Tam Nguyen
Techny

For SVD novices, Urban Plunge week is one of the highlights of our year. It is an intensive program immersing us in what life is like for the poor in Chicago. The program is sponsored by the 8th Day Center for Justice, a collaborative effort of six religious communities who work for justice.

What we saw clearly revealed the social problems brought on by systemic injustice. (Any injustice is part of an interrelated economic, political, social, cultural, religious and ecological system.) During our urban experience, we learned how systems affect the lives of the poor in housing projects and workers’ rights, and how the church has worked with local communities to promote social justice. The Urban Plunge also helped us to deepen our own commitment to the poor.

The Poor and Public Housing
I would never have suspected how many impoverished people live in the wealthy and attractive city of Chicago if I had not seen and talked with them in person. One example of how the city has dealt unjustly with low income people is in the area of public housing. There is a shortage of 153,000 units of housing for low income families in Chicago. The city has demolished public housing by a margin of twenty percent above the national rate. Only 357 replacement units of public housing are built for every 18,000 units demolished. This is the result of Chicago’s “Transformation Plan” to bring the wealthy back to the city by upgrading poor neighborhoods, making it impossible for the poor to afford housing. With this plan the city systematically pushes low income residents out on the street.

My classmate, Paul Prince Appiah-Kubi from Ghana, commented: “I have a bad impression of the politicians in this country who only care about their political agendas. Why can’t they use the money to build affordable houses for low income people?” In the past two years the Chicago Housing Authority has demolished more than 8,118 units of public housing while building only 170. And the agency is nearly $1 billion short of the money needed for its Transformation Plan. The questions we struggled with are: Who has the money? Where does the money go? Where is the land? And where are the people going?

Workers’ Rights
Another justice issue is workers’ rights. We talked with Maria and José, union members who are on strike because of being treated unjustly at Azteca Foods where they have worked for more than ten years. They are afraid of being laid off. The company takes advantage of them because they have a very limited ability to speak English. Maria says, “Our struggle is about respect and dignity. We have given our lives to this company, our youth, our hard labor — and Azteca Foods has grown large and profitable. All we want is the respect and fair wages and benefits we have earned.” Her message is: “Don’t buy Azteca products until Azteca workers are treated with dignity.”

Parish and Prison Ministries
We also saw many efforts by local communities to improve conditions for the poor. The two most impressive efforts by the church are the parish ministry at St. Sabina and the prison ministry sustained by the Chicago Archdiocese at Kolbe House. Paul Prince commented, “Visiting St. Sabina helped me realize that there is hope for my brothers and sisters of African descent. The church is working with the community to clean up the neighborhood and provide social services and opportunities for the people. It is truly a community-based organization initiated and led by poor people themselves.” An essential part of our identity as Christians must center around the concern for the “least among us,” and this must be initiated at the local level. Parishes can help their members to reflect on the essential faith dimensions of practicing charity and working for justice. Catholic social teaching should be regularly proclaimed through homilies, bulletins, and a variety of educational programs. Eucharistic liturgies should be connected to the social mission of the church.

The prison ministry at Kolbe House is another clear sign of concern for the poor and for social justice. Rev. Mr. George Brooks was once a lawyer. He quit his job as to become a chaplain in the jail and to work at Kolbe House, a ministry of the Chicago Archdiocese. Rev. Mr. Brooks sees the prison industry as a big business that makes a lot of money on the 11,000 inmates locked up in Cook County Jail needing meals, telephones and other services. Many inmates have no money and lack services when they are released. So, very likely they will get back into the system again and again. While listening to Brooks, I realized that while a prison chaplain may not transform the prison system, the regular visits and presence of a chaplain can help prisoners realize that they can transform their world view and their relationships.

Women in Prison
At Kolbe House we met three formerly incarcerated mothers who have come a long way to get out of the system and who now work for Chicago Legal Advocacy for Incarcerated Mothers. They reported that while eighty-two percent of women serving sentences in Illinois have children, only one percent of women prisoners are charged with child abuse or neglect. Most are single mothers who suffer great emotional distress as their children are taken away. Health care in prison is so poor it causes death, mental illness and diseases.

My confrere, Tinh Nguyen, commented: “Some people have it easy. Others always find themselves in a pothole. We can only speculate but we can never know unless we walk in their shoes. One woman took a wrong turn early in her teens and the penal system incarcerated her six times during the next decade. She endured countless indecent and immoral acts of male officers who watched her taking showers, using the rest rooms, and lying helplessly within the confinement of her tiny cell. She was physically, emotionally and mentally demoralized like a slave.”

Through the Urban Plunge, we experienced a gradual change from compassion for the poor to the desire to do something to bring about structural change and a willingness to stand in solidarity with the poor. We were deeply moved by the suffering we witnessed. At the beginning of Urban Plunge week, I heard some people ask: “Why can’t the poor find ways to move up, get out of public housing, get an education, get a job, work harder, stay out of jail and help themselves? Why can some do it and others can’t?” However, as the week progressed, we recognized the need to work for structural change to get at the root of the problem even though the need for services and relief work is great. Relief work deals with symptoms, but social change deals with the causes of poverty. When we take the poor as they are and come to them with humility, we will be transformed in our commitment to them and be in solidarity with them.