Anchors of community: Co-ops, clinics and coffeeshops
If you take I-80 to San Francisco, the very last exit sends you into the
Haight-Ashbury district. That is where the freeway ends...and so many dreams
have begun.
Haight is a street of dreams. And many of those dreams have been about community.
During the late 60s, it seemed like everyone I knew wanted to go there.
Why? because there seemed to be a sense of community there and all wanted to
experience it. I didn't get to go then, but I remember how much the stories I
heard from the Haight influenced me during the late 60s. I heard those stories
while living in Minneapolis.
I was not only influenced by the stories I heard from the Haight. I was also
influenced by the music, especially by the Jefferson Airplane...
Get Together:
"Everybody get together, try and love one another right now"
Somebody to Love:
"Don't you want somebody to love?"
Today:
"To be anymore than I am would be a lie.
I'm so full of love I could burst apart and start to cry"
Coming back to me:
"Small things, like reasons, are, put in a jar.
Whatever happened to wishes wished on a star?"
I joined others who were also inspired by what we heard from the Haight. We
imagined that we could create some of the same new ways of living right in
Minneapolis. The Haight had a free clinic, so Cedar-Riverside would have one,
too. The Haight had coffeehouses; these inspired the Extempore and others. The
Haight had a free university; the same idea flowered in Minneapolis. The Haight
was experimenting with community living; so we would, too.
A lot of years have passed since then. Many of those new ways to live and work
are gone. But others remain. Some of those organizations are vibrant, some are
seeking renewal.
So what do we do now? First let's strengthen our support for institutions which
build community -- our grocery co-ops, our free clinics, our local coffeeshops.
Then let's talk. We need to talk about the organizations we helped to build then
- and since. We also need to talk with those who are eager to do create a new
generation of co-ops, clinics and coffeehouses. We can encourage these new
community-builders; perhaps even inspire them.
We were given a gift, the gift of community. And that's not a gift we're
supposed to keep for ourselves. Rather, it is something we are supposed to share
wherever we live.
I admit that this is an enormous task. And it's not easy to do. One reason is
that it's hard work to build community. And it hasn't gotten any easier over the
years.
It's also hard because the inspiration from the 1960s has been confused with
marketing. If you go today to the Upper Haight -- Haight and Ashbury -- the
legacy from the Summer of Love seems to be one of bumper stickers and tie-dyed
T-shirts. Merchants are literally trying to sell a sense of community.
And if you go to the lower Haight, say Haight and Fillmore -- you see
another group of people looking for community, too. Some of them are young
and have run away from someplace else. Some are desperately poor and want
something better. Some have been reduced to begging. Often, their hopes
for community have been crushed in a struggle to just stay alive.
Both of these Haights exist in many communities around the country. My dream is
that we can create a new Haight, a true Haight, somewhere in between these two.
I would want to say to those who are shopping for community in the upper Haight:
This is not something you can buy. I would want to say to those who are at the
lower end: This community wants you, needs you. This community wants to take
care of you, nurture you, wants to help you restore your dreams.
Perhaps, just perhaps, if we could bring people together from the two Haights in
our towns, we could see real community at work. They have a lot to give each
other, I think. Wouldn't that be something.
One could easily say that's unrealistic. And I suppose it is kind of crazy
if you look around and see the way things are going. But I think that's
what Jane Addams had in mind with the settlement house. And I think that's
what social work is all about.
posted by Tom Gilsenan @ 9:48 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Thought provoking post.
But didn’t free love, free clinics and free universities go the way of the Edsel and the family farm? While we all rally around the mug, will the coffee shops, co-ops and free clinics that we (the community) build have staying power into the future? About the only community institutions that have endured over time are churches and bars.
People need bars and churches because society does a good job of making people feel guilty. Clinics, co-ops and coffee shops will have to figure how to instilling guilt in their potential customers in order to stick around past ‘fad’. Plus, coffee shops will have to lower their prices. Many people can’t afford three bucks for a cup of coffee, regardless of free internet (coming to your home soon?) and the opportunity to commune with a crew addicted to ‘Christian Crank’.
Keep up the posts. Love your writing about Bill and the hospital. Say ‘hey’ to the tramps on the tracks down there, eh?
Are you planning to attend this year’s HOBO Convention in Brit? Would love to get your report and see pics. Friends in Minnehopeless say ‘hey.’
I think community is incredibly important. However, I think the idea of community is slowly and surely dying away. I don't mean to sound like a pessimistic, but until society stops being so selfish and untrusting I don't see a sense of true community coming through. However, if I had to describe my perfect community, this is what it would be like.
My idea community is one with a sense of togetherness and hope. My biggest dilemma with my ideal community has to do with size. I have no desire to ever live in a smaller community. However, larger cities are much harder to create that sense of togetherness in. This is why the Haight is such a wonderful example! It gives me hope that maybe someday when we realize that we are only shooting ourselves in the foot, we can get back to those ways from the 60's that made things so wonderful!
My community would be strong and caring. It would be a community that would not give a second thought to lifting a neighbor in need or rallying around a troubled group to raise them up and help them. It frustrates me how selfish people have become and how unwilling people are to help each other in their times of need. My community would do all of those things. My problem is your problem.
Someday this will happen. I try to keep hope alive, no matter how small the ray may be. Some days I'm far more pessimistic about than on others. I agree with Kelly Dobson's comments about coffee shops becoming more affordable and how churches and bars have become such a staple because it seems they are only around to make us feel guilty. We need more places that are there just for us and only for the purpose of togetherness or for a little empowerment every once in awhile.
-Leslie Stusiak
I like your ideas about community. I would like to see our community come together more. When I lived in Pierre, growing up it was the situation that everyone new everyone. It isn't a small town but there were community events almost weekly for people to get together. Whether it be a community baseball game or just a picnic lunch in the park. It was nice growing up knowing your neighbors, until I did something bad, then everyone knew. I liked the feeling that I could get help from anyone if I justed asked. I remember one time I was playing baseball in the park on my team and the tornado sirens went off. My dad and I walked to the park since we lived like 6 blocks away. But my dad had a bad heart and couldn't run home. So we ran to the nearest house where they gladly let us in. If that was to happen now, I don't think we would have been let in. Which is kind of scary to me. That is a life and death situation, but think would you let a stranger in your house to help them?
Now I don't have that feeling, I moved to Sioux Falls when I was thirteen and I never even knew who lived in my building. That has followed me to adulthood, I don't know my neighbor either. I have tried to say hi, but don't get a hi back, so I stopped trying. I think we need to have more community gatherings, and not just nighborhoods, but the whole commuity. If we make an effort to get to know our neighbors then maybe people would be more willing to help others in their time of need. I hope one day Sioux Falls will have a sense of community. I think we would have less crime and more hopeful people.
Cara
Community really is not that easy. It is hard to find and hold on to now days. The only community that does seem to be out there is me, myself, and I. Alomg with the only if you are good enough for my clique, or class level.
It does make it quite the challenge though when, like Kelly said, "The only thing that has withstood the test of time are the bars and churches. Even in the smallest of towns you can almost guarantee there will be a bar and a church. Well, with the way that peoples lives are today normally it is just a quick drink or service and then run out the door to hybernate at home. There just isn't the time to be neighborly or come together as a community anymore.
There are littlt ways, even in a crazy need it two minutes ago world, that you can do to support your community. If you are a parent joining the PTA is a way to help the schools that are in your community. Joining the local church, of your denominational choice,can help your community. Shop at the local stores. They may not be at Walmart prices but with the more personal service that you recieve and you can actually get to know the people that work there in your community. Every body needs groceries. Local gas stations can give you a sense of community too. Even if you have a Casey's. B&P, or Shell, the national chains, you can still help your community by going there for gas and other conveniences since the taxes that you pay there benefit your town.
Don't be afraid to help your neighbor that is struggling with groceries. Or offering to shovel or plow their driveway if they are having a hard time. If you look out for each other maybe it can eventually spread. Kind of like the movie 'Pay It Forward'. I sometimes think that it would have been nice to grow up in a different time when there really was a sense of community and people didn't really need to work at it, it just came naturally.
Community
As a child of the 60's and 70's, I remember the passion of the people. Sit-ins, walk-outs, demonstrations, boycotts. People voicing their concerns openly about the war (Vietnam), discrimination and the establishment. Social injustice was revolted against. Grass roots organizations grew. Martin Luther King Jr. (1963) summed up the era when he wrote his Letter from Birmingham, “One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”
I also remember free love, free clinics and free universities. It was a time when you felt like caring for others was the natural response. Random acts of kindness abounded. The family ate dinner together every night and talked to each other., We were in the house when the streetlights came on. Mrs. Mosley next-door was always available if your mom had to dash to the store. Your home was fairly safe while you weren’t home, because neighbors knew and recognized each other. We had block parties and barbeques. We felt a sense of pride in our neighborhood and a sense of duty to maintain it.
When did life get so busy that we couldn’t take the time for a neighbor? When did it get so scary that we don’t even speak to our neighbors?
We all belong to many communities. Your professional community of colleagues is very important in staying grounded. They are people you can bounce ideas off of and form partnerships with to fill the needs of your larger community. Some of us have church communities, treatment families, neighborhoods and special interest groups that we identify ourselves with.
To me community is a group with common values and goals who support each other. The common characteristics of people make a community possible, but their uncommon qualities that make it better. It’s not about how much money we make or what we own, but how we live our life and how we give back that makes a community.
Morrie Schwartz once said, “The way you get meaning in your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that fives you purpose and meaning.” This is how you build a community. “Peace starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities.” Dalai Lama, His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama. There is a goal for us, especially as social workers, bringing peace back into the equation.
In this age of instant gratification and selfishness, we have lost our sense of community. On my way to volunteer yesterday morning, I saw a young girl trying to pick an older lady up off the sidewalk. She had her school backpack on and was going to school. Cars drove by her as she cried and struggled. I pulled over and helped her get her grandmother into the house and gave her a ride to school. It made me sad that no one could take a minute out of their morning to help this child.
Wouldn’t it be great if a new family in the community was welcomed with neighbors offering to help? Or how about making the new person at your job feel welcome by offering to acquaint them with the place? I know the world can be a scary place, but wouldn’t it be less scary, if we connected with each other?
I guess when it comes to building community I am completely tapped out of ideas. From what I have seen our people these days are so divided and most people that have money would step on you in a minute if they knew it would get them a bigger paycheck.
I guess what I am trying to say is that from my point of view there are separate societies in our world today, you have corporate America, the wealthy class, the upper middle class, the middle class, the working poor and the poor classes. I don’t want to be pessimistic but most of the time people are so concerned with their own lives that to help others that have little or nothing would be too much time taken out of their day. As long as they stay status quo there is no need to worry about the middle class, the working poor and the poor. I think most of this started after the 60’s when corporate America really took off, they have their own set of laws when it comes to making money and they screw people over daily because it makes them more money. Think about it this way, when it is time to vote most people choose not to. Why? Well because the awful truth of the matter is they are so concerned with what is going on within their own homes to be concerned with who is running the country, which is exactly why we are in the predicament we are now with the most awful President to run the country yet. Does he care about the people who are struggling to get to work everyday and can’t afford the gas, no his companies are making more money.
It is not only political though; you will see the middle class sometimes out helping with various organizations. For the most part it is because they have been guilt tripped into helping by their churches, therefore by helping they are surely good Christians. Unfortunately sometimes when people do reach out to help with very good intentions only get burned by those they’ve tried to help. Therefore leaving them without trust.
I think an ideal community is one in which we can no longer have, people everyday, everywhere are struggling to make ends meet and they still find time to help their neighbors. But the community that doesn’t struggle are comfortable in their fancy homes and gas guzzling SUVs just throwing money away. It is what we choose as an individual person that is going to bring a community together. If each and every one of us makes a difference to others who need it then I guess that is what counts.
Building a community together is a wonderful idea. It does seem as if the 60's and 70's where a great time to be apart of a community. It seems as if after the Bi-Centennial times started to change and you would think that that time should have bought about the opposite effect. I too remember hanging out in the neighborhood park or visiting with friends in those times we stayed out and visited one another until it became dusk, after that it was time to go into the house, once in the home I futher visited with friends on the telephone. Life was so much more pleasant and magical back then. Extended family was more apart and involved in my life. The neighborhood people watched out for one another. We had occassional fights but fights where solved with your fist or your hand, you didn't have to lose your life over a fight or an arguement. I too miss siting on the porch and talking with neighbors or friend in today's society people don't even bother looking at you so you can speak to them. Society seems to be so involved with making money, driving in cars, yeah, I use to walk alot more back then. Life was more about grass and scenary and less about big buildings and concrete. Community was about everyone looking out for the next person, if your where caught doing something that a person knew your parents didn't agree with parents listened to the adults and you, and if your where in the wrong you got in trouble for your actions, they didn' curse one another out. I respected my elders because I was taught to respect them. Today we are afraid of asking people to do anything for us. If an elderly person needed for me to go to the store, I did so, of course with my parents permission. I also would do whatever work around their house they would ask me to do, people would give you a small monetary gift for your work, I appreciated what I got and did enjoy helping out for the most part. Being apart of a community takes action from everyone, and if you are the only one putting forth an effort to create a better community, maybe you should think of ways to include more people in the process. Activism takes only one person stepping foward and reaching out to a dying society. We need to continue to offer ideas to people until they respond. I know it will never be the way that it use to be, but just maybe we can work on bringing back as much of the nostalgia as possible. I loved the warmth and caring and good feeling I felt by being apart of a good community. As being apart of the next generation we need to past these treasures on.
I think that Jane Addams definitely had the true idea of community and the Haight community in the 1960's really tried to continue that idea. I really feel that the lack of togetherness many parts of our country are feeling in the sense of community is where all of our problems are rooting from. If we had a sense of community so many other issues would simply take care of themselves. Our homeless rates would go down. Our crime rates would fall. People would do everything they could to help each other out and lift each other up. It is strange to realize sometimes that if one problem could be fixed, so many others would fix themselves automatically or along with the root issue. It is a hard thing to fix, but I really believe with the new generation of social workers and the resurrection of social consciousness, it can be done!
-Leslie S.
Creating a community in our towns and cities is extremely important. This is something that I have begun to focus on recently. For many years, I was a selfish person and didn’t give anything to society. Now, I am trying to give back and one way that I can accomplish this is to participate in my community. I started a methamphetamine task force in Southwest Minnesota to educate the public on drug use. Methamphetamine abuse appears to be escalating recently and I wanted to do something about this problem. I sent out a message to local sheriff departments, educators, social workers and merchants about the escalating drug issue. A meeting date was chosen and a member of the drug task force presented our group with valuable information. The meeting was a success and all attendees seemed to be interested in meeting again. I am proud to say that I had a hand in getting this group together. I believe that my work in this group is beneficial to the community and illustrates the fact that every person can make a difference.
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