building together

The economy is no longer in free fall – GREAT! Too many of our countrymen are on economic life support or should be – BOOHOO! Speculation about the jobless recovery is chilling. Many predict that our old ways of spending are gone forever. That is necessary, appropriate and painful. By not spending, less money is circulating which is bad, although consuming fewer goods gives our fragile little planet a welcome breather.

The economic tsunami may not have run it’s course. Although the economy seems to have gotten it’s footing at least a little, if underfunded pensions unravel, it may let loose another shock wave to a wobbly world economy. There may be other shoes to drop that we don’t know about yet. I hope that I’m wrong. One thing is for sure, there is very little room for error.

Many of the old jobs are not coming back. Good riddance to some of them anyway. But where do we go from here? As the saturated retail sector trims back, even those jobs will evaporate. We have been mauled by our love affair with the mall. All over the country, shiny new industrial parks sit empty where fertile farmland once was.

We are awash in shopping malls, strip malls and office parks, while basic needs such as shelter and health care are unmet for huge sectors of the population. The National Coalition for the Homeless estimated that 744,313 people were homeless in January 2005. And that was before the economic collapse, mortgage crisis, surge in bankruptcies and job losses. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 46 million Americans are uninsured, 19.8 percent of all adults and 9.3 percent of children under the age of 18. The American Bankruptcy Institute reported that over a million people filed for bankruptcy last year.

It brings to mind the Chinese saying: May you live in interesting times. It doesn’t get more interesting than this! A friend wonders how her elderly parents will get around if the only driver has knee surgery. The tragedy is that surely people in that community would be more than willing to drive and run errands if they only knew their help was needed. People who have been down the road of caring for aging parents have tremendously valuable knowledge that every community needs. Gathering as a community to identify what would make your life easier and what you have to give that would make someone else’s life easier is a start.

The solution to these and other thorny problems is each other. When we reach the stage that we can turn to our communities for real support and actually receive it, we will begin to make headway on the very significant problems that we face individually and collectively. New Community Vision promotes the concept of gathering with friends and neighbors to brainstorm for solutions to our universal problems of housing, child and elder care, food, nutrition, transportation, isolation and more. We would be happy to work with community groups to facilitate this process.

Tags: bankruptcy, economic recovery, homelessness