by Kevin J. Walker
Editor’s Note: Kevin J. Walker recently finished work on a sociological textbook about his hometown of Milwaukee, titled "The Culture of Poverty," a case study of the mindset of a section of the city’s African American population after pioneering welfare reform was enacted there.

These concepts are excerpts from that book, which came from the "Milwaukee Community Journal" newspaper series of 1999, as well as a sequel on the evolving and much more dangerous and destructive Culture of Death, which is even now affecting the community and was predicted in those series in 1999 and again in 2001 after the Charlie Young Jr. mob lynching.

When MCJ readers and respondents asked for his solutions--since he was so adept at pointing out the many problems--Walker wrote this series in response. A truncated, one-part version of Solutions to the Cultures of Poverty and Death was published in the "Community Journal" in 2005.
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Things have gotten so bad in our community its at the point it threatens our babies as they play on the street, or our senior citizens as they sit inside their own homes, trying to enjoy the peace and quiet for which they’ve worked a lifetime.

Instead of there being a handing down of knowledge and responsibility from the Old to the Young, there is fear and tension as roving gangs of youths seek out mature men as victims of their deadly activities.

There is a way to restore the neighborhood stability and safety of which we used to boast, but since we’ve waited so long in the face of the building danger there is no longer the luxury of time or measured means.

The Walker Grid+4 Plan For Taking The Neighborhoods Back Block By Block chooses its targets for maximum effect, building upon already successful but struggling neighborhoods with involved residents under assault by those in the Culture of Poverty. Then, its therapeutic effects are spread to an adjacent 4 block area, and another, with the Thugs being kept on the run until they have no new places to relocate and set down their dysfunctional roots and destroy other neighborhoods.

I have always admired the straightforward thinking of engineers. They see things in an organized fashion, even if they’re dealing with people as in development projects. Since I originally received the Four-Block Grid Plan from an engineer, this is in keeping with that legacy.

One of their sayings I’ve incorporated is in any undertaking you have to do three things: get the resources you need; get the right people in, and get the wrong people out!

Plan the Heir of Census Tract 65, Harambee Ombudsman Project

Back in tha day when the state didn’t have a utility shutoff moratorium there was a program in the Harambee/RiverWest area called Census Tract 65 with an ambitious agenda that had aspects I have incorporated into the Walker Grid+4 under Taking The Neighborhoods Back Block By Block Plan.

There were financial literacy, home improvement, insulation, insurance, employment, and Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Abuse (ATODA) components that were used to deal with those in the affected target area, which were in the 53206 and 12 Zip Code areas that were under the auspices of the Harambee Ombudsman Project (HOPI) and the East Side Housing Action Council (ESHAC), since disbanded. The boundaries were from the Milwaukee River to the I-43 Expressway, and from the south from Walnut Street and the Hillside housing projects, north to Capitol Drive.

The Wisconsin Gas and Electric companies were part of it; the federal government, certain departments of the city and county; and as part of their redlining settlement, American Family Insurance company. The operatives of Census Tract 65, which included Volunteers In Service To America (VISTA) volunteers and lent professionals from corporations downtown went door to door, interviewing and passing out information, and holding evening and weekend workshops at a time when working people could attend.

The collaborative-like undertaking such as Census Tract 65 hasn’t been seen since, but when I was editing the ‘Harambee Speaks’ newspaper for Reuben Harpole, then at the University of Wisconsin Extension, I always remembered the lessons of that time. You will note many are reflected here.

Drastic measures must now be employed against thugs and other foes who are pulling down our communities even as you read this. An Asiatic axiom of which I’m fond of goes something like "Foul Times Deserve Foul Measures," and so it must and shall be. There is another Asiatic saying I keep in mind that is equally apt: "To Take No Action Is An Action."

These measures presented here detail methods that won’t call for radical increases in funding, rather they would reapply them in success oriented fashions instead of spinning our wheels and working at cross-purposes.

There are a few that call for some physical restructuring on the part of the city, such as eliminating the notorious network of alleyways that some police officers call a freeway for thieves after they’ve burgled people’s houses.

After a 30-year journalistic career that included beats as a crime, education and urban affairs reporter, I have seen things come and go, and have amassed lots of ideas and observations.

Usually reporters aren’t asked their opinions on matters. Aside from editorials and columns, we usually don’t get involved. And we even more rarely inject ourselves directly into policy matters.

But in this instance, when I see the city I was born and raised in devolving into increasing downward spirals of violence, crime and death that has escaped their usual boundaries as other concerned citizens have come to know, there is a time to put away neutrality, and act affirmatively. These are such times.

The overall effect of a protracted application of the Walker Grid+4 Solutions Plan Against the Cultures Of Poverty and Death would be to directly address akin to a militaristic operation the pressing needs of the target communities involving their public safety, health care, educational, psychological, housing and energy, addiction, and anger management.

(Part One continues in the February 17-18 Community Journal WKND)