The panel of presenters at a recent anti-poverty summit, hosted by Bob Woodson’s Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, did not fit the image of typical Washington policy experts. They ranged from a tattooed biker/pastor to a young black man who founded and once led the Dallas chapter of the notorious Bloods street gang. Their presentations were not prescriptions or proscriptions, but descriptions of the dramatic transformations that had taken place in the lives of the individuals they’ve reached—in some cases, preceded by a similar transformation in their own lives.
All the panelists had fundamental traits in common: They all responded to a calling to reach out to those others had deemed beyond hope, whose lives were seemingly lost to drug and alcohol addictions or violence and crime. Their outreach is personal, their commitment is long-term, and their presence and availability in the afflicted communities is “24–7.” Though their specific strategies varied with the cohort and problem they addressed and the situation of each individual with whom they worked, they consistently employed principles of individual responsibility and reciprocity. And where others have seen only lives of dysfunction, they recognized and honed capacity and potential.
These were community leaders who tackled the most entrenched and debilitating forms of poverty—those that resulted from destructive and self-destructive behavior. In Woodson’s words, “[t]hey go to the people that everyone else runs away from,” and they recognize that in these cases, a prerequisite to rise to a productive life and self-sufficiency is a fundamental revitalization in vision, character, and values.
This process was described at the forum by Omar Jahwar, the founder of Vision Regeneration, a group that has reached and changed the lives of hundreds of gang members and violence-prone teens. Jahwar stresses the power of instilling hope, and of the unwavering commitment and presence of a mentor. “My dialogue with those youths did not start by identifying them as victimizers or victims. It started with saying, ‘Your situation is not permanent. Will you let me help you change it?’”
Jahwar describes the elements needed to bring about that change:
Many inner-city youths are confronted with a choice between gang membership or death or prison. You have to find individuals who can lead you through that rough terrain. You cannot do a drive-by analysis of this kind of disease: You have to reclaim lives one by one. We are going in the neighborhoods, meeting the kids where they are and bringing them to be where they need to be. I don’t think you can dismiss the importance of the human touch and the human voice.
In The Heritage Foundation’s 2015 Index of Culture and Opportunity, writing about the War on Poverty’s failure to increase self-sufficiency, Woodson stresses the role of these on-the-ground leaders:
To harness fully the power of America’s transformative neighborhood healers requires a new paradigm for identifying “experts” who deserve recognition, trust, and support. Their authority comes not from diplomas and certificates on their walls but, instead, from the testimonies of the men, women, and youths whose lives they have touched.
