What does it take to have Peace in one’s life?
That is a question that I believe many are asking themselves
these days when we look at how what we used to know is no longer there. When I was a teenager I remember tripping
over job offers, I could walk into almost any church and find some food that
they would offer from their food pantry, I knew I could walk into a social
service agency and find the help I needed, and that’s not what we have today. Jobs are hard to come by, food pantries are around but
limited, and social service agencies…well they are around but have lost the
understanding of what they are supposed to do.
Jane Addams Hull House Association announced on Jan. 19th 2012 that they
are closing their doors at the end of March after being open for 123
years. Some will say that it is time for
them to close their doors because there’s a beginning and an end to everything and
I agree with that statement if it were for different reasons. The Chairman of the board said it was because
of financial reasons that they have to close their doors and for people unaware
of the social service arena it might
make sense but for those of us that have spent years working for social services
we know the truth. Hull House has spent
money on things that were not needed and if one would tour their main offices
you would know what I’m talking about.
Not only that but the building that the main offices are in is very
expensive and half empty and are paying millions for the whole
building. I understand the need for an
office but when your mission is to help people you have to be responsible with the spending of those monies. When non for profits (NFP) receive funding from
public and private foundations to help people usually there’s an “administrative
cost” that involves giving the Execs a bump in their salary for having to deal
with the grant or funding source..think about that one...back to having Peace in your life…
How do you find Peace if you are a recent refugee family
that finds work that keeps you away from your family for 10 to 12 hours a day
six days a week and you need child care and thankfully there’s a head start
program?
How do you find
Peace if your partner is a violent person and you need help to escape safely
from the grips of that household with your children?
How do you find Peace if the job that you have is the job
you have loved for so many years and you have invested so much of your time and
effort to keep that center running and all of a sudden you don’t have that
anymore?
How do you find Peace when you know that out of your pocket
you have spent hundreds of dollars to buy materials for the class room center,
paid for a field trip for a family that simply has no money to spare, shoveled
the snow in front of the agency because there was no money to hire someone to
clean off the snow from the sidewalk and parking lot for the clients?
How do you find Peace in all of that when you know that the
executives of that same agency work a 9 to 5 M-F schedule, have a special parking
space, always has heating in the Winter and cool air in the Summer, take
vacation days whenever they feel like because they don’t need to be part of
coverage for a program that is underfunded, and have no worries about their pay
because if anything their pay is guaranteed?
It is very difficult and it’s not because we put ourselves
in this situation but because as front line workers we take on these careers because we understand the need our
communities have and the farther up you go in the agency the less that means to
anyone because it is all about the numbers.
It is NOT supposed to be like this in a NOT-FOR-PROFIT (NFP) agency!
Now, I’m not going to place all the blame on the agency so
for those of you that agreed with the last statement and think it’s because of
the liberal Left or “socialist” or anything like that I’m sorry but you are
wrong! It is the standards that are placed
upon ALL NFP’S that has created these problems and those standards are placed
on them by the expectation from funders that the agency will run like a “professional
office.” Some of you might say ‘well yea’
but what you might fail to see is that why would it run as an “unprofessional
office?” It’s because it is quickly
assumed that the “poor” do not know what they are doing hence their poverty and
that is not the case. I’ve seen funders
come to do a site visit in their expensive cars and as they park their car and get out they
are looking around and they press their car security button a dozen times to
make sure it locked. When they come in
their first question is “is parking there OK?”
And it’s a clever way to ask “will my car get jacked if I leave it
there?” When you answer with “it’ll be fine no one will touch it” they quickly
say “oh no I meant is there street cleaning or is it a loading zone of some
kind?” Then they go into this long conversation how they get tickets when they
park by their house in Lincoln Park or when they go bar hoping on
Clark street…keep in mind these are the same people that are creating and
enforcing “standards” in these NFP’S and has raised the bar so high that it is
expected to have an office that rivals medium size corporation offices.
Where is the Peace that the estimated 60,000 children, families,
and other smaller organizations will need to continue to thrive to move
forward?
I envision the closure of ALL Social Services but because
within the fabric of our society we decide that:
No one will be hungry
No one will be homeless
No one will be violated
No one will be abused
No one will be illiterate
No one will be poor
No one will be discriminated against
What it takes to have Peace in one’s life is to be one with
heart, compassion, and the WILL to do what is right no matter what! Well at least it’s a starting point…
Peace/AMOR
Gerardo
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