The Reverse Engineers of Poverty

THE FIRST PIVOT — Eventually we settled for rowhouse-by-rowhouse impact when it crystalized that redevelopment in the inner city is not really for the poor. For reasons far removed from the original intent of the authorizing legislation, tax-funded urban renewal (aka gentrification) since the Great Society has increasingly become the exclusive playground of builders, bankers, realtors, foundations, and government bureaucrats. Much of the simmering rage in America's poorest communities is directly attributable to the government's inability to create poverty programs that actually work for poor people.

Much-ballyhooed, labyrinthine mechanisms like Empowerment Zones, the New Market Tax Credit, and Opportunity Zones – crafted by elites in soundproofed silos and served up to legislators on plates of gold – were never designed to spur street-level participation by generationally poor people living on twelve dollars an hour. Without a shrewd tax attorney, private equity partner, or connected friend, these programs were never going to take your call.

Still, on our daily morning walks and drives down East Fayette and up North Milton handing out Safeway breads and cakes to heartbreakingly grateful people, we began most days convinced we could fix census tract 702.

Over time, we would sit at the kitchen tables of over 900 impoverished households talking to community elders who lost their middle-class lives in the 1980s to soulless politicians, cheap Third World labor, and an emerging right-to-work South. (K Street and Wall Street don't intersect with Orleans Street.)

They in turn would proudly introduce us to their most aspirational Millennial and Gen Z offspring who straddled life as low-wage retailers and invisible service workers straining their necks for the elusive break that might catapult them from destitute poverty to the lowest rung of the American ladder.

Frequently lurching in the background was a son or daughter who followed a shadowy path, spending every waking second anxiously contemplating hard time at Jessup while hawking dope on the corner or turning tricks for white powder.

In the 21st century poverty family of East Baltimore -- pollinated by the disastrous welfare reform policies of Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich -- sustaining the household’s number one earner out on the corner became fundamental to preserving each member’s newly decreed 60 months of lifetime public assistance.

The mathematics were simple. When junior stayed out of handcuffs and earned a thousand dollars a day, family cashflow became a distant problem. Sprinkle in a disability check for mom and a tax-free day laborer job for dad and the rowhouse compound had the wherewithal to survive in the new millennium’s globalized low-wage economy.

Far from desirable and often a profound moral crisis for the family, it was “a living” in a community where the median household income was below $25,000 and the poverty rate never dipped under 40 percent. While many on the outside were easily confounded by these mental gymnastics, we came to see how the gritty life choices of the chronically poor were governed by rules of immediacy and compromise unfamiliar to most Americans further up the ladder.

As we worked to develop a client success methodology that could succeed under these complicated conditions, it became increasingly clear that the overarching goal of “legal” self-sufficiency was ultimately dependent on laying out next-generation strategies for people trapped in the next moment. 

Meanwhile, the drug-free zone signs prominently displayed on the fences of East Baltimore schools and playgrounds were met with derisive laughter and deep-seeded cynicism throughout 702. The signs put up by Baltimore Department of Public Works accomplished absolutely nothing. Dealers and fiends were everywhere in broad daylight. Red light sales to drive-in suburban SUVs were commonplace. Inside the schools, the children of the drug culture struggled to concentrate and advance. The drug war and prison-industrial complex ruled the lives of these young children. And yet, where was the news coverage? Where were the politicians who sent our national treasure to overseas wars? Where was the national outrage over America's children growing up in these conditions?

A decade or so later, when the nation turned a three-word slogan into Round 15 of angry cultural warfare, we could not help thinking that everyone was once again missing the larger point.

That since 1959, when Washington first attempted to measure poverty, an intractable 15 percent of the U.S. population including 35 percent of children lived far below the prescribed acceptable level of economic misery. To borrow from a slogan made popular in the early 1990s, we wanted to scream to anyone who would listen: “It’s the poverty, stupid!"

Down on the ground far removed from the silos, ivory towers, and centers of power, we understood that until America seriously wrestles with the root causes and effects of intergenerational poverty, other national wounds will never heal. 

STILL CHASING — Since January 2006, Open Door America has sought to be the “un-cola” of nonprofit organizations. While most of our peers aggressively pursue government contracts and foundation grants to cover their overhead and fund essential services, we have intentionally sidestepped big funder dependency and bureaucratic micromanagement in favor of grassroots networking and independent movement.

At our highwater mark in the 2010s, we operated on a mere $500,000 a year, about half from a handful of enlightened suburban congregations and the rest from a sea of generous monthly donors. 

While we were always lean (and very frugal) using this approach, we were also incredibly agile and inventive. More than one of our large community partners marveled at our steadfastness and privately expressed their desire to have our level of flexibility in how they worked with the poor.

Watching powerful foundations in gleaming office towers dictate doomed-to-fail street-level strategies to granular practitioners only reinforced our conviction that the secret ingredient to real poverty solutions is partnering with the right funding.

In our own case, when a major religious denomination threatened to withhold over $300,000 in committed support because we chose to emphasize the material existence of poor people over the eternal destination of their souls, we politely sent them on their way.  

Our board meetings became skull sessions for understanding new data and "lessons learned" as we navigated our way through uncharted waters. Americans from all walks of life and political camps came together in harmony to find solutions for less fortunate people. The more we learned, the better we understood that truly alleviating poverty required much more than community charity, foundation therapies, and government largesse. The clock had run out on this ineffectual combination long before we set up shop in 2006. And yet, tragically, this is the still the prevailing model across the country.

We actively pursued change agents and authentic voices. People of conscience and courage. We met with all comers, regardless of beliefs, leanings, or station. Anyone "of good faith" became a potential ally.

Most importantly, we have never been afraid to acknowledge when something does not work or needs to be overhauled. While it has never been a big pot of gold, it has always been just enough to keep us moving forward.

Over time, we have created formal and informal relationships with 15 community groups, 23 faith organizations, 12 government entities, and 23 businesses.

The community partners gave us traction, the faith groups calibrated our compass, the government offices shared critical knowledge and contacts, and the business world cracked open the door to ways we could reverse engineer the poverty game.

Little did we know just how hard working counterflow would prove to be. Sixteen years in, we're starting to light up the scoreboard!

TO BE CONTINUED . . .