Bridgeton by Numbers
By Albert B. Kelly
There’s an old expression
that says; “follow the money”. I’m not sure when it was first used; but I think
it was during Watergate, which was 40 years ago this August. Basically it means
that if you want to know what’s going on and where things stand- look at the
money; who’s got it, where it comes from, where it’s going, and why.
In our case, a look at our
numbers and a little “following of the money” can tell you a lot about where we
stand. More importantly, it can tell us a lot about our opportunities, our
challenges, our assumptions, and what we might do next.
Bridgeton, as a poor
community, falls into what John Hope Bryant, Chairman of the President’s Advisory
Council on Financial Capability, calls a “500 credit score community”; meaning
a community where most residents have no credit or bad credit (500 or below),
making it impossible to be financially stable or get ahead. The working-poor,
who can least afford it, are charged the highest interest rates from predatory
lenders who take advantage of the situation.
For a community, this
poverty translates into liquor stores, “rent-to-own” everything’s,
cash-for-gold, bails bonds, dollar stores, check cashing and payday lenders. It
translates into very low homeownership and today 60% of our housing stock is
comprised of rental units. After the banking industry made their money on
subprime loans, borrowing criteria is extremely tight and the working-poor
can’t get loans.
Beyond the financial woes,
the 500 credit score community is also marked by higher crime rates. And while
there’s no excuse for crime, I’m not surprised that crime could flourish when a
decent chunk of the population is unattached to the community; not being much
of a stakeholder in the future of the community.
Throw in those business
owners and entities that come to town just to make their money from the
working-poor- offering little job creation- only engaging the community to make
their money; and its little wonder that most of it gets extracted out with
little reinvestment coming back into the community.
For too many years, we’ve
hoped that big industry or a big hotel or some such thing would come to town
and provide jobs, while expanding the tax base. But big industry isn’t coming
to our rescue. And despite the efforts of some, we can’t enforce our problems
away either. That’s been the other approach along with waiting.
So there’s are no magic
bullet here and over the past 2 decades, the largest thing that’s rolled into
town has been a State Prison and while that came with a promise of jobs and a
boost to local tax revenues, most of the employees only pass through on their
way to or from work and the promised additional revenue from the state
basically disappeared.
What’s a poor city to do?
We know that 50% of all jobs nation-wide are created by businesses of less than
100 employees with 90% of all jobs coming from businesses less than 5 years
old. With no large factory on the horizon, that means growth will have to come
from our own entrepreneurs and small businesses; which means turning out
entrepreneurs to start those businesses and training a workforce to fill the
jobs.
There’s a lot to be done
here, but I believe that we can chart a new future by investing in our
residents; especially our young people as opposed to waiting for something to
come to town and rescue the situation. It won’t be a single program that
changes things and it won’t happen quickly; but it will be people and organizations;
government, schools, non-profit organizations, the financial sector working
together to create opportunities and educate our most abundant resource…our
young people.
With 28% of our residents
under 18 years old and 58% under 35 years old, these comprise a good portion of
our community; the poor and the working-poor. As a resource, we can change
things if we begin to build programs, structures, and markets to train and
prepare our people to function effectively and compete in emerging markets.
Author Malcolm Gladwell
points out that it takes only 5% of a community, acting as positive role
models, to bring stability to that community. For Bridgeton, that means roughly
1,200 people. I think we have 1,200 good and decent people to join that effort. We also have a number of vital organizations
and partners willing to join in the effort.
In the weeks ahead, I look forward to discussing where we go from here.