Homelessness and the web (really about class & money)

[Anitra Again]

This is a valuable question, but not at all an easy one.

I work with several grassroots groups, and also with the Low Income
Housing institute, which was begun by a partnership of SHARE, the
Fremont Public Association, and the Church Council to purchase,
develop and manage low-income housing, starting with the Aloha Inn. As
you may or may not be aware of, there have been some rather loud
disagreements between SHARE and LIHI lately about whether LIHI has
become too "corporate" and forgotten its roots.  SHARE itself has been
accused by some more radical activist groups of "consorting with the
enemy" and being "poverty pimps" because we actually *talk* with and
work with civic leaders and corporate groups instead of just yelling
at them a lot. (Which is rather interesting, because the government
and corporate groups complain that all we do is yell at them a lot and
we don't talk with or work with them enough.  But I digress.)

There is currently a furor among the North American street-newspapers
over whether all street-papers should be small, vocal, activist
organizations with a lot of editorial participation from the homeless
themselves, or whether larger, more business-oriented models like The
Big Issue of London, which put out an avowedly slick, mass-market
entertainment mag in an attempt to make more money and jobs for the
homeless, is also valid.  The majority of us in NASNA believe that
there is room in the world for both models, but there are extremists
who are chanting Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Capitalist to Live.

It is my belief that being grassroots and people-oriented isn't done
by applying rules and formula.  Whether you have a Cray computer in
the basement or a parallel chain of thirty recycled Texas Instrument
minis isn't going to affect how close you are to the people you are
serving. What's going to make a difference is: do you actually get out
to the workplaces and community groups and deal with what they are
dealing with firsthand?  Do you *listen* to them?  Or do you already
"know" what they need to do, for their own good?

You know you have a self-managed shelter when you do a walkthrough and
members point to things and say -- "I made that" -- "I was the one suggested
doing it that way" -- "We used to have doo-dah there but we all voted
to have dee-dah instead" -- and other indications that the shelter is
*theirs*.  Where the money came from is not a large factor in that.

I'd like to see SCN focus on developing an atmosphere where users
identify their screen display as something they voted on, something
they helped build, something that is *theirs*.  That is not easy --
giving people a democratic voice in procedures usually seems to
involve hunting them down and pulling it out of them.  

You can have a self-managed prosperous group, a top-down managed
prosperous group, a self-managed poor group, or a top-down managed
poor group.  I have seen prosperous executives who could treat
everyone, rich poor or polkadotted, with respect and human dignity.  I
have seen poor and homeless people who can't, who insist upon being
superior to and "in charge of" the other people in their own shelter.

It's not a matter of how much money you have.  But it isn't a matter
of good intentions and it automatically happens, either.  It takes
constant effort and vigilance to maintain a truly self-managed
structure, where you are always transferring skills to new people, and
you don't end up with an Old Guard who does everything and makes all
decisions because, after all, they know what evrybody needs.  One of
the dangers is that as an organization gets bigger, it gets more and
more tempting to follow "corporate efficiency", which is encouraged by
both private and public funding guidelines, and have fewer and fewer
people making decisions in order to "streamline" things.  In that
sense, going after money is a risk.

But it is just as risky to stay small and to always do what you know
is right because you have a pure ideal of grassroots activism --
without ever actually listening to what anyone else says.  The important
thing is the attitude, not the trappings. 

___________________ WRITE ON! -- Anitra 
Save America's Vanishing Frompers!  Support Thalia, Muse of Comedy, in
the Site Fights!  http://www.thesitefights.com/circus/side2.htm

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *  From the Listowner  * * * * * * * * * * * *
.	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
majordomo at scn.org		In the body of the message, type:
unsubscribe scn
END