Leadership Washington County: Local Government Day

On Friday, Dec. 14th I attended Leadership Washington County's local government day. 

Thesis of the day: How does the city and county make decisions to disperse funds to operations and infrastructure that fulfill the strategic plans of our local government?

The first half of our day was spent at City Hall listening to a series of presentations given by City Administrator: Bruce Zimmerman; Mayor David Gysberts; Dave Hanlin, Development Coordinator for Washington County Free Library; and Evvie Williams with the Washington County League of Women Voters.

Some questions that sparked my interest after hearing them speak were:

1. How are the city and county governments utilizing social media to engage the citizens into having hearty discussions and sharing of ideas in an online environment?
2. Where does creativity come into play in the government arena? (I'm thinking about problem solving, etc)
3. Why do we need to bring jobs to the citizens? Why can't we teach citizens how to become successful entrepreneurs through the use of their own creativity, skills, and freely accessible technology (hello, library)?
4. Why can't Hagerstown try creating and utilizing a complimentary currency program to help revitalize downtown? Bernard Lietaer has done some wonderful things with complimentary currencies and down-trodden economies. Why not here?

The second half of the day started at the Washington County Government building hearing all about how to county government is structured, how financial decisions are made, etc. Then we heard from Commissioner Ruth Anne Callaham who talked about her role as commissioner and the role of the commissioners as a whole in the county. 

Then we got to tour the still-under-construction Potomac Street library which is partially funded by the state, city, and county.

LWC Day #1: Visit to MCI-H

This is the 2nd part of my learning reflection for the first class day of Leadership Washington County. After we completed our poverty simulations in the morning we hopped on a bus and headed over to Sharpsburg to the MCI-H, a medium security prison. It didn't dawn on me then but I'm just now wondering if society labels the incarcerated members of our society as impoverished or privileged. Certainly, depending on where you are on the incarcerated societal ladder, some folks have more privileges than others.

After lunch, we spent about an hour touring the facilities and learning about some of the programs offered at MCI-H - the cells (are tiny), the visiting area (is one of the last ones in the state to not have an impassable physical barrier between the residents and the visitors), the recreation areas, the work areas (i.e. metal works, meat packaging, etc), and one of the highlights of my day: the dog assistance training program where the residents work with lab/lab-mix puppies and train them to become service animals.

The next hour or so was spent engaging in a panel discussion with four outstanding residents, all of whom were there on life sentences for murder (someone else might need to correct me on this; we didn't have pens and paper to take notes so my memory is shoddy). They told us why they were there but the most interesting pieces focused on the good they were doing within the prison to improve the relationships between residents and staff. One of the residents, Gino, is in charge of a communication committee (it had a better name than that) and he's working with other residents and staff to create classes to teach new and veteran residents new skills on how to break bad habits so they're prepared to interact in more acceptable ways when they leave MCI-H; and for the ones who are at MCI-H for the long haul, these new skills benefit them and their interactions in house.

They also talked about what they think are some of the most important factors in preventing youth from following in their footsteps. They specified quality time and attention from respected adults. They also couldn't stress enough how important it is for adults in authority (parents, teachers, coaches, etc) to just listen without judging. The panelists said that if they weren't so afraid of the repercussions they would've experienced by talking to their parents and/or teachers about normal youth concerns, then they would have opened up more freely and perhaps wouldn't have engaged in less than legal behaviors. One of the programs that they'd like to start or maybe it's already in the works is a mentoring program with MCI-H residents and troubled youth (and their families, too?) in Washington county. I'd love to see this happen.

The last segment of the day was another panel of four human services experts from Washington County. These folks helped to tie the day together - poverty, privilege, charity - and basically they fielded our questions about gaps in the system (i.e. why aren't the human services departments in one centralized area so folks who need these resources don't have to trek all across town - on foot or bus - to get the help they need?) and shared their unique insights on the situation in Washington county. Again - not being able to take notes greatly hampered my retention rate here so, if any of my LWC friends are reading this, please feel free to chime in with your takeaways, too!

All in all it was an extremely eye-opening day. I knew that I didn't know much about Washington County but I didn't realize I didn't know *that* much about Washington County. There are some amazingly generous and charitable people and organizations out there doing some amazing things for folks but at the same time there's a lot of room for improvement which seems to rely, for better or for worse, on funding and priority consensus. You're probably wondering, what does this have to do with your work at the library? Well, I think there's a lot the library can do but it's going to require me to think about this some more which also means you'll have to stay tuned for pt. 3 of this learning reflection.

LWC Day #1: Poverty Simulation

The first class day of my Leadership Washington County program was Oct. 12th and since the Western MD Regional Library is sponsoring me to participate in this program I thought it was only right to post a learning reflection here.

The theme of the day was Human Resources and the thesis statement we were given to keep in the back of our minds throughout the day was something to the extent of, "How do poverty and privilege co-exist in Washington county?" To drive the point home, we were asked to read the article, "The Limits of Charity."

Part 1: Poverty Simulation
So, the first half of our day began with a poverty simulation. We were broken up into 5 groups of 6 people and each group was given a different scenario. The scenario my group had was written entirely in Spanish. Basically, our situation was this:

We are a family of four - 2 parents, 2 kids (ages 3 and 4) who mostly only speak Spanish though they know a little English. The parents are in the country illegally but the children were born in the U.S. and thus are legal. The family is currently living with some friends but they need to get food stamps, medical assistance, education information for their kids, etc. We have an appointment at La Comunidad Latina which is based out of the Community Action Council building on Summit Ave, to speak with Gladys Rojas. 

So, we set out on foot to La Comunidad Latina where we waited in line just to sign in with the receptionist. Keeping the idea of poverty and privilege it was interesting to hear some of our LWC companions wanting to skip ahead to the front of the line just because of the LWC program. We reminded them that this is a poverty simulation and the wait is what folks do to be seen at the CAC every day. When we got into Ms. Rojas' office she immediately started speaking Spanish, greeting us, etc. There were two of us in the group who had enough Spanish experience to piece together what was happening so, that made it a little bit easier but pretty much she was trying to demonstrate for us what it's like for someone who doesn't speak the primary language. Ms. Rojas continued to guide us, in Spanish, through the intake form that we had to complete. Afterwards, she reverted to English...thankfully! We spent about 30 minutes talking with Ms. Rojas and we learned that since the parents are illegal, there's really no resources available to help them. However, since their children were born in the U.S. they are entitled to food stamps. temporary cash assistance, education at the public schools, and medical insurance.  However, she cannot provide us with any of those resources there, we have to go to the Department of Social Services (DSS) for that. What she can do for us is to help us set up and maintain our own business - should we be so inclined to register one in the future.

So, we set out again, this time to DSS. When we arrived at DSS we were yet again greeted with another line. This time the LWC name (and the need for DSS to stay on their schedule) did expedite our wait (hello, privilege) and we were shown into the room where we needed to be. Did I mention that if your request is processed before 2PM it might be possible for your to receive same-day assistance? So, time is of the essence.

We shared our situation with the two DSS representatives who were waiting for us and they told us about the process we'd go through rather than actually making us go through it. They do group consultations at DSS three times a day and each group session can accommodate about 20 people. During these sessions, everyone watches an intro video which explains, in English, what services are available through DSS. After that, they're guided through the necessary paperwork (approx. 8-10 pages worth). To accommodate non-English speaking clients, they have a telephone translating system where the DSS rep is on one phone, the client is on the other and in the middle (somewhere off site) is a translator. So, each party takes turns speaking into the phone while the middle man translates for them. They can currently translate approximately 26 languages.

Basically, the only requirement for someone to receive assistance at DSS is a social security number. This means the parents in our scenario are still not able to receive any assistance for themselves but they can receive approximately $363 a month in food stamps with which to feed their two U.S. born children. They can also receive a maximum of approximately $453 a month in temporary cash assistance - again to be used to take care of the children (clothes, shoes, toiletries, shelter, etc). The children also will be taken care of medically with medical insurance. If I understand it right, they'll immediately be covered by Medicaid and then once the paperwork goes through the system, they'll be assigned to an MCO (?) through which all their medical needs will be processed. DSS does random spot checks each month and does check in with all clients 2x a year; at least one of those meetings is either in person or on the phone. Approximately 30% of Washington County residents is on one form of assistance or another (either food stamps. temporary cash assistance, medical assistance, or a combination of the three).

Just vising these two departments took about 3 hours and they were abbreviated visits. Imagine if we really had this need and had to invest even more time in our day to get the help we needed. Plus, we might end the day with no cash in our pockets anyway - it usually takes 5-7 days for folks to receive their temporary cash assistance card in the mail (it comes from TX). If we had needed food to hold us over we would have been sent back to the Community Action Council or a soup kitchen, etc.

Another thing that I learned that I thought was important to share is that both La Comunidad Latina and the DSS are safe spaces; if you're illegal - for any reason (immigration, felonies, etc) they will not report you. They're in the business of getting help for their clients, not making their lives harder by calling the police. What a wonderful feeling and I bet most folks do not realize that these safe spaces exist...

A couple more thoughts on poverty and privilege: are the impoverished considered privileged to have these services available to them in Washington County considering these services aren't necessarily available everywhere? One of my favorite questions for almost any topic, can privilege exist without poverty or vice versa?

Stay tuned for part 2 of day #1 - a visit to the MCI-H prison in Sharpsburg.