2:The City and the Inner City

American cities grew in response to economic forces rather than through rational urban planning. They tended to shoot up where natural resources such as waterways and raw materials made industrial expansion most attractive. Early opportunities for unskilled labor brought floods of immigrants into the rapidly growing American cities. Cities continued to grow because they became centers of industry, transportation, and communication. In short, they became the nerve centers of society. Cultural refinements-art, drama, music, and literature-followed after the urban seeds, as Donald Benedict says, had shot well out of the ground.¹

Today American cities are declining in response to changing economic forces. Industrial cities of the North are no longer thriving, and the explosive growth in the Sun Belt seems to be slowing.

Problems of poverty and unemployment are on the rise. One out of every six American families is on welfare, with one of three on the brink. Many of these indigent people are located in urban squalor.²

DECLINE OF THE CITY

Carl Dudley sees social decline and transition in the city as the result of pulls and pushes in the American economy. More spacious and desirable opportunities open up in the suburbs or urban fringes, and the affluent head in that direction, while a poor class of urbanites pushes into the vacant area. There is an ongoing process of exit and entry such that neighborhood and community transition is simply an urban fact of life.³

Jim Newton describes the overall transition process within a community as taking place in five stages: (1) the construction of single- and multiple-family dwellings; (2) a stable and homogeneous resident population; (3) a pretransition phase with a socially different group moving in-this group need not constitute even 10 percent of the community's population; (4) a transition stage during which the new group comes to represent from 10 to 50 percent of the population; (5) the posttransition stage when the new group becomes the majority.⁴

The process of recent urban deterioration follows a pattern. As the affluent move out, businesses head for suburban developments and malls. The absence of businesses and a strong middle class erodes the tax base so that, without governmental aid, cities head for bankruptcy. Although some urbanologists detect some movement back to the city because of high energy costs in commuting and the desirability of "rehabbing" older dwellings, this trend does not suggest socioeconomic integration. If anything, economic segregation looks to become more stark as affluent communities create walled sub-cities around themselves amid the hungry slum dwellers.

In addition to the erosion of the tax base caused by the exodus of the affluent and businesses, the tax structure itself kills urban communities. In Philadelphia, for example, the schools stayed closed one September, while the city sank its money into measures that actually benefited the suburbs. This practice is true of many cities. It is primarily city money that pays for sports stadiums, airports, art centers, and theaters. Yet it is the suburbanite population that has the money to go to the ball park and travel on the jets; and it is to satisfy more affluent tastes that art exhibits and professional theaters exist. Cultural refinements and entertainment opportunities are important but their value is tarnished when they reflect economic exploitation. According to Anthony Campolo, "We have two names for welfare, don't we? When white suburbanites are on the receiving end, it's called ‘public service.’ God is not mocked."⁵

In the same spirit as Campolo, the outspoken Michael Harrington, in The Other America, claims that what we have is socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.⁶ By this he means that whereas middle-class Americans regularly complain about "socialist" welfare programs for slum dwellers, the fact is that the more affluent receive the thumping majority of the tax dollars. That the poor receive very little can be observed in how much of each tax dollar goes into highway construction, higher-education facilities, salaries of governmental employees, and maintenance and renovation of parks and other recreational facilities used by the larger society. Although some argue that the middle class should receive more tax benefits because they pay the preponderance of the taxes, the point is that they do.

In fact, political pressure from power brokers is such that it is almost impossible to get legislation that will deliver benefits to the needy without skimming the cream for the rich. In California, the hazard insurance legislation directed at the burned-out Watts area was written in such a way that the nonpoor could get low-cost insurance as well. The result was that insured Bel Air mansions were built on mudslides and hills that had been burned regularly. Hence, benefits ostensibly for the poor enriched the wealthy.

In addition to erosion of the city's tax base and unjust allocation of tax benefits, the city's finances are affected by the fact that earnings are taken out of the city by many suburbanites who make their living in the city. They drive in on public expressways and city streets that are paid for by city taxes, drink city water, flush city toilets, and walk city pavements, but they pay taxes and acquire goods and services in a suburban municipality. All the while the poor remain in a colony of misery, walled in by poverty and a lack of opportunity.

F. K. Plous, Jr., claims that 85 percent of urban decline can be traced back to three pieces of legislation.⁷ The first was the Homeowner Loan Act of June 13, 1933. Along with the Federal Home Loan Bank Act of July 22, 1932, this Act replaced the five-year renewable mortgages with fifteen- to thirty-year mortgages. This legislation made the privately funded building and loan entities into predecessors for the present quasi-socialized savings and loan associations. Though the purpose of the Act was to help the housing industry mired in the Depression, the effect was to sponsor the building and sale of freestanding, owner-occupied dwellings while ignoring the needs of multiple-family rental housing. Because available land for free-standing dwellings tended to be in the suburbs while the large rental housing was in the city, the legislation had a suburban bias.

The second piece of legislation was the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of June 22, 1944. The GI Bill financed the suburbs by having the government guarantee money lent by banks and savings and loan associations to GI's. Housing starts, almost all suburban, zoomed. No comparable program, involving owning or renting, existed for the city.

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of June 29, 1956, was the third factor. This Act led to the bankrolling of the 42,500-mile Interstate Highway System and other highway projects. Federal transportation planners damaged the city by cutting up city neighborhoods and paving them over, thus lifting valuable land from the tax rolls. The effect was a simplified transportation into the city for suburbanites who held city jobs while stifling mass transit, a key to urban health.

With suburban growth and urban decline, Pious says that the middle class "smelling the meat acookin' elsewhere, wisely left, and refugees from rural poverty and Southern discrimination flowed in to occupy what was already abandoned territory." ⁸

EMERGENCE OF THE INNER CITY

According to Ed Marciniak, the city can be studied as an urban layer cake.⁹ The first layer consists of family-associated people. Layer two involves the neighborhood. The third layer is the larger community: the police, the fire district, the school district, the political division or ward, library, local newspaper, citizens' organizations, and perhaps a Kiwanis association. Beyond the community level is the city as a whole. These layers are interdependent: if any one layer does not function, the whole cake will ultimately collapse. The first two, however, are probably the most important, for they form the foundation.

Marciniak argues that cities never have worked; they are in constant transition and restructuring. In fact, the great cities tend to be rebuilt every one hundred or one hundred fifty years. What can work are the neighborhoods. When they decay, inner cities emerge and the city at large becomes shaky. Vitality is at the micro rather than the macro level.¹⁰ This topic is discussed at length in the next chapter.

Characteristics of the Inner City

Since the inner city is the major focus of this book, the concept requires definition. The inner city does not necessarily refer to the geographic center of the city. In fact, it is probably more accurate, when describing a given city, to speak of its several inner cities. An inner city can be defined as a poverty area in which there is much government activity and control but little activity by the private sector. Often, merchandisers, businesses, and churches have left the area. The usual urban amenities, such as dry cleaners, barber shop, camera store, appliance shop, and the like, are in limited supply. But governmental agencies, public housing, and social institutions are visible. Private institutions of this type-both for-profit and not-for-profit-are absent.¹¹

Besides "poverty area," there are a number of other synonyms for the inner city: low-income community, central city, or ghetto. Although technically referring only to a place of isolation, the term ghetto has come to suggest a predominantly black community. Inner cities are not always black. They can be inhabited by almost any racial or ethnic group. Blackness is common because blacks are the most urbanized of all ethnic groups and a sizable proportion (about one-third) are trapped in poverty.

Regardless of ethnic makeup, the inner city can often be characterized as "the other world." It is the other side of the American fence, opposite the side on which grass is green. A black college student once wrote a term paper for one of my classes in which she described that other-world feeling she had had when she was younger. The young, black, inner-city child, she wrote, feels that he must live in the worst place in the entire world, for nothing that goes on in school or his textbooks, from reading class to geography, is in any way related to life in the community in which he lives.

Almost invariably inner cities, by United States standards, are crowded. If, for example, the entire Chicago metropolitan area were as crowded in residential density as its three major black areas, there would be 135 million people living in Chicago. That is about 60 percent of the population of the United States. Chicago's infamous Cabrini-Green had over eighteen thousand residents in its 5 x 8 block borders during the turbulent sixties. New York's Harlem and Spanish Harlem are also teeming with people.

Overcrowdedness can have nerve-shattering consequences, especially for people with rural roots. Misery and degradation are packed together. Experiments with laboratory animals indicate that when rats are confined to an overpopulated space, they begin killing each other off until their numbers reach manageable size. Social scientists continue to debate the likely human implications of these types of findings.¹²

At any rate, building is lined up against building, or in the case of high-rises. floor is stacked upon floor as the misery heads skyward. With exploding numbers comes limited space, limited privacy, and the omnipresence of noise from voices, stereos, cars, and people themselves. Eight may live in a three-room apartment. "Go to your room" is a disciplinary statement that would be simply preposterous to an inner-city child.

Overcrowdedness, of course, points to as critical a physical characteristic of an inner city as any-inadequate housing. Quality housing in the inner city is in such small supply that the 1960s saw the emergence of a new cabinet department-Housing and Urban Development. The poor are, by virtue of their poverty, herded into central city communities where land and, more particularly, housing are at an absolute premium. Where housing does exist, the buildings are old and crumbling. A ride through an inner-city area invariably reveals this phenomenon to the curious onlooker, who will see either ancient and deteriorated or gutted and burned out buildings.

The only other housing available is public housing such as the federally sponsored high-rises—high-rises because limited space demands vertical rather than horizontal construction. One of the problems contributing to the decay of the inner city is that the poor do not own property. The welfare system allows recipients to rent dwellings but not buy them. To qualify for low-cost housing a person must not earn in excess of a given, rather paltry amount (often about $8,000 annually). This works against the care of property that results from pride of ownership.¹³

While the rest of society laments the absence of moderately priced housing and reasonably sized lots on the urban fringes and in the suburbs, the poor look for shelter of any kind.

Causes of Inner-City Conditions

A number of causes contribute to the conditions of overcrowdedness and inadequate housing in the inner city. The first cause is the transition from a stable neighborhood to a changing neighborhood. As people move away, vacant housing develops, followed by entry of people socially different from the dominant residential group. The more different the incoming group is, the quicker the residents flee. Hence, stability is gone. No one is certain when the "tipping point" in any community will occur, but when it does, the community quickly turns over. Some realtors unscrupulously come in and prey on the fears and stereotypes of the anxious residents. They may plant fears of plunging real-estate values and imminent violence in order to buy up resident housing cheaply, only to turn around and sell that same housing to incoming residents at a booming profit. This practice is called blockbusting, and though grossly unethical, it is very common.¹⁴

The second cause is fiscal dysfunction. Many neighborhood functions reflect personal income, which in part is turned into taxes to maintain semipublic enterprises such as schools, libraries, public offices, and hospitals. As income accumulates, the residents put it into banks and savings and loan associations. In turn, these financial institutions lend money in the form of credit to neighborhood residents to enable the community to grow and develop. If, however, the demand for housing decreases in the neighborhood, trouble ensues. Since the housing supply is fixed, this dip will drop prices, which will alarm financial institutions and cause them to cut back on loans. This cutback is called redlining.¹⁵

Redlining begins with bank officials outlining an area that they feel will decline over the next twenty years (the length of many mortgages). As a result of this prediction, the bank chooses not to lend any mortgage money to anyone wishing to purchase land in the redlined area. Though illegal, this practice is used to protect the bank against high-risk lending. What is happening, however, is that the bank, ostensibly a servant of the community, becomes its killer. People who desire to purchase in the inner city and then rehabilitate the dwelling are summarily ruled out of such an enterprise, while current owners become increasingly aware that they are literally stuck with unsellable property. This encourages management toward demolition.

The result of these practices is that the inner city takes on the appearance of a ghost town as the area becomes dotted with burned-out, abandoned buildings, surrounded by open space. In spite of inadequate housing and this available land, there is no building going on. In every case the community and its residents lose because the bank, by virtue of redlining, has made its prophecy of community doom self-fulfilling.

A study of the redlining practices of a savings and loan association in Toledo revealed a distinct pattern of lending. Inner cities received little or nothing in mortgage loans while rapidly growing suburban areas got much higher amounts. The closer families lived to the S & L, the less they received. Areas that received the least were characterized by old, inexpensive housing, a largely black population, and a high percentage of female-headed, poverty-level families.¹⁶ In Chicago's South Shore, about three hundred housing maintenance jobs were lost in a redlined area. Owners had managed toward demolition.¹⁷

In stable communities, with deposits going into banks and with loans coming out, a dollar will turn around about seventeen times.¹⁸ In a redlined area, however, the money flows steadily out, with the neighborhood financial institution sending the money to larger downtown banks. In the meantime, nothing is built or developed, and the community deteriorates. Such a shipping out is evident in a Chicago west-side area where three hundred thousand black people live without a single financial institution to serve them.¹⁹

City money is flowing to the suburbs. The South Shore residents have $31 million on deposit in two major Chicago banks and have received only $76,000 in loans. A recent estimate revealed that the amount of capital necessary to turn the South Shore community around equalled almost exactly the total amount the residents had on deposit. All they needed was a recycling of their own money. This stands in sharp contrast to the $I billion cost the government would have to meet to tear down the community and rebuild it in the suburbs. Yet the government does this, as approximately twenty-five thousand living units are built annually in the suburbs while an equivalent number in the city are destroyed.²⁰

The importance of investment in a community cannot be overestimated. William Ipema points out that in Chicago, for example, thirty-six of its seventy-six communities are nearly dysfunctional fiscally. With community fiscal health much determined by green flow-credit and capital funding-some of these communities are dying, as less than one percent of savings money is making its way back into the community in the form of loans.²¹

In addition to the conditions created by blockbusting and redlining, there is also the problem of slum landlording. An owner of a dilapidated dwelling will manage it toward demolition. The first step is to fill the building with as many "rents" as possible. Rents are then received without any attempt to keep the building in repair. The aged nature of the building, coupled with its heavy usage by children and young adults, results in rapid deterioration. City inspectors, whose task it is to check the quality of urban structures and insure that they are "up to code," are easily bribed into not reporting housing-code violations. The inspector's conscience is assuaged because he feels that the city grossly underpays him and that reporting building violations will simply set off a lengthy legal procedure, sometimes as long as four years, which will likely end with either the landlord minimally repairing the building or abandoning it entirely and leaving the people shelterless.

One of the reasons the owner does not make repairs is to keep overhead and real estate taxes at a base level. Rents are picked up until the building is so badly worn that it either begins to collapse or the city demands repair. At that point the building is often "torched"—burned to the ground. The torching marks the end of both the structure and the legal problem of the owner, who will probably collect fire insurance money since that is one premium he will keep paid. Torchings often occur with the inhabitants still in the building, destroying much of their goods as well as imperiling their safety. Such fires appear more accidental and raise less suspicion. They are extremely common, however. During 1974, for example, there were fourteen thousand fires in the South Bronx.²² In urban areas nationwide, literally thousands of such torchings of buildings occur in old white, black, and Hispanic sections.

In addition to failure to repair buildings, slum landlords neglect utility needs of the renters. A not uncommon practice is to fail to heat a building in the dead of winter. So prevalent is this problem that city television stations regularly flash the city hall telephone number where help can be obtained. Colds, influenza, pneumonia, and frostbite are common health problems in inner-city winters. From the standpoint of the slum landlord, who is aware that the court process is slow and few poor city dwellers have any knowledge of it, ignoring the needs of a building is a low-risk, high-profit enterprise.

Blockbusting, redlining, and slum landlording are outgrowths of greed and prejudice. This greed and prejudice will almost certainly be felt by the pastor who truly desires to minister to an urban neighborhood. As such, it is of utmost importance that he learn as much as possible about the institutional policies and processes attendant to high density.

THE RESPONSE OF THE CHURCH

Churches in the city have had to respond to both the decline of the city and the emergence of inner-city areas. Some churches, as Carl Dudley points out, pass through several stages as they respond to their changing community, eventually relocating or closing. Other churches, however, have sought ways to revitalize the community by dealing with conditions of inadequate housing, fiscal dysfunction, and government control.

The Church in Transition

Although churches and denominations like to affirm integration and may even assert that a minority group would be welcome to take over a church if it becomes dominant in the neighborhood, churches do not usually respond that way. Dudley describes the series of responses churches make to a changing community.²³ They are strikingly similar to the stages through which terminally ill patients pass.

After initially "going indoors" to reaffirm what is really left of their notion of community culture, a congregation discovers that some of their families have moved out of the neighborhood. The usual reaction to this is regionalism-attempting to keep these families in the church by making the church a metropolitan rather than a neighborhood enterprise. They seek to affirm their initial culture while in a psychological state of denial.

This usually collapses after funds are drained and the exhausted pastor leaves. Expansion thus gives way to contraction. A smaller church admits it is undergoing changes but is determined to prevail. There is increased giving and activity as the parishioners, rather than simply the pastor, become the church. Spiritual faith increases in this phase and there is a sense of genuine zeal. Stresses do build, however, and on occasion people will explode for seemingly inexplicable reasons, leaving the church. There is much suppressed anger in this response as the church attempts to manage its way through the transition.

When the church runs out of money, the accommodation stage emerges. The church expands its outlook, seeking to perform ministries in the changing community and being willing to share whatever resources they have with other groups in order to raise money. Church buildings will be rented out, federal monies sought, the pastor allowed to work in a secular job on the side, and so on. Bargaining characterizes this stage as the church lives in tension. Interestingly, Bill Leslie of LaSalle Street Church, perhaps out of concern for this accommodation mentality, has always maintained that a congregation should pay its own way for all conventional ministries, seeking outside dollars only for supplementary efforts such as legal aid or counseling.

Dudley observes that accommodation congregations will even lend their facility to other small ethnic and minority churches. However, they tend to draw the line when it comes to black congregations. Koreans, Chinese, Hispanics, and other non-English-speaking groups are accommodated, but blacks who speak English are expected to join the host church and take on its culture. Dudley says he knows of not a single black congregation sharing a facility with a white church in a changing community.

The accommodation phase ends with the younger, upwardly mobile families moving out and leaving the older parishioners behind. The resultant phase is one of grief. The grieving period gives way to death. The church may fade gradually by reducing its activity or it may relocate. Regardless of the style, it is in its last phase.

On occasion, out of the contraction stage evolves a new type of church-one dominated by an ethnic or racial minority group with a faith expression congruent with its nationality. The whites in these churches find it alien, however, for their formative experience with God is not rooted in Spanish or some other non-Anglo pattern.

In 1979 Dudley claimed that about 10 percent of mainline denominational churches are facing transition currently, with an additional 10 percent likely to confront it in the eighties. He further pointed out that it costs roughly $10,000 per year for about ten years to weather transition. This can be compared with the $300,000 cost of starting a new suburban church.²⁴

Revitalizing the Community

The church that chooses to be involved in revitalizing the community must seek creative answers to the problems of inadequate housing and fiscal dysfunction. These answers may include such ideas as sponsoring rehabilitation organizations, offering courses in building maintenance, founding banks, using investment portfolios judiciously, and working with community and governmental agencies. There are a number of examples from around the country.

Before a church becomes involved in dealing with the issue of inadequate housing and the practices of redlining and slum landlording, it would be good to do some necessary research into local community housing. Alderman Richard Mell suggests ten checkpoints.²⁵ Many of these issues can be checked out at a knowledgeable social agency. The social service agencies are all listed in the Social Service Directory available from the United Way.

1. Determine which way credit or money flows in community institutions. Does the money come from the residents, go into community institutions, and then flow out of the community? Or do these institutions reinvest the money to developing a stronger community? What about redlining by banks or insurance companies?

2. Check into institutions outside the community. Which ones are sensitive to inner-city needs and which are notorious for exploitation?

3. Find out who owns the community property. Is it privately owned? Slum landlorded? Government sponsored? How dense is the area? If there are vacancies, find out why.

4. What is the condition of the buildings? Why are they in that condition?

5. What kinds of aids are available in the public sector for housing development?

6. Have there been any redevelopment attempts? What aids for rehabbing are available?

7. What are the going tax rates? Is there massive tax delinquency and corruption?

8. What community organizations are concerned about housing?

9. Are there industrial and commercial job opportunities? If there are, they show evidence of concern for the community because these entities have a vested interest in their location. If there are not, the community has become more blighted.

10. What is the future of housing in the community? Is the area becoming less residential or more so? Does the community have plans for the area?

Once armed with the answers to these questions, the church can proceed with greater confidence. There are a variety of responses churches can make. A church should look first at what social agencies may be doing in the community before embarking on some costly, alienating, overlapping effort.²⁶ Knowledge of such simple matters as key helping institutions in the community, city agency phone numbers, and other urban areas where housing can be obtained at low cost can be very helpful to confused residents who do not know which way to turn.

To effect change in a community it is necessary to organize. Without organization there can be no coherent voice. It is important also to find local, indigenous leadership and build from that base. The revitalization of an inner city requires partnerships, alliances, and coalitions rather than just money. Coalitions are important because of the interconnectedness of the community involved. Once there is a concerned and articulate community force, there can be effective negotiation with city hall. Moreover, it is crucial that positive relations are maintained with government at all levels. Despite the fact that the government may sometimes be the adversary, without cordial relations little progress can be made.²⁷

Ipema has some ingenious suggestions about how to work with, rather than against, social agencies.²⁸ First it is important that they be approached in a positive way. A climate of cooperation is very helpful. To have maximum effect, however, it is important that the church know the mechanics of a given agency, i.e., what services the agency offers, how one makes application, and what procedures the organization follows.

Ipema suggests that a pastor develop a relationship with a middle-level official. Lower-level officials may provide unsatisfactory service, while upper-level officials may be enmeshed in the bureaucracy. In initiating a relationship, it is very helpful to begin by asking how the church may be able to help the agency. An enterprising pastor can identify needs and problems that his parishioners can help to solve. Such a cooperative approach opens doors and builds relationships.

Philip Amerson suggests that churches consider taking advantage of available consultation services. Such services can help set a focus, discover resources, and develop a workable plan aimed at reaching important and realistic goals.²⁹ Ipema cites three such organizations that can aid community development efforts: the National Training and Information Center, which helps community organization; the Center for Neighborhood Technology, which solicits federal research and development dollars for urban use in addition to stimulating community self-help activities; and the Center for Community Change Consultants, which is also involved in self-help efforts.³⁰

Stanley Hallett also presents some ways of impacting on "the system." For example, the federal government spends billions of dollars on research and development. Church and community groups could begin to discuss how to put pressure on this part of the federal budget. In Chicago, the Center for Neighborhood Technology has built a community coalition aimed at making demands for some of that money.³¹

A pastor is wise also to get involved in his local community organizations. These alliances can be powerful forces in combating everything from pollution to prostitution, redlining to residential neglect. Such involvement is risky because the issues are controversial. However, community organizations by their nature are nonpartisan and people-oriented. According to P. David Finks, community leaders are open to contemporary theologians who will grapple with and act on problems affecting community. A conference of the Oakland Community Organizations, a coalition of 150 neighborhood alliances affirmed this. Moreover, if a pastor is genuinely interested and helpful, he may find himself serving on a community organization's board of directors where he can have a real impact at the policy level.³²

If a church's research into housing conditions and community housing uncovers redlining practices, it would be helpful to join with other ministers in the neighborhood and approach the local lending institutions on the matter. In Chicago, one church found a number of Christians in high places in an urban bank and invited them to tour the community one morning to show them the results of redlining. Consciences were pricked and eyes opened; this large bank is now turning its policy around.

In Cleveland, a group of business leaders met regularly with Rev. Henry Andersen of the Fairmount Presbyterian Church for prayer and Bible study. Out of these meetings emerged a set of goals that included encouraging business leaders to remain and invest in Cleveland, affirming pluralism, and formulating long-range plans for the city's development.³³

In Philadelphia, Campolo and some of his associates bought stock in a large Philadelphia bank. In order to combat redlining, they designed a plan to invite some of the members of the press to a stockholders' meeting at which the group would present policy proposals aimed at ending any redlining practices. The presence of the press made voting against such human resolutions very uncomfortable.³⁴

A group of churches in Chicago's South Shore also invested in a bank. The bank now has $15 million in loans in the South Shore community with a lower default rate than the average at the downtown First National Bank.³⁵

Hallett urges churches to reassess their portfolios. If they are doing business with financial institutions that are less than sensitive and concerned about the community, pressure can and should be brought to bear on them. In addition, churches can organize neighborhood groups to confront lending institutions concerning their community responsibility. If credit is not being extended, the people can demand data justifying the nonlending policy. Often no such data exists; decisions are made ad hoc on the basis of racial or socioeconomic bias.³⁶

Vincent Quayle encourages individual churches as well as denominations to take an advocacy stance on behalf of low-income victims of housing shortages and to affirm that position through portfolio investments in Christian nonprofit housing efforts or private lending institutions that will agree to extend low-interest housing loans.³⁷ In this same line, John Perkins suggests that public housing become cooperative housing. The inhabitants would be given a deed and the opportunity of paying in equity. The interest rate could be one percent over the first five years, 2 percent during the next five, and 5 percent after that. This would yield immediate equity and, of course, pride of ownership.³⁸

There is no limit to what a visionary, stewardship-oriented church can do. The Fairfield Avenue Baptist Church in Chicago, for example, has worked effectively in their community by forming block clubs and organizing a community cleanup. In addition, they have held dinners, inviting aldermen, local police, school personnel, garbage collectors, and public aid attorneys, in order to thank them for helping in the ministry to the neighborhood. By recognizing and helping them they can confront them effectively when accountability is low. Moreover, the same church has opened a series of accounts at a local bank and has made other efforts to reverse the bank's tendency not to invest and lend in the neighborhood.³⁹

In 1979, Chicago's Bethel Lutheran Church decided to tie the life of the church to that of its community. In response to that commitment, Bethel responded to the severe housing needs in the community with a project called the Bethel Cooperative Housing, Inc. They have completed several multiple-family dwellings and have been working toward the completion of a sixteen-unit "sweat equity" building .⁴⁰

In Detroit, the Church of the Messiah sponsors a painting company, hoping it will eventually become a rehab organization. The church also owns several buildings, including the six-flat Mustard Seed Apartments.⁴¹

In Harlem, St. Philip's Episcopal Church has renovated three housing complexes, providing the community with over six hundred new apartments. Believing that housing is critical to family life and that the family is life's core unit, the church plans to rehab another thirty-seven hundred apartments.⁴²

The St. Ambrose parish in Baltimore worked at helping community members become homeowners. Calling themselves housing counselors, people from the church started to perform real estate functions such as appraisal, sale negotiation, drawing up contracts, and arranging financing. Because of their conscientiousness and persistence, local lending institutions cooperated. At one point, St. Ambrose was counseling two thousand families a year. Since the economy tightened and interest rates skyrocketed, housing counseling has slowed, but the commitment to residential ownership continues. St. Ambrose has also done rehabbing. Using local workmen and neighborhood unemployed, the church has renovated over four hundred houses and converted an abandoned school into a twelve-unit apartment house.⁴³

New York's Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine has been involved in similar efforts. Under the leadership of the Very Reverence James Parks Morton, the Urban Housing Assistance Board (UHAB) was founded. UHAB is not only involved in rehabbing but also offers courses in building maintenance and management and acts as a liaison between housing partnerships and governmental agencies. Its liaison efforts include help with paperwork and financing as well as guaranteeing that contract terms are met and a stable management is set up. UHAB has been so successful that recently the New York Housing Development and Preservation department turned over five buildings to groups developed and supervised by UHAB. Like St. Ambrose, the Cathedral Church employs and trains people virtually off the street. It operated a stone-working apprenticeship program, a woodworking skills training term, and other crafts programs to teach marketable skills. In this way, neighborhood people not only help the church but also work toward individual economic self-sufficiency.⁴⁴

Conclusion

These are some of the many ways an enterprising congregation can be instrumental in revitalizing the community. As the church responds with creative approaches, the problems of inadequate housing, redlining, torching, burned-out areas, freezing conditions in winter, and the like can be met. The church can have a part in encouraging financial institutions and private enterprises to invest in the community. Most of all, the church can weather the transitional stages and continue to minister in a changing city.

The effectiveness of these approaches is greatly enhanced when the pastor and as many members of the congregation as possible live in the community. Although such a residential commitment to turf is not always possible because of family, safety, or other important considerations, it is a powerful statement in the eyes of the community itself.

3: Urban Stratification and the Neighborhood Church

Stratification refers to the arrangement of a society into a hierarchy of layers that are unequal in power, possessions, prestige, and life satisfactions. More importantly, however, stratification provides unequal opportunities to accrue the most necessary and desirable commodities of earthly existence. It always generates differences in lifestyles, or living patterns. In short, stratification separates groups of people.

Stratification within cities is often related to regional boundaries. One of the more common conceptualizations of this stratification involves the use of the concentric-zone model of urban areas.¹

The central zone contains the business district where civic, commercial, and governmental functions take place. Next comes the transition zone that includes the slum neighborhoods. Oddly enough, the land here is very valuable because of its proximity to the business district. However, because the buildings are aged and in decline, much work is necessary to make the area suitable for the expanding industrialists. The next zone contains working-class homes. In this area live people whose parents were able to escape the transition zone. The fourth region is a residential zone containing single-family dwellings and apartment hotels. On the border is a commuter zone in which people seeking more desirable living spaces reside.

The socioeconomic status of the residents generally rises further from the center of the city. Communities are more stable and organized, street crime is less frequent, and the quality of education and city services improves. Hence, upward social mobility means outward geographical mobility.

Understanding the larger or macro American stratification system, especially as it applies to the city, is of paramount importance in coming to terms with the dynamics of the more immediate micro system-the neighborhood. The bulk of this chapter is devoted to discussion of the larger system. This is then applied to the neighborhood and, more specifically, to the neighborhood church.

STRATIFICATION AND SOCIAL CLASS

The purpose or function of stratification, according to Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore, is to motivate individuals through the inducements of wealth, prestige, and power to assume positions that the society deems important and that require much talent.² An example of such a position is that of physician. Being a physician requires considerable talent. Because physicians deal with the critical issues of defining and treating health disorders, the position is of great import to the society. Hence, being a physician is lucrative. Entertainers and professional athletes are similarly rewarded because what they do requires a good deal of talent and the society, having more and more leisure time, demands to be entertained.

The Bases of Stratification

The primary bases of stratification are occupation, income, and education, with occupation being by far the most important. When sociologists determine position in the social structure, they often use these three as the criteria for placement. Occupation is especially important because in America you are, as Robert Kennedy said, what you do.³ That is, your social identity is premised on your occupation. Moreover, to know a person's occupation is already to know a good deal about his income and educational status.

Joseph Kahl presented a more expanded view of the bases of stratification, listing seven major dimensions that underlie the American stratification system.⁴

1. Prestige. Some members in the society are granted more respect and deference than others.

2. Occupation. Occupations differ in prestige, importance to the society, or rewards associated with them.

3. Possessions. This dimension refers to the varying amounts of property, wealth, and income.

4. Social Interaction. Different classes develop different patterns of interaction, and because people tend to associate with others at their same level, these patterns markedly separate the classes.

5. Class Consciousness. People are very aware of a social structure and their status in it, hence reinforcing its importance.

6. Value Orientations. There is evidence that different social classes have somewhat different value systems, which in turn motivate them to seek different lifestyles.

7. Power. Power is differentially distributed and those at the top of the social structure have greater leverage in controlling and directing the actions of others than those below them. Indeed, this power differential is as important as any criterion, for it not only refers to the ability to control the flow of wealth and political advantage, but also the ability to maintain an unequal status quo.

Stratification and Societal Dysfunctions

Sociologically, stratification has certain societal dysfunctions. Four in particular stand out. First, because people are born into a given stratum, they do not have equal opportunities at birth. As a result, the full spectrum of society's talent is not discovered. Where one is slotted into the stratification system at birth has very real consequences for the size of one's family, the amount of interaction with one's parents, and the amount and quality of education one is likely to receive. If there were true equality of opportunity, it is altogether possible that a cure for cancer might have been discovered by now-or a host of other achievements might have occurred earlier. However, the poor are all but lost to society as a result of various factors: the poor quality of education they receive, higher rates of infant mortality, motivation undercut by the anguishes of poverty. A large sector is unable to tribute to the society.

Second, because of gross inequities in reward distribution, there is a lack of unity in the society. When some receive better health care, education, police and fire protection, and so on, there is bound to be discord and unhappiness over these inequities. The society disintegrates into interest groups, factions, and other divisions. These further divide the society and weaken it.

Third, with some in the society being granted greater deference and respect than others, loyalty to the society is destroyed. "Who you are" and "who you know" are very important in America. Having wealth and a powerful position guarantees no waiting in restaurants, better service on airlines, quicker contact with important officials, and greater expressions of social respect. The rich and powerful have the greatest ease in getting services of every kind-even free tickets to the major events. The result is that those who are not respected, who have to stand in line and be asked insulting questions when requesting public services, lose respect and allegiance for the system. It is little wonder that patriotism does not flourish in the inner city. It is difficult for a person to become teary-eyed over the national anthem when it celebrates a society that does not really respect and value him.

Fourth, stratification affects self-image, which in turn is related to creative development. This issue is of special significance for children. Children who grow up well fed, respected, and loved, and who attend schools in which students are made to feel important and valued, develop more positive self-concepts than children who realize that they are not deemed of much worth in the society. The result, more often than not, is that those who are made to feel positive are more likely to actualize their potential and develop their skills than those who feel they are not of much worth and who are discouraged from feeling they have anything to contribute. Where creativity and industriousness are depressed, the society suffers from a loss in its collective reservoir of talent.

These are but four of stratification's dysfunctions. It should be noted that they are societal; in other words, they hurt society as a whole. Some individuals may benefit from these societal dysfunctions, for they are advantaged by others' disadvantages; however, the society as a whole is still the victim.

It is interesting to note that the very terms used to describe the American class system-upper, middle, and lower-convey subtle notions of superiority and inferiority that may also be dysfunctional to the well-being of the society as a whole.

The Social Class System

The American social class system can be analyzed in a variety of ways. Some simply posit an upper, middle, and lower class. Others add what is called working, or blue-collar, class, sandwiched between the middle and lower classes. A more detailed approach cuts the social structure into six sectors-upper-upper, lower-upper, upper-middle, lower-middle, upper-lower, and lower-lower. What follows is a rather brief outline of the six social classes. For the urban pastor, who may find himself working primarily with the last two groups, knowledge of the structure as a whole can be valuable in understanding the social context in which his parishioners live.

Upper-Upper Class. Often referred to as "old money," these people are those who have possessed truly super riches over a number of generations. They are usually identified by family rather than as individuals. The Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Mellons would fall into this group. These people keep very much to themselves and associate within their own circles. Their elitism is protected and perpetuated by the tendency to marry within their own stratum.

Lower-Upper Class. Often called "new money," this group differs from those in the higher status primarily in the length of time the wealth and prestige have been in the family.

In general, relatively little is known about the upper classes because they have a thirst for privacy and so escape the usual data-gathering efforts by sociologists. Moreover, most sociologists are middle class and so are not conversant with the lifestyle of the elite. However, certain traits characterize the upper classes in general, and the upper-upper class in particular. Family reputation is very important. The upper class is identified by families and it is the family name that must be advanced and protected at all costs. Individual members of the upper class gain social standing by virtue of their family background and so are socialized to make family reputation a platter of high priority.

Expenditures are often made to magnify and elevate the family name. Many upper-class families, for example, have foundations bearing the family name, and upper-class individuals frequently lend themselves (and their names) as chairpersons of charity drives and socially respectable fund-raising efforts.

Women are very influential in social matters. Upper-class females are often pursued by the fashion media, are the subjects of newspaper features, and often become social trendsetters. The upper-class people are often referred to as "society," largely because of their social prestige.

Perhaps most important of all is that the upper class is truly super rich. Their wealth is tied up in the major American industries and business enterprises, and hence, whenever the wheels of American commerce are turning, these people are making money. As long as capitalism survives, these people survive.

Upper-Middle Class. The upper classes constitute roughly 2 percent of the society, while the upper-middle includes about 8 percent. The upper-middle class consists of the upper and middle levels of business and management in addition to the major professions. Reputationally, they are viewed as "highly respectable," not because they are actually more moral than other classes, but because their moral values are the most dominant in the society and their thirst for respectability is probably the most intense among the strata.

It is the upper-middle class that takes the lead in civic affairs, including public education. In fact, it could be said that whereas the upper classes own and control the major corporations and institutions, the upper-middle class tends them on a day-to-day basis from administrative and executive posts. Because of this institutional dominance of the upper-middle class, it is imperative that those who wish to succeed in the American mainstream be able to communicate with members of this class. For that reason, it is the upper-middle class clothing style and social demeanor that is taught as "proper" in most public schools.

Lower-Middle Class. These "good common people" comprise about 30 percent of the American society. They come from the ranks of small businesspeople, clerical workers, and low-level white-collar workers. These people are often rather conservative politically out of a desire to hold on to their middle-class status. They conduct their lives in a very ordered, patriotic, respectable, and self-improving fashion.

Upper-Lower Class. The largest of the social classes at 40 percent, this group is often difficult to distinguish from the lower-middle class. Their values and lifestyle are very middle class out of a desire to be viewed as middle rather than lower class. Considered "respectable," this sector includes skilled and semi-skilled (blue collar) workers as well as small tradesmen. Moreover, policemen and firemen are often placed in this group. They often live in less desirable but non-slum urban neighborhoods, and they strive for a reputation of respectability. Male chauvinism is often rather overt here, with a tendency for women to remain subordinate.

Economic status is not very important in identifying the upper-lower class, for in many cases their annual income will equal or exceed that of the lower-middle and even upper-middle classes. The differences lie mainly in how they earn their money. They usually are paid by the hour and hence experience affluence through overtime and second jobs. Their economic status is rather tightly tied to the national economy; therefore, in boom times employment and money are plentiful, while during a period of recession their lifestyle can become rather austere.

The upper-lower class is often rather unsympathetic toward the poor, in part because of their wish to be associated with the middle rather than the lower class. There is also a rather strong "I fight poverty, I work" doctrine operative in this group. Frequently, they will oppose public aid of almost any sort, as they feel its funding is coming from their hard-earned, blue-collar income. In short, although they are socioeconomically closest to the poor, attitudinally they are at a considerable distance.

Lower-Lower Class. This group-the poor, about 20 percent of the society-suffers from a negative reputation in the eyes of the rest of the society; they are often viewed as opposites of good, middle-American virtues. Probably the most painful aspect of being poor is the psychological assault it carries. The poor are considered the least worthy in a capitalistic system. They are viewed as takers rather than givers, burdens rather than blessings, contemptible and dirty rather than respectable and clean. The process of receiving public assistance is particularly humiliating.

The lower-lower class includes unskilled laborers with sporadic and unstable jobs, poor farm workers (especially those in the southern portion of the United States), the chronically unemployed and unemployable, and those on public assistance.

When white Americans think of a lower-lower class person, there is a tendency to conjure up the image of a black face. Such a notion is false; the largest number of those in this class are white (although poverty strikes nonwhites harder by percentage).⁵ In fact, this class is made of many disparate groups. Every ethnic, age, and religious group has representatives in the lower-lower class.

Poverty is most apparent in the cities. As more and more affluent whites leave the city limits in quest of a comfortable suburban lifestyle they are either not replaced, causing city populations to dwindle or their place is taken by poor people, whether they be Mexican-American migrants, Puerto Ricans in search of better job opportunities, blacks from the South, or white European immigrants.

Some sociologists include among the poor all those in the lower fifth of the income distribution. Others use less arbitrary definitions and set the poverty population at forty to sixty million Americans. The official government criteria for determining poverty are based on region of residence and family size. In 1981, poverty income was set at $9,287 for a nonfarm family of four. By this definition, approximately thirty-two million Americans were poor. Considering what is required to feed, house, and clothe an urban family of four today, such a figure is appalling. The number one priority among the poor is obviously survival-little wonder, considering the economic deprivation in which they live.

Such tension and concern over survival issues tend to bring about a strong present, rather than future, orientation. The future is not something to look forward to if the economic and social horizon is not bright.

Lower-lower class status often has adverse effects on family life. Anxiety over acquiring the necessities eats away at intimacy and harmony within the family. Social life, especially in urban areas, is often not rooted in the home. While in the larger society the home is a place of peace and surcease from the pressures of the workaday world, among those at the bottom of society home is often a nerve-jangling, noisy, overcrowded place. Because homes are not owned by those who live in them and are often not kept up by slum landlords, there is little pride taken in the residence, and hence, little emotional attachment to it.

Pleasures and enjoyable leisure are in short supply in this sector. If one is unemployed, there may be a great deal of free time, but it is often not very relaxing or personally enriching. Pessimism and hopelessness corrode the spirit.

Despite all the problems of poverty and inner-city living, there are genuine strengths evident among the poor. Although family life is often under stress, there are many vital marriages in poverty communities. Moreover, many solid citizens and battle-tested mature Christians emerge from single-parent and intact families in inner cities. Dr. William Pannell, alluding to his Detroit experience, noted families in which one child may run afoul of the law and become drug dependent, and yet another in the same family may become a lawyer or a teacher.⁶

Even in the areas of crime and drug abuse the statistics can be read from two points of view. On one hand, rates do tend to be higher in inner cities and among the poor in general; on the other, they are not so high as to obscure the fact that amid all the deprivation, the majority of inhabitants of poor communities remain "straight."

Out of the crucible of poverty come impressive psychological strengths. The survival mentality gives rise to a resilient form of mental toughness, a courage bred of enduring a difficult existence. Coping skills are highly developed so that crises do not cause panic and the insults of prejudice do not destroy character. More study needs to be made of the strengths among inner-city populations so that strategies can be developed that maximize these skills.

Conclusion. The social-class system is perpetuated by the unequal distribution of power. While the upper class tends to "own" the society, the middle class dominates and operates it. The result is that the system (whether it is economic, educational, or political) is governed by middle-class rules and styles of operation. For those at the lower end of the system, the middle-class method of operation imposes a dual burden. The poor not only have the usual worries about succeeding, a concern at all levels of society, but they also have to learn rules of the system in which the success game is played. This dual burden produces a great deal of tension among society's "outsiders," tension which many "insiders" neither understand nor notice.

The consequence of this overall power disparity is conflict. It accounts for cleavages between labor and management, the poor and the rich, the government and those governed, and on and on. This is by no means an attack on the capitalistic system, for all political systems have their flaws. The point is that stratification produces winners and losers, and urban pastors are wise to understand the dynamics of the socioeconomic system as a whole, for it accounts for how the winners and losers are determined.

Perpetuation of Social Strata

The self-perpetuating nature of the stratification system is a critical element in understanding its inequitable aspects. Sociologists estimate (and this is a liberal estimate) that only about one in every four Americans moves up the social structure in the course of a lifetime. In other words, stratification is usually a "womb to tomb" phenomenon. Perhaps the best way to dramatize how self-perpetuating the system is, is to use an adaptation of Mayer and Buckley's Model for the Perpetuation of Social Strata (see Figure 1).⁷

Differential Positions in the Social Structure. The model begins with the adult socioeconomic status. Beyond occupational position, income, and level of education, this status has implications for individual political power, community influence, access to the media, and personal satisfaction.

Ecological and Interaction Differentials. The adult socioeconomic status is related to the social and physical environment. Depending on what socioeconomic stratum a person is in, he will be located in a community of the upper, middle, or lower class. Furthermore, the physical nature of this community-size of the lot, whether buildings are single- or multiple-family dwellings, recreational space, upkeep of the buildings and streets, age of the structures, residential density (people per square mile)-will also differ according to social class. These social and physical elements are powerful in shaping and socializing the individual. Spending time with a certain class of people shapes a person's thinking, and no matter how unpleasant the physical aspects, regularized contact with it brings a certain degree of acclimation.

Stratum Subcultures. This socialization gives rise to classes as subcultures. Each socioeconomic layer develops its own particular ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, distinguishable from the other classes. In short, each stratum constitutes a subculture-a mini-way of life.

With regard to subcultures among the poor, there is a debate as to whether the poor hold "poverty values." The prevailing position, the one this author is most comfortable with, is that although the poor are forced to make certain lifestyle adjustments as a result of their scarce means, these adjustments constitute adaptations rather than genuine value differences. As Charles Valentine points out, to posit a true "culture of poverty" may suggest, however subtly, that the poor choose to be poor and enjoy a culture founded on deprivation.⁸

Birth of the New Generation and Interaction Differentials Among the Young. Within each stratum children are born and the differences in strata give rise to differences in socialization of these children. Lower-class children become accustomed to large families, limited space, poverty, and insecurity. Few of them will take vacations with their parents. Instead they will develop local "street savvy." Physical toughness and the ability to endure personal deprivation and hardship will likely be fostered. Upper-status youth will associate with other such young people, who have large homes and big yards. They will have their own rooms, stereo equipment, and television. They may travel with their families across the country and perhaps around the world. Food will be in plenteous supply and contact with adults within nuclear family will be more frequent. They will lack few material possessions or creature comforts.

Differential Personality Traits and Skills. These socialization differences will, as already implied, have consequences for the development of personality traits and skills. What is crucial is that personality—that organized matrix of behaviors, attitudes, values, beliefs, motives characteristic of an individual—is much determined by early socialization experience. Hence, the poor youngster is likely to develop a lifeview congruent with his social background. Street savvy, a job, a car, and freedom from the oppressive burden of poverty are likely to be more immediate goals than a first-rate education, a white-collar job, or travel.

Although the lower-status youth may well value the same things other children value, his sense of realism, coupled with his limited exposure to a life in a more privileged setting, will likely cause him to act on a different set of values. Exposure to poverty, violence, drunkenness, and police harassment is likely to spawn political and social attitudes consistent with having viewed the effects of these problems. The more affluent youth, who has spent his time among people whose economic and occupational destiny are pretty much under their own control, is more likely to develop a set of attitudes that emphasize individual achievement, along with economic and occupational security.

In terms of skills, the poor youngster is likely to develop abilities vital to surviving the physical and emotional traumas of life. Other children are likely to learn verbal skills, such as reading, writing, and speaking standard English, as well as how to present themselves favorably to the white-collar professionals who determine who will be employed. In short, although the skills learned by those at the bottom are valuable, if not absolutely critical, they will not aid the person in adjusting to or succeeding in the middle-class institutional network, beginning with school and leading to the job market.

Recruitment Into Socioeconomic Position. Once preadult socialization is complete and personalities are shaped and skills developed, the individual is ready to assume his status in the adult structure. And, because of the markedly different set of influences and influencers, according to status at birth, the odds are overwhelming that the person's adult socioeconomic status will be the same as that of his childhood.

The School. The school is placed between the socialization differences and personality traits and skills because its entrance into the child's life occurs at that chronological point. Theoretically, the American school system is designed to equalize opportunity, that is, make certain that success or failure is a function of ability and effort. In short, it is intended to compensate for or eliminate the effect of socioeconomic status at birth. However, the overwhelming bulk of studies conducted by educators and sociologists indicates that, if anything, the school reinforces rather than removes status differences.⁹ In fact, the most powerful determinant and the best predictor of an individual's achievement in school is his socioeconomic status. This should be no surprise when it is considered that the social and academic skills most rewarded and nurtured by the schools are those highly valued and almost religiously taught in the middle class.

Conclusion. An overall view of the whole self-perpetuating system makes it obvious that instead of every person having an equal likelihood of spending his adult life in any of the classes, one's status at birth largely determines one's adult future. At birth, one is already set in motion-the train is on a track, on a route headed toward an identical adult status. Only a dramatic intervention en route somewhere will move the individual off the track and headed toward a different status.

Perhaps the most powerful of American myths is that we are what we are (socioeconomically) because of achievement rather than because we were born that way. It is this myth of self-congratulation and other-degradation that drains away empathy for those who find themselves at the bottom of the American socioeconomic system. It is this myth that makes it difficult for urban pastors to get help in the form of money or time from affluent congregations and denominations. People are thought to be poor because of their own deficiencies, not because of any inherent, self-perpetuating qualities of the socioeconomic system. This is not to say that individual effort and achievement are unimportant. It is to say that they are by no means the only dynamics involved. In the final analysis, if urban pastors can overcome this and related antipoverty biases, they will be more likely to gain support and involvement for urban parishes.

NEIGHBORHOODS AND THE NEIGHBORHOOD CHURCH

A knowledge of the societal stratification system provides insight into alter systems such as neighborhoods. In fact, Paul Peterson emphasizes the point that even cities themselves should not be viewed as “nation-states,” or autonomous entities. On the contrary, understanding a given urban policy requires a knowledge of the wider socioeconomic and political climate. Factors in the state or nation at large, external to a given city, can be determinative of strategy.¹⁰ Likewise, an awareness of the stratification of a city and the society at large is vital in diagnosing a neighborhood.

The importance of neighborhood is seen in the fact that people often think in terms of the neighborhood rather than the city in which they live. Richard Coleman, in his work for Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, writes that neighborhoods serve a variety of functions, including influence on children, adult social comfort, physical safety, and harmony with the surroundings.¹¹ According to Hahn and Levine, even government services are shifting toward a neighborhood focus because effective delivery of services requires client cooperation and local governments will not accrue the desired political benefits without gaining cooperation from receiving neighborhoods.¹²

In this work, the concept of the neighborhood necessitates expanded treatment because it is the direction urban ministry is going. Defining a neighborhood as a stewardship and service area provides the urban church with a manageable turf on which to do its work. Greenway asserts that "the principle which needs emphasizing is that of the neighborhood church."¹³ Moreover, such a geographical approach, based on church resources, increases effectiveness of programs, which can then be replicated elsewhere by others. Our Savior's Lutheran Church, a downtown Minneapolis congregation of nearly a thousand members, took this approach, believing it was more practical to work in their own neighborhood than to spread itself thinly across the city.¹⁴

Types of Neighborhoods

Before looking at examples of what some urban churches are accomplishing by a neighborhood approach, it is necessary to understand what a neighborhood is and what types of neighborhoods can be found in a city.

Warren and Warren, who do perhaps the best job of showing how to define, organize, and even change a neighborhood, use three basic principles in studying a neighborhood.¹⁵ The first principle is identity: To what extent do the people feel they belong to a neighborhood, sharing a common destiny with their fellow residents? The second is interaction: How frequent and in what numbers do people visit their neighbors in the course of a year'? The third principle is linkages: What and how effective are the channels people use to funnel information in and out of the neighborhood?

These three principles are criteria for determining the social structure of a neighborhood. They cut across economic and racial lines and so can be used in any urban neighborhood. On the basis of these criteria-identity, interaction, linkages-six basic types of neighborhoods can be differentiated.

The first and strongest type is the integral neighborhood. Here identity, interaction, and linkages are all positive, with the people cohesive and active. They are involved both on the local turf and in the city at large.

The parochial neighborhood is second. There is evidence of sound identity and interaction, but such a neighborhood receives a minus in linkages. These neighborhoods are self-contained, are often very homogeneous ethnically, and are cut off from the larger community.

The diffuse neighborhood has a sense of identity, but little in the way of interaction or linkages. Such a neighborhood is homogeneous, in the sense that it can be a new subdivision or inner-city housing project. However, the neighborhood lacks internal vitality and is not closely related to the larger region. There is little involvement with neighbors.

The "stepping-stone" neighborhood lacks identity, but receives a plus in interaction and linkages. People here are upwardly mobile and involve themselves with neighbors not out of shared interest but in order to get ahead. There is a musical-chairs quality about these neighborhoods: people move through on their way up.

The transitory neighborhood has little identity or interaction. It does have linkages, however. Here population change is evident and the neighborhood breaks into clusters. Often long-term residents are separated from newcomers. There is little joint activity or organization.

The sixth type is the anomic neighborhood. This has little identity or interaction and few linkages. It is hardly a neighborhood at all because there is no cohesion and there is great social distance between members.

A parish outreach program by the Diocese of Oakland used an interesting approach to analyze their neighborhood. Core church families were each given fifteen to twenty nearby families to visit. The purpose of the visit was to develop friendships and build bridges. From these visits, neighborhood and community needs were defined.

After all the information was gathered and discussed, a parish convention was held in which needs were openly discussed and strategies for action were developed and voted on. Out of this process neighborhood problems were addressed; the church was renewed through prayer, reflection, and action; and bridges were built within the parish between the church and the residents.¹⁶

Neighborhood Empowerment

As can be seen in the Oakland example, analysis of the neighborhood is one of the precursors to effective ministry. In fact, such analyses leads to the real focus of contemporary urban ministry: empowerment.

Empowerment involves the transfer of control and neighborhood determination from downtown administrative centers to neighborhood residents. Neighborhood empowerment is an effort at the decentralization of power, enabling neighborhood residents to control their own situation. As certainly as individuals in therapy start improving once they realize they can do something about their problems, so also neighborhoods are revitalized when self-determination is in evidence.

Hallett makes the case for empowerment when he says that neighborhoods should be examined in terms of whether their residents can move from a survival level in which there is dependence on public aid of some sort, to marginality in which they can barely make it on their own, to initial accumulation where there is down-payment money for a house or car, to moderate accumulation with savings accounts and planning for the future, up to rapid accumulation in which money begins multiplying itself.¹⁷ Samuel Acosta, at a conference of churches-in-transition held in Philadelphia, emphasized empowerment among Hispanics, claiming that what is vital are methods of empowering Hispanics to control the forces that affect the quality of their lives.¹⁸

Unhooking a neighborhood from dependency on outside programming and resources is basic to empowerment. What is necessary is public investment in neighborhoods rather than public aid maintenance dollars that assure barely a survival level.¹⁹ Too often public aid monies earmarked for needy city dwellers never reach them. For example, over 50 percent of government monies targeted for the poor is funneled through Medicaid and Medicare, so that much of it goes into the pockets of professional distributors. Sometimes the professionals are less than ethical. In Detroit, one physician had a mobile office. He operated out of the trunk of his car, cruising the neighborhoods, giving superficial checkups to indigent holders of "green cards," and billing the government. A bit of unpublished research in Chicago indicated there was enough dollar-flow into one low-income community to keep two suburban neighborhoods alive. Unfortunately, because those dollars were filtered through bureaucracies, most of the money wound up in the hands of white-collar personnel. Public schools and fire and police departments often receive special funding for work in inner-city neighborhoods, but they rarely make an effort to hire neighborhood residents who know their immediate needs and could use gainful employment.

Neighborhood empowerment requires organization and planning. It means addressing issues on a variety of fronts. Such issues include influencing institutions and businesses to hire neighborhood residents; gaining a voice in the administration and operation of schools; gaining control by means of property ownership; demanding proper and responsive political representation; improving health care, perhaps by developing an organization such as a health maintenance organization that yields benefits for staying healthy; obtaining greater commitment and improved services from financial institutions. In addition, with the rise of modern government administration systems, impact urban political structures requires dealing with appointed bureaucrats rather than elected officials.²⁰ Thus a key neighborhood empowerment issue is gaining bureaucratic accountability.

Marciniak, a veteran of urban revitalization, suggests twelve strategies for improving and empowering neighborhoods.²¹

1. Mobilize voters to clean out political figures who prey on neighborhood misery.

2. Work toward eliminating or reforming day-labor organizations through competition. Day-labor organizations hire unemployed residents on a day-by-day basis to do contracted work. The workers are paid in cash at the end of the day. The profits are raked in by the organization, which, in some cases, encourages willing workers to bribe the officials in order to get a job for a day.

3. Work with the electorate to rid the area of undesirable liquor establishments and other trouble spots.

4. Deal head-on with the neighborhood's concern about street crime.

5. Provide escort service and other moral support for witnesses to appear in court in cases dealing with street crime and intimidation.

6. Work at cutting through bureaucratic barriers in removing abandoned autos.

7. Approach public officials to stop licensing any more sheltered care facilities such as nursing homes or half-way houses for the mentally disturbed until the community has had time to deal with the ones already there.

8. Encourage local institutions to remain and adapt to changing populations and lifestyles.

9. Promote investment in older, multiple-family dwellings in order both to renovate neighborhood housing and avoid the development of a slum.

10. Urge new "urban pioneers" to take residence in the neighborhood and work toward its continuing revitalization.

11. Demand that city officials not inundate the neighborhood with public housing, but rather allocate such developments on a "fair share" basis.

12. Capitalize on the power of local institutions whose own futures are linked to the well-being of the community for support and strength.

A Stewardship Ministry

Working toward empowerment is a stewardship rather than service ministry. The church must get beyond the old missionary model in which a missionary goes into an area with all his expenses and salary paid by outside sources and then performs a relief ministry. In the urban church that kind of approach is seen in using the church as a clubhouse for activities and as a dispenser of services to the needy. As important as relief ministries are, the church must go beyond being an ecclesiastical version of the welfare system.

Many churches are making this move. The community garden program in Kansas City is a creative example of empowerment and self-determination rather than dependency and receivership. Community gardens produced over $750,000 worth of fresh food.²²

In the South Bronx, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation aims at revitalizing neighborhoods through empowerment. The LISC is based on the assumption that there are usually surprisingly strong sources of community strength even in the most depressed areas and that outside developmental efforts need to be tied to neighborhood sources of self-help. The LISC also affirms the importance of the private sector as financier and fellow problem solver in efforts toward neighborhood revitalization.²³

Efforts at neighborhood revitalization are greatly enhanced by building coalitions. In Chicago, four churches worked in concert to develop Atrium Village, a multimillion dollar housing venture attempting to build a bridge between an indigent and superaffluent community. This same Chicago-Orleans Housing Corporation hopes to experiment with the use of solar energy and other conservation measures in city housing. This church coalition has members on a community board working on a new park system, on the local high school board, and on a neighborhood alliance focusing on transportation and streets.²⁴

Coalitions abound. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has developed the Christian Sharing Fund, which supports a variety of community-based efforts. Projects that request funding must be of a social-change nature, dealing with institutional causes of poverty and powerlessness. ²⁵

In the South Bronx, seventy-nine black churches from a variety of denominations joined together to form the Shepherd's Restoration Corporation, which supports housing, economic, and other social activity in the Bronx. ²⁶

In Buffalo, thirty-eight Protestant and Catholic churches merged, developing the United Citizens Organization, believing that churches represent potential strength to deal with the massive institutions that dominate society.²⁷

In Kansas City, Missouri, the Linwood United Ministries—a coalition of fifteen church-related organizations—has been involved assisting low-income families in their efforts to buy or rent housing, combating redlining, and a host of other social efforts.²⁸

Empowerment efforts are aided by strength of unity. This is especially important because these efforts often mean dealing with institutions, the topic of the next chapter.

4: Poverty From an Institutional Perspective

The truths of stratification and self-perpetuation of the socioeconomic system are not widely known or accepted. As a result, negative attitudes toward the poor persist.

The perpetuation of poverty by society results partly, as Harrington points out, from its invisibility.¹ It is very difficult for people to become concerned about problems with which they are not confronted. In cities, the poor are so severely segregated that a person can live for years in an urban metropolis without ever driving to a poor neighborhood. When poverty is an abstraction, it is exceedingly difficult for many middle-class people to believe that there can be as many as thirty-two million people in this country living below the poverty level. This invisibility is exacerbated by the immobility of the poor. Many are unable, because of physical illness or financial deprivation, to leave their neighborhoods. So just as the middle class do not go into poor neighborhoods, neither do the poor make their way into middle-class neighborhoods.

To argue that poverty is a self-perpetuating condition in a capitalistic society is to attack the nation's sacred civil doctrine of the self-made person. To suggest that one is poor because of an unequal distribution of opportunities is to suggest that riches are as much a matter of good fortune as virtue.

Ironically, a middle-class person has no feelings of inferiority about not being truly rich, for if asked why he is not more affluent, he will be quick to tell of his roots and how these precluded the opportunity for acquiring great riches. Yet this same individual cannot accept the similar accounting for poverty. Elliott Aronson says we are rationalizing rather than rational entities.² Never is that more in evidence than in our being critical of the poor while excusing our own failure to reach the economic heights to which we would aspire.

INSTITUTIONS AND THE POOR

In spite of the many poverty myths, poverty means much more than absence of money. It is powerlessness and alienation from the key institutions of society. The importance of the lack of integration of the poor in the major institutions of the society is highlighted by Oscar Lewis.³ Although, as Lewis rightly contends, urban and rural poverty share many characteristics, urban poverty is distinctive in that the city's poor feel a heightened sense of powerlessness and confusion as they deal anonymously with massive, impersonal bureaucracies, bureaucracies in which size and officialdom have an intimidating effect.

In many communities multistoried government buildings are filled with middle-class personnel whose main task is to orient aimless poverty victims to the prevailing system, referring them to employment centers, health clinics, neighborhood mental health offices, special school programs, city services pertaining to public aid and building maintenance, legal aid agencies, and on and on and on. Probably no characteristic of urban poverty stands out more than this lack of experience and familiarity with basic urban services and agencies.

Sociologically, institutions are abstract collectivities that meet basic human needs. In America, six major institutions are often defined: politics, religion, economics, family, education, and recreation. The acronym for this institutional system—PREFER—itself clearly reflects the relationship of the inner-city poor to each of these institutions—the fundamental human needs of the people are barely met in any of them.

The urban poor are almost completely cut off from the wider society and yet are oppressively controlled by it. They are usually geographically separated from "polite society," but the power figures of the city hold tight control over what are euphemistically called "poor neighborhoods." The police are ever-present, the politicians regularly "ride herd" in the ghetto areas, the schools teach a main stream lifestyle, large denominations constantly dictate policy to their "urban missions," and the welfare system keeps tight rein on the lifestyle of public-aid recipients. The feeling of oppression—of a noose around a poor neck—often creates a volatile climate in the inner cities.

Politics

Politically, the poor are all but without representation. Not a single senator or congressman is noted for championing the cause of the poor. In fact, almost every well-known figure who is viewed as an advocate of the poor is outside the prevailing system. Jesse Jackson and Cesar Chavez are two examples. The poor are minimally represented because in a capitalistic society they produce little in the way of goods and services. What is more, with mass disorganization and estrangement, coupled with little stable community leadership, they vote in low numbers, making them almost irrelevant to well-dressed, high-powered political candidates.

In poverty areas can be found the classic example of political reversal. Instead of the political system depending on the support of the people, the people depend on it and so become the pawns of the political system. A housing issue in a Chicago inner-city community illustrates this.

A mass meeting over a housing grievance was held in one of the neighborhood's churches. City officials, neighborhood residents, and community workers were present to hear the matter. The conflict was resolved, the city officials assuring the citizens that they would make good on their vows to provide and maintain adequate housing. A subsequent meeting was scheduled for a month later to check on the officials’ progress toward honoring their promises.

A month passed and the day of accountability arrived. Much to the surprise of the community workers, neither the aggrieved neighborhood residents nor the city officials showed up. The church hall nearly empty. A bit of investigation revealed a political coup. Apparently an official from his downtown city office called the tenant council in one of the high-rise buildings and stated that he was privy to rumor that if the meeting were held as scheduled, the welfare checks, on the third of the month, would be late in arriving. Faced with a choice between improved housing or food, the residents quickly capitulated to the threat and the meeting was boycotted. For the city, it was the perfect squelch. They claimed publicly that they had obviously done their job well, for the community, by virtue of their nonattendance at the meeting, showed that the matter required no further attention.

Often people wonder why inner-city citizens who do vote, vote for the same political regimes that are said to have held them down. There are several reasons for this trend. One is a lack of alternatives. A known half-loaf is better than no loaf at all. However, more importantly, the voters are often intimidated. It is common for local political organizers to roam the streets and subtly but clearly warn the citizens that if candidate "X" does not receive adequate support at the polls, he will have little reason to serve the community well. Translated, that means that fire protection may be even more lackadaisical than before, police service will become increasingly oppressive and decreasingly protective, project buildings will be ignored, slum landlords will be under even looser control, and garbage may continue to pile up, making the rat and roach epidemic even worse.

Little political organization and savvy and a resulting lack of power account for the reason so few changes are made in the inner city. An urban church worker learns quickly that the people are not only beset with ineffective governmental programs and policies but, even worse, are without realistic grievance mechanisms to ameliorate these problems. In fact, many welfare-oriented government programs exist simply because of political powerlessness, and although they may be designed with the best of intentions, they are just substitutes for what is really needed: an equitable share of political power in a representative democracy.

Religion

Religion, as an institution, is also tainted by poverty. In many inner cities the church is the only really caring agency of any enduring value. It is a meeting place, a fellowship center, and a source of support. However, these churches almost invariably exist on a hand-to-mouth basis. This problem is growing. For example, according to Richard Gary's research, by 1987 half of all Episcopalian churches will not be able to support a full-time pastor.⁴

Urban church staffs are small, with many positions filled by volunteers. There is a great need for professionalism and urban expertise, but there is simply no money to fund the programs that could use trained personnel effectively. If the church is nondenominational, it lives off the income garnered from the collection plate. Such a budget would provide only for the minister, if even that. In many cases, an indigenous pastor is only a part-time professional, spending most of his time working in a factory or a store in the neighborhood. If the church belongs to a mainline denomination, it is most likely on that denomination's home missionary budget, receiving a monthly pittance to carry on the awesome task. In short, another reversal is in operation. The churches that need the money for comprehensive and effective whole-person ministry receive the least support, while other congregations debate whether to purchase a new organ or better sanctuary carpeting.

Economics

Poverty in economics connotes much more than simply a lack of money. High unemployment and underemployment mean a dearth of opportunities to acquire money.

Much of the insensitivity of middle- and upper-class people toward the poor is an outgrowth of the Protestant work ethic. The Protestant work ethic in its oversimplified form suggests that if one works hard, one will attain success. It is a strongly procapitalistic religious doctrine, emanating from the notion that God blesses those He favors and, therefore, if one is living in God's favor and laboring faithfully, success will result.⁵ Much of the Protestant ethic is valid, one would be hard-pressed to find many truly successful people who have not worked very hard at achieving that success. In that that respect, its endorsement of hard work and attention to duty is sound. The problem comes with the Protestant ethic's unwritten corollary: If one is not successful, one has not worked hard.⁶ Once that corollary is accepted (and it is subtly taught throughout the nation's schools and churches) the seeds of prejudice toward the poor are well planted. One aspect of this problem is that many people cannot understand why there is so much unemployment in the inner cities. A look at the daily papers reveals legions of job opportunities.

This issue merits examination. If one takes a close look at those ads, it becomes apparent that there really are not very many jobs for the poor. First, many of these jobs require a substantial amount of education. Even those jobs that require less formal education still require well-developed literary skills. These requirements eliminate most of the poor. Second, many of the factory jobs listed are not located close to poverty areas. Many industries, and hence jobs, have moved to the suburbs. Third, of these jobs that remain, many pay the minimum wage. At the minimum wage times forty hours, the vast majority of low-income families earn below the federal poverty level. In addition, job-related expenses such as travel, perhaps baby-sitting, clothes, and other mundane items, make it even less economical to accept such employment.

In the early seventies, a large candy manufacturer felt compelled to do something to relieve the pain of unemployment in Chicago's Cabrini-Green. The company offered plant jobs to those who needed them. There were two problems. One was that they offered the then minimum wage of $1.75 per hour, and the second was that the jobs were fifteen miles away in a western suburb. What is especially poignant about this example is that it is typical of well-meaning attempts to redress poverty through employment opportunities.

Though less talked about, underemployment is also a problem. There are a myriad of poor who work, but less than full-time or at jobs well below their capabilities. For those who work part-time, there are sharp financial effects, making it doubtful whether it is economically wise to be working at all. For those who work at jobs below their abilities, there is a morale-deadening factor, one that robs labor of all sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.⁷ This widespread underemployment is not unemployment and is therefore not included in the monthly unemployment rates. It is obvious that work is not a guaranteed route out of poverty.

In addition to employment problems, the poor also face exploitive consumer practices. The poor spend a greater proportion of their income for necessities in the form of food, shelter, and health care than do the middle class, although the quality of their investment return is much less.⁸

The poor pay more for less.⁹ Inner cities are teeming with exploitive money hounds who prey on helpless residents. Because there are often no large grocery stores in the neighborhood and no transportation to stores outside the community, the people often buy their goods at small, neighborhood establishments. A walk through almost any such store will reveal inflated prices and inferior merchandise. The proprietor takes advantage of the patrons' lack of shopping alternatives. If the people do not do much looking elsewhere, they are often unaware of how badly they are being exploited anyway.

However, the presence of a larger chain store is no guarantee of fairness either. In Chicago, one A&P store "serving" an inner-city community was taking the spoiled fruits and vegetables from the suburban stores and selling them at increased prices. When confronted by a group of concerned citizens, the store simply closed down rather than rectify this or any other of its exploitive practices.

Moreover, with inadequate funds, the poor cannot take advantage of sales on food or other goods sold in volume. This means that poor shoppers invariably pay much higher prices for the staples of life.

Exploitation is most rampant in consumer fraud in the form of corrupt car dealers, furniture stores, and most importantly, finance companies. Usually the dealer will sell a gullible consumer an item for a very small down-payment and then sell the contract to a neighborhood finance company. The interest rates on the merchandise are exorbitant, but the purchaser, who lacks awareness about installment buying and is dazzled by the acquisition of a bit of luxury amid the squalor of poverty, eagerly signs on the dotted line. Frequently, the purchaser simply defaults on the payments because of unexpected financial catastrophes or misunderstandings related to credit payments, or for some other reason. The result is the repossession and resale of the merchandise. The finance company is cut in on this bonanza through contracts laden with outrageous interest. These contracts prove extremely lucrative when fully paid, and even if the ban is in default, a good deal of interest money is usually pocketed. The victim is always the consumer. Such capers are pulled off again and again because the people are not aware of their rights, are lied to concerning them, or do not understand the legal channels open to them to redress these inequities.¹⁰

There is exploitation even in financial transactions. The poor cannot turn to banks for their dealings. One reason is that few if any banks are located in inner cities. Moreover, because of their middle-class aura, banks are very threatening to many of the poor. Also, with little income, who can be concerned with opening a savings account or trust fund?¹¹

With few inner-city residents having bank accounts, either for checking or savings, almost all transactions are done in cash. In order to do business, one must have checks cashed and obtain money orders. Such dealings are executed at the currency exchange, which is notorious for legally stealing from the poor. The currency exchange has a monopoly on cashing checks, supplying money orders, and paying utility bills (electric, telephone, and gas bills are regularly handled at these places). The result is that the currency exchange demands ridiculous service charges for almost every conceivable activity. Thus the poor, who need to pinch literally every penny, watch dollars needlessly slip away.

On top of the problems of employment and consumer exploitation, there is little economic and consumer knowledge. Perhaps the most basic reason is lack of experience. Those who have been raised in poverty have never had much money to be handled in the first place.¹² Consequently, such childhood socializers as allowances, toy purchases, and junior savings clubs are all but nonexistent, giving the people little or no conscious socialization into money management. Adults do not have charge cards, checking accounts, tax accountants, and itemized deductions on which they sharpen their fiscal acumen and pass it along to their youth. There are simply no models. In female-headed families, the oldest child is often saddled with the shopping duties. Because such persons often have no knowledge of how to handle money shrewdly and have little cash to begin with, they are often the victims of economic exploitation.

Family

Sociologically, there is no more critical institution than the family. It is the chief agent of socialization and the transmitter of basic values. Nowhere are families more frequently broken than among the poor. There is no shortage of reasons for this. Poverty itself is among the most important. The very economic system that operates in poverty communities breeds family destruction. For years, many states required that a family be broken before it could receive any public aid. As a result, many marriages broke up simply because the family could not survive with an intact marriage "headed" by a jobless and perhaps unemployable male.

Despite recent changes in the welfare restrictions in some industrial states, the rigors of poverty eat away at the marriage bond. In America, a man's identity and worth are determined largely by his occupation. If one is either terribly impoverished or, worse, unemployed, one's identity and self-worth are under intense assault. Frustrated wives, exhausted by the ravages of poverty and slum living, are tempted to carp at their spouses about the squalor in which they and their children are forced to live. These forces wreak havoc on male egos and exert pressure on couples to "split."

As a result, in addition to the extremely high divorce rate in almost any inner-city community, often an equivalent number of marriages end in desertion or separation. In the case of desertion, the wife may never know the whereabouts of the departed husband. She is left with only the anguish of rejection. There is no contact, no resolution of the problems, no visitation with the children. Nothing. For the departed male, this may seem the only sane option. Facing an alienated wife, hungry children, and a slum dwelling is only a reminder of personal failure.

Often in the case of desertion divorces are obtained through legal-aid clinics. The process itself adds to the sense of humiliation. A notice of the divorce filing is published in the newspaper for a given length of time. If the deserting party does not respond to contest it, the divorce is granted. There is no alimony or child support of course, only a divorce, and perhaps the further indignities of welfare.¹³

Poor families then are often female-headed. As a whole, nearly 50 percent of poor American families are characterized by father absence.¹⁴ In a nation in which adult males are customarily the chief winners, poor children are often robbed of models of how the ordinary American familial system works. In such homes there are no flesh-and-blood examples of employed adult males who are succeeding in the occupational and economic market. This deficit of males can have real implications for the urban church, for it makes many become decidedly female-dominated. Moreover, male children may be difficult to motivate along traditional educational lines as they see no real examples of successfully educated male adults living in their community.

Because many poor families are female-headed, and because intact families are hassled with making ends meet, mothers seek employment outside the home. As a result, children lack adult supervision. Much of their socialization takes place in the street. For the child, there is an absence of constructive family conversation, family group activities, and even a sense of what an intact family unit is like. For many youth there simply is no adult to talk to, to listen to, or to learn from. The oldest daughter may raise her younger brothers and sisters while her mother is out working.

In some cases there is an extended family nearby, often consisting of grandparents, uncle, aunts, and cousins. Where the extended family is present, there can be real advantages. Aid in such practical matters as babysitting, changing residences, and even financial crises can be obtained at little or no cost.

For the poor, the only security in old age may be one's children, who will care for the parent until death. For most people old age is provided for by a pension, a savings account, and social security benefits. Poor families have few, if any, of these; so in the long run, children may actually aid the poor.

Education

Poverty is perhaps no more vividly reflected than in the institution of education. A survey was conducted several years ago at a large inner-city high school in Chicago to determine the reading level of the senior class. The results? The average reading score was at the third-grade level, with not a single student, of the hundreds of students involved, reading at a twelfth-grade level. This means that the valedictorian did not read at grade level.¹⁵ I recall working with a sixth-grade youngster, while I was teaching in an inner-city middle school in the sixties, and discovering that the youth, by no means retarded, was unable to recite the alphabet. These are not exceptional cases.

There are many reasons for this educational outrage. One of them is a lack of models. In a poor urban community a youngster is likely to grow up without a single well-educated person with whom he can identify. Virtually every middle-class child is surrounded with literate models. In fact, it is largely to avoid the criticism and scorn of these models that many middle-class youth learn to read and write. Not so in the urban enclaves. The only well-educated inhabitants of the community are the social workers and teachers who labor in the community by day and then quickly exit to the suburbs by late afternoon. The role models of the poor are from the ranks of the unemployed, unskilled alcoholic, disabled, and criminal. Ironically, the criminal group includes the most affluent of the lot: the three Ps—prostitutes, pimps, and pushers. In any case, time is spent on the street and watching television. Reading is obsolete.

A second reason for this educational outrage is the limited formal education of the parent(s), coupled with a lack of opportunity in general, so that the youth usually has little contact with books and newspapers. This limited involvement with print is a powerful factor in accounting for reading and writing difficulties among inner-city students. In short, there is a lack of preparedness in the form of experience and motivation for learning to read and write. Moreover, many children, because of large families and overcrowded surroundings, do not enjoy the common and delightful experience of millions other children—having their parents read to them. It is widely known that reading to a youngster can be a powerful motivating factor in "turning him on" to reading by himself.

Yet another reason is lack of space. A child's room may be the room for four or five brothers and sisters. There is no solitude. Whereas most children have sufficient privacy and proper facilities for cogitation, the lower-class youngster must try to study in noise, heat, overcrowdedness.

Overcrowdedness does not afflict home life only. Urban schools are almost universally characterized by high density. Bulging classes, to the brim with academically needy youngsters, are the rule rather than the exception. For a teacher to salvage even a paltry percentage of this teeming group is a considerable accomplishment, considering the magnitude of the task.¹⁶

A fourth reason is the condition of the schools and academic materials. Although some cities boast of their high per-pupil expenditure the inner-city schools, they rarely mention the amount of this that goes to the upkeep of ancient and collapsing buildings and purchase of often sadly irrelevant textbooks.

Finally, poor education is the result of teacher transience and lack of accountability. Most urban school systems abide by the seniority rule which means that any teaching vacancy in the district is open to application and granted to the teacher with the largest amount of seniority. Hence, as openings occur in the city's fringes, an exhausted urban warrior fills it, leaving almost all openings for first-year teachers in the most trying and needy schools.

This transience is particularly harmful at the administrative level. A key to inner-city education is the principal. However, functioning effectively in an inner-city position is energy sapping and not very overtly rewarding. Therefore, many administrators, like teachers, move up and out. The stability of models who are responsible and committed to educational growth-day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out-is removed. The only people of any permanence are the repeatedly truant students.

There is also the matter of accountability. Urban educational bureaucracies are infamous for their non-accountability. Teachers come and go, administrators are shuffled like cards in the inner city, "downtown" policies are ever changing, funding is no more stable than the stock market, and programs seldom last for more than a year. As a result, no one is really in charge. The bureaucratic web is so intermeshed that it is difficult to determine personal or institutional responsibility. The result is that no one is accountable, and more importantly, with politics at the center, no one wants to be. All that is known is that the casualties of such a monstrous system are the children.

Out of all this emerges a rather ambivalent attitude toward education. As the children "progress" through the school system, they develop a vague awareness that the really good jobs necessitate a sound education. However, with no models and a biography of negative experiences with traditional forms of learning already built up, little of a concrete nature is done to actualize their academic potential.

The consequences these conditions have for the aspiring inner-city student are devastating. It is not uncommon for a diligent inner-city scholar, who has attained a near-perfect grade point average and ranked in the upper divisions of his class, barely to make a C average in college. This is because the quality of the education the youth received was so markedly different from that which is necessary to prepare a student adequately for a liberal arts college. With few of even the finest making it, it is only realistic that other students merely endure, rather than enjoy and profit from, the whole educational experience.

Recreation

Recreation is yet another institution that reflects poverty. In Cabrini-Green there is one swimming pool for ten thousand children and young people. Even that pool has limitations, however. It is only three feet deep at its deepest point, and it contains no water. Moreover, there are fewer than ten basketball courts. Certainly no coach need worry about players fouling out with so large a collection of potential participants. There are no tennis courts, golf courses, baseball diamonds, football fields, or handball courts in inner-city communities. The result? Idleness. Idleness breeds drug usage, vandalism, and petty crime. If there is anything from which inner-city residents in general and juveniles in particular suffer, it is the lack of life options. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the recreational dimension.¹⁷

It comes as no surprise that so many of the finest baseball, basketball, and football players in America come out of poverty environments, for these are sports which, with a bit of ingenuity, can be played in most inner cities. A hoop and a round ball provide countless hours of entertainment for thousands of urban youth, although even a hoop can be hard to come by. Baseball is often played with the building as the backstop and the street as the outfield, while football is squeezed into any non-cement space. Dawn to dusk involvement in these sports, played under the most menial of conditions, creates excellence; and such excellence is a badge of status in these communities. Conversely, suburban youth dominate championships in swimming, golf, and tennis. In fact, it is not uncommon for the best of inner-city athletes to be unable to swim, hit a golf ball, or use a tennis racket at all.

All of this serves to reemphasize the fact that being poor means having less of everything, including the much-needed psychological relief that constructive leisure and recreation have to offer. Poor communities are blighted communities, and included in the blight is the lack of recreational facilities of all types-from big-league stadiums to city parks. The poor turn to destructive alternatives such as alcohol and drugs.

SUGGESTIONS AND GUIDELINES FOR MINISTRY

What can be done in terms of service, and especially stewardship, in the institutional arena? Below are suggestions in each of the six areas, or major institutions. Following that are some overall guidelines for developing programs or ministries.

Politics

In the area of politics, it is well for an urban pastor to gain a comprehensive understanding in order to see the political situation as a full system with all its attendant interconnections. He can learn from the community residents and local neighborhood organizations. In addition, he should become acquainted with political representatives and government workers. His understanding and knowledge will then enable him to give more effective counsel to various people in the community who have difficulties with the political forces. His advice may often be sought because he may be one of the few figures in the community who is both well educated and caring.

One important aspect of the urban pastor's political education is to determine the reputation of the various political officials working in the community in order to find which ones are sensitive to the needs of the area. Because a great deal of activity is accomplished at the grassroots level, a pastor can convey certain concerns to local caring officials and see that they are acted on.

A note of caution is in order regarding political involvement. As mentioned previously, it is vitally important that neither the church nor the pastor be aligned with any particular party or candidate. Parties, regimes, and candidates come and go, but the church's mission lives on. If the church should tie itself to any organization, it will be acquiring short-term gain at the expense of potential long-term loss. For if the political entity loses its base, the church will lose a great deal of its leverage and, worse, if the political candidate or organization turns corrupt, the church will be in the embarrassing position of either having to renege on the political tie or be found furthering the cause of exploitation. The optimal position is what Art Gish termed cobelligerence—aligning with issues rather than organizations or candidates. Opening the church for political discussions and debates can be beneficial, for its makes public the church's concern for justice and the New Testament call for faithful citizenship. However, an open forum for interaction and debate should not degenerate into endorsement and support.

One specific idea for the church's involvement in the political arena on behalf of the poor is the formation of a church justice committee. This group can examine community problems and seek solutions. Such a group can assess everything from the quality of merchandise in the neighborhood stores to the accountability of political candidates.

Finally, contact with other churches and pastors in the community can be of great value both in learning about the political scene and in garnering advice concerning what posture to take when faced with dilemmas.

Religion

There are a number of avenues open for bolstering the religion-as-an-institution aspect of the ministry. If the church is a part of a mainline denomination, it is helpful to make contact with pastors from some of the more affluent churches in the metropolitan area and make specific bequests, for help. A receptive pastor might be willing to identify several couples in his congregation who would be willing to make a one-year commitment to an inner-city church. This would include regular attendance at least in the morning, as well as tithing and voluntary involvement in at least one church ministry. The enlistment of a number of such couples can do wonders for budget, moral support, and leadership, in addition to spreading the word about the inner-city church more widely.

The urban pastor might also request opportunities to educate Christians as to what poverty is, how it is perpetuated, and what its sequences are. This can be done by speaking in other churches, writing articles for denominational publications, working with seminary interns, meeting with students on field trips, and so on.

No matter how the pastor develops an audience, it is of considerable import that the myths of poverty be exploded. For unless they are dissolved, urban churches will continue to operate on an economic shoestring as the second-class citizens of large, wealthy denominations. That crucial second chapter of James will be violated at every annual denominational meeting, as rank and file church members will continue to believe that poverty is the result of personal inadequacy therefore, does not merit much in the way of action and concern.

Christians usually can be divided into three categories with reference to urban concern: those who do not care and must be "written off'; those who are open but lack knowledge and confidence; and those who have a genuine interest in and knowledge of urban dynamics. The second group is not small in number and is salvageable if the pastor can get the message to them in their suburban, or at least suburbanlike, ecclesiastical enclaves.

Reeducation is a difficult task. Yet reeducation efforts can lead to greater interest and extended opportunities to proselytize middle-class parishioners into a passion for urban ministry. Opportunities to speak to adult education groups, college clubs, and home missionary committees are valuable. Joint worship services held both in the inner city and in the outlying areas can also serve to recruit support for the inner-city effort. The point of all this is rather obvious: If a network of churches can become involved in even the most ancillary fashion in the inner city, the isolation of such a pastorate is reduced and aid can be obtained in efforts ranging from food drives to prayer chains.

Opportunities to address seminary classes and students are also valuable. The urban location of the church is likely to place the pastor near such educational institutions. Seminaries are aware of their urban ministry deficits. Many realize they are short on street experience. The result is often an openness for an articulate urban pastor; and he can both spread the call for greater concern for urban ministry and recruit interns and volunteers for his particular parish.

As mentioned previously, forming alliances with other churches in the community is also expedient. Even where there are deep theological differences, there can still be common ground on temporal concerns. Coalitions formed on an issue-by-issue basis is a good way to make progress in the community.

Alliances with other pastors in the community can serve the dual function of presenting a united front when dealing with unaccountable secular institutions and being a base of fellowship and support to buttress the urban pastor against the forces of loneliness, isolation and pessimism.

Economics

In the economic realm, much can be done without handing out any money. A critical economic front is always employment. There are several avenues the church can take.

If the pastor has some effective suburban and fringe connection he could determine what potential job opportunities exist there. Then, consulting with pastoral colleagues, he can get the names of business people in these areas, requesting, say, one job a year for an able bodied, energetic member in the inner city.

In the immediate neighborhood, job openings can be posted on the church bulletin board. The church bulletin board, by the way, can be of inestimable value and is often underused or nonexistent. These boards convey vital information and bring area residents into the lurch.

A survey of the industries and businesses in the community would reveal any discriminative employment practices extant there. Where they exist, the justice task force, an alliance with other neighborhood pastors, or some other entity can bring pressure to bear on their perpetrators.

At every opportunity the church would do well to employ neighborhood residents in paid positions. Often there will be less than top-quality labor because of limited education and underpreparation in handling institutional responsibilities. However, it is a prime example of practicing what is preached. If community residents are employed, they should be carefully selected and have clearly defined job descriptions, so that if they do not work out, they will realize it even before the church has to inform them.

Finally, a benevolence fund, coupled with a well-stocked and sharply supervised "pantry" can be very positive. Some churches aptly call such a fund a sharing fund. This and the other ministries witness to the church's concern over hunger and poverty.

Family

To deal with the family the church may have to take an indirect tack. Sermonettes regarding fidelity, intact marriages, and responsible rearing are usually not very well received. They tend to have a judgmental ring as they are based on some naive assumptions. This is to say that fidelity and family concern is only a middle-class ethic, but rather that it is too easy to treat such concerns without proper awareness of the pressures attendant to inner-city life.

If the church succeeds in attracting community members, there can be church educational programs on family enrichment, child rearing, hygiene, and other family-related issues. If such programs are offered, every attempt should be made to insure that the leadership includes community residents—whether formally connected with the church or not. This will avoid investing such programs with a heavy paternalistic quality.

Day-care programs can also be valuable. They can be pay-for-themselves efforts by employing neighborhood mothers and paying them with monies garnered from working mothers who need good baby-sitting services. Such a ministry can have far-reaching effects. It brings the community residents into the church, demonstrates the church's concern for temporal needs, provides more adequate community child care (freeing older children from the responsibility of being part-time mothers), and is a breakthrough in the area of family concerns.

Church events that have a family focus, ranging from potluck suppers to retreats, also witness to the church's commitment to family life.

Beyond this, the pastor may find it helpful to consult will neighborhood social workers and family agencies. These people can provide valuable insight into major family needs in the area as well as suggest realistic ministries that can address these needs.

Education

It is difficult to change educational institutions; however, there are a number of educational options available. One is to start a church ministry that addresses the peculiar problems afflicting community students, primarily illiteracy. A good start may be a well-planned, seriously aimed tutoring program.

A tutoring program will require good tutors. These may be obtained from among educated members of the congregation, concerned citizens in the community, nearby seminaries, other churches, and students from local Christian and public colleges and universities.

Colleges and universities are often extremely valuable but untapped talent resources. A few well-placed calls to departments of sociology, psychology, and education may yield a number of people who can aid in urban ministry. Many colleges have internship programs, independent studies, or community-field experiences designed to allow interested students to grapple firsthand with realities of the city. Often these experiential programs lack strategic placement options and would welcome an urban church opportunity in tutoring, provided the experience is well planned and the student effectively supervised. In addition, individual professors may grant classroom credit to a student who is willing to immerse himself in the life of the inner city.

Good, serious students in the tutoring program should be recognized early and, in turn, "promoted" to become teaching assistants. This gives the tutoring effort a healthy indigenous quality and facilitates peer learning, a method that seems always to outstrip traditional methods in effectiveness. It also develops models for other learners. To motivate students in the tutoring program, commercial enterprises such as department stores and banks can be asked to contribute. Manylarge organizations pride themselves on any and all civic involvement activities. I recall requesting assistance in motivating youngsters to read in a program in Michigan. A department store chain sent a large quantity of coupons redeemable at their stores for merchandise, such as records, pop, ice cream, and candy.

If an effective tutoring program can be designed, it is helpful to inform the local schools of its existence. The purpose is not to suggest deficiencies on their part, but rather to alert them to the church's interest in assisting their academic efforts and to invite their suggestions. This is both honorable and good politics.

The political aspect is noteworthy, because it is important that the school not become the church's adversary. If the schools see the church as an ally, they are more likely to be responsive to those issues raised by the church that fall into the schools' sphere of responsibility. One church has done so well at both tutoring and school relations that some of the tutoring now takes place right in the school. Ultimately, the goal is better education and greater accountability.

A church task force on education may also bring fruitful results. Such a group could oversee the tutoring program and develop relations with the neighborhood schools. A primary objective of the task force would be to develop skill and motivation in students.

Educational concern can carry far beyond tutoring and church-school relations. Students who show particular academic skill and motivation can be steered toward Christian colleges or state universities that will give them maximal educational benefit.

Recreation

There are a plethora of possibilities in the recreational area. One is to develop church softball, basketball, and even touch-football teams and enter them in leagues. Such teams should be well supervised with articulated expectations for team members. Lacking these guidelines, members can become careless participants who may “grandstand," fail to attend, quit during the season, or engage in other counterproductive activities. If playing is a privilege, with certain, easy-to-abide-by expectations, these teams can be wonderful vehicles for ministry.

In addition to the teams, there can be group outings to professional events. A call to the office of a professional baseball or basketball team, explaining the community's needs and the church's interest in meeting them, may bring reduced prices or even free tickets.

Another possibility is to develop a recreation center in the church itself or a nearby building. A pool and ping pong table makes a good start. The specter of making the church building vulnerable to the wear and tear of city youth is repugnant to many beginning pastors. However, if any ground is to be gained in urban ministry, people's needs must always supersede consideration for buildings. Beyond this immediate step, it might be wise to check out various youth organizations, such as Young Life or Youth for Christ, to determine whether they have a ministry nearby. If they do not, it may be possible to invite them in to work spiritually and recreationally with the neighborhood teens. A number of such organizations have become increasingly sophisticated in urban concerns over the past years.

If talent and interest exist, a church youth program that zeroes in on developing relationships with neighborhood kids can be inaugurated. The "relationship first" concept is critical, for any attempt to evangelize or change attitudes will be met with incredible resistance if the youth feel they are simply scalps for the kingdom rather than persons who are cared about. Again, national youth organizations can be helpful in developing such a program.

Guidelines

These suggestions are only a beginning. The larger and more energetic the church, the more that can be done. However, it may be helpful for the urban pastor in the storefront church simply to begin by getting to know the community and then developing manageable ministries one at a time. Inaugurating a melange of uncoordinated ministries will bring nothing but frustration.

Assessment. At the outset, the turf and its needs must be defined; then a sober assessment of the church's resources, actual and potential, must be made. After this step, the development of ministries is in order.

Goals and Procedures. Ministries should have clearly defined goals and procedures. Inner-city communities are often characterized by minimal organization. With morbidity (illness) and mortality rates high, constant fear of fire and police brutality, the ever-present threat of urban renewal and hence forced removal, the inability to meet next month's rent, and so on, the focus is so heavily on getting by and surviving that there is little time to develop community roots and unity. Residential mobility, chief among the producers of community organization, can be a consequence of death, illness, financial catastrophes, fire, or urban renewal. The Michigan school in which I taught saw fully 1,100 of its 1,200 students change residences within a calendar year.¹⁸ Disorganized ministries play into this chaos.

Moreover, if goals and procedures are clearly laid out, certain expectations can be made of those to whom the ministry will be directed. There need be nothing high-handed about this, for to require certain very basic things of the community participants is to convey respect for their autonomy and independence.

Regular Evaluation. Defined ministries can and should be regularly evaluated. Inner-city neighborhoods are unceasing targets of governmental programs of every sort. However, these programs are almost invariably long on money and short on hard-nosed accountability and evaluation. The result is that they fail and the people become accustomed to their failure. Simply to replicate governmental failures is to waste God's time. Ministries that work should be continued, and those that do not should be scrapped or renovated. Failures will occur and are not to be mourned over; what is unforgivable is to give up trying when failures do happen. Evaluations should be periodic so that ministries run long enough to take effect, but not so long that they do receive proper attention. Finally, and most importantly, evaluation processes should include assessments on the part of those served by them.

Knowledge of Resources. There is no substitute for simple knowledge of the community and its resources. The Chicago Social Services Directory contains more than two thousand agencies. If the urban pastor simply gained an intimate knowledge of such services in the community and took the time to make phone calls to the appropriate ones for confused and needy community residents or, even better, taught community residents how to help each other, he could perform a major ministry and quickly be defined as a friend of the community. Though such a service lacks a spiritual emphasis, until the church can develop its own more tightly focused ministries, knowing where people can go for help and assisting them in getting there can be a major ministry.

For larger and highly motivated urban churches, it can be helpful to assess what federal monies may be available for ministry. The notion of receiving government funding is anathema to many orthodox Christians who feel the mission of the church has to be totally separate from governmental interference. Nonetheless, when earmarked for social ministries and requested in the context of very clearly presented, open-faced statements of goals, seed money from federal or state sources can be a real boon.

Closely allied with this is money from various foundations. There are many potential sources in this area. However, it is important to realize that foundations tend to contribute almost exclusively to new ministries and programs, and rarely to support and maintain existing efforts. Hence, if foundation money is sought, it is wise to think of ways in which the newly inaugurated program, once off the ground, can generate its own revenue to keep it afloat.

Conclusion. Whatever ministries are begun, every ministry should make the safeguarding of the dignity of those served a high priority. Any ministry that smacks of white liberal do-goodism, in the form of "Here, let me show you how to live better, like me," however well-intentioned, is utterly doomed and has no place in the church. There is level ground at the cross of Christ; status differences do not exist. Every effort should be extended to remove them in church ministry as well. James 2:1-13 emphasizes the doing away with preferential regard. The key is servanthood and concern. Those who minister can learn much from those to whom they minister. Optimally, the ministry will be two-way, with the inner-city residents teaching the church representatives much.

Finally, if not a single program is ever begun, successful urban ministry must begin on the street. The church building is only a resource, and often a rather minor one. The church is wherever the people representing it are ministering to others. In that respect, the pastor must be prepared to wear out shoe leather. The pastor's study will have to include the streets of the community, taking the gospel of eternal and temporal love to the people right where they are. The number of worshipers in the sanctuary on Sunday may well be inversely proportional to the time spent there by the pastor during the week. It is ironic that some of the largest inner-city sanctuaries are the emptiest on Sunday morning, while storefronts are bulging.

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With this institutional perspective in mind, we turn now to a closer examination of psychological aspects of poverty.