In a March 1978 meeting of my religious community, Jubilee Fellowship, several members urged us to be more deeply involved in the needs of our immediate neighborhood in the Southwest Germantown section of Philadelphia. "Some of us don't even know our next door neighbors, much less whether there's a lonely elderly person down the block," was the complaint. "How can we talk about peace and social justice in the world if we aren't doing something about conflict, poverty, and injustice right around the corner?"
We were not totally uninvolved in our neighborhood. We had done some significant work in housing rehabilitation, joined local improvement groups, worked in the public school, and helped Chilean refugees find homes and jobs nearby. But living in a racially-mixed, low-to-moderate income area of Philadelphia, we had the uneasy feeling that God was calling us to do more.
After much deliberation, we decided to pay one of our members part-time to do some basic research on our neighborhood. As the person selected to do this work, I'd like to share with you my research process and some of its results. Although mine is not the only approach that can be undertaken, perhaps my work will give you ideas that your fellowship or neighborhood group can use to bring about deeper involvement with your own neighbors and their needs.
What is God's will for your neighborhood?
I believe that we can discern certain ways in which God's will is at work in every neighborhood. This discernment must shape our research in a decisive way.
As Christians, we affirm that God, whose presence fills every nook and cranny of the universe, is already at work in each of our neighborhoods. Even though we can't see God, God is there, standing at the right hand of the needy (Psalm 109:31). God is hard at work rescuing the oppressed (Jeremiah 20:13), comforting the stranger (Exodus 22:21), pleading the cause of the poor (Proverbs 22:23), giving food to the hungry (Psalm 146:7), giving the desolate a home to dwell in (Psalm 68:6). God's son Jesus is so totally identified with our neighbors who are ill-clothed, lonely, sick, or imprisoned, that when we minister to them we minister to him (Matthew 25:31-46).
Because the God of biblical faith acts in this way, we can say much about God's will for our neighborhoods. As a loving parent, God cares deeply about all our neighbors, and wants all God's children to be free from exploitation and to have what they need for their physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual well-being. God's will is shalom for all.
God wants everyone to have the basics:
• Enough food to eat and clothes to wear.
• A decent place to live.
• Education to develop gifts and talents.
• Good, affordable medical care.
• Work that is enjoyable and provides adequate income.
• Time and places for rest and recreation.
• A chance to enjoy beauty in one's surroundings.
• Opportunities to participate in the political and economic decisions affecting one's life.
• Representation by fair, just governmental office-holders.
God wants people with special needs to have special help:
• Adequate income support for those who can't work because of a disability.
• Understanding counsel for those who are emotionally distressed.
• Loving visitors for those who are sick or lonely.
• Help and adequate legal counsel for those in prison or in trouble with the law.
• Dignity, respect, friendship, and security for the elderly.
• Adequate educational, social, and recreational outlets for the young.
• Special care for those with special needs, such as the retarded, orphans, people with drug or alcohol problems.
God wants people to feel secure from threats to their life, health, or dignity:
• Freedom from exploitation or oppression (for example, by loan sharks, unscrupulous real estate speculators, political bosses, police brutality, consumer fraud).
• Personal safety, free from fear of crime or other harassment.
• An opportunity to live in a safe, ecologically sound environment.
God wants people to be free from discrimination or humiliation:
• Respect as a person created in God's image.
• Protection of equal rights before the law.
• Freedom from discrimination because of age, sex, race, or religion.
God wants us to love one another and to bear one another's burden:
• Good feeling and cooperation among neighbors -- blacks and whites, Jews and gentiles, young and old, men and women -- to help build a neighborhood in which no one is denied his or her rightful shalom.
Shaping your research by God's will
If this list expresses God's intention for God's children (and you may think of other points to add), then the purpose of your research is to discover where people in your neighborhood are being denied their rightful shalom. How can you find the places where people are suffering, exploited, or in need? How can you discover if there are people in your neighborhood who do not have enough to eat, who are languishing from lack of work, or who have to live in dilapidated housing? How can you know if there are lonely elderly who never receive a visitor?
If you can find answers to these questions, your research will be preparing your Christian fellowship to join God in his work. You'll be helping its members to become channels for the shalom God seeks for your neighbors. They will be able to see more clearly how to express solidarity with those for whom God has special care and to struggle with them for dignity, liberation, and a better life.
Census Data
In my own research I began with the broadest, most general data and moved from there to the more personal, local, and specific. The United States Census, which is done every 10 years, has a wealth of information about every neighborhood in the country. The results are published in books which are available in most public libraries. (A librarian can offer assistance in their use.) I learned an enormous amount about my neighborhood simply by looking at the data gathered in the census tracts which make up Southwest Germantown.
Studying the census tract data, I discovered that our neighborhood had about 12,000 people, living in 5,900 housing units. By looking at income and housing figures, I was able to pinpoint those sections of our neighborhood that were relatively well-off and those that had severe poverty. I found the location of our good housing and our dilapidated, overcrowded housing. I also saw our unemployment rate and could compare it to the city's other areas. I learned that in the 15 years prior to my research, a dramatic shift in the racial composition of Southwest Germantown had taken place as it went from a 97 percent white community to one with a black population of more than 50 percent.
One of the problems with census data is that it is gathered every 10 years and the information grows increasingly out of date after the turn of the decade. However, both the Census Bureau and various public and private agencies do statistical updates which give more current figures. Also, many Census Bureau offices (see your phone book under "U.S. Government") have "User Services," a special staff that you can call for questions or information about updates.
City public agencies
Most city, town, and county governments have planning commissions with professional staff. Their job is to prepare the comprehensive physical development plan of the city and to make recommendations on its implementation. They have a great deal of hard data on the city.
In Philadelphia, the City Planning Commission has two area planners with special responsibility for our part of the city. From them I received excellent, detailed maps of our area, showing the location of every street, property, school, church, park, and factory. The planners explained their view of the needs of Southwest Germantown and what expenditures the city has planned for it. They made me aware of city projects in recreation, employment, housing, and industrial development slated for our area. They also showed me special studies and city documents giving detailed descriptions of the social and economic forces affecting our neighborhood.
In your city, you might also want to visit other public agencies, such as the school board, the housing redevelopment authority, or the health department.
City private agencies
Whereas the City Planning Commission deals with physical improvements (new streets, housing projects, etc.), many towns and cities also have a broad social agency which tries to keep track of overall social needs and programs. In Philadelphia this agency is called the Health and Welfare Council. Talking with staff who are familiar with Southwest Germantown, I became more aware of the inadequacy of recreational facilities in our area, the problems of the young and the elderly, the growth of poorly-run homes for the mentally disabled, and other social problems.
At the council I also picked up a copy of the Directory of Community Services, a large handbook which lists almost every private and public social agency in the metropolitan area. This is an invaluable resource book for further research or for finding the group that can help a person with special problems.
Special section groups
Whereas the above organizations are concerned about Southwest Germantown only as one small part of the whole city, other groups have a somewhat narrower focus. They work in the section of the city called the Northwest, in which Southwest Germantown is a major neighborhood. An appointment at one agency, the Northwest Center, gave me information on the people in our general area who suffer from such problems as mental disability and alcoholism. Conversations with staff at the Northwest Interfaith Movement told me how area churches are trying to respond to neighborhood needs.
Neighborhood groups and individuals
My research procedure was to begin with the groups having the broadest view (the citywide agencies), then to narrow down to our general area, and finally to focus on the people and groups working in our immediate neighborhood. Appointments with staff and volunteers at groups like the Southwest Germantown Community Development Corporation, the Germantown Crime and Safety Committee, and Neighbors Community Program helped me to see our community from the perspective of people working on its problems on an immediate, day-to-day basis. I also met with the staff of some of our local churches and with well-informed individuals who are particularly active in the neighborhood, whether in politics, recreation, or some other phase of community action!
Finally, I spent considerable time simply walking and biking back and forth through the community, chatting with neighbors, shopkeepers, and others to get to know and feel the neighborhood.
Results of the research
The above contacts, interviews, reading, and analysis took only 12 days, spread over a three-month period. After completing this work, I was able to write an eight-page report for Jubilee, giving the following information:
1. Human Needs: The extent and nature of poverty in our neighborhood, the amount of unemployment and the reasons for it, the racial changes that have taken place with their resulting tensions; problems of youth, the serious exploitation of the elderly poor, the needs of broken families and the mentally disabled; problems of housing, recreation, and crime.
2. Efforts to Meet Needs: The kinds of public and private, church and secular efforts currently being mounted in Southwest Germantown to try to deal with its problems.
3. Possible Neighborhood Ministries for Jubilee Fellowship: Early in the research process, we in Jubilee had decided that any neighborhood ministry we undertake should 1) help us to work with the poorest, those most in need, those with no other advocate, 2) enable us to provide a direct service, but with a social change potential, 3) give us ways to communicate our faith, and 4) help us to better understand our neighbors and their needs. Given the information generated by the research, I was able to suggest 25 steps that Jubilee could take which would meet these criteria and deepen our neighborhood ministry.
We have deepened our involvement in Southwest Germantown considerably, particularly by working with a group of lonely, poverty-bound elderly who are "warehoused" in a rundown local hotel. We've been able to minister directly to individuals, but also to mount pressure on the hotel owner to bring his facility up to a decent standard.
We're sure that God still has many things to teach us about ways that we should be involved in Southwest Germantown. The research process has helped to clarify a number of places where we can better serve Christ by our identification with the poor. The facts and figures provide the information we may use to serve the human beings in our neighborhood who are our brothers and sisters.
As I've become more deeply involved personally, I've made friends with an isolated 82-year-old man whose last close relative died in 1917. During the last two bitterly cold winters, his tiny apartment was heated only by the burners of a dangerous gas stove. As we sit together in his little room, I sometimes feel that I can say the words of one of Mother Teresa's workers in India: "I have been touching Christ; I knew it was him."
Dick Taylor was a Sojourners correspondent, coordinator of the neighborhood ministry of Jubilee Fellowship in Philadelphia, and author of Economics and the Gospel (United Church Press) and Blockade (Orbis Books) when this article appeared.
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