Thrive Detroit Street Paper Spring 2017

$2 Spring 2017

How is

Facebook

Affecting Non-Profits?

Find the secret to selling your personal brand

Entrepreneurship An Obtainable Reality

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Features

Table

The Everyday Entrepreneur.......2 Jewel of Wisdom.......3 Homeless Graduate.......4

of

Contents Spring 2016

Health

Excercise.......5

Arts & Culture

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Technology

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The Book Review.......6 Is Facebook Failing Non-Profits?......7

Self Empowerment The Sell........9

Commentary

President Trump........10 A Common Enemy.........11 Think ‘Bout It........12 Eviction........13

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The mission of Thrive Detroit Street Newspaper is to provide opportunities, training, and support for low income, homeless, and vulnerably housed citizens of Detroit to participate in entrepreneurship through microenterprise.

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NOTES from the

Welcome!

For the last 4 1/2 years, this street paper has been our vehicle for supporting the vendors who sell it to gain income. If you’ve purchased the paper previously, you have helped to support these micro-enterprises. If this is your first purchase, welcome! I hope there will be many more.

In a previous issue I wrote about a few planned changes. The first of these changes is this redesign, which changes this vehicle from a 12-page newsprint tabloid selling for $1 to a 16-page newsprint zine selling for $2.

Vendors will continue to purchase the paper for 25% of the price and keep 75% as profit. Inside this issue you’ll find articles from some of our regular contributors as well as a few new ones. Thank you for continuing this journey with us! Enjoy!

Editor

Sara Constantakis Editor

Sara Constantakis is an editor on the Thrive Detroit team. She makes a living as a product manager at an educational content provider and has also spent time as a news intern at WDET-FM. She lives and works in metro Detroit and also volunteers for South Oakland Shelter and other organizations helping the homeless.

Sydney Ford

Layout & Design Sydney is a Michigan State Graduate. She has written for numerous online and print magazine publications. Her writing is community centric, and she is interested in photography. In her free time Sydney works on her first novel! She hopes to fund a non-profit that advocates literacy in impoverished areas.

FEATURE

The

Everyday

E

Entrepreneur

ntrepreneurship is a hot topic these days, particularly in the Detroit area. It has launched an alphabet soup of organizations all designed to help the budding entrepreneur. What attracts people to entrepreneurship is clear: we picture ourselves striving mightily to achieve the American dream with good old-fashioned self-reliance and perseverance. For many, this pursuit is also fueled by disappointment with the job or jobs that barely pay the rent.

Others, stymied by glass ceilings or other barriers to progress, are ready and willing to go it alone.

So you want to be an entrepreneur. Where do you start?

Get a Reality Check: You have an idea for your business. Start by putting the concept down on paper, and then answer some questions as best you can: What is the product or service you are selling? Do you have experience with it? Is it filling a void, or will your business have competition? How much in sales will you generate per year? How much will it cost, including paying yourself? How long will it take for you to generate a profit? What will you live on until then?

If your head is spinning, don’t be alarmed. Move methodically through these and other questions that come along as you get going. Then show the results to people you can trust to tell you the unvarnished truth, and ask them for feedback. This reality check will save you from a lot of financial and emotional grief down the road. Carolyn Cassin, CEO of the Michigan Women’s Foundation (www.miwf.org), an organization that offers micro-loans to women who don’t qualify for regular financing, mentions “truth-telling” as an important factor in keeping the women she serves on the path to success.

Get Help: The need to seek help is emphasized by Fr. Phil Cooke,

by Ina Fernandez

S.J., who established the Center for Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Detroit Mercy (http://business.udmercy.edu/centers/ cse). To quote Fr. Phil: “Mentoring is essential. Without mentors, an entrepreneur will travel down a lonely road. Also, a successful entrepreneur will know how to partner with the right people. No one person can run a business by his/herself.… Partnering and perhaps outsourcing with the right people and taking a team approach internally within the enterprise and within your value chain is essential.” To back this up, Fr. Phil’s program, CSE Boost, matches entrepreneurs who have completed a workshop with volunteer mentors.

There are also plenty of other resources available locally to help you get started. Check out the Detroit Urban Innovation Exchange website at http://www.uixdetroit.com/resources/ for a handy list of organizations that may be of help to you.

Persevere: Your vision and enthusiasm for your business will get you far. But persistence will get you across the finish line. There will inevitably be roadblocks to get around and disappointments to overcome. Things always seem to take longer than they should.

At low points, your determination to succeed will help keep you going. Many successful people have had to deal with failure along the way. Walt Disney was told “he lacked imagination,” Oprah was told she was “unfit for TV,” others like the Beatles, Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Henry Ford faced rejection and spectacular setbacks before hitting the big time.

Be Flexible: It is rare that your plans will work exactly like you envision. So be prepared to adjust as necessary along the

Thrive Detroit

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way. With the speed of world.

Timing is Everything: So change we encounter, what worked yesterday may not you’ve followed the rules, you work today. You and your have put a lot of sweat and tears business will need to evolve to into your business, and it still isn’t working out. It may be that survive. you need to Prepare to Be a part of step back and Work Hard: hone your Starting your skills while business will you look for not be a 9-5 Build, teaches the whole proposition. So entrepreneur. The participants your opening before it will brace yourself grow together developing a be to work long network that they can rely upon finally your turn to hours, nights, bust through. and weekends.

Visit their site for more The good news To quote information: is that if you Colin Powell, buildinstitute.org “There are no are following your dream, it wont feel like secrets to success. It is the result work, and being your own boss of preparation, hard work, and makes all the difference in the learning from failure.”■

Build Institute

Ina Fernandez is President and Founder of Fern Capital Inc., a Michigan-based Registered Investment Advisor independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA)

Ina Fernandez

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Success Equation

I

feel grateful for this platform and the opportunity to write and share with the Thrive Detroit readers my innermost thoughts and reflections--my passions, as well as my epiphanies and those moments of great discovery.

Therefore, if it be just one person that receives anything of value from my words-even the smallest indentation on their heart and mind, any inspiration at all--then I feel a sense of contentment because I know that a seed has been planted and that one seed can bear much fruit.

After all, who am I but yet one more person among the masses with something to say; a person with thoughts and ideals, with life perspective to share, and yet another world view! I get it, which makes me ever the more appreciative that I have you as audience.

For those of you who are new to the JOW, I am an enthusiast for self-improvement and progress. I believe it is our duty, and the greatest act of love and selflessness to aspire to be the absolute best we can be. The rationale being that the better we are in mind, body, spirit; the more we prove to be an asset in the lives of those we love, and who love and need us the most.

To this end, I am always reading, learning, and studying, with the goal of unveiling the master strategy to winning in the game of life, and then teaching everyone I can what I have learned and come to know from the application

J.O.W by Sajjiah Parker

of such knowledge. With that said, I am also the first to acknowledge that there is much I do not know, although of what I do know, I derive no greater pleasure than sharing and giving it to the world.

What I give you today is the basis for success in any undertaking: Mind Mastery.

This is the starting point: our thinking!

“You become what you think about most of the time.”

– Earl Nightingale What we THINK determines what we experience! The how and why I cannot explain--no one can say they know the inner mechanics of this principle-but fact it is nonetheless!

In fact, research on success and achievement consistently supports the following success formula of which “thought” is the foundation: THOUGHT + Emotion + Imagination + Vision + Goals + Plan + Action= Success So to break that down: when our “thinking” is positively charged and we feel excitement and enthusiasm about what we are thinking, believing, knowing added to this concrete goals, and a plan of action… success is inevitable.

This formula is representative of what forms the basis of universal law and, when mastered, yields miraculous results. “Mastery” may be a lifelong pursuit, but all efforts will bring us closer to experiencing a more fulfilling and satisfying life… the type of life we all desire. ■

Homeless Teen Graduates High School

W

Courtesy of Spare Change News/Samantha J. Gross

hile most teens were spending their summers pursuing a driver’s license, hitting the beach and preparing for another year of high school, one Washington, D.C. native is headed down a different road

- the one toward college.

Destyni Tyree, 16, graduated high school in just two years, was class president, successfully lobbied for the school’s first prom and was accepted to Potomac State College to study secondary education.

All while living in one of D.C.’s largest homeless shelters.

Tyree was not only an exceptionally young graduate, but young student at the school. Principal Eugenia Young wrote in an email that at Roosevelt STAY High School - an alternative D.C. Public School -- 98 percent of students are 18 years of age or older.

“Destyni is a fighter,” Young said. “As a 16-year-old, Destyni was not the typical student walking the halls of Roosevelt STAY.” The school offers the same curriculum as other DCPS [District of Columbia Public Schools] high schools, but additionally provides social-emotional learning support and increased guidance to help students make post-graduation plans, Young said. She mentioned that Destyni was the one who made her graduation goals a reality.

“Destyni was the one to suggest her early graduation,” Young said. “She went through the credit recovery program at DCPS and attended two sessions of nine-week Saturday courses to catch up. As she started doing well in her classes, she began asking for more, and passed every single class.”

Young added that Tyree’s confidence and self-assurance are what helped her not only adjust to Roosevelt STAY, but also thrive. She recalled the school prom and student government elections as

specific moments when Tyree’s confidence really shined through.

“One day, she came into my office to lobby for a school prom because she believed that all students should have that experience,” she said. “I told her to write me a proposal explaining her argument. She not only wrote the proposal, but also ran for student class president and won.”

As for post-high school plans, Young said Tyree will be a resident advisor in her dorm at Potomac State, where she will enjoy a 24to-1 student faculty ratio and opportunities to get involved with the college’s dozens of clubs and extracurricular opportunities.

Rene Trezise, a spokesperson for Potomac State College, said the feeder school for West Virginia University will be a perfect fit for Tyree. She also added that in regard to Tyree’s exceptionally young age, the school is prepared to help her overcome any academic challenges she may find.

“She’s worked hard and is a tenacious woman and I think we can help her with her academics,” Trezise said. “We offer an academic success center that offers free tutoring, free study help, that kind of thing.”

In terms of paying for college, Tyree is doing what most teens in her situation are not - crowdsourcing.

Her GoFundMe page has raised nearly $21,000 of her $50,000 goal, which will go toward her tuition, helping her reach her goal of being a high school principal or opening her own charter school. The money comes from 332 donors in just 27 days and has over 1,000 shares via social media, according to the page.

“I created this page so that I make sure that I continue my success,” Tyree wrote on the page. “I can’t wait to make you all proud of me.”

And as her first name implies and her work ethic proves, Destyni Tyree’s success is inevitable. ■

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HEALTH

Exercise:

Can you do it without a gym membership?

Alexander Pezeshki and Eric Walton, Street Medicine Detroit

W

e’ve all heard it before: exercising is good for you.

Whether talked about in the media, at work, or by a close friend, the idea of exercise is everywhere.

When then do we often find it so difficult to work out? For some people limited exercise knowledge deters them; for others, it’s a lack of access to exercise equipment and athletic fields. But what if we debunk both of these ideas and show precisely what exercise does to your body and how you can do it without having a gym membership? Let’s get to it.

Working out directly affects a number of systems that work to keep your body fully functional and what we call “healthy.”

Exercise, for example, helps to build the heart muscle. It also helps to decrease blood pressure. Together, these two factors mean that you have a stronger heart that can pump more blood

Legs

with less effort. Why should you care? That means exercise lowers your risk for heart disease, the number one cause of death in the US. Aside from directly targeting this disease, working out also burns calories. Combined with a healthy diet, burning more calories reduces body weight and ultimately prevents obesity. Another positive outcome of exercise is reduced back pain: exercises that stretch body parts, such as yoga, improve posture and flexibility. Exercise even affects your mental state. Working out has been shown to reduce depression and anxiety, helping people deal with stress in a positive way.

Now that we’ve learned the “Why” of exercise, how can we do it without having a gym membership or free weights?

Here is a list of exercises you can do to work out your arms, legs, core, and full body without any special equipment:

Arms

Core Cardio

Lunges: With your legs together Push-ups: Put your arms a little Planks: Put your elbows in a standing position step forward with one leg and lower your body towards the ground until your knee is just above the floor. Don’t let your knee hit the ground. Push back to a standing position and repeat the exercise with the opposite leg.

Squats: Start with your legs about

shoulder width apart and toes pointing straight ahead. With most of the weight over your heels, lower your butt towards the ground and don’t let your knees go in front of your toes. Keep your back straight and your head up. Lower yourself down until your legs are bent just below a 90 degree angle and then raise yourself back up to standing position.

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wider than shoulder width apart.

Go down until your arms are at about a 90 degree angle then push back up. To make this exercise easier, start by having your knees on the ground or using a table instead. Make sure to keep your back straight, don’t let it dip in towards the ground or hunch up towards the ceiling.

Tricep Dips: Put your hands on the edge of a sturdy chair with your body stretched out in front.

Lower your body until your arms are at about a 90 degree angle and then push back up. Start with your knees bent at a 90-degree angle if you need more support from your legs.

down shoulder width apart on the ground and toes spread about shoulder width apart (or together if you prefer). Then make your body into a plank. The key to this is to keep your back perfectly straight for the entire time. Don’t let it dip or hunch.

Superman: Start in a push-up position and lift up one leg and the opposite hand until they are straight with your back. Alternate lifting and lowering each side slowly for a good workout.

Jumping Jacks: Start in a standing position. Jump to spread your legs and simultaneously rotate your arms straight above your head. Immediately return to the starting position and repeat.

Biking, Running:

Walking,

Places to go include, Riverfront, Dequindre Cut, Belle Isle, Rouge Park, Chandler Park, Palmer Park.

ARTS & CULTURE

The Turner House:

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ngela Flournoy did not grow up in Detroit but her father did (East Side), and her debut novel shines with the understanding of someone who appreciates and honors family history and getting the details correct—it was nominated for The National Book Award and won many other kudos for her last year. The Turner House follows the Turner family and goes back and forth between the 1940s in Arkansas, where Francis and Viola were raised (the patriarch and matriarch of the family) to 2008.

The story finds us when the Turners have lived in a house on Yarrow Street for more than fifty years. They raised thirteen children in that house, all gone in 2008— though one returns; the house has seen grandchildren, the fall of Detroit’s East Side, and the loss of a father. The house is surrounded by abandoned lots and a troubled city. But in 2008, when Viola is older and in poor health and finds herself forced to leave her home and move in with her eldest son, the family discovers that the house is worth just a $4,000 (mortgage is $40,000). Those who thought they might rake in some cash were poorly mistaken and they fight over what to do with the house. The Turner children must decide its fate and deal with how each of their pasts haunts—and shapes—their family’s future.

The main characters of the story are primarily the oldest son, Cha-Cha (60s), and the youngest, daughter Lelah, who is 40.

They are both having issues—at work, and in their relationships. Lelah has a gambling problem, and she lost her job because she was asking her coworkers for loans, and someone finally complained. She has also lost her apartment, self-respect and the respect of her daughter, who has a child.

Cha-Cha has a good job and an even better wife, but he is in the midst of screwing both up. He is experiencing return visits from a “haint,” which are a Southern, sometimes Creole notion of a disturbed spirit who is not a peace when they die. He saw his first

A book review by Laurie Fundukian

one as a child in the Turner House (no one believed him). An accident has caused him to be placed in company mandated therapy (because he described the haint), and he finds himself yearning for his female therapist who doesn’t feel the same.

We get to know the most about Francis and Viola from the 1940s flashbacks which describe how they got married, and Francis left to go to Detroit for work while he left Viola with their first child, unsure if he would ever send for her (he was unsure too). Flournoy captures this time with great detail and it’s as compelling as her modern day connections. She also nails the imperfections of people—mostly Francis, who is not a very happy man, but loves his children. The reader can relate to all their flaws and any triumphs, which are more rare.

She has her characters go through the riots of 1967, but she made an interesting decision. She never uses the word riot, which she has said is because most people were facing what was going in their own neighborhoods, and didn’t see it as a large scale riot, which history named it. She uses uprising and neighborhood squirmish, but she keeps it within their experience rather than giving a history lesson on what happened in Detroit as a whole. With that small effect, she shows that she is very committed to being true to her characters.

She experienced the riots in 1992 in LA personally, so she does have some personal experience with the concept, and interviewed many who had gone through 1967 in

Detroit. Her research and writing is true, realistic and compelling—both for the past and the present.

The New York Times book reviewer (and many other media outlets) praised the book: “An engrossing and remarkably mature first novel...Flournoy’s prose is artful without being showy. She takes the time to flesh out the world...In her accretion of resonant details, Flournoy recounts the history of Detroit with more sensitivity than any textbook could...” ■

TECHNOLOGY

Is Facebook failing nonprofits, advocates and activists?

Courtesy of Spare Change News/INSP.ngo

E

rin Jenkins was having trouble finding a home for Bruno, a friendly twoyear-old pit bull.

“We just haven’t had many applications for him,” she told Christopher Zara of the International Business Times in 2015.

The shelter she worked for, Karuna Bully Rescue in Boston, largely depended on its Facebook Page to reach potential new owners, but despite having more than 4,700 likes on Facebook, the rescue was experiencing shrinking interest in adoption posts. The drop coincided with Karuna Bully Rescue’s Facebook Page’s diminishing reach.

“A typical post by Karuna Bully may reach only about 95 people unless the group pays money to boost it,” Zara wrote.

Bully’s experience is not unique; organizations around the world are dealing with the diminishing impact of their Facebook Pages, the result of a change Facebook made in 2012 to its News Feed algorithm-the formula

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that determines which posts show up on a user’s News Feed, and the order in which they are shown.

Facebook altered its algorithm to decrease the reach of Pages in an attempt to make companies pay to boost posts or pay for advertisements. No longer were brands going to get what had formerly been free marketing.

In its efforts to harness and monetize the advertising reach of companies, however, Facebook cast its net across all Pages, which includes not only for-profit companies, but also nonprofit organizations as well as activists and advocates with little or no budgets for advertising.

This drop has had tangible effects for small nonprofits like Bully’s. With limited slots available on the News Feeds of their fans, organizations that can’t afford to pay for boosted posts can’t compete on Facebook with wealthier groups.

In February 2016, Facebook launched nonprofits.fb.com, a site providing tips for how to best utilize their service. Even their new website stresses the importance of paid content in affecting a Page’s reach.

The Facebook algorithm: information gatekeeper The average Facebook user has too many friends, is

part of too many groups, and likes too many pages to possibly be able to see every relevant post. So Facebook has an algorithm, a formula, to automatically figure out what posts would likely interest each of its users the most. The posts then show up on the News Feed according to this order of preference.

In June of 2014, Facebook made headlines when it was exposed that, as an experiment, the social networking service manipulated user News Feeds to provoke and assess emotional responses.

Many were outraged that Facebook had turned nearly 700,000 of its users into unwitting subjects of a psychological experiment. To others, it was unsurprising - par for the course in today’s commercial landscape where media and marketers covertly test and manipulate people’s emotions on a daily basis. Ethical debate aside, it was established that an algorithm has significant potential for social control.

Facebook’s algorithm-based approach stands in contrast to the approach of networking services such as Twitter, which makes no attempt to sort the posts on a user’s feed, displaying every tweet by every account a user follows in reverse chronological order. (Although, on February, Twitter did introduce an optional algorithm-based section to highlight some potentially relevant posts

at the top of a user’s feed.)

While Facebook publicly acknowledges that it uses an algorithm, the actual formula is unknown. This is likely because Facebook wants to protect the prized codes from corporate thievery, but it is also because the algorithm is not a simple static entityit is an interconnected network of codes that constantly adapt and change.

“Facebook’s News Feed algorithm, like Google’s search algorithm or Netflix’s recommendation algorithm, is really a sprawling complex of software made up of smaller algorithms,” wrote Will Oremus in a January 2016 article for Slate. #Ferguson vs. #IceBucketChallenge Over the past five years, social media has proven an invaluable tool for raising awareness and mobilizing movements across the globe. In the Arab Spring, a wave of democratic uprisings that began in 2010 in Tunisia and spread to several other Arab nations, citizens circumvented state attempts at repression and censorship by communicating and organizing via social media. In the United States, 2011’s Occupy Wall Street campaign was largely arranged and publicized via social media.

More recently, social media has become a primary tool for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Some activists and intellectuals argue that the non-curated approach of Twitter is more conducive to social movements than Facebook. Their concern is that

Facebook’s algorithm, in attempting to show you what you want to see, favors agreeable content over posts that may create tension or be seen as unpleasant.

“How the internet is run, governed, and filtered is a human rights issue,” Tufecki wrote in a blog post for Medium.com. “What happens to #Ferguson affects what happens to Ferguson.”

Why should you care?

While you may not immediately feel the impact of Facebook’s algorithm, it does have a daily effect, however well-hidden, in the way we take in information about the world around us. In an age when Facebook is an information source for over 1.5 billion users, it should be a cause for concern that wealthier organizations are able to pay their way to your News Feed, often boxing out any smaller organizations that you follow.

And when Facebook limits the reach of stories deemed “unpleasant,” a label that could easily be applied to pressing issues such as climate change, overseas conflicts, and income inequality, your world view is being manipulated.

What can you do?

There are steps you can take in your personal use of Facebook to make sure certain groups aren’t kept out of your News Feed. On a Page’s “Like” buttonor “Following” button on mobile-select “See First” from the drop down menu to prioritize it in your News Feed. Also, under “News Feed Preferences” in “Settings”, you can choose whose posts you see first.

Ultimately, knowledge is power, so as long as you know how different websites and social networks sort their information feeds, it is then up to you how to proceed.

These are all tools, each better for some uses and worse for others. As long as you know their strengths and weaknesses, you have the control. ■

Thrive Detroit

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SELF EMPOWERMENT

The Sell

by Fredrik Eklund Book Recommendation by LaTonia Walker

The Sell is a self-development book written by the top Real Estate agent in New York, Fredrik Eklund. He gives insight on how each of us “Sell” ourselves. Although he sells real estate, this book is for any and everyone who wants to succeed. I love inspirational books, and I realize now that is because it is also my purpose to inspire.

Fredrik is so transparent. I enjoyed how he shared both his professional and personal life with his audience. I learned all about his rise to stardom, and felt like I was along for the ride! I also appreciated the fact that Fredrik was honest and proud about his lavish lifestyle. He clearly stated that life was about more than material things, but he also makes no apologies about the lifestyle that he has EARNED for himself. I typically read books very quickly, however with The Sell it was like an extravagant meal, I wanted to savor every moment. So it took me about a month to read it. I really enjoyed all of the

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personal pictures and memories that he shared in the book. And I adored the love story he told about him and the love of his life, his husband Derek.

He starts off by telling us the story of how he came to the United States. He visited New York on a trip with his father and brother when he was only 10 years old. He fell in love with the greatest city on earth instantly. And when he returned years later as an adult, he started from scratch to build the life he desired in New York. He did not know that he would become a real estate agent, much less the most successful agent in the city. But he knew that he had a dream in his heart and that he was going to find a way to fulfill it.

This reminded me of myself. I have always known that I wanted to do something great, but I did not know exactly what it was nor did I know how to get it. Over the years I honed in on my interest and determined the career that I wanted. After that I had to figure out how to get it. Honestly, I am still in the latter process of figuring out how to accomplish my dreams. I am on the right path and it becomes more and more clear every day.

Actually, I got the idea for my blog from Fredrick. I knew that I wanted to build a platform for my message, but I didn’t know exactly what it would be. It wasn’t that he suggested starting a blog, but he talked about blogs, social media, reality TV and other options for building your personal brand. That was the beginning of this year, and here we are 5 months later talking to each other on my blog!

Fredrick gives numerous nuggets of wisdom throughout the book. Here are a few of my favs: Be The Authentic You – Forget selling, begin by finding yourself. He talks about being your authentic self and being comfortable in your own skin. He also talks about being able to handle “No.”

One of his tips for being yourself is to find your trademark. His trademark is his high kick. He calls his audience “high kickers” throughout the book, and now I consider myself one! One of my trademarks is my gray hair. I grayed early and at first being only 30 and graying was not exciting. But now it has grown on me and I like it. People are always baffled by the fact that I have salt-n-pepper hair with a baby face. It has become my trademark, and I wear it with pride!

Motivation – Next, he advises that you figure out what drives and motivates you. I can tell you that helping women accomplish their goals and achieve a better standard of life for themselves is what drives me. And what motivates me……………..is money!

Shadow a winner – This was already a strategy of mine. I have been looking for examples of the woman I wanted to be all of my life. Most of my examples have been public figures that I looked to for inspiration.

I also have some examples in my real life.

In my post “40 I’m A Real Woman Now” I give advice to surround yourself with the right people. Fredrik’s advice is even more specific, he is telling us to find a winner in your industry and shadow that person. I am doing that now. It took me a while to find an African American woman who was a C.E.O. in the non-profit industry, but I finally did and I work under her now. She is also my Mentor/Coach. And as a bonus through her God brought me another African American woman who is a former C.E.O., and I am also working under her.

Dress the part – Okay, this is one of my favorites. Many people do not realize how their appearance is affecting them. Fredrik advices us to use our looks as part of our charm. Being a Social Worker I can tell you that A LOT of people in my field do not care about their appearance! Some of them are high and mighty and think that caring about your appearance and material things is unimportant compared to the problems that our clients are facing. Well as I will share with you in a future post called “Not the average Social Worker, I am no Mother Teresa” I do not believe in denying myself in order to help others. Looking and dressing the part of the person that you want to become is very important.

Expand your reach – Fredrik discusses the importance of utilizing social media to gain attention and reach your audience. I must give credit to Fredrik for persuading me to build any kind of public persona. This book is rich. Read it and be inspired. ■

COMMENTARY

“How will you reach out to people like me?”

Street papers respond to:

“I am very surprised he was elected.

Very surprised that half of voters could overlook all the horrible things he has been saying,” said Paula Lomazzi, the director of Homeward Street Journal in Sacramento, California – one of the states that strongly supported Hillary Clinton.

“I am afraid of how bad our national policies can go… climate change, foreign relations, immigration, sexism, racism. But I also feel hopeful that our organizing for social justice will become more galvanized.”

Delphia Simmons is the editor of Thrive Detroit in Michigan – one of the ‘Rust Belt’ states that appears to have flipped from Democrat to Republican to give Trump the presidency.

“The outcome of this election does not reflect the will of the majority of the people in this country. I am sure of it!” she said. “Rather, it exposes a democracy that is other than what it purports to be and is straining under the weight of that duplicity.

We must fix this! That’s what this outcome is shouting to all of us.

Inequality, disenfranchisement, and all the other systemic realities in this country cannot coexist with true democracy.”

President

Trump

manager for the city’s street paper to be developing one of the scariest Real Change, said that Trump was policy agendas our country has ever dangerous. experienced. It’s important to not “Trump is hazardous in so many normalize these realities. It’s not ways. He is validating some seriously normal to have fringe, right-wing, harming beliefs and becoming a racist policy makers in the White mobiliser of hate that is not going House. We shouldn’t treat is as to go away after the election. As a such,” he continued. biracial Black woman with a multiracial family, I feel the increased level of danger to me and my loved ones.”

“To all of our friends and readers who continue to live in fear because of the colour of their skin or where they were born or their gender or However, among her liberal peers, the person they choose to love, she was concerned that what she Street Roots commits to standing up beside you no matter what comes in the days and years ahead. We are all in this together and we will use the power of the media to the best of our abilities to defend the rights of people, the press and overall humanity.”

Not all of the street paper representatives who spoke to INSP were as critical of Trump, however. calls “Trump talk” may become a distraction, stopping people from continuing to engage with this issues that still face communities.

South of Seattle, in the similarly liberal city of Portland, the executive director of Street Roots, Israel Bayer said they had seen a mixed result Seattle was another strong area for from these elections.

Clinton. Tara Moss, operations “The new administration appears

Patricia Merkin, director of Hecho en Bs. As. in Argentina blamed his victory on people feeling “exhausted of old politics”, adding: “His victory is the reflection of the disintegration of the whole American political system. I do believe that is about time to rebuild the system, to bury neoliberalism for ever in the world and to create real redistribution of wealth.”

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I

t was well worth the travel challenges that rerouted me through Amsterdam because of an Air France labor strike to finally arrive in Greece. The International Network of Street Papers (INSP) hosted this year’s annual summit in Athens, and I was anxious to attend for my second consecutive year, along with 120 delegates representing 59 street papers in 30 countries, coming together to learn, to network, and to be inspired.

Exchanging knowledge of best practices, challenges, and innovative ideas on how to improve the lives of people who are socially and economically marginalized, while advocating for and amplifying their voices, is challenging in any country. Each year we overcome the language and cultural differences among 30 or more countries to do just that. The politics a pipe dream. INSP members communicate differ, the cultures differ, and the languages throughout the year via social media, email, and our own Street News Service. It’s easy to differ, but what we all have in common unites us nonetheless.

Poverty is the enemy that we all have in common and respect for

by Delphia Simmons, Founder human dignity is the passion that we all share. Poverty is the big issue by think that virtual connection is enough, until which so many other issues are sustained and it’s not.

I attended my first INSP Summit in 2015 perpetuated. To be sure, the magnitude of the because it was finally in North America issue can make that shared passion seem like (Seattle, WA). I was 4 years into running Thrive Detroit and feeling more pipe dream than passion. I had been invited to do a presentation about Thrive Detroit to the rest of the delegates and I was really hesitant. We are so small in comparison to the other papers and I was more interested in hearing what the other 100 + delegates had to say. I went ahead with the presentation and laid it all out there, so to speak. The challenges, the doubts, all of it. Delegates came to

me afterward and encouraged me with their own stories. Between the encouragement, energy, and knowledge sharing through workshops, tours, and lectures, I left Seattle realizing that I needed to make the INSP Summit a part of my annual or at least biannual ritual.

As one INSP member stated at this year’s summit: “Here, the best thing is the realization that you’re not living and working in some kind of isolated bubble, but are part of a gigantic family that’s pursuing the same goal all over the world.” (Thiago Massagardi, President/Director of Brazilian street paper Ocas) The street paper is the vehicle that we all use to provide something of value to the readers--those who support the vendors both financially and socially by making a purchase.

But it is vendors all over the world, those who sell the paper to make an income, that are the passengers. Helping them is our passion.

If you’re a writer or journalist, you can add value to the paper (our vehicle) by writing for us. If you want to get involved locally, Michigan has three street papers: Thrive Detroit in Detroit, Ground Cover News in Ann Arbor, and Speak Up Michigan in Traverse City. To learn more about Street Papers in the United States and around the world visit INSP. ■

A Common Enemy

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Think ‘bout it

Majallen Cespedes

Hey guys, it’s Jelly. It’s been soooo long.

A lot has changed since the last time I’ve written to you, so I’ll update you all a little.

I’m 14 years old now and I’m going into my sophomore year of high school. It’s crazy to think that I’ve been writing since the 5th grade; man, does time fly! Anyways, getting older is a part of life, and as you get older you meet new people, and along the way make new friends. At a young age we can come to depend on these friendships so strongly because we know, or at least think we know (because we think we know everything) that they’ll stick around forever. Well, I’m here to tell you that 99.9% of the time, that is NOT the case, and that’s what brings me to the topic at hand: temporary friendships.

If anyone should know how it feels to lose close friends, it would be me. All throughout my short life I’ve been in and out of friendships. It seems these friendships are so fragile--literally one day we are the best of buds, planning our milestone life events together, and the next day for some trivial reason we don’t even talk anymore… reduced to nothing. This hasn’t been easy for me, considering that I value all of my friendships strongly and have always tried to treat people how I want to be treated. This just isn’t always reciprocated. If you are like me, a loyal, genuine friend that enjoys the bond created through connections with others, then you probably don’t handle losing close

friends too well either, and that’s completely understandable. This doesn’t make you “soft” or “sensitive,” it makes you human.

But in life you can only control what is in your power to control, and you can only try so hard. Don’t stop being you, because I believe as long as you are your best, others like-minded will be drawn to you. Just do your part, and trust God to remove the people who aren’t good for you out of your life.

Those who are meant to stay will always be with you. At times they may drift away, but if they’re meant to be they will always find their way back. So don’t stress it.

This last piece of wisdom may seem kind of random, but fitting. I can’t stress enough how important it is to put your family first. Friends are great and all, don’t get me wrong, but blood is thicker than water.

If you’re a very social teen like me, then you probably spend a lot more time with your friends then you do with your family. I try to remind myself of what really matters most, and not take my family for granted. Family is forever, and will love you unconditionally when everyone else abandons you. Now, I’m not telling you to go knit with your grandmother every Saturday, or spend the whole summer down in Mississippi with your aunt and uncle on their dairy farm, but rather just simply not to forget to put first the people who have and will always be there for you. Just think ‘bout it! ■

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Evicted: An American housing horror story Courtesy of Spare Change News/INSP.ngo

The government has been telling people that the economy has been making a steady but slow recovery from the Great Recession nine years ago. In the past few years, the unemployment rate has mostly also suggested a rosy picture of job growth.

GDP has slowly improved. The housing market has heated up. The Federal Reserve shows enough cautious confidence in economic growth that it has raised interest rates once and plans to do it again soon.

But for many people, the story of an improved economy may as well be a fairy tale. According to the Pew Research Center, for the first time in more than four decades, the middle class now consists of less than 50 percent of the American population. In 2015, 20 percent of American adults are in the lowest income tier, up from 16 percent in 1971, living at or below the poverty line.

Many people who have lost their jobs and have exhausted their unemployment benefits (often referred to as the “uncounted” in the distorted unemployment statistics) are forced to settle for low paying jobs, many without benefits. Others have simply given up looking for work.

On top of all this, many people are still losing their homes. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 17.7 out of every 10,000 people were homeless in 2015. The Alliance reports that the number of households paying more than 50 percent of their income toward housing rose to 6.6 million in 2014-a 2.1 percent increase from 2013.

Harvard sociology professor Matthew Desmond has brought to light one of the most alarming and least talked about signs that many Americans are suffering economic hardship in his recently released book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.

Evicted focuses on poverty and inequality in the United States through the eyes of eight low-income families 13

and a couple of landlords in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

This is more than a thoroughly researched study of the plight of housing for the poor; it is a compelling, vivid inside look into a sad, difficult world typically shoved out of the sight and minds of most Americans.

“We in America haven’t invested in decent, affordable housing for low-income families,” said Desmond, who points out evictions, which were once a rarity, are now “acute.”

Desmond has spent eight years looking at the many different aspects of evictions.

Its a subject that is also personal. Money was tight in his own family growing up.

His dad was a pastor and his mom worked a variety of jobs to help bring in money.

It was during his college days at Arizona State University that his family in Winslow, Arizona lost their home to foreclosure.

Desmond writes of his family’s hardship, “I remember being deeply sad and embarrassed. I didn’t know how to make sense of it.”

He continues in the book about coping with his family’s eviction: “Once back on campus, I found myself spending weekends helping my girlfriend build houses with

Habitat for Humanity.”

Desmond also spent time with the many homeless people who congregate in the Mill Avenue area of Tempe, a city in Maricopa County, Arizona.

It was during his graduate school days at the University of Wisconsin, Madison that Desmond’s attention turned to research to find the link between housing and poverty.

Desmond searched for studies on evictions in our society. He wanted to know the demographics of eviction, the frequency and the consequences. He was also interested in what poor people were doing without when they had to spend so much money on housing. He did not find any related studies.

As part of his dissertation fieldwork, he moved right into the heart of poverty in Milwaukee in 2008, living first in a trailer park and then later in a rooming house.

He lived among those suffering economic and emotional hardship, struggling to get enough money to pay for food, clothing and a place to live.

He discovered that poverty is a relationship “involving poor and rich people alike,” he writes. “To understand poverty, I needed to understand that relationship. This sent me searching for a process that bound poor and rich people together in mutual dependence and struggle. Eviction was such a process.”

Many people facing eviction, Desmond said, spend 70 to 80 percent of their income for “homes not fit for human habitation.”

According to Desmond, one in eight renters experience at least one forced move.

He reports that 16 families are evicted through court proceedings daily.

Among the people we meet in Evicted are Lamar and his sons. Lamar is a doubleamputee, having lost his legs to frostbite while living as a homeless crack addict.

As a recovering addict, he lived in a twobedroom apartment that had “maggots sprouting from unwashed dishes in the

sink.”

Lamar’s income doing handyman jobs was $628 a month, $550 of which was needed to pay his rent. That left $2.19 a day for everything else his family needed to survive. Ultimately, like all the other tenants in this book, Lamar and his sons were evicted.

We also meet Crystal, a young, manic-depressive, evangelical Christian who turned to prostitution as a way to earn money to live.

Arlene is a mother of two children who is struggling to provide for her family on $20 a month after rent. Her two sons are among the multitude of children suffering from the devastating effects of living in substandard housing and the transient, unstable life that eviction creates.

“Eviction creates deep and jagged scars to the next generation,” said Desmond. “It affects their opportunity to create meaningful relationships with peers and teachers.”

Desmond also writes about a 54-year-old woman named Larraine. She spent a month’s worth of food stamps on a meal of lobster tails, shrimp, crab, pie and Pepsi. At first, Desmond questioned why she would do that. He reasoned, “There was no amount of skimping and squandering that is going to get herself above the poverty line.”

Desmond noted, “We don’t live on bread alone-nor should we expect poor people to do that.” Larraine was trying to treat herself as middle-class and affluent people treat themselves.

He added, “It is not spending that makes her poor. It is poverty that makes her sometimes throw money away.”

Once someone is living below the poverty line, many people feel there is very little amount of hope or help to get out, and the system typically perpetuates rather than helps solve the problem.

Desmond also spent time with Scott, who was a nurse until his opioid addiction cost him his license and led to his eviction.

Unlike the others Desmond writes about, Scott was one of the fortunate ones who put his life back together. He found sobriety and permanent housing and returned to nursing with his reinstated license.

Desmond also takes us to another side of the story-the world of the landlords.

Sherrena Tarver is a former school teacher who turned slumlord as a means to make a lot of money. At times, she shows understanding and sympathy for her struggling tenants.

At other times, she is ruthless, evicting Arleen and her sons a couple of days before Christmas.

“Love doesn’t pay bills,” Tarver said.

Another landlord is Tobin Charney, owner of a rundown trailer park-one of the worst in Milwaukee. As with Sherrena, he can, at times, be sympathetic, but at other times, he can be

merciless.

Desmond writes about how some landlords choose and deny tenants. For example, some landlords do not like children living in their units. Children make noise and lead to concerns about lead poisoning. Landlords don’t want to draw attention to the horrid conditions they pass off as livable.

The temptation is to cast landlords as the evil, greedy villains.

Desmond said that would be a simplification, pointing out the complexities of the landlord-tenant relationship.

These families and the landlords are a microcosm of life situations played out in cities and towns around the country.

Desmond writes, “This study takes place in the heart of a major American city, not in an isolated Polish village or a brambly Montana town or on the moon.”

Desmond’s work on the poverty and housing problem is not done. More eviction data is needed from across the country. We need to see “just how big a problem this is,” he said.

“The number of evictions in Milwaukee is equivalent to the number in other cities and the people summoned to housing court in Milwaukee looks a lot like those summoned in Charleston and Brooklyn.” It’s not just a growing problem in the United States; it also exists in cities such as London and Berlin.

Boston, which has the fourth highest rents in the country, is certainly not immune to evictions. According to rentjungle. com, the average rent for a one bedroom apartment in Boston is $2,287 per month. For a two-bedroom apartment, it’s $2,815 per month as of February. Cambridge’s rents average 7.49 percent higher than those in Boston.

Using the formula of a 28 percent rent-to-income ratio, a household needs an annual income of $120,900 to afford rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Boston. Almost half the residents of Boston make less than $35,000 a year.

According to Project Hope, in 2011, 5,197 cases were brought before the Boston Housing Court. Of those cases, 2,970 (57%) involved subsidized tenancies, of which 1,075 (36%) resulted in evictions.

To help understand and resolve the eviction problem, Desmond feels we need to look at what cities do right and what needs to change. This is an ongoing process.

According to Desmond in his book, “Whatever our way out of this mess, one thing is certain-this degree of inequality, this withdrawal of opportunity, this cold denial of basic need, this endorsement of pointless suffering-by no American value is this situation justified. No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become.”

“We have a long ways to go,” said Desmond. “We make slow leaps to equality.” ■ Thrive Detroit

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Thrive Detroit vendors can earn an income to gain economic independence while making their voices heard on the issues that affect them the most. We are a local paper focused on local interests as well as homelessness and poverty issues. Our vendors make their own money and achieve real opportunities to succeed!

New vendors can begin earning money right away after attending a 30-60 minute New Vendor Training session. These sessions are held by appointment at 26 Peterboro inside the Coalition On Temporary Shelter (COTS) in MidTown Detroit.

Thrive Detroit vendors are independent contractors, managing their own sales business. They set their own hours and make their own decisions. Be your own boss—work when, where, and as much as you want.

For more information on becoming a vendor, contact us at: 313-473-9443 or thrivedetroit@gmail.com Credit: Michael Pappas

COTS assists families in reaching their housing, economic, health, education, and career goals through coaching, mentorship, and support as they strive to overcome homelessness and break the cycle of poverty for the next generation and beyond.

Find out more at cotsdetroit.org

INSP is the world’s only network for street papers. We passionately believe that we are all stronger together – more than 100 local street paper solutions, in 35 Countries, working to alleviate homelessness and poverty across the world.

P.O. Box 442443 Detroit, MI 48244 313.473.9443 www.thrivedetroit.org

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