This article, from this month’s issue of Philanthropy Magazine is about people helping themselves change their lives, and focuses on the Ready Willing & Able Program (a community clean-up program staffed by the formerly homeless) we highlighted in our Lower Reach Report (on our website) as a model for Sacramento area homeless programs to emulate to help the homeless help themselves, particularly those illegally camping in the Lower reach of the Parkway.
Here is an excerpt.
Helping People to Help Themselves
Encouraging work and personal responsibility is key to aiding the poor
By MICHAEL E. HARTMANN
By almost any measure, the United States is the richest nation in history. Yet poverty persists.
Tens of billions of dollars a year are donated in hopes of relieving suffering, but the very size and complexity of the efforts can be daunting. Donors look for the best poverty-fighting programs, but finding them can be difficult, and much well-intentioned giving has little to show for its benevolence.
To assist donors in this urgent work, I’ve written a new guidebook for The Philanthropy Roundtable, Helping People to Help Themselves. While it is not exhaustive in detailing all that is being done to assist the poor, it does sketch out several critical, overarching principles that funders should bear in mind, and it also has chapters highlighting some of the best work addressed to particular challenges, such as health care, worker training, substance abuse, and access to college.
In addition to explaining the issues involved, the book also depicts some of the most effective grantees in each field. For no matter how difficult the problem, there are groups who are achieving dramatic success in turning lives around and reducing suffering. Wise funders will study the reasons for their success and either consider supporting them or replicating similar programs in other locales.
Fundamental Principles
Certain fundamental principles recur throughout the book because they are critical to any effort to help the poor. Conversely, neglecting them will doom even the most well-intentioned philanthropy. First, respect the dignity of the poor by recognizing the role that personal responsibility must play in their lives. The ideal is to help people to help themselves, and to avoid a situation in which the poor end up dependent on public or private programs.
Challenging the poor to take responsibility for their lives is also a challenge to donors, who can be tempted to focus on their own good intentions rather than the long-term prospects of those they seek to help. But it is no compliment to imply that a person in need can do nothing to help himself or others. By contrast, to tell poor people that they can succeed at work, break a destructive habit, go to college, or otherwise advance themselves is not only complimentary but liberating.
The need to encourage personal responsibility leads naturally to a second principle: The greatest anti-poverty program is a job. Persons with low incomes sometimes need help finding jobs and developing work skills, but they and those who help them must stay focused tightly on the goal of gainful employment for all the able-bodied. Encouraging work was the fundamental reason for the dramatic success of welfare reform, and in both governmental and private programs it is critical that work be stressed.
Now let us see these two principles in action as we examine anti-poverty programs that emphasize personal responsibility and work.
A Valuable Callus
The callus between Napoleon Webb’s right thumb and forefinger is only a little smaller than the smile on his face. Tough and thick from mopping floors at the homeless shelter, Webb’s hands are a mark of pride.
“I’m left-handed, and I guess it has something to do with the way I sweep,” he explains, glad to be asked. Because of the callus, the middle-aged Webb’s sweeping days are almost over. He is in his last month at the Doe Fund’s innovative work program, Ready, Willing & Able (RW&A). Having finished nine months of training, he will soon transfer to another Doe enterprise, Pest@Rest.
In 1989, RW&A landed its first city contract under New York Mayor Ed Koch. Since then it has “graduated” 1,500 formerly homeless adults, mostly males with substance-abuse problems who have spent time in prison. Private employment is mandatory, and graduates must pay for their own apartment. Approximately 67 percent are still privately employed a year after graduation.
