Across the Great Divide

If We Don't Open Doors, We're Condemned to Breaking Them Down.

A man in the door installation business was talking to me about his past woes as a small landlord. He and his brother had picked up some rental properties in the course of their work and tried to branch out. They got a lot of work from people ready to unload houses and condos.

The laws are stacked to protect tenants from bad landlords, he said. Professional property managers have the procedures down for screening out and evicting bad tenants. They tell me they never rent to someone with an arrest record, he said. 

An arrest record, not even a conviction.

It's tough finding good tenants, he said. One house he owned had been rented by a jeweler who stripped the house of chandeliers and cabinet hardware before he left. His latest job was replacing a front door smashed in by a SWAT team coming after someone who was flopping in a rental house. 

For part-timers like him, the experience had been nothing but headaches, and he couldn't do that level of due diligence, so he got out of the business.

I have sympathy for the landlord who was stuck with the mess and expense. This "cost of doing business" can be written off, but it never covers the aggravation factor. It's a not unreasonable response to blacklist anyone with an arrest record

But what's the broader effect, particularly in a market where low-income and marginally employed people may be losing their places to live?

It's hard for me to ignore the fact that a white child is extremely rare in the shelter where I volunteer.

As far back as 1994, St. Paul and Minneapolis ranked first and second for having the highest racial disparity in arrest rates among the nation's cities with populations over 250,000. At the time of the report, Minneapolis had a black arrest rate 24 times that of the white arrest rate.

The disparity may be better now, but my point here isn't exclusively about race. It's about whether an already bad housing-law enforcement-employment connection is just going to get worse.

What do you do when you can't find a place to live, are out of work and have little social safety net remaining?

1. You find a place where you can crash. It could be with family, but that may not be an option if relatives are struggling, too. Maybe you sleep in the car. Shelters are beyond capacity. Living rough outside doesn't suit many for long, and certainly not with kids. Eventually, you may find that drug users and other unsavory types are the only ones with room on the couch or on the rug. 
2. You try looking for work. Maybe you can take calls on a cell phone that lets you buy service by the minute, but what address do you put on the application? 
3. One of your room mates has another proposition that isn't legal, but it has a higher prospect of putting some money in your pocket.
4. What the hell, you already can't rent a place under your own name.

There are plenty of people in bad situations who have made a string of bad choices. They focus on the raw deals they've gotten instead of what they need to do to change their lives. I get all that. It's why I've chosen to help their kids instead; I don't have to be making judgments about who's redeemable and whose downward spiral is beyond my ability to affect.

Every 3-year-old is redeemable. We must believe that.

But we can't do it all in preschool. And we can't do much at all if once their dad is arrested, the path toward the shelter gets so much steeper.

Shelter Report: Wet Pants, Sweet Dreams.

After a week away, I was back upstairs with the 3 to 5-year-olds today. As usual, there were new kids and familiar ones were gone.

One new boy (call him Rasheem) latched onto me when I started reading a counting book. Another kid, a very large 3-year-old, probably the biggest and most active in the room, came up and was being disruptive with some maracas. I started scat singing and pretty soon had a rhythm section instead of three hyperactive boys and a girl who also wanted my attention.

The boy, call him Kiante, was a twin. His brother was there, too, dressed in an identical shirt but easily a head shorter and probably two-thirds the weight of his brother. Another, smaller set of twins wore matched red and white rugby shirts. Again, one clearly had won the struggle in the womb, but his tiny brother was a fierce fighter. I saw him lash out quickly at a much bigger boy, making him cry.

A lot of refereeing this morning. The kids like to crowd into tight places and someone ends up getting pinched or knocked over or kicked by another whose personal space has been violated. They're supposed to use their words to settle these problems, but that work is ongoing only in preschool. In the room or other areas of the shelter, an aggressive face and surprising flurry of punches may be drawn on, because who knows what rules the other guy is following at the moment?

Kiante was especially prone to getting physical, but that meant I could watch him. The other kids blow hot and cold. Sometimes they seem placid and engaged in what's going on around them. Then seconds later, they start acting out.

You can especially what state a child is in during "morning meeting," when we all gather on a carpet and the teacher leads a few lessons. Today, we talked again about construction, with a book and a song, followed by questions from the teacher.

A couple boys lolled on the carpet instead of sitting up. One very deliberately lay facing the opposite direction, blatantly ignoring the teacher with the sort of hard blank look you might see on a late night No. 12 bus rider. Rasheem, Kiante and his brother and Sierra all plastered against me at the edge of the carpet.

While the lead teacher tries to hold their attention, Rick and I (and any other volunteers) freelance, sort of like the short fielder in softball, moving to different positions and scooping up whatever trouble evades the others.

Usually, that keeps order at about the level you'd find in House of Commons.

Rasheem is paying reasonable attention, so I give him a few hints to help him with a couple of the teacher's questions. He comes up with the answers on his own: ladder and basement.

A few minutes later, he is asleep.

We can't let them sleep now, but he is clearly exhausted. When snack time comes, he has to get up and wash his hands. He cries. I can barely induce him to sit at the snack table.

After indoor activity time, we head outside. One kid finds some puzzle pieces in wood chip duff covering the playground. We start recovering them and collecting them on the picnic table. This is a fun activity for the kids and much easier than putting the puzzle together. It's also very appealing to a borderline obsessive personality. I'm determined to find as many pieces as possible, but the kids discover the next game, which is scattering the pieces back over the playground.

The smallest twin climbs on my shoulders. His pants are damp. I ask Rick if he's toilet trained. Yes, he says, but he has a hell of a diaper rash.

Did he wet his pants?

Rick shrugged. He was playing at the water table. Is that the answer you wanted?

The lead teacher is taking Rasheem's temperature. It's 103°. He didn't have a fever when I was holding him earlier, but Miss A has a theory. He had been going to Headstart earlier in the week, but showed up here this morning. He was probably sent home for 24 hours because he'd been sick at Headstart, so mom dosed him with Tylenol and dropped him here.

That kind of stuff happens all the time at the shelter.

I'd been pretty tough with Kiante today, trying to keep him in line. At lunch, he asked me to sit next to him, then, before he went to the restroom, he asked if I would rub his back. (When kids go down for nap, some of us give back rubs to help quiet them down.) I'm gone by nap time, but told him I would stay.

I rubbed his shoulders and we talked. I asked him to be a good boy and I would see him next week. He nodded and smiled.

That kind of stuff happens, too.

Collin Peterson Gets Support from Strange Quarter.

Seventh District Rep. Collin Peterson (D) is taking flak from the Dollar Double Cheeseburgers of the state GOP for his joking characterization of constituents who sidetrack his town hall meetings:

"Twenty-five percent of my people believe the Pentagon and Rumsfeld were responsible for taking the Twin Towers down."

But Peterson is getting support from an unusual quarter — his GOP colleagues from Minnesota, Reps. Michele Bachmann and John Kline, who are well-known in the state for holding town hall meetings rarely, and then only inviting half the town.

"Otherwise, you just get a bunch of people asking why they can't have socialized medicine," Kline said.

"This has really I think energized activists in the area and is going to lend [itself] to a first-tier candidate coming forward to run against him next year," said Minnesota GOP deputy chair Michael Brodkorb, adding that there has been an "absolute explosion" of interest in the seat in the past 24 hours.

Brodkorb acknowledged that it may be tough to find positions that the new candidate can exploit against Peterson, a conservative Democrat with an A+ rating from the NRA.

"But we think Peterson could be vulnerable on the ray gun issue," he said.

Large Donors Analysis Understates Business Tilt.

Smart Politics has an analysis of individual donor giving to Minnesota's U.S. House members, based on the latest Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports. Large donor individual donations accounted for $827,881 — about half the money contributed for the most recent quarter.

We can be thankful for Eric Ostermeier's willingness to do the scut work of combing the data and presenting it, but we should be leery of concluding that his findings represent the full impact of business owner and executive giving. He states:

Not surprisingly, most large donor contributions to the Minnesota U.S. House delegation came from business owners and executive officers, tallying 35.1 percent of such donations.

[...]

However, a significant amount of large donor contributions came from retired individuals (#2, 10.6 percent) and homemakers (#4, 7.5 percent). Donations by these individuals were directed overwhelmingly towards Minnesota's Republican representatives.

No duh.

Another useful bit of analysis would have been to match "homemaker" names and addresses with other donors. I have a hunch many of those large donor contributions might align with business owners and executives.

Further, I suspect that many retirees making donations, particularly in this economic environment, might also derive their discretionary income from business ownership or CEO retirement packages. Then throw in the 5.7 percent who listed "finance/investors/banking." The total for the four categories is 58.9 percent.

Certainly, based on how the FEC reports categorize donors, the data surely understates the influence of business executive interests. Ostermeier's post tells the story, but he doesn't come right out and say it.

Note to Ellison: He Who Goes Must Disclose.

Now-Rep. Keith Ellison was just one lesser-known voice in a giant field of contenders at a district convention, vying to replace long-time 5th District Rep. Martin Sabo when I wrote this.

Other candidates had programmed pauses in which to insert applause; Ellison was the only one to consistently receive it. Yes, he was the first to speak, but discounting hometowner Junge, he was the only Congressional candidate to win his own delegate.

In general, I'm not a big fan of the "I will fight for..." campaign rhetoric Ellison employed. But that's because it often turns out to be just rhetoric. And real fighters aren't very effective on the everyday work of governing.

But the party needs fighters with a clue. I think Ellison qualifies. We don't need a safe candidate to attract swing voters in this district. We need someone who can make us glad we're progressive.

I caucused for Ellison and got him that delegate. I donated early to his first campaign. As far as I can tell, I was the first blogger to support him. He's my representative, and I still like the guy.

But regardless of how many Republicans accept private funding for overseas trips, Ellison's temporizing over the financing for his trip to Mecca does not make me proud to be a progressive.

As far as I'm concerned, the public should pay for trips that are necessary in carrying out Congressional duties. If public money is insufficient, and corporate and trade group interests think such trips are vital, they can contribute to a blind trust to fund them. And make members who draw the funds justify the trips as doing public business.

Otherwise, they don't fly.

Look, I know how it goes. I worked for the military industrial complex and produced a video program that interviewed Sen. Dan Quayle on defense issues, for example. We knew what we were doing, just like every other moneyed interest does when it cultivates relationships with elected officials through trips, conferences, etc.

It was perfectly legal, even if it wasn't fair.

So, no matter how much it may have enlarged his faith or his understanding of middle east relations, I do not like my representative accepting support for a personal trip and then getting cute about what he will disclose.

Either disclose everything, Keith, or don't do it.

Fiddling While Goldman Sacks America.

For me, the blot of all blots on Pres. Obama's approach to the economy is using the crooks to fix the mess the crooks helped create while allowing the crooks to keep at it.

James Howard Kunstler calls it "Evil Syndicated":

Readers of this blog know I'm allergic to conspiracy theories. But surveying the scene out there, it is hard to not conclude that Goldman Sachs has become the "front-runner" of a criminal syndicate defrauding US taxpayers.  This isn't the first time in American history that business veered into extremely antisocial behavior on the grand scale.  The last quarter of the 19th century was just as bad, with frauds, swindles, sociopathic trusts, and predatory corporations preying on people trying desperately to make an honest living.

The Real Reason to Invest in Newspapers.

Question: Why aren't these money-losing conservative-owned publications — Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Philip Anschutz's The Weekly Standard, and Sun Myung Moon's spectacular money pit, The Washington Times — on the list of newspapers facing impending bankruptcy or closure?

Answer: "They do it because it buys them respectability, and gets their con job out there."

This is not exactly news, of course. But the main part of Thom Hartman's piece describes the nature of the rich man's tax con job in simple terms:

"You Americans are such suckers," he said, as I recall. "You think that the rules for taxes that apply to rich people also apply to working people. But they don't. When working peoples' taxes go up, their pay goes up. When their taxes go down, their pay goes down. It may take a year or two or three to all even out, but it always works this way - look at any country in Europe. And it's the opposite of how it works for rich people!"

...

[W]e have to help Americans realize that "no new taxes" is a mantra that is meaningful to the very rich, but largely irrelevant to average working people.

Only when the current generation re-learns the economic and tax lessons well known by the generation (now dying off) that came of age in the 30s through the 60s, will this become politically possible. Americans need to learn what Europeans know about taxes - they only matter to the rich.

No, Officer, I'm not Special. And You're Not a Downtown Ambassador.

Today's news has story about the crew of downtown ambassadors who patrol the Minneapolis business district, giving out directions, watching for trouble and mostly just engaging people. It featured Kaynan Abdirahman, who was assigned Nicollet Mall.

"Most of the panhandlers are pretty knowledgeable. They know their rights," Kaynan said. "If you treat people with respect, anyone will listen."

Since they wear neon green shirts, I'm certain that wasn't a downtown ambassador patrol I saw today on the Mall. These guys were on bikes and wearing blue.

The two police officers were accosting cyclists riding down the Mall. Bicycle traffic is prohibited there between 6am and 6pm, but because the Mall is car free — and because the nearby north-south bike lanes on Marquette and Second are closed for construction — cyclists will take it.

I usually avoid the street because of the bus traffic and often unwary pedestrians, but today I wanted to see the recycled metal sculpture exhibit that's part of the Aquatennial. The display was at the IDS between Seventh and Eighth on the Mall.

Leaving the exhibit, I stopped to take a shot of the bike parking near the corner and then stuck my foot on a pedal, gave a kick and crossed Eighth toward Ninth, a one way pointing home.

At that point, I became a lawbreaker. No, I didn't ride on the street. But instead of walking my bike down the block, I kept my foot on the pedal and propelled myself scooter-style on the broad sidewalk.

At the next intersection, I met Officer Friendly.

"No riding your bike on the sidewalk!" he barked.

"I'm turning right here," I said.

"I don't care if you're special. You can't ride your bike on the sidewalk!"

Although engaging in sarcasm is my trade, I know better than to practice it with a police officer. I don't have a problem with their enforcing the law. I'd even be open to a little correction that my one-foot-on-the-ground-both-hands-on-the-brakes-two-mile-per-hour propulsion is indeed considered riding on the sidewalk. My bad, officer.

But please, let someone deliver it who likes the job, who is delighted to be on a bike on a beautiful day, who believes they are looking out for the safety of cyclists and pedestrians — and who doesn't assume that because I'm on a bike, I'm an arrogant asshole.

I don't need to be treated specially, officer. I'd settle for being treated the way Kaynan Abdirahman deals with a panhandler.

Tomorrow, I'll look for the Mall bike cops and ask to hear their side of it.

UPDATE: Due to unforeseen events, I will have to postpone hearing the cops' side of it.

Complete Streets Aren't the Whole Pedestrian Story.

A faltering economy, rising fuel prices and global climate worries appear now to be favoring the older forms of urban design and mobility. Minneapolis hopes to capitalize on this trend by improving its already impressive list of pedestrian assets - 1,714 miles of sidewalks, more than 100 walking/biking bridges, 18 miles of park and greenway trails and 8 miles of enclosed downtown skyways.

— "The Most Essential Mode of Transportation," MN2020

MN2020 draws a summary from the draft Minneapolis Pedestrian Master Plan that rehashes principles and observations often made here, so of course, it makes sense to me. But the linked account, like all too much planning activity related to pedestrians, doesn't touch much on a key issue.

Encouraging walking just isn't about building sidewalks and trails or street furniture and lighting — or even putting destinations closer to origination points. It's about making places people want to be — on foot.

But planning and planners tend to get segmented. The land use people are different from the transportation people are different from the business development people, and each cuts a specialized swath through space without necessarily seeing or being responsible for the whole. The results end up feeling... planned.

Look at the walkable streets in Europe. These Portuguese towns seem to have put no money at all into curb cuts, smooth paving or other engineering. But the sense of place is palpable. Driving a car on these streets is unthinkable. Not just because of the compact towns and narrow streets, but because walking is an experience worth having.

The street on the left is built of uneven cobblestones and, not apparent here, runs at a steep grade. But the buildings are nicely whitewashed, flowers are abundant, you can window shop or gawk at both sides of the street at once, and occasionally the buildings part to give you a spectacular view of the valley. On the right, the street curves just so and festive awnings protect walkers from the midday sun.

The "complete streets" design approach — streets that support and encourage walking, bicycling and transit use while promoting safe operations for all users — seems to have taken hold lately at city, county and state levels. But complete streets still focus on moving people around; they aren't the whole deal.

It helps to think of streets and sidewalks as the outdoor rooms where we conduct important aspects of civic life. They are the places we interact with our fellow citizens before we take our seat in the theater or head into work; where we decide where to go next and whether to spend our money; where we nod and smile and lust and imagine; where we should never have to be alone.

"Smart Growth" Needs Brown as Well as Green.

Industry’s low rents mean that industrial enterprise will never qualify as what people in the real estate  business call, in a cunning turn of phrase, a property’s “highest and best use,” meaning whatever yields the most profit.

It follows that if urban industry is to survive, not to say thrive, it needs protection from market forces. What it gets from smart growth—where it generally appears as a form of blight, when it appears at all—is greater exposure, leading to a vicious cycle: treating industry as a relic justifies the conversion of industrial land to other uses, thereby further weakening the possibility of industrial revitalization. And like farmland, once lost, industrial land is gone forever. 

— Zelda Bronstein, in Dissent, "Industry and the Smart City" [PDF]

h/t Hal Davis