Building a Wall

There was a country that was overrun centuries ago, and were carried into captivity by their conquerors.  They lived in exile for several decades.  Eventually, they began to be allowed to return to their homeland over the course of several more decades.  As they resettled their homeland, they found their capital city virtually unprotected, as the wall that protected it had been destroyed.  One of the citizens who returned to the homeland, named Nehemiah, decided to take steps to alleviate this problem.  His homeland was still a subject nation and was surrounded by enemies.  As Nehemiah tried to get a protective wall established around his capital city, he had to build support not only from the ruling authorities, but create an organized group that could work together locally on what seemed like an insurmountable task when surrounded by enemies.  Nehemiah encouraged the residents of his country to work in family units, and divided up portions of the overall project of building a wall among these various family units. 

Nehemiah was able to break up a daunting task into smaller, more manageable components, and organized the various groups so that together they were able to complete the task of building a wall of protection.  I recently witnessed a similar coordination of effort in Burlington.  On the weekend of July 18^th, I saw a group of churches attempt to take on the task of meeting needs in Burlington in response to the bus tour that their pastors had taken a couple months before.   These churches worked with the South Hill Neighborhood Association (SHNA) along with another group called Sustainable Urban Revitalization and General Empowerment – One Block and One Person/Family at a Time (SURGE-1).  Together, they spent a Saturday morning with 40-50 people involved working to clean up three separate properties in a small, two block area. 

Their goal, spurred by the bus trip of Burlington they had recently undertaken, was to take small, systematic steps to improve the Burlington community.  On this day, they were successful.  They were able to pull multiple groups together to make a visible impact on a neighborhood.  The larger task, though, is still outstanding for them.  Can they have a long-term, significant impact on the Burlington community and the lives of individuals and families?  That remains to be seen.  The goals that these groups are trying to accomplish require a long-term vision and a willingness to continue moving forward to succeed.  I will stay tuned to see what additional steps they may take.

Traveling Around Burlington

I recently had the opportunity to take a bus tour of Burlington with over 20 pastors from our community.  We spent over an hour driving around various neighborhoods, talking about the condition of the housing, condition of the streets, police incidents that have occurred, building projects that have occurred are that have been considered by developers, industries, individuals, and the city, and about changes that have occurred in our community’s general economic conditions over the past few decades.  It was a great opportunity for me personally to share insights of what has happened to our community over time, and I think it was an eye opening experience for the group of pastors to take a significant part of their morning to truly focus on what is happening in Burlington. 

 

As we drove through various neighborhoods, I heard comments made about areas of our community that some of the group had never seen.  I provided a backdrop of statistics about our community from the U.S. Census Bureau, using their 2007-2011 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year estimates.  Employment in our community tends to be more in the areas of service and manufacturing, and less in managerial and professional roles, than the rest of the state.  This matches who we are as people, but it also has an impact on wage distributions; mean household income statewide was almost $64,000 while Burlington’s was less than $55,000.  

This disparity can be seen in several other statistics as well.  One category of disparity has to do with the age of housing stock.  Statewide, 45% of the housing stock was built prior to 1960, while in Burlington 68% was built prior to this date.  One consequence of this statistic is that there a multitude of beautiful older homes in our community in a quantity and quality that cannot be found in many places.  Another consequence, though, is that we have aging houses that require a significant amount of maintenance that is very costly to perform, with several areas of our community that reflect a need for significant maintenance efforts to occur.  A related disparity has to do with our community having a more difficult time paying for its housing; for homeowners, on a statewide basis, 17% of residents are spending 35% or more of their monthly income on their housing, while in Burlington over 22% of residents are spending this high portion of their income on housing.  The situation for renters is similar; statewide, 36.5% of residents spend more than 35% of their income on rent while in Burlington the percentage is almost 43%.  We as a community are more stretched financially than the rest of Iowa, and as a consequence have a more difficult time making ends meet.

The final category I focused on with this group of pastors had to do with poverty.  Statewide, 7.6% of all families fall below the poverty level, while in Burlington 12.1% do.  Comparably, on a statewide basis, 51.5% of single female head of household families with children under the age of 5 are in poverty while in Burlington the comparable percentage is over 75%.   

Every community has its issues, and during the tour of Burlington, this group of pastors was able to look at our town with this specific information in mind.  I was impressed with the heart shown by each of these pastors to look at the needs and opportunities present in Burlington, and heard a lot of discussion about needing to find ways to make concerted, coordinated efforts to have an impact.  I was encouraged that they will do their part to be involved in meeting needs in Burlington, and look forward to seeing what impact the day may have on them individually, within their congregations, and within the community at large.