Same Problems Same Unworkable Solutions

[AuburnNTexas 7,180]

I graduated from High School in 1969. We had many issues at that time poor, uneducated people especially in inner Cities and some rural areas. This is the era where Government started becoming more and more involved with trying to address our issues. This was the beginning of welfare, Federal government involvement in education and healthcare.

Many years later our education system is actually worse than before, poverty has grown and we are still trying to figure out healthcare. The problem is we don't learn from our mistakes and instead just invest more money in the same solutions that did not work. In the business world if you have an issue first you analyze the issue you determine bottlenecks and then you address each bottleneck. We don't do that with the big issues in this country. There is no Universal solution something that works in the inner city might not work in rural areas and vice versa.

Education is an example at one time the US did fairly well when compared to the rest of the world now we are lagging behind. If we are going backwards and the rest of the world is improving even poorer countries with less resources shouldn't we study what they are doing if it is working better than what we do. 

Lets start with Inner City what are some of the key issues:

1. Crime - Often Gang Related higher percentage of youth incarcerated

2. Access to affordable housing

3. Access to to cheaper high quality food from supermarket chains

4. High Percentage of people on welfare - Access to well paying jobs 

5. Higher rate of people who think police are the enemy

6. High rate of students dropping out or not getting a good education

7. High percentage of single mom's 

This is a subset of the issues I am not rating importance of the issue as they are all interrelated. The question is how can we address these issues in a timely cost effective manner.

In the inner city you seldom see the large Supermarket chains instead you see smaller mom and pop stores that you pay higher prices for the food and that is often not as fresh as what you would get in a large chain super market.  What is the reason for this. higher land prices in the inner city, higher security requirements that chain has to pay for in the inner city because of higher crime rates'  How do we address these issues. Tax breaks for chains that come into inner city maybe even some subsidy in purchasing land. Tax breaks and subsidies based on % of employees hired who are local to the community with special emphases on higher paying jobs. Build a small Police station inside the super market. Having policeman at this site addresses some of the security issues at the store while also provide a local police presence where people get to know some of the police which helps with people perception of police.  Addressing the food issue also helps some with jobs, crime, quality and price of food.

All these issues are interrelated single mom's often are on welfare because they have to stay at home to care for kids often these mothers have not been taught child caring skills and often have dropped out of school. Poor education system means people don't have skills even if jobs are available. Schools are often dangerous because of the gangs. Young people especially men often have a criminal record that prevents them from getting a good job. This creates a repeating cycle that must be broken. 

How do we break this cycle.

Lets start with the single mom's (in some cases could be single dad's) they need a safety net free to cheap child care, parenting skills if they lack them, continuing education, and a job. Find space in existing schools, local churches, community centers, etc. Might need to pay some rent.  Hire some trained Child care specialists to run these day cares and some parenting specialists. Single moms and Dad's can bring kids here charge based on their economic situation. Each Mom who is on welfare will rotate into daycare where they will be taught parenting skills (how to buy and prepare nutritious food on the cheap, importance of hygiene for their kids (brushing teeth, changing pampers, bathing, , importance of checking on how their kids are doing in school, etc.), They will also be taught about ongoing education opportunities. Some will be hired to work in the daycare after their training they will either be paid a salary higher thane welfare check or they will keep getting welfare check but it will now be a workfare check (it is no longer a handout they will have earned it that is big). Some will be allowed to use existing continuing education programs while on welfare as their children are in daycare and they will have time to take advantage of the programs (might have to provide bus or subway tokens as a means of getting to the education opportunities. With new skills they should be able to find a job again might have to provide transit tokens as a way to get to job. Those who already have the job skills but could not work because could not afford child care will be able to go on job market.   

Education is key there are some things that have shown success things like Head Start should be universal. School should be in session year round instead of 9 months another 10 or 15 days in total of class room time and instead of a summer break have a few 1 week breaks throughout the year and one or two 2 week breaks. When school is out for the 1 or 2 week classroom breaks should still have some type of program for the kids this cuts down need for childcare and keeps kids off the streets. All schools need some type of security presence. After school programs to keep kids off the street and hopefully away from the gangs.  Police and firemen periodically visiting the school and meeting the kids in a non adversarial situation. Education needs to start early and needs to get back to the basics. You have to be able to read and know basic math skills inside and out before you can go on to other areas in education. 

Crime is often a byproduct of the other issues no jobs, no education, no future. But if not addressed it will affect the other issues. We need more community policing to get away from adversarial relationship and we need to help young people who can't get jobs because of minor drug offenses by removing those offense from their records once turned 18 and go 1 year with no new issue.  

Affordable Housing is a tough one I know we already subsidize that for some but I have no real answer for that.

I am not sure if my ideas will work. But lets try it in a few cities in a few locations in those cities and after 5 years compare it to other similar locations.   If it appears to be working expand it. There will be some costs but as much as possible I want to use existing schools and teachers to keep costs down.  Schools need maintenance if we had training programs in inner cities for skills like Plumbing, Wood working, Electrical we could have the people in these programs do a lot of the physical labor while being supervised by their teacher. 

Anybody else have any ideas on better ways to spend our money to actually alleviate the issue we have been trying to resolve for more than 50 years. The existing programs have not completely failed because I know people who have changed because of them the issue is they have not worked for enough people and they have not addressed the underlying causes of the problem.  

We have to find a better way of helping people help themselves.