June 10, 2009: Share Your Community's Stimulus "Missed Opportunity" Stories

Action Alert:

Share Your Community’s Stimulus “Missed Opportunity” Stories

Are American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“ARRA,” “Act” or “stimulus”) projects in your town, county, city or state being spent on projects that won’t achieve the purposes of the Act? Are smarter, more impactful possibilities left high and dry?  If so, we need you to share these “missed opportunity” stories.

Congress passed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act earlier this year.   The Act has five key goals:

• To preserve and create jobs and promote economic recovery;

• To assist those most impacted by the recession;

• To invest in technological advances in science and health in order to increase economic efficiency;

• To invest in transportation, environmental protection and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic benefits;

• To stabilize State and local government budgets in order to minimize and avoid reductions in essential services and state and local tax increases

Nearly 30 federal agencies will distribute hundreds of billions of dollars to state and local governments and other institutions and are looking for ways to guarantee that the money is well spent.  Well-spent funds sow seeds of opportunity by creating and saving jobs, jump-starting our economy and building the foundation for long-term economic growth.^[5]  But some great opportunities to build a strong future for low-opportunity communities may be missed either because the timelines for projects are short or because projects that are already in the pipeline are unlikely to help those most harmed by the crisis.

To support the effectiveness of the Act, which we all want to succeed, help us inform the administration in Washington how your state, regional, and local decision makers may be missing a historic chance to seed opportunity!

Let us know about projects:

• That will only create temporary jobs not permanent jobs;

• That will benefit communities that are not hardest hit by the crisis while poor communities lose out;

• That fail to build good public infrastructure that will connect people to more opportunities or help the environment, while smarter projects that have longer-term benefits lose out; and

•  Over which communities have little or no influence.

For each example, please include

• A description of the project that has been or will be funded, including how much it will cost and the state, regional, or local entity that made the decision;

• A citation to a newspaper article or other source describing the project, if possible;

• A brief description of other projects that are more likely to meet the needs of low-opportunity communities and communities of color in your area that have not received funding;

• Contact information so that we may follow up with any questions.

Email the Center for Social Inclusion (info@thecsi.org) with any “missed opportunity” examples or questions.

EXAMPLE:

The New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority has chosen to spend $424 million in stimulus funding to build a four-story, glass structure above the renovated Fulton Street station.  The planned structure, which will be located in the City’s financial district, will also feature an “oculus,” a conical metal tower with a glass top designed to channel light into the building and the subway.^[6] 

This use of stimulus funds falls far short of federal goals.  Though Fulton Street is an important hub for commuters in the region, the over $400 million invested in the ornate glass structure is unlikely to yield meaningful long-term benefits for City and area residents.  Investing these dollars in construction projects that would not only create temporary jobs, but also permanent positions and greater transit access for transit starved communities would have far greater impact for those most affected by the recession. 

One such option is the creation of bus rapid transit (“B.R.T.”) lines connecting the City’s low-opportunity communities to employment-rich neighborhoods.  One study estimates that establishing a network of B.R.T. lines would improve transportation options for over 200,000 New Yorkers who currently commute more than 60 minutes each day to jobs that pay less than $35,000 a year.^[7]   For an investment of as little as $50 million per BRT route,^[8]  the Metropolitan Transit Authority could have created permanent employment for bus operators in addition to temporary jobs in construction.                                                                                                           

1. Recovery.gov, http://www.recovery.gov/?q=content/frequently-asked-questions#8 (last visited June 5, 2009). 

² See William Neuman, Delivery Date for Transit Hub Is Set for 2014, NY Times, May 21, 2009 A32.

³ Pratt Center, Who Benefits from COMMUTE’s BRT Plan? available at http://prattcenter.net/bus-rapid-transit.php.

⁴See Regional Planning Association, Tomorrow’s Transit: New Mobility for the Regions Urban Core 6 (2008).

March 16, 2009 CSI Launches Report On Race and Opportunity In New York City

In a new report, One Region: Promoting Prosperity Across Race,  the Center for Social Inclusion finds stark disparities in access to services, resources and opportunities in communities across the New York City metropolitan region, disparities that threaten the economic viability of the region as a whole. 

One Region: Promoting Prosperity Across Race, measures opportunity by indicators such as proximity to banks, medical facilities, school performance across the region, and location of environmental and other hazards. The picture that emerges shows that people of color, the fastest growing population in the region, are excluded from opportunities that can build healthy communities and an economically and socially cohesive region. (Click here to see the maps that inform this report.  Additional maps can be found here.)

“Communities of color were hurting in the good times,” says CSI Director Maya Wiley, “and if we had paid attention to them, we could have reduced some of the devastating impacts of the crisis we’re in. CSI is using this report to urge elected officials to use federal stimulus funds to connect low-opportunity communities to jobs, schools, health care and other vital resources.”

March 16, 2009: The Current Financial Crisis Was Incubated in Discriminatory Lending, and Communities of Color are Hardest Hit.

As the financial crisis grinds on, we should remember that it had its start in the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market.  These loans have gone disproportionately to people of color, and they are bearing the heaviest price, in terms of foreclosure and destabilization of the neighborhoods where they live (for a map of foreclosures in New York City by race, click here).

These disparities are not merely abstract; they have had a tremendous human toll.  Consider Karen McKoy, an African American homeowner pressured into accepting a subprime Adjustable Rate Mortgage in 2005.  Ms. McKoy had a credit score of 719, high enough to qualify for a prime 30 year fixed rate mortgage.  But she was given a mortgage with a rate that could be increased every six months, eventually raising her interest rate to 12.875%.  Ms. McKoy now faces much higher monthly payments, and the possibility of foreclosure (For more information about Ms. McKoy and the experience of others facing foreclosure, contact CHANGER, a homeowner membership organization working to end abusive mortgage lending in low and moderate income communities).

February 17, 2009: CSI Releases New Stimulus Talking Points as President Obama Signs Bill Into Law

With the federal economic stimulus bill out of Congress and signed by the President, CSI has prepared a second set of talking points intended to ensure that stimulus funds are distributed equitably, and address the needs of communities of color.

Communities of color are especially vulnerable in challenging economic times and it is critical that we implement the stimulus in a way that recognizes this. These talking points examine the role that race played in creating the financial crisis and the need to address subprime and predatory lending and the lack of affordable housing for communities of color.  This will not only address the needs of these communities, but hasten recovery: research has shown that investment in the economic empowerment of the poorest amongst us actually benefits all communities. 

Click here to read the talking points and share them with others.

January 30, 2009:  Center for Social Inclusion Issues Talking Points, Calls for Advocacy to Ensure that Economic Stimulus Does not Leave People of Color in the Cold.

The Center for Social Inclusion (CSI) has released a set of talking points intended to help racial justice advocate affect the implementation of economic stimulus, and to make sure that it is a fair and effective process.

“The stimulus package bypasses economic stimulus in communities of color, and in the current environment, that will harm us all,” says CSI Director Maya Wiley.  “But we can change that if we focus on advocacy at the state level.  States will be responsible for distributing the funds, and we can make sure that they do so in a racially inclusive and equitable way.”

Click here to read the talking points and to share them with allies.

January 13, 2009: Maya Wiley on Food and Racial Justice

On November 19, 2008, Maya Wiley spoke at The Politics of Food: A Conference on New York’s Next Policy Challenge.  Maya spoke on the relationship between our food system – from the farm to the cash register – and racial disparities in the U.S, and how a race-conscious effort to reform how we feed the country would produce better health and environmental outcomes for all.

Click here to watch Maya’s speech.

January 12, 2009: Alston Bannerman Fellowship Program Call for Applications

We are pleased to announce that the Alston Bannerman Fellowship is accepting applications for 2009.   This is the 20^th year that the program has offered fellowships for long-time organizers of color to take sabbaticals.  The program allows social justice activists who have devoted long hours and many years to the needs of their communities to step back from their work for at least three months for rest, reflection, study, travel or other activities that rejuvenate them for the work ahead.

Fellowships of $25,000 will be awarded in mid-2009 to people of color who have been organizing for ten years or more.  The program particularly seeks applicants whose work builds community capacity and a political movement to address root causes of community problems.  Complete eligibility information and application are available at http://www.AlstonBannerman.org/

The deadline to apply for the 2009 Alston Bannerman Fellowship is March 31, 2009.

November 22, 2008: CSI Researcher Jacob Faber presented at the New York Immigration Coalition’s 2008 Building Bridges Conference

Nearly 200 activists, academics, youth and community members came together to engage in critical dialogue on building bridges between African-American and immigrant communities.  For more information on the conference, click here

Jacob Faber shared some of CSI’s research on race, immigration, and opportunity in New York as part of the conference’s opening plenary. 

Click here to view the presentation: “Building Bridges: Communities of Color and the Future of New York ”.

October 27, 2008: Join us for a conference call on race, implicit bias, and the election

Like the "Willie Horton" ad of twenty years ago, the most effective messages that play on racism do it in ways that we mostly do not notice.   But it isn't a code to be heard only by unrepentant racists – it's a clever psychological trick to play on the unconscious racial attitudes that most of us hold, but few of us are conscious of. 

Want to know more about how it works?  Join us on Thursday, October 30, 2 p.m. EST (11 a.m. PST) for a free conference call on race in electoral politics. The call will give an overview of scientific research on implicit bias, a history of how political groups have used it to manipulate us, and some examples of how these tactics are being employed now, how they will continue to corrode our political life, and begin to talk about how to stop that corrosion.

Speakers will include Maya Wiley, Director of the Center for Social Inclusion, Lynne Wolf, CSI Advocacy Coordinator, and Ludovic Blain, who runs StopDogWhistleRacism.com 

To RSVP click HERE.

October 22, 2008: Maya Wiley in conversation with author Joseph Lowndes

On Thursday, October 23, CSI Director Maya Wiley will participate in a forum with Joseph Lowndes, author of From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Origins of Modern Conservatism, a new book looking at the history of collaboration between Southern segregationists and Northern conservatives dating back to the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Lowndes will draw from his book to comment on the 2008 election, and Wiley will offer a response to his analysis.  The forum is being hosted by Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action.  For registration info, please visit http://www.demos.org/page179.cfm

October 9, 2008: CSI in the news

This has been an exciting week for CSI and StopDogWhistleRacism.com, as we make the news with our efforts to highlight examples of symbolic racism – the under-the-radar tactics that crop up in political fights, preying on people’s unconscious bias to manipulate elections and policy debates. 

After we released a press release on Thursday criticizing the now famous “that one” moment in the campaign, our critique was picked up on numerous news outlets, including Fox News.  CSI staffers Ludovic Blain and Devon Kearney were interviewed this week on KPFA and WBAI, respectively.

Finally, CSI called for the firing of radio shock jocks Opie and Anthony after they broadcast deeply sexist and racist remarks about Michelle Obama.  Read the press release here.

To View Archived Updates/Announcements