Just how poor are we?

Syracuse City Eagle
Walt Shepperd
2009 October 8th

On Labor Day Howie Hawkins issues a white paper titled “How to Fight Poverty in Syracuse.” As sparkplug for the local Green Party, Howie established a perennial role running for Congress, Mayor or Council, as a candidate using the campaigns as bully pulpits, raising issues bluntly rather than mincing words in hopes of piling up votes. Eschewing the MO of European Green Parties, Howie has long stood fast against cross endorsing major party candidates, nor has he flirted with the big two for ballot lines. This time around, however, he knows that for the Greens to move up a level in having impact on local action, or lack thereof, they have to win an election.

Frustrated over the years by trying to recruit viable candidates for various offices, Howie knew this time around that, with significant name recognition, and a reputation built on an elegant yet common sensical debate style, which kept the overnumerous 2005 mayoral verbal forums from becoming sleepers of the year, he knew he had to be the candidate. He chose the 4th Common Council District seat to vie for because he thinks it is winnable. The choice was ironic in that three-term incumbent, Democrat Tom Seals, ousted the previous incumbent, Democrat Mike Atkins, in a primary through the efforts of the Working Families Party. Howie is a Teamster, very concerned about labor issues.

We some po’ folks

The white paper cited studies of the 2005 Census, showing that, “Syracuse has the third highest poverty rate (31.3 percent)—and the very highest black poverty rate (42.5 percent)—of the central cities in America’s 100 largest metropolitan areas. They also show a child poverty rate of 45 percent.”

Howie noted that one of his successes in bully pulpiting (another is his getting the issue of public power on the city agenda through his mayoral debate eloquence) is the passage of the Living Wage Ordinance, an issue he began raising in an at-Large Council race in 1995. “The ordinance that finally passed in 2005 is not what I had in mind 14 years ago,” he noted. “(It) only covers a few hundred workers and exempts employees of the city, non-profit contractors, and businesses receiving economic incentives.”

The white paper quotes FDR from his “State on the National Industrial Recovery Act,” in 1933: “…no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country…. and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level—I mean the wages of decent living.” Howie notes that if FDR could call for a living wage during the worst year of the Great Depression, there is no reason not to insist on one today. Actually, with the economy in its worst shape since that time, it would seem entirely appropriate. Also, harkening back to the NRA (not the one about guns), with its great investment in public works, recent ripples from City Hall that a massive renovation of the city’s decaying water pipes could foster a massive job creation.

But who gets the jobs if they’re created?

Citing an unemployment rate of 50 percent in low income census tracts on the city’s South and West sides, the white paper calls for an increase from 8 percent, the affirmative action goal established in 1972 for minority employment by the city and its contractors, to 40 percent to reflect the percentage of people of color in the current population of Syracuse. To meet the new goal, a Community Hiring Hall would be established to make sure local folks got the jobs. Although cynical, at times, about everybody “greenwashing” in today’s political discussions, Howie is campaigning to create a Green Tech Training Center and a Green Jobs Corps housed at the Community Hiring Hall, especially for at-risk youth and ex-offenders. He advocates expanded coverage of the living wage ordinance, eventually to all public and private workers in the city through a municipal minimum (living) wage.

Knowing that economic development depends on financing, the white paper suggests the creation of a Municipal Bank, city-owned, with two departments. A consumer loan department would help revitalize neighborhoods “that have been redlined and discriminated against for decades.” (A map is provided showing the city color coded in 1937, deterring investment then, resulting in the decay in neighborhoods today.) The Municipal Bank would also have a business development department to help plan, finance, and advise new community-owned businesses. “If the Syracuse Nationals had had the same ownership structure as the Green Bay Packers,” Howie is fond of saying in his eloquent common sensical way, “Syracuse would still be an NBA city.”