DOING SOMETHING
In response to “Do Something” (October 5): I am the director
of the Women’s Coffee Connection, a social-purpose enterprise that serves as a retail
on-the-job training center for women who need employment skills in order to
move from welfare to work.
As an out-of-the-box non-profit agency, I always hit a dead
end when it comes to government funding. Even though we provide a service that
is needed and has well-documented outcomes, the system does not see us as part
of the equation to reduce poverty.
We believe that women need a hand up, not a handout, but the
system has not changed for years. The Department of Human and Health Services
is still operating at an all or-nothing-at-all level. Women who come from
generational poverty need a step program that provides work training,
life-skills training, and assistance as they gain entry-level, $7.50-an-hour
employment.
Some would say that providing recipients with food stamps,
subsidized day care, and rent is sufficient, but it is not. I challenge those
who think this way to live on $7.50 an hour plus the previously mentioned
subsidies. What about utilities, clothing, phone, school supplies, toiletries,
personal items, school events, and time off work for personal or children’s
illnesses?
I have experienced life in a third-world country and know
what John Klofas is referring to when he describes the effects of social
isolation. The wealthy communities there have increasingly walled themselves
in, using more and more security to protect themselves from the violence and
kidnapping. Is this our future? More walls, more separation, and more police?
That’s a spiral in the wrong direction.
I agree that we need to take an innovative approach to
solving the problem, one that includes job training, life skills, job creation,
and housing. Meanwhile, I will continue to do what appears to work.
Nancy Sawyer-Molina, South Avenue, Rochester
STOPPING THE VIOLENCE
So we have another under-18 victim of a senseless crime, the
sixth or seventh for the year (who is counting?), all apparently,
African-American.
We may be on our way to setting a record for murders this
year, and we have the highest murder rate in the state. But we have a
Democratic Party candidate, Bob Duffy —police chief until a few months ago
— who claims to have made the city safer. It’s enough to make one split at
the seams in laughter if it weren’t so tragic.
Disgusting, that’s what it is.
But almost as disgusting is the coverage of these crimes by
our local press. The Democrat and
Chronicle is full of the usual politically-correct drivel about how popular
the victims were. And from City,
we’ll hear all about the “poverty” that is the root cause of these
ills, won’t we?
Oh, there’s poverty all right, but it’s not material
poverty. I am a second-generation Italian-American whose family came from a
dirt-poor village in the south of Italy. Many African-Americans came from a
South that allowed them only to sharecrop or do domestic work. And yet I am
convinced that neither among the peasants of Southern Italy or the
“coloreds” of the segregated South was there the moral poverty
rampant in our inner city.
It’s time to stop this garbage, folks! The African-American
community is suffering from a colossal failure of parenting and an abysmal lack
of life-giving moral values. There was a time when their role models were
Jackie Robinson or George Washington Carver. Now, they are more likely to be
Latrell Sprewell or P. Diddy, with the likes of the “reverends” Jesse
Jackson or Al Sharpton encouraging a dependency culture that has become a
cottage industry. I lay this at the feet of the welfare state.
The sooner African-Americans come to grips with these
dreadful facts, the sooner they start doing something about it, the sooner they
can start correcting the problem. No government program, no hand-outs, no
Hillary Clinton and her “village,” is going to do it for them.
Italo G. Savella,
Fernwood Park, Rochester
HANEY’S QUALITIES
Voters on the city’s southeast side and in parts of Brighton
have a unique opportunity to elect someone whose resume bespeaks a candidate
who should be running for County Executive rather than for one member of a
bloated County Legislature.
Unlike most candidates for elected office, Paul Haney is
firmly grounded in local politics and has historical memory reaching back to
the 1950’s. He is a native Rochesterian with deep roots in the Tenth Ward and
is a product of its neighborhood schools.
As a City Council member from 1974 to 1985, he served as
financial committee chairman, working to improve the city’s financial position
by reducing debt. Chief financial officer of the Rochester Health Network,
Monroe County finance director, and currently a consultant for the health-care
industry: CPA Paul Haney is uniquely qualified to shed light on the legislative
process.
Ivan Lennon, Beresford Road, Rochester
WRITING TO CITY
We welcome and encourage readers’ letters for publication.
Send them to: themail@rochester-citynews.com or The Mail, City Newspaper, 250
North Goodman Street, Rochester 14607.
Our guidelines: We don’t publish anonymous letters — and
we ask that you include your street name and city/town/village. We don’t
publish letters that have been sent to other media — and we don’t publish form letters generated by activist groups. While
we don’t restrict length, letters of under 350 words have a greater chance of
being published. We do edit letters for clarity and brevity. And in general we
don’t publish letters (or longer “op-ed” pieces) from the same writer more
often than about once every two months.
This article appears in Oct 26 – Nov 1, 2005.
