccessful last year, but we are not finished with this fight.

"Extending health coverage to the millions of the uninsured children whose families are struggling to make ends meet is at heart a moral issue and therefore should be a top priority for the next President," said Rev. Bob Stevens, Chair of Congregations United for Neighborhood Action, the PICO affiliate in Lehigh Valley, PA. "PICO urges all of the Presidential campaigns to make a clear commitment to enact bi-partisan SCHIP legislation within the first 100 days of their administration." [more]

I'm heading to Washington, DC

I leave early tomorrow morning for Washington, DC where I will spend parts of three days (returning Friday) doing some research meetings with other PICO leaders around the country in our ongoing work for health care coverage for all children. Thursday morning I will hear Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi address the Families USA conference that we will be attending. We also have a variety of other research actions planned.

On Thursday afternoon I am one of three panelists discussing how we have shaped the moral arguments around S-CHIP expansion and reauthorization. I don't know any of the other panelists but it should be a good learning experience. As my good friend, Mireya keeps saying, this community organizing work keeps taking us out of our comfort zone and teaching us so much about ourselves as well as the work we're doing.

I hope to catch up with a few friends in the midst of a flurry of meetings. It will be a whirlwind trip, but I'm looking forward to the opportunities it will present.