Urban Life Feature

Staff members of Ohio Citizen Action lead good neighbor campaigns throughout Cincinnati and Ohio. Photo By: Joe Lamb

Change Begins at the Root
Local grassroots groups make it happen

Interview by Margo Pierce

Caring about the “underprivileged” and wanting to help those struggling with difficult circumstances is fashionable in some circles, but the actual work of helping prostitutes, drug addicts, immigrants and poor people in polluted neighborhoods isn’t something most people talk about. Look under Cincinnati’s mainstream surface, however, and you’ll find an extensive network of grassroots programs here providing that much-needed help.

“It’s a pretty scary community out there if you don’t know where to get what you need,” says Mary Carol Melton, program director of the Off the Street program.

The fear factor looms as large as, if not larger than, the problems any person in trouble faces. Add the stigma that goes along with prostitution, and that’s exactly why Cincinnati Union Bethel heads up Off the Streets.

Research in the late 1990s focused on what problems and solutions existed. The local work included interviews with more than 100 women in the criminal justice system and visiting with the SAGE Project in San Francisco. Standing Against Global Exploitation was started by a former prostitute to help others get off the streets.

“The program is one that works with each individual woman to build her own treatment and recovery program, and it starts with, ‘What do you need today? Do you have shelter? Do you have food? Do you have clothing?’ ” Melton says. “It’s providing a facilitation process to help connect the woman to other resources in the community that she needs to be able to get her life together.”

The collaboration of about 20 partner organizations helps former prostitutes begin a new life, and that usually means starting with the past. The rate of trauma among women involved in prostitution is high, but that isn’t addressed in many traditional treatment programs.

“The hallmark of the program was to find a different way to engage women in services that could really help them change their lives, turn things around,” Melton says. “Many said they went through treatment without ever really talking about the trauma and the prostitution because it was such a shameful subject — and that’s what sort of always triggered their relapse.

“Our program was based on some fundamental things. One was that the trauma really is at the core of the life experiences of these women and that we needed to address the issues of trauma. The other thing was we designed a program at the forefront that has peer facilitators. These women are hired because they have similar life experiences, and they have turned their lives round and they’re doing something different.”

In addition to educational programs on budgeting and finance, employment, addiction and relapse and life skills, community partners come in to share their expertise. Stop AIDS provides women’s sexuality and women’s HIV/AIDS classes.

There are also non-traditional services, such as a knitting group called Threads of Hope.
“It’s the old knitting circle,” Melton says. “It’s bonding, getting strength from each other. These are women who have had really, really complicated and pretty tragic lives, and they’re doing something creative. They’re thrilled with a scarf that they make.”

Foreign-born nationals
Another group frequently perceived as undeserving, especially in the heated arguments over immigration, is foreign nationals. Despite the fact that they might be refugees fleeing persecution, they’re painted with the same broad brush as “illegal immigrants” because they look different, according to Natalie Fair-Albright, founder of the International Center of Greater Cincinnati.

“The idea is to make them self-sufficient and adjust to living here in the United States and becoming American,” she says. “We want to help them learn and be engaged in their community so that they are involved in our society — not just sort of go to work, go to home and ignore everything out there.”

Assistance can take the form of explaining a landlord’s responsibilities and a tenant’s rights, clarifying the fine print in a credit card application or even how to find an apartment. Many have never experienced laws or rights similar to those we enjoy, Fair-Albright says. Basic education in everyday life is just part of what they do.

“We do whatever they come through the door with,” she says. “It can be, ‘My wife’s pregnant. How do I find a doctor?’ or ‘My insurance company with my job gave me this big book.’ Sometimes this is helping read their mail. Maybe they can speak and understand English, but reading and writing is another thing.”

Fair-Albright says she helps illegal immigrants because they’re usually too afraid of deportation and separation from their families to risk going to government agencies.

“I run into undocumented Mongolians, people from Botswana,” she says. “I do wonder why people end up here rather than Chicago or New York. It’s almost always that they’ve heard there are jobs here and the cost of living is cheaper.”

Environmental Change
That same curiosity to acquire and share knowledge drives the mission of Ohio Citizen Action (OAC), according to Melissa English, program coordinator for Southwest Ohio. An environmental group that’s collaborated with neighbors and polluting companies, OAC has negotiated reforms that go beyond government minimum standards.

English says the key is a unique combination of education and outreach.

“We have built our organization around the door-to-door and phone canvas,” she says. “This is far more than a fundraising machine. We use these opportunities to have front-porch and phone educational conversations. These are campaigns of conscience.

“We use a basic philosophy that social improvements have started from the grassroots, and the leaders eventually follow along. … We’re 90 percent citizen funded. Because we’re not dependent on one giant source of funding — or corporate money for that matter — (that) allows us much more flexibility and fluidity to be accountable to neighbors, board and volunteers. Their $20 and $50 and $100 contributions are what keep us going and keeps us accountable to them.”

That combination of accountability, education and collaboration achieved results in Cincinnati for the neighbors of Lanxess Plastics in Addyston. The Good Neighbor Campaign begun in 2005 resulted in the permanent closing of Meredith Hitchens Elementary School because of its proximity to the plant, “spurred enforcement action” by the Ohio EPA and U.S. EPA and prompted the company to invest in pollution reduction.

Change might be slow to happen in Cincinnati, but when it’s done at the grassroots level it’s a sure bet that it’ll actually take hold. ©