An inspiring story....about a dispiriting situation
Last Sunday, December 16, 2018, the Sunday New York Times published an inspiring story, which touches on many themes; you can read it at:
Retraining Workers for New Jobs and New Lives After Prison and Addiction
What struck me about the article was:
Basically, Mr Simpson, a local entrepreneur, already successful in another line of business, developed his own plan to help turn around his community: create a company that can export a product (trailers), train local people coming out of prison and/or drug rehab to work in it, and spend money and time -- a lot of money and time -- providing programs of assistance in doing just that.
The goal of the program, which is just over one year old, is to turn around Campbell County, which has been losing jobs and population in recent, even as its drug addiction and prison population problems have been increasing. In effect, he is trying to help his community pull itself up by its bootstraps, and improving its local economy to boot.
This is a formula that could be replicated in so many different rural areas with these same twin problems, which are so mutually reinforcing that it is impossible to solve with strictly a law enforcement approach alone; but that is the prevailing policy reaction in most communities. When drug users are caught, lock 'em up! And where they're done with prison, turn 'em back out on the street with $50 and a bus ticket....
How naive; and how sad. Yet that is the story in too many locales, I'm sure. It takes a local hero like Mr. Simpson to see the problem, dig deep into the real root causes (he served as a jail minister before starting this program), and then dig deep into his own pocket (he has spent over $500,000 so far of his own money) to get the program off the ground. It has not yet been proven successful, but it is off to a great start; and he will be starting a similar program for women in the near future (probably working as seamstresses).
Few regions of the country have a local Mr. Simpson to help them out...so what's the point here?
One, is that local economies are not just about dollars and jobs; but about the types of jobs, and why they are being created. In this case, the types of jobs are intended for local residents to have gainful employment, and they were created to interrupt the destructive revolving door of addition-prison-addiction.
This story is not about economic growth; it is about economic development. It is about creating a caring, conscious economy, at the same time as creating a profitable one. And this is the same challenge facing our nation: we need to stop using GDP as the primary statistic by which we measure the economy, and start using metrics that are more indicative of human development. Like how many drug addicts have been rehabilitated through employment assistance programs, and the like.
The story is not unlike many other, less publicized stories....but it is a perfect example that could be applied on a national basis....if we had the legislators with the hearts and minds -- and intelligence and compassion -- to see how much sense this makes.
Retraining Workers for New Jobs and New Lives After Prison and Addiction
What struck me about the article was:
- how the twin problems of drug addiction and doing prison time are a common, downward spiral in much of rural America
- how few public resources there are to deal with it
- the success of the hero of the story, Tony Simpson, exemplifies a winning strategy to deal with these twin problems that could be replicated elsewhere
Basically, Mr Simpson, a local entrepreneur, already successful in another line of business, developed his own plan to help turn around his community: create a company that can export a product (trailers), train local people coming out of prison and/or drug rehab to work in it, and spend money and time -- a lot of money and time -- providing programs of assistance in doing just that.
The goal of the program, which is just over one year old, is to turn around Campbell County, which has been losing jobs and population in recent, even as its drug addiction and prison population problems have been increasing. In effect, he is trying to help his community pull itself up by its bootstraps, and improving its local economy to boot.
This is a formula that could be replicated in so many different rural areas with these same twin problems, which are so mutually reinforcing that it is impossible to solve with strictly a law enforcement approach alone; but that is the prevailing policy reaction in most communities. When drug users are caught, lock 'em up! And where they're done with prison, turn 'em back out on the street with $50 and a bus ticket....
How naive; and how sad. Yet that is the story in too many locales, I'm sure. It takes a local hero like Mr. Simpson to see the problem, dig deep into the real root causes (he served as a jail minister before starting this program), and then dig deep into his own pocket (he has spent over $500,000 so far of his own money) to get the program off the ground. It has not yet been proven successful, but it is off to a great start; and he will be starting a similar program for women in the near future (probably working as seamstresses).
Few regions of the country have a local Mr. Simpson to help them out...so what's the point here?
One, is that local economies are not just about dollars and jobs; but about the types of jobs, and why they are being created. In this case, the types of jobs are intended for local residents to have gainful employment, and they were created to interrupt the destructive revolving door of addition-prison-addiction.
This story is not about economic growth; it is about economic development. It is about creating a caring, conscious economy, at the same time as creating a profitable one. And this is the same challenge facing our nation: we need to stop using GDP as the primary statistic by which we measure the economy, and start using metrics that are more indicative of human development. Like how many drug addicts have been rehabilitated through employment assistance programs, and the like.
The story is not unlike many other, less publicized stories....but it is a perfect example that could be applied on a national basis....if we had the legislators with the hearts and minds -- and intelligence and compassion -- to see how much sense this makes.
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