Call for Action - ALL HANDS on DECK, WE, Not Me Goes on the Road

Subject: Public Policy - MPA Busy Beaver Series - ACCOUNTABILITY
Area: Local city/county


ALL HANDS ON DECK, WE, Not Me Initiative

"Milwaukee ranks across the board as among the most segregated metropolises in the nation. It has among the highest rates of racial inequality across a whole range of indicators: black-white joblessness, black-white poverty and black-white ownership of businesses. There's a bit of civic embarrassment and sensitivity to it," says Dr. Mark Levine, taken from 10 Most Segregated Urban areas in America by By Daniel Denvir, Salon Magazine, March 29, 2011.

African American, People of Color, and the Work-Challenged in the City of Milwaukee continue to weathered the storm. It is at this time that the leadership of Milwaukee Professionals Association Call for Action and efforts of the people that seeks INFRASTRUCTURAL and systemic changes for present and long-term sustainability. MPA seeks to uncover hidden talent and emerging markets at the neighborhood-level that taps into the global market of "Options for Success".

Key to education and technology is access, literacy and fluency through our public and private venues that receive government funding on behalf of the population.

UW-Milwaukee is a source of start for the Education Trifecta.

Fact Sheet
-- Milwaukee Professionals Association
-- Initiative - ALL HANDS on DECK was created January 23, 2010
-- An initiative to "re-define", "re-brand" and "un-trap" over a half-million Milwaukeeans from Enduring Concentrated Poverty.
-- Brainchild of Mary Glass - Protagonist/Advocate

-- BOTTOM-UP Recovery plan to change the majority per capita income from below poverty to Middle Class (2010-2020).

-- Education and Technology Attainment with access, literacy and fluency at the top of the scale will BOOST Graduating rates, expand opportunites technically as well as leverage other soft and medium academic and practicum needs.

-- Target audience is increasing by the day.
-- Target audience are African American, other People of Color and the Work-Challenged.

-- Work-Challenged consist of all races and nationalities.
-- Work-Challenged are:
** un- and under-employed
** un- and under-skilled (education and technology attainment)
** un- and under-funded/capitalized businesses (for-profit and non-profit)
** disabled
** re-entry from WAR
** re-entry from INCARCERATION
** re-entry from Boomerang employment
** re-entry from Boomerang retirement

-- City of Milwaukee over 604,000
-- African American 39.5% with 41% poverty
-- Latino 14.9% with 38% poverty
-- Caucasian 43.6% with 12% poverty
-- Asian 3.6% 9% poverty*
-- American Indian 0.8% with 9% poverty*
-- Children of Milwaukee 41% poverty
* Shared poverty count, less than 9%
2006 Poverty rates (more today)

Reports
Apr 6, 2010 ... Forbes Names Milwaukee America's Worst Selling Housing Market.

December 20, 2010 ... DWilson Consulting Group gave dismal and pathetic engagement of People of Color in Milwaukee's Emerging Business program

March 23, 2011 ... 2011 Forbes Report
-- Milwaukee ranked 52 out of 52 worse cities for People of Color entrepreneurs

March 29, 2011 ... Ten Most Segregated urban areas in America, by Daniel Denvir, Salon Magazine
-- Milwaukee is consistently rated one of the country's most segregated metro areas.

-- Nationwide, blacks have been concentrated in the inner city, far away from where new jobs are created. Yet the case of Milwaukee is extreme: 90 percent of the metro area's black population lives in the city. Making matters worse, suburban whites are notably hostile to building any form of public transit to connect city people to suburban jobs, further exacerbating segregation's ill effects.

"It's not really controversial in Milwaukee. No one seriously doubts we're a highly segregated place. It's only controversial because this work, which has never been published, never been peer reviewed, and isn't taken seriously by any academic experts, purported to show something that some local political leaders wanted to tout in order to make Milwaukee look better," says Levine. "These non-faculty contract researchers got a grant from a local foundation whose president said, 'I don't think Milwaukee is really as segregated as all these studies have shown. Can you run some numbers that show that?'"

Dr. Mark Levine - UW-Milwaukee, senior fellow and the founding director of the Center for Economic Development. He teaches in the Department of History and the Urban Studies Programs at UW-Milwaukee, and is also Professeur invité at the Université du Québec, Institut national de la recherche scientifique-Urbanisation, in Montreal.

2008
- Brookings Institution and Federal Reserve Enduring Challenge of Concentrated Poverty Case Study

-- Milwaukee was identified as one of the 16 American cities with "Spatial Mismatch" as one of the lables.

1989
- Atlanta Constitution report on "redlining" - The Color of Money (1989)

1964
- From President Lyndon Johnson's Kerner Commission Report on "provocations of rioting" (1964)

For more on the 10 Most Segregated areas in America, go to:
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/03/29/most_segregated_cities/slideshow.html