As Philadelphia Crumbles

Life Writing by admin
Government Subsidies
With each morning that I awaken and with each step that I take in a positive direction, the blaring but dimmed lights of my culture’s lack of progress never seems too far from my sight. As I rise each morning, most times before the ember hues of dawn can emerge from a tucked horizon, I am greeted with an ugly visual of what a late night in North Philly has to offer. Journeying to early morning summer classes, I walk across cement that is littered with shattered beer bottles while Philly Blunt paraphernalia has been shed into the cracks of the pavements. Beautiful people who are masked within drug and alcohol disease stagger past me, barely able to control their shaking flesh. Red-eyed young men block the corners, the dirty deeds of late night/early morning mischief embedded onto their exquisite brown skin.

At night, as I drive from an 8-hour work shift, my headlights capture women parading on long stretches of abandoned streets, awaiting the arrival of a potential John. And despite the fact that I get home at 1AM, there are small children roaming the streets alone, watery-eyed and hungry, shoeless and hopeless.

It burns my depths that I have to paint such a stereotypical and bleak picture of a place that deserves more. When I think of all of those crack addicts and alcoholics that have filtered their way amongst the crevices of this broken neighborhood, it saddens me. As I watch these people waste their lives away, chain-smoking on stoops and porch chairs, I think these North Philly streets have so much potential.

North Philly is just an example. Philadelphia is brimming with communities and neighborhoods that are in self-destruct mode. And I do not blame the drug dealers or the prostitutes…nor do I blame deadbeat fathers or neglectful mothers. Although the news and television media’s perpetuate this self-exploding time bomb, I truly do not believe that they are at fault either. Welfare and Section 8 housing is the root of this evil that is ruining our communities. Urban culture does not stand a chance as long as we remain completely dependent on a government that hates us for support. These support systems are not only highly discriminatory, but they are also used to control and belittle minorities, and encourage poverty in particular areas of our city. These systems need to either become abolished or are only given to individuals who are willing to work a particular amount of hours a week for their handouts—that way minorities can become influenced to succeed instead of wallowing comfortably in idle and self-destructing behavior.

Philadelphia abandoned homes

 

The government enjoys handing out Section 8 vouchers and welfare assistance to lazy individuals. This system was designed to ensure that large groups of people don’t feel the need to strive towards homeownership and financial independency. By handing out this sort of assistance, the government is also able to dictate where we live, the areas of the city that we travel to, what we can purchase and when we can purchase it. Centuries ago, this same unit of control was used between slaves and their masters on southern plantations. Just as the slave was made to depend on his master, present day minorities are made to depend on the government. The capable and able young men and women who are without a job and chose to take advantage of these “hand-outs” are nothing more than modern day Uncle Tom’s and house slaves.
The Philadelphia Housing Authority prides itself on being able to provide very low income housing for more than 80,000 Philadelphians. The PHA also boosts that they endorse the Fair Housing Act which makes sure that prospective Section 8 tenants are not discriminated against because of their ethnicity, age, sex or family statistics (the amount of children present, the age the children are, etc). They may not discriminate against particular groups of families or individuals from receiving Section 8 subsidies. However the placement of these tenants is a highly discriminatory process.

 

Have you noticed that many single parent families which feature a lot of children are all placed in the same areas? The North and West sections of Philadelphia are flooded with many families who are just a-like: an unmotivated single mother with a flock of multiple children by multiple and anonymous men. These same areas are also filled with women who are living with men who are either ex-convicts or criminals. Other areas that provide Section 8 Housing, such as parts of Mt. Airy or the Northeast sections of the city have a different type of Section 8 family living there. Most are smaller families. Some are with a part time working single parent with one or two small children. Many handicapped or elderly tenants are placed in these areas as well. For a system that claims to be fair minded and non-discriminatory, the choices of location for the variety of people who receive Section 8 subsidies is quite ironic. Although prospective tenants have to undergo credit and background checks, the PHA only uses those tools to place certain groups of individuals in particular neighborhoods. The government isn’t interested in genuinely helping anyone. The only thing that they are interested in is keeping the poor neighborhoods poorer and pushing minorities further down into the dirt.

Welfare-to-work programs are virtually nonexistent. They aren’t mandatory by the government and are only used by a very small handful of agencies and employers. Since working isn’t necessary in order to receive welfare benefits, many people don’t. The government does not want minorities to be employed; there would be a big fear from upper class citizens that “unqualified” people were being infiltrated into their places of work—even if it was only at a minimum wage position. And the government doesn’t want these minorities to realize that they are capable of not only having a job—but also succeeding at that job and trying to reach a higher career attainment. Providing welfare assistance without any exchange for work or productivity is a simple way for the middle and upper social classes to prosper and for the working and poor classes to continue to remain at the bottom. Upper class honchos are so afraid of losing their position that they have created a system that will guarantee they will never sink below mid-level—even if it is at the expense of minorities; even if it is at the expense of particular neighborhoods.

These particular neighborhoods are abundant with substance abuse. Many people who are giving financial assistance only spend it on drugs or alcohol. There should be thorough, random and very frequent drug testing done to those who receive welfare. More than yearly inspections should be conducted in order to determine whether or not a Section 8 housing unit is being used as a safe haven or a drug house. And alcohol and drug treatment should be forced on recipients who are displaying the obvious signs of dependency—and benefits should be cut off if treatment is uncompleted. If the city really wants its citizens to be healthy and productive, then they need to encourage constructive behavior instead of allowing damaging. But they aren’t. The government is purposely setting up the urban culture to fall harder and deeper into darkness.

As far as blacks are concerned, we need to be able to let go of the pacifier and accomplish things for ourselves and our communities, without all of the dire and pointless excuses that the government has us believing. If you have time to watch countless hours of television, go the local bar several times a week, and sit on your stoop for several hours a day listening to neighborhood gossip, then you have time to work at least part time hours. If you have time to use drugs, stand on the corners, and act out aggressively towards others, you have time to complete your education and even attend a higher institution of learning. If you can wait in those extremely long welfare lines, sit in the free clinics for hours on end, and travel from welfare office to welfare office to ensure that all of “your” money will be available by a particular date, then you have the time to mentor or tutor a child.

Although the system wants us to fail, we have plenty of opportunity to progress into responsible members of our community. Yet as long as the government keeps handing out assistance without any hard work, as a community, we are always going to suffer. Welfare-to-work programs should be absolutely mandatory. Section 8 subsidies should be very limited so that it can encourage individuals to work hard in order to keep their homes. The only way that our community can learn independence is to be cut from the strings of the government.

With each morning I wake, with each street corner I touch, there is hope.

~Amity Nathaniel