An estimated 2,000 asylum-seekers have come through Albuquerque in recent months, staying a few days before moving along to meet their sponsors or families in other parts of the country. Several faith-based and community groups have served as hosts, assembling enough volunteer manpower and donations to shelter, feed and clothe them during their short stays.
------------------ Albuquerque Interfaith has so far welcomed 11 busloads of 50 people apiece. Supporting a single busload for two to three days runs about $3,000 in donated cash, according to Carla Lanting Shibuya, a site coordinator with the nonprofit organization. Several restaurants and other entities have supplemented the grass-roots effort by giving food and other goods, she said. Albuquerque Journal story here.
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I went to Honduras from March 18 to 25 seeking answers to those questions. I was part of a delegation of 72 faith leaders and immigrant justice advocates who met with grassroots and religious partners to better understand the root causes of migration that have led thousands to flee Honduras. The interfaith delegation was co-sponsored by the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, SHARE El Salvador, Sisters of Mercy and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.
We found that a war on the poor is being waged in Honduras. The refugees from that war are fleeing for their lives, ending up on our southern border. Entire Opinion piece by AI leader Rev Roger Scott Powers, Pastor, St Andrew Presbyterian Church.
Last Thursday night, PBS NewsHour dedicated a national segment to Louisiana's antiquated & inequitable tax structure and the work that Together Louisiana has done to bring real reform to that system.
View the segment HERE.
Martinez (right in photo), an alumna of Adams City High School, has been involved in the district as a leader with the Colorado Industrial Areas Foundation, a coalition of progressive religious and community organizations that often aligns with the teachers union. She also is involved in the community through her church. Chalkbeat story here.
Most "job training" programs have a bad rap for good reason. They're a waste of time and money because they don't work. Project Quest organized by COPS/Metro in San Antonio, Texas is more than just the exception. It turns the job training world upside down by establishing a proven ladder into the middle class for low wage workers. . Read the Houston Chronical story on Project Quest here.
From Albuquerque Interfaith/IAF: A must read about what's happening in New Mexico
The Bus Is Coming
You see, I had also spent the day waiting to hear from representatives of Albuquerque Interfaith. At some point, they were going to contact me about a busload of Central American asylum seekers who were journeying to The Duke City from a detention center in the mystical southlands. Read more.
Months into the New Mexico legislative session, Albuquerque Interfaith (AI) leaders have advanced school accountability, early childhood education, supports for immigrants and increased health security.
Through intense collaboration with state legislators, AI leaders succeeded in crafting legislation to eliminate A-F grading system for public schools and replace it with a diagnostic system of accountability. AI leaders ran point on legislation that established, for the first time in the state, a department of early childhood education.. AI fought and won more funding for K-12 schooling. Seeking to reverse the effects of a two-tiered system for (undocumented) immigrant drivers' licenses, AI persuaded state legislators to expand the utility of the bottom-tier of licenses. The second tier is now equivalent to Real IDs, including acceptance by the TSA, state police and financial institutions.
Hundreds of Texas IAF leaders bused into the Capitol from El Paso, the Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and West Texas, joining Central Texas Interfaith counterparts to call on state legislators to increase spending on adult and K-12 education.
Bills by Sen White, Rep Foil would shift control over industrial exemptions from local communities to un-elected, statewide board
"White-Foil Plan" would dilute voice of local entities over exemptions affecting their revenue to 1 out of 27 votesBaton Rouge - Representative Franklin Foil and Senator Bodi White, both from Baton Rouge, have introduced bills that would curtail dramatically the say local school districts and other parish-level entities have over corporate tax exemptions affecting their own tax revenue.
Five years after COPS/Metro's first wage win, the San Antonio Express-News is crediting the organization with the most recent wage floor hike at Alamo Colleges to $15 per hour.
"The COPS/Metro Alliance, a community organizing coalition, has for years pushed local public entities to adopt a minimum 'living wage' of $15 hourly as part of a national movement. The Alamo Colleges had already raised its minimum wage, along with the City of San Antonio, Bexar County and some public school districts, with the stated intent of moving gradually toward the $15 goal. The city and county reached $15 last fall."
NCG and 13 Downtown Las Vegas Neighborhood Associations organized an action with all 7 Ward 3 City Council Candidates. With a packed room of 200 people, they secured commitments from every candidate to work with them to improve neighborhood safety, reclaim parks and green spaces for recreation, and engage residents in the planning and zoning process.
COPS/Metro Hammers San Antonio City Council on displacement: We don't want study, we want action3/24/2019
Nearly 200 members of COPS/Metro Alliance packed City Council chambers Wednesday night during the weekly citizens to be heard session with a simple message about displacement: “We don’t need a study, we need action.”
COPS/Metro leader Maria Tijerina uttered those words as she, along with Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of the Archdiocese of San Antonio, addressed the council on behalf of the throng, many of whom represented Sacred Heart Catholic Church on the West Side and St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Government Hill. Story here.
The bill requires the Division of Financial Institutions to contract with a vendor to create the database, which includes:
The Denver Classroom Teachers Association (DCTA) went out on strike on Monday, February 10, 2019. It was the first Denver teachers strike in 25 years. Paid 37% lower than the going national rate, teachers were fed up with the underfunding of public education. Many teachers were making less than five years previous. Others had worked with no raise for ten years. The powder keg was ready to blow up.
After the strike was called 75% of Denver Public School District (DPS) teachers walked out. Membership in DCTA jumped from 60 to 68%. The explosion extended well beyond the bounds of DPS. Even beyond the Colorado state line. Put to the test was the grand educational experiment advanced by some of the “billionaire boys” (as Diane Ravitch dubbed them), the likes of Philip Anschutz tasked with creating a civic organization to press market based reforms from outside DPS. The billionaire boys underwrote the ascendance of Michael Bennet (now junior senator from Colorado) to the superintendency of DPS. Bennett had worked for Anschutz for six years helping to engineer oil and movie theater projects that were part of Anschutz’ business portfolio. Bennet’s charge was to implement the reform regime. He launched in having had no educational experience (unless serving 2 years as Chief of Staff fo bar entrepreneur turned Governor John Hickenlooper counts). Bennet’s guinea pigs for the reform experiment were mostly poor minority children/youth and their families. 70+% of DPS students qualified for free or reduced lunch prices. A majority of DPS students are African-American or Latino. The core assumption of Bennet and the Portfolio Reformers was that DPS classrooms were populated by bad teachers. To help retrain this crew of incompetents they turned to Michelle Rhee and Teach For America’s Wendy Kopp, at the time national celebrities in the bad teacher rehabilitation movement. ———————————— When the Colorado Industrial Areas Foundation (CO IAF) took stock of the situation in the fall of 2018, IAF leaders and organizers discovered that not a single community based organization had weighed in behind teachers. Also sitting on the sidelines were religious institutions of all faiths. The teachers were on their own with both flanks exposed to the Portfolio Reformers who relentlessly demeaned teacher performance while exerting downward pressure on salaries. Lurking in the background of this drive to disrupt and privatize public education was the growing mound of evidence that the market driven reforms themselves were failing.
1. Increase owner-occupied rehabilitation investment in vulnerable neighborhoods. The city is heavily investing in downtown. An equitable investment must be made in strengthening and preserving affected neighborhoods.
2. Establish a city-coordinated homestead exemption enrollment program. Developers are aggressively buying up properties from unaware owners. The city should be leading the charge to educate homeowners about homestead exemptions, tax freezes for those older than 65 and property tax deferrals. 3. Establish a tax abatement program for homeowners. The city creates Tax Reinvestment Zones for businesses, and the same should be done for vulnerable neighborhoods. 4. The city must lead an aggressive land banking initiative to ensure there is property for affordable rentals. The city must also coordinate efforts with all public entities to ensure that land it sells is preserved for affordable housing. 5. Establish a coordinated housing system as recommended by the mayor’s housing task force. San Antonio Express-News: story here.
COPS/Metro Alliance, community organization
While not a single person, the enduring power of the combination of Communities Organized for Public Service and Metro Alliance lies in its numbers and not having a dependency on a single leader. Those numbers come from church congregations, schools and unions, who first unified in 1974 to demand better drainage, streets and police protection for underserved areas of the city. Story.
Leaders are calling for $500 million in new state funding for public schools, $40 million for an affordable housing tax credit program and improved payday lending enforcement across the state. With two proposals on the table that would cap interest rates on payday loans (which charge, on average, 652% in interest per year) NCG is pushing for better protections for financially vulnerable families. Payday Lending Industry Could See Rate Caps, Database Under Legislative Proposals, Nevada Independent
Settlement produces big wage gains, better working conditions. Community allies led by Colorado IAF help power win. Denver Post story.
Colorado IAF is standing with teachers as they negotiate with the Denver Public School District to improve teacher compensation and classroom conditions. After a winter assembly, in which hundreds of Colorado IAF leaders challenged school board members to stand with teachers, many elected officials publicly declared their support, including a Colorado State Senator, Denver Public Schools Boardmember and local City Councilmember.
Some thoughts on disco-era blackface
Brown v. Board of Education was Reconstruction, redux. As the freedom struggle (finally) got Brown enforced, a generation of Southern whites had the experience, for the first time in their lifetimes, of encountering black people in “their” institutions in a posture of social equality. The shift in power for whites was destabilizing, threatening, unpleasant; even at the "open-minded" end of the white-opinion spectrum, it was "weird.” It was also reminiscent.
Look for Albuquerque Interfaith/IAF to be crawling all over the New Mexico State Capitol in Santa Fe during this year's legislative session. About an hour away from Albuquerque - the state's largest city - the broadbased citizens organization is stepping out. Focus: 1) Neighborhood Preservation, Community Safety and the Criminal Justice System; 2) Strengthening Schools and Public Education for All; 3) Immigrant Justice, Worker Protection and Workforce Development; and 4) Rebuilding Behavioral Health System and Health Security for All.
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