Computers become tools against poverty

[Brian High]

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   Computers become tools against poverty
   
   Copyright © 1999 Nando Media
   Copyright © 1999 Christian Science Monitor Service
   
   By JAMES L. TYSON
   
   (June 9, 1999 9:59 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - From a dark
   doorway marked by a battered sign that read "Market," the
neighborhood
   grocer furnished his "clerks" outside with merchandise too hot for
   store shelves - heroin and cocaine. The open-air drug market was once
   the biggest business around Edgewood Terrace, a Washington housing
   project that until a few years ago was crumbling by the day. But now
   the pushers are gone, and the store has been renovated into a
computer
   school.
   
   As in Edgewood, people in low-income neighborhoods across the United
   States are starting to seize on computer know-how as a way to pull
out
   of poverty and despair.
   
   "There is a nationwide movement gathering steam for community
   empowerment via technology," says Phil Shapiro, the District of
   Columbia coordinator for Community Technology Centers' Network, an
   organization devoted to bringing computer technology into low-income
   areas. "It's no longer a little fringe kind of movement."
   
   The spread of high technology into America's poorest quarters is
aided
   by companies that have set up training centers as part of their
   community-service programs, and by the state and federal governments.
   
   The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has
   launched 490 technology centers in poor neighborhoods over the past
   four years, and 760 more are planned. The Department of Education
   hopes in the next few years to create 600 similar centers. "We will
   blanket all of our low-income communities" with technology centers,
   says Norris Dickard, director of the department's community high-tech
   program.
   
   In an age when 60 percent of all new jobs require some technology
   skills, many low-wage Americans also are recognizing that, with a
   little training and a few mouse clicks, they can leap beyond poverty,
   prejudice, and isolation of the ghetto.
   
   Still, poor neighborhoods have far to go before they close the
   "digital divide" with well-off Americans. The Commerce Department
   reported last July that the "technology gap" among races and classes
   is growing.
   
   Barriers are high to the spread of technology among the poor,
   extending beyond scant schooling and funding. The racial gap in
   high-tech opportunities fuels claims of a "digital apartheid."
   
   But for people who are ready and able, the leap to computers and the
   Internet can be exhilarating - even liberating.
   
   "Technology training brings hope into someone's life," says Shapiro.
   "I've seen people who have developed high-tech skills gain a renewed
   enthusiasm for living because they are less disenfranchised."
   
   Technology can help dispel despair by giving users a sense they can
   shape their future. It opens up opportunities in education and jobs,
   experts say. And it can help bolster household incomes and families.
   
   But access to high-tech can also boost the community at large. By
   moving people out of idleness, computer training and resulting jobs
   can help reduce crime, says Charlie Famuliner, national field
director
   for HUD's Neighborhood Networks program. Consequently, some landlords
   at low-income apartments have started technology centers at their own
   expense.
   
   People who bring technology to poor neighborhoods insist that a
little
   of training goes a long way. It's not unusual for residents, after
   less than a year of computer training, to go from joblessness or
   minimum-wage labor to steady work at $30 an hour, say experts.
   
   Take Sharon Pringle. Since completing a five-month software course at
   Edgewood Terrace, Pringle has tripled her salary to $17.60 an hour.
   
   The single mother of two has withdrawn an application for public aid.
   She has also quit low-pay, day-labor construction work and gained job
   security, full benefits, and self-confidence by landing a full-time
   salaried job at the State Department.
   
   "The computer class helped me get my first government job," says
   Pringle. "It helped turn my life completely around."
   
   The jump of Edgewood's first graduates from class to computer jobs in
   1995 energized the neighborhood. "It sent a shock wave through the
   community," says Knox McIlwain of the Community Preservation and
   Development Corporation (CPDC). "All of a sudden people said, 'There
   is a possibility here, look what they did, that's incredible,' and
the
   connection between technology and renewal was dramatically made."
   
   Like many new low-income computer users, Pringle needed encouragement
   to begin and finish her training. Her 7-year-old daughter introduced
   her to computers, helping her overcome a sense of intimidation.
   
   At one point, Pringle dropped out to take a second job. But urged on
   by the school director, she interviewed at the State Department,
   finished the course, and began work last August.
   
   Pringle's on-and-off embrace of computers shows that for new
   technology to take hold in poor neighborhoods, promoters of
technology
   must use old, hands-on methods in social work.
   
   "Computer experts tend to look at wiring and software, but we don't
   realize how much of the old, face-to-face things you have to do,"
says
   Bish Sanyal, a professor of city planning at the Massachusetts
   Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
   
   Indeed, CPDC staff provide courses for free or at a pittance. They
   paper over the neighborhood in promotional fliers. And they try to
   lure residents to introductory meetings with supermarket coupons.
   Still, many residents stay away, so classroom space goes to
outsiders.
   
   Even so, Edgewood's digital devotion is hard to overlook. One recent
   evening, middle-age residents and their instructor crammed a
   classroom, riveted to more than a dozen PCs.
   
   The Edgewood project and other initiatives in Washington typify the
   computer efforts springing up in poor communities nationwide. At
   Edgewood, every apartment will be wired to the Internet and a
   neighborhood Web site. Another local effort moves mothballed,
   federally owned PCs out of warehouses and into homes.
   
   Once entirely wired, Edgewood will use the Internet as its front
   stoop, enabling residents to easily learn of local goings-on, find
   shared interests, and together satisfy neighborhood needs, say CPDC
   staff.
   
   Already, technology and the prospect of a close community have
   attracted new residents who might otherwise shun a place that was
once
   called "Vietnam."
   
   Erika Lomax, a Washington native and recent University of Virginia
   graduate, moved to Edgewood last September. With Internet
   communication, "there is a closeness," says Lomax, a city school
   administrator. "Hopefully we'll have more people at community events
   and more people taking a leadership role and not just paying rent."

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