Reinvigorating our Inner Cities

African Americans understand that culture matters but that culture is shaped by circumstance. We know that many in the inner city are trapped by their own self-destructive behaviors but that those behaviors are not innate. And because of that knowledge, the black community remains convinced that if America finds its will to do so, then circumstances for those trapped in the inner city can be changed, individual attitudes among the poor will change in kind, and the damage can gradually be undone, if not for this generation then at least for the next.Such wisdom might help us move beyond ideological bickering and serve as the basis of a renewed effort to tackle the problems of inner-city poverty

The Audacity of Hope, page 255.

Strategies like an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit that help all low-wage workers can make an enormous difference in the lives of these women and their children. But if we’re serious about breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty, then many of these women will need some extra help with the basics that those living outside the inner city often take for granted. They need more police and more effective policing in their neighborhoods, to provide them and their children some semblance of personal security. They need access to community-based health centers that emphasize prevention—including reproductive health care, nutritional counseling, and in some cases treatment for substance abuse. They need a radical transformation of the schools their children attend, and access to affordable child care that will allow them to hold a full-time job or pursue their education.And in many cases they need help learning to be effective parents. By the time many inner-city children reach the school system, they’re already far behind—unable to identify basic numbers, colors, or the letters in the alphabet, unaccustomed to sitting still or participating in a structured environment, and often burdened by undiagnosed health problems. They’re unprepared not because they’re unloved but because their mothers don’t know how to provide what they need. Well-structured government programs – prenatal counseling, access to regular pediatric care, parenting programs, and quality early-childhood-education programs—have a proven ability to help fill the void.

The Audacity of Hope, pages 256-257

Barack Obama believes that the majority of reforms to help the inner city are the same ones that benefit the rest of the population - improved education, improved health care, the creation of new jobs, and so on. Still, there are problems which specifically plague the inner city and need to be addressed.

Transportation
Business creation
Health
Crime
Hunger


Three quarters of welfare recipients live in areas that are poorly served by public transportation and low-income workers spend up to 36% of their incomes on transportation. As president, Obama will work to eliminate transportation disparities so that all Americans can lead meaningful and productive lives. Obama will strengthen the federal Jobs Access and Reverse Commute program to ensure that additional federal public transportation dollars flow to the highest-need communities and that urban planning initiatives take this aspect of transportation policy into account.

Access to capital is critically important to the development of minority-owned businesses. Yet there has been a growing gap between the amounts of venture capital and access to business loans available to minority-owned small businesses compared to other small businesses. Less than 1 percent of the $250 billion in venture capital dollars invested annually nationwide has been directed to the country's 4.4 million minority business owners. A recent study found that minority business owners, even if they have the same characteristics as other business owners, are significantly denied credit more frequently and required to pay higher interest rates than white applicants. To compound this problem, in recent years there has been a significant decline in the share of the Small Business Investment Company financings that have gone to minority-owned and women-owned businesses. In order to increase their size, capacity, and ability to do business with the Federal government and to compete in the open market, minority firms need greater access to venture capital investment, as well as greater access to business loans. Barack Obama will strengthen Small Business Administration programs that provide capital to minority-owned businesses, support outreach programs that help minority business owners apply for loans, and work to encourage the growth and capacity of minority firms.

The Bush Administration has consistently attempted to cut funding for CDBG, by $1.2 billion next year and $6.9 billion over the next five years. Obama has fought against these cuts, and will restore funding for the CDBG program, which supports economic development and affordable housing opportunities in communities throughout the country.

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/legisnet90/summary/900SB0579.htmlProvides that the additional $50,000,000 shall be used to fund start up and expansion loans for businesses that qualify under the Business Enterprise for Minorities, Females, and Persons with Disabilities Act.

We could begin by acknowledging that perhaps the single biggest thing we could do to reduce such poverty is to encourage teenage girls to finish high school and avoid having children out of wedlock. In this effort, school- and community-based programs that have a proven track record of reducing teen pregnancy need to be expanded, but parents, clergy, and community leaders also need to speak out more consistently on the issue.

The Audacity of Hope



In Illinois - funded AIDS prevention in minority communitieswww.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?GA=93&DocTypeID=SB&DocNum=264&GAID=3&SessionID=3&LegID=1867

In US Senate: S.2047 : A bill to promote healthy communities.

In US Senate: S.2506 : A bill to require Federal agencies to support health impact assessments and take other actions to improve health and the environmental quality of communities, and for other purposes.

In US Senate: S.1067 : A bill to require Federal agencies to support health impact assessments and take other actions to improve health and the environmental quality of communities, and for other purposes.

In US Senate: S.1068 : A bill to promote healthy communities.

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting "preachy" may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.
After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man.Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers' lobby - but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we've got a moral problem. There's a hole in that young man's heart - a hole that the government alone cannot fix.

Call to Renewal address

If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandparent. If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.
It is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family: 'E pluribus unum,' out of many, one.

I believe that we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs for the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs, and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices and meet the challenges that face us.

From 1985 to 1988, organized and directed a non-profit community development program that raised up local leaders in a low-income community and encouraged job training, college prep, school reform, and hazardous waste cleanup.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.945:
To provide reliable officers, technology, education, community prosecutors, and training in our neighborhoods.

Hunger-Free Communities Act of 2006
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.1120: