THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 13, 1994 TAG: 9411100656
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
LENGTH: Long : 171 lines
Robert L. Woodson Sr. is founder and president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise in Washington. The organization, created in 1981, helps low-income grassroots groups build on their community strengths for social and economic revitalization. Woodson was a keynote speaker at Virginia's 7th annual Governor's Conference on Housing Oct. 26 in Richmond. He was interviewed by staff writer Mike Knepler
HOUSING:
Q: You've said you were looking for solutions to inner-city problems that are market driven. What do you mean?
A: One of the reasons that businesses are red-lining these communities is because the cost of doing business is high. But grassroots people can demonstrate that they can reduce crime and the fear of crime. Why can't those groups go to those businesses as though (they are seeking) an investment rather than a grant?
When businesses begin to invest with the promise of a return on that investment and they sit down with grassroots leaders, then you will have the principles of the marketplace driving for change.
Q: You're talking about partnerships?
A: Some partnerships not based on corporate philanthropy or responsibility but based upon business. Say to the community, ``This is what it cost me to maintain my apartment building that you rent. . . This is where I get an income. You help me to reduce my costs and I will give you half of that.'' Then there is an economic incentive so people can change their behavior.
Q: You helped a group in Washington buy its public housing community, Kenilworth-Parkside. Criticism that I hear - at least in Norfolk - is that if you sell the public housing stock to the community or to the current residents, then you are removing that stock from generations in the future who might need it. How do you respond to that?
A: By making half the units that are owned by the corporation available for rent.
Q: Does that work in communities like Norfolk where there is a long waiting list and rarely a vacancy.
A: I bet you there's a lot of vacant housing in Norfolk.
Q: There are lot of vacant houses but not vacant public housing.
A: What would happen if you gave them ownership of the property and it is fixed up? Why couldn't that group then take the equity in that property, borrow against it and then use it to renovate some of those other vacant houses? After all, who has the proprietary interest in improving the community but the people living there? And if their aunts and uncles work on the improvements of those properties, then there's not going to be vandalism.
I've seen it happen. If you look around Kenilworth-Parkside, you will see new construction, right across from Kenilworth.
Q: If a public housing community takes over a public housing complex, how do you have the revenue to support the maintenance? In Norfolk again, the average income of a public housing family is less than $7,000 a year.
A: You are figuring the income of public housing. That assumption is static. Part of resident management of public housing isn't just housing. Part of its success is that they have economic development, job creation, training, housing maintenance. There are a whole range of services that have the consequence of increasing the income of people.
We helped other public housing developments do a market survey of their residents. Where do they spend their money? They had to travel three miles to go to the Laundromat. So now they have a Laundromat in the development, owned by the corporation. It creates jobs for people there. There are six more small businesses there.
Q: Looking at public housing from another side, another issue is the concentration of housing. Even if owned by residents, is it better to dismantle and disperse them? How do you approach this issue?
A: I don't think it's where people live but how they live, (although) for some people, some dispersal may be an option (such as if) the housing stock is poor.
But we should always talk about the preservation of communities. Low-income neighborhoods, no matter how crime-plagued, to many people it's their communities. For those who want to leave, we should give them the option.
When you look at poor people, if all you see is a collection of pathologies and problems that require rescue by someone outside, this does not cause you to think about creative ways that the people living there can develop themselves. That's what I was trying to talk about.
RACE:
Q: Some people also see it as a collection of one type of race. How do you approach the race question? A: The question that I raise to people who raise the race question is: ``If race were the issue, then why do we have poor blacks failing in cities run by blacks. Washington, D.C., Newark, N.J., Atlanta?''
That's because it is not the sex or race of the ruler that determines what change occurs with these problems. It is the nature of the rules. And if black politicians come in and only do what white people did, then nothing is going to change. And most black politicians don't do anything different than what white people have done before and then blame white folks for it.
Q: What if something looks patently racist?
A: As the mayor (Richmond Mayor Leonidas Young) said . . . , the problem and challenges faced by low-income blacks, in particular, today are worse than slavery, discrimination and drugs. It is worse because the hatred is inside. Slavery was something external. We knew what the enemy was. Now, Pharoah is inside of the Hebrews. It took Moses two weeks to get the Hebrews out of Egypt and 40 years to get Egypt out of them. It's worse when Egypt is inside.
The race issue has become almost like an iron triangle that blocks reform.
Q: How so?
A: It means that if I'm a black politician in Atlanta, I can rail against choice in education while sending my kids to a private school, while the public schools can go down the tube. And no one will ever challenge me about this hypocrisy, because, if you do, I'll say it's racist.
The race card is used to shield people from personal responsibility. It does a disservice to the race issue. The message that it sends to low-income blacks: ``Because you're black, you really are exempt from personal responsibility.''
POLITICS:
Q: How do you define your politics?
A: I define my politics as independent, pragmatic, value-based. I seek solutions. I'm not looking for ideologies. I don't want to argue ideology. I want to argue solutions.
BUSINESS:
Q: You said business has a proprietary interest in ending poverty in America. Some argue that the employment rate is kept around 6 or 7 percent in order to keep wages down.
A: I don't agree with a lot of my conservative colleagues about lowering marginal tax rates. Businesses will pay higher taxes to get superior services. I know in my office, if I can get a clerical employee who comes in and is really good, and that person says, ``I'm going to leave because you're not paying me enough money.'' No way. I'm going to raise their raises because I need them. So in the marketplace there's an opportunity for negotiations.
I think there's a lot of jobs out there. Bloomingdales opens in suburban Atlanta. They go out and reach out to a lot of black kids, they can't find enough people drug free. To assume that the problem is just lack of opportunity is wrong. You go out in a lot of urban communities and try to hire people and get them to come to work on time, drug free - you can't do it. It's difficult because a lot of people have not developed satisfactorily.
WORK ETHIC:
Q: What would be the grassroots answer to trying to get people come to work on time, be drug free?
A: I can take you to any number of community-based efforts around the country and show you hundreds of people who were in jail, on drugs, doing a number of things, who are now drug free, coming to work on time and are good people. What I am trying to do is link those islands of resources, islands of excellence, to businesses that need them.
I'm saying to a business, for instance, ``You want to operate a Pizza Hut in this community? Here is a nonprofit - sometimes Christian, sometimes Muslim, usually some religious affiliation. They have a cadre of people who have been transformed who need jobs now. If you, Mr. Entrepreneur, hire them, they'll come to work on time, they'll remain drug free, they'll be reliable, and no one will rob you.''
WELFARE MOMS:
Q: You just met a mother of four kids. She got off welfare about a year ago, and she is worried about sliding back in. She was wondering about what help you propose for people like her?
A: Welfare reforms should provide two years of medical coverage for people like her so she can transition out . . . That's a woman who needs job training and all the services.
And, rather than talking about jobs, why not go to a mailing company in her development and say, ``Why can't you provide subcontracts with a group in a public housing development to do mailing?'' Computer assembly? The million of T-shirts that the Navy and the Marines use, why can't they be produced in public housing?
Q: Do you advocate - as some politicians on both side of the aisle do - that women be cut off welfare after two years?
A: No, I don't think that. I have publicly challenged Charles Murray and others who talk about just cutting it off. That would be putting five million out there. It would be too hard. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
by CNB