CO Accomplishments

CO ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Here is a brief sampling of results produced by CO groups over the past few years, organized by issue area. More examples are cited throughout the Toolbox text.

Community Reinvestment. The efforts of CO groups, including National Peoples Action and the National Training and Information Center, have translated into more than $1 trillion in loans for qualified homebuyers, affordable housing developers and business entrepreneurs in low-income communities. Their years of work contributed heavily first to enactment of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, followed by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) in 1977. Since then, CO groups have worked to ensure effective implementation of the Act, and to translate lending commitments into loans for qualified homebuyers and business entrepreneurs in low-income communities. They have also worked with national organizations like the National Community Reinvestment Coalition to protect it from being weakened and possibly eradicated by various congressional efforts. A few achievements are listed here.

• Negotiated landmark agreements with banks in 16 cities, making more than $1 billion available for loans in low-income neighborhoods. Pioneered a comprehensive mortgage-counseling program that has put more than 21,000 families into their own homes. (ACORN)
• Won more than $100 million in CRA agreements with banks in Dade, Pinellas and Palm Beach counties by DART organizations in Florida. (Direct Action Research and Training)
• Sought and obtained loan commitments of $469.3 million for mortgages, community development corporations, and small businesses in underserved Milwaukee neighborhoods. (Milwaukee Interfaith Congregations Allied for Hope, a Gamaliel Foundation affiliate)
• Negotiated a $337 million community reinvestment agreement from a legal challenge of the First Union/CoreStates bank merger, including keeping branches open in low-income neighborhoods. (East Philadelphia Organizing Project)

Why Some CO Groups Fail Of course, some CO groups fail. Because CO prioritizes the processes of democratic practice and leadership development, critics and skeptics may (and do) argue that CO groups are "hung up on process at the expense of product," or "focus too narrowly on what is in the self-interest of members ignoring big picture concerns." Of course, some CO groups and efforts are clearly marginal and may indeed be "guilty as charged." Emerging CO groups, with resources and support in short supply or caught up in internal struggles, at times fail to mature and progress. Some older CO groups fail to self-renew, keep pace with changing needs, constituencies and conditions, or raise their sights as high as they might. But on the whole, even the least promising or successful CO groups have made some impact on their community.

Education and Youth Development. Over the past decade, more CO groups have begun to focus on school and educational inequities, responding to parental and community concerns about substandard education provided to most low-income children and children of color. The groups are finding innovative ways to transform the culture and operations of schools, leading to enhanced school and student performance. Some CO groups have found effective ways to involve young people, helping them to influence school issues. A few achievements are listed here.

• Developed a statewide network of 139 "alliance" schools beginning in 1991, which work to enhance the academic achievement of low-income students. Worked with the state education commissioner to convince the legislature to provide $2 million in new funds for low-performing schools in 1993, increased to $5 million in 1995. Trained hundreds of teachers and principals in working with the community to turn around low-performing schools. Significantly enhanced school and student performance in schools where CO has worked to forge new, collaborative relationships among principals, teachers, parents, community residents and community leaders. (Texas IAF)
• Placed the largest ($9.2 billion) school facilities bond in U.S. history on the state ballot to raise funds for much-needed school repair and construction, in addition to a state law dedicating $50 million for after-school programs. (PICO California Project)
• Organized young people who spearheaded the Kids First! Coalition that won the passage of a groundbreaking city ballot initiative setting aside $72 million over 12 years for youth development programs. (People United for a Better Oakland, Oakland, California)
• Took the lead in educating constituents and organizing statewide advocacy efforts that led to enactment of the groundbreaking Mississippi Adequate Education Program, appropriating $650 million over five years to improve the quality of public education in the state. (Southern Echo)

Jobs and Living Wages. Poverty has become more concentrated and entrenched in distressed inner-city and rural communities nationwide. Broader economic and public policy trends have undermined wages for the majority of families, with real family incomes falling for those in the bottom three-fifths of the income distribution. CO has addressed poverty conditions and wage erosion through a variety of living wage and other campaigns. Examples are listed below.

• Secured passage of landmark Worker Retention and Living Wage Ordinances in Los Angeles in 1995 and 1997, and amendments strengthening these ordinances in 1998 and 1999. The Living Wage ordinance, paying (in 1999) $7.25 an hour with health benefits or $8.50 without, will cover 15,000 workers by 2002, the most extensive coverage in the country. (Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy)
• Obtained legislation requiring the city of Milwaukee to guarantee that unemployed inner-city residents comprise 14 percent - later increased to 21 percent - of the workers on any city project. (Milwaukee Interfaith Congregations Allied for Hope)
• Fostered employee buyouts of three companies, saving 3,100 jobs and keeping $200 million in income in New England's Naugatuck Valley. (Naugatuck Valley Project)
• Won passage of a state law in South Carolina that provides anti-firing protection to more than 1.5 million workers who are covered under the state workers' compensation system. Closed a loophole in the law that had allowed employers to "opt" out of the system and provide inferior benefits to injured workers. More than 800 companies that had dropped out have had to resume participation in the workers' compensation insurance system. (Carolina Alliance for Fair Employment)
• Secured funding to open a dozen "one-stop centers" where AFDC/TANF recipients and the working poor can obtain child care, soft skills job training, access to health care, and micro-lending services. Won public funding, including first-time federal, county and city funds, for developing coop businesses owned and managed by poor people, and started more than a dozen cooperatives employing more than 100 people from low-income urban and rural neighborhoods. (Sacramento Valley Organizing Community, Sacramento, CA)
  

Environmental Quality and Environmental Justice. When the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted a study of eight southern states to determine the correlation between the location of hazardous waste landfills and the racial and economic status of near-by communities, the results showed what low-income constituencies already knew - that race and economic status were major determinants in the siting of such facilities. The GAO study found that three out of every five African Americans and Latinos live in a community that houses unregulated toxic waste sites. These sites exist largely because decision-makers found and expected no resistance from community residents or leaders. CO groups have taken the lead to address this and related issues in what has come to be known as the environmental justice movement. Below are some examples of what the movement has accomplished.

• Forced companies to clean up, move or cancel plans for toxic chemical plants, dumps, discharges or waste incinerators in Memphis, Fort Worth, Philadelphia, Des Moines, New Orleans, Dallas, Minneapolis, Jacksonville, St. Paul, Chicago and St. Louis. (ACORN)
• Overcame long odds to block a proposed mountaintop removal permit on Big Black Mountain, Kentucky's highest point and home to at least 50 plants and animals found nowhere else in the state. (Mountaintop removal is strip mining; the surface of the mountain is literally blown up and destroyed. Homes, personal property and the environment are damaged.) Negotiated an agreement with nine coal companies assuring no future mountaintop mining. (Kentuckians for the Commonwealth)
• Ended the San Diego Port District's use of methyl bromide, a toxic pesticide that had been causing widespread health problems in Barrio Logan, a poor neighborhood situated near the Port. The Port is one of the largest and most heavily used in the country. As a result of this work, became the only local group to participate with national and international non-governmental organizations during discussions of the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty regarding the phasing out of ozone-depleting chemicals that include methyl bromide. (Environmental Health Coalition)

Democratic Participation. Below are some examples of how the CO movement has improved democratic participation.

• Secured passage of the National Voter Registration Act ("motor voter") by the Mississippi legislature, blocked three times in attempts to impede increased voting turnout of African Americans. Prevented onerous voter identification requirements from being attached to the legislation. The Act was vetoed by the governor in 1998, but the efforts have paid off in major changes in the legislative process that have benefited African Americans. As reported in the local press, efforts to diminish the impact of voting by African Americans have "evaporated." (Southern Echo)
• Registered more than 500,000 new voters since 1980. Struck down barriers to voter registration in Bridgeport, Pine Bluff, Little Rock, Atlanta, Grand Rapids and Pittsburgh. (ACORN)

Health. Below are some examples of how the CO movement has addressed health needs.

• Extended Medicaid coverage to an additional 42,000 North Carolinians. Led lobbying campaign for a $10 million program to reduce infant mortality rate, with money secured for maternity and infant care, pap smears and breast cancer screenings. Forced state government to open a health department serving poor residents of Edgecomb County. (North Carolina Fair Share)
• Worked with coalition partners to get the Texas state legislature to approve a first-time-ever package of legislation on indigent health care, resulting in the provision of $70 million in new funds to provide health services in poor, underserved communities. (Texas IAF)
• Won expanded in-home care services to more than 1,200 people with disabilities; the restructuring of Idaho's medical indigence program, resulting in $6 million in new Medicaid services; and concessions by the Board of Medicine to make significant expansions in the scope and practice of nurse practitioners and physician assistants. (Idaho Community Action Network)

Crime and Safety. Below are some examples of how CO has addressed crime and safety issues.

• Forced police and city officials to respond more effectively to rapes in low-income neighborhoods and to establish rape-prevention programs in St. Louis, Boston, Chicago, New Orleans and Des Moines. Won new programs to fight drugs in New Orleans, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Boston and Detroit. (ACORN)
• Initiated local organizing campaigns that resulted in 15 new school-based anti-drug and gang prevention projects and the implementation of gang prevention curricula in six junior high and elementary schools. (People Acting in Community Together, San Jose, California, an affiliate of PICO)
• Secured numerous agreements with police departments to fight crime and drugs. More police were stationed in crime-ridden areas, and hot spot campaigns allowed neighborhood residents to report crimes anonymously. (Direct Action Research and Training in Florida)

City Services. Below are some examples of how CO has improved city services.

• Obtained more than $13 million between 1991 and 1996 for youth and neighborhood programs, including $2 million for a new youth drug treatment facility and $6 million in redevelopment funds. (People Acting in Community Together)
• Secured a steady, annual funding source for children's services in the San Francisco city budget, with $160 million to be provided for children's programs between 1993 and 2003. (Coleman Advocates for Youth, San Francisco)

Corporate Social Responsibility. Below is an example of how CO has played a role in corporate social responsibility.

• Persuaded business leaders to launch a $25 million scholarship program to assist Baltimore's public school graduates, primarily low-income students. Secured the agreement of the business community to guarantee three job interviews to every high school graduate with a 95 percent attendance record. (BUILD, an IAF affiliate)

Institutional Racism. Below is an example of how CO has addressed institutional racism.

• Persuaded the Office of Civil Rights of the U. S. Department of Education to address extreme racial disparities encountered by African American youth in Darlington County, South Carolina. The county school system has been compelled to enter into a legal agreement to address the disparities. (Carolina Alliance for Fair Employment)

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