The Metropolitan Gardens public housing complex in Birmingham, Ala., is one of America's poorest. Nine years ago Ora Stinson was one of Metropolitan's most troubled residents. She was a "lady of the streets, an illiterate alcoholic;” and "a person who didn't care about anything,” she explains, "because I didn't even think I had a right to be living.” She had two young sons.
Today, Ms. Stinson lives in a quiet ranch home about a 15-minute drive from Metropolitan Gardens. She's sober, literate, and off welfare. She works two jobs and is an active member of New City Church, a congregation affiliated with the Center for Urban Missions. One of her sons is in the Navy, the other a teenager on a church scholarship at a local private high school.
Ms. Stinson credits her transformation to God and the help offered by the Center for Urban Missions. The center encouraged her to enroll in adult literacy classes and provided her with a private volunteer tutor. Male staggers at the center became “substitute fathers” to her two sons and secured scholarships for both boys to attend private school.
Center staff encouraged Ms. Stinson’s involvement at New City Church and didn't give up on her when she'd go out drinking after the Friday night Bible studies. When she was ready, the center hired her part -time to assist with programs at its Family Care Center, and challenged her to take on ever-increasing responsibilities.
In the past three years the center has started about 50 families on the long journey out of the projects and has assisted eight families to move off of welfare and out of public housing. Staffers work intensively with a small number of families, and offer educational and extra-curricular afterschool activities as well as an eight-week daytime summer camp. Demand for the programs is high, even though parents who want their kids involved must themselves volunteer and/or pay fees. Family Support Network offers weekly Bible studies, parenting classes, and job-hunting help, topped off by a shared meal.
The center selects particularly promising parents to be part of its Community Leadership Team, a group of local residents hired part-time to help run the day -to-day activities of the Family Care Center. Each member of the team-there are now six-commits to a personal, five-year plan for exiting public assistance. All are off Aid to Families with Dependent Children, two have already moved out of the projects, three work jobs in addition to their CLT posts, and two are enrolling in college this fall.
Team members are living examples of upward progress, and, according to member Celita Holt, they challenge residents who are "at a standstill.” Metropolitan Gardens Tenant Association President Louise Shufford says the center is "doing a lot of positive things,” and should expand its work, but center leaders such as Gerald Austin view expansion cautiously. The center could easily have over 200 kids in Metro Camp, but has deliberately chosen to limit participation to 120 children. Rev. Austin wants there always to be a waiting list for Metro Camp, so that the students who get in will appreciate their admission and be on their best behavior.
Now, students must qualify to attend by earning points throughout the year in the afterschool academic programs, and parents who wish to send their kids to camp must either pay a $55 registration fee or donate volunteer labor to Center for Urban Missions. The center could abolish such policies and triple its enrollment at Metro Camp-but doing so would undercut the very heart of the transformation of thinking that it is trying to achieve among projects residents.
The local high school principal, Mallory Coats, applauds the center's approach. The principal said other organizations working in the ghetto have a "social-work mindset" that gives freely but expects nothing in return. The center's approach, by contrast, avoids creating dependency and promotes the dignity of the parents involved in the programs.