(This is chapter 16 of "Up and Out," a book condensing my long experience about how to best help poor people. I pledged earlier to get it up online as soon as possible, so it would be available for free to everyone trying to cope with helping the Katrina evacuees.)
(These are not things that need to be done during the first part of this emergency. Rather, this is for the time after that, when Katrina evacuees will be moving from getting immediate emergency assistance to trying to normalize their lives. That is when good programs to help them "up and out" of their situation need to kick in. The following is for that time.)
(For other chapters, look under "Categories" at the left, and click on the chapter you want.)
UP AND OUT: A GUIDE TO TRUE COMPASSION FOR THE POOR"
PART II: MOVING UP AND BREAKING OUT OF POVERTY
Section 1: First Aid for the Poor
Chapter 16: Help With U-Turn Decisions
We make choices all day that do not involve drastic changes in our lives. Have a hamburger or a salad? Read or watch television? Go shopping today or next week?
But some choices have a much bigger impact. Stopping smoking is a big choice, followed by difficult days and weeks. Deciding to adopt a healthier way of eating means doing without a lot of foods we like, for a long time. A decision to become much more fit will make big changes in our lives. So will a decision to quit a job and go back to college.
But we can do these things, one at a time, without impacting the rest of our lives too drastically. They change important parts of our lives, but not everything.
There are other choices, however, that are so big and all-consuming that they can only be called life changing. In fact, they require turning our lives around 180 degrees and going in the opposite direction. These are the most difficult choices. But when there is almost no chance of changing for the better, only a “U-turn” decision has a chance of helping. Until it happens, nothing else helps for long.
In prison this became clear as I watched the rehabilitation program. It was based totally on education. The idea was that giving the prisoners an education would equip them to have better jobs outside. Then they would not need crime to support themselves. The Windham School District in prison was excellent. It ranged all the way from teaching basic literacy to courses for college credit. The teachers were, for the most part, dedicated and good at their work.
Nevertheless, there was a great lack of rehabilitation. During my seven and a half years behind bars, I saw the same people coming back to prison over and over. I got sick of it. One woman came back five times while I sat there! What was happening? The education program was effective and important. It gave the women something they really needed. But why was it not rehabilitating them?
There was an admiring saying in prison, “She has a first-class criminal mind!” It occurred to me that possibly all that education was doing was just making them better-educated criminals. It was a disturbing thought.
It was then that I understood that, until a woman made a basic, life changing, u-turn decision that she was not going to do crime anymore, nothing else would turn her around. Not education, not opportunities, not advantages. In fact, they might very well serve to make her a more efficient criminal!
After that, I started observing who did not come back and remembering what they did while they were still in prison. Then I compared those who did return to the ones who did not.
Because of prison rules and regulations, it was not possible for me to do a formal study or write up my findings. Still, given my training as a social scientist and experience in field research, I thought that my on-the-inside observations of hundreds of prisoners that I knew personally, over a period of years, might be worth something.
What I learned was unexpected. Most of the women I knew who did not come back had given their lives to God while in prison. Some made it out, and stayed out, without doing so. As a matter of fact, many who did give their lives to God in prison did come back anyhow. Still, most of the ones who made it out and stayed out had come to God first.
Also, most of the ones I knew who made it out and stayed out had made the basic, u-turn decision not to do crime any more. Apparently, however, not all of them had the strength to stick with that decision. Those who also committed their lives to God, trying to live as God wanted, did better than those who did not. That seemed to have a lot to do with having enough strength to stick to their u-turn decision.
Alcoholics Anonymous, or AA, learned those lessons long ago. They learned that no one quits drinking without making a drastic, life changing, “u-turn” decision to do so. They learned that the entire life had to change. And they found that most alcoholics could not make such a drastic change successfully without turning to God. They learned that the program could not succeed unless new AA members admitted that they needed the help of “a higher power”.
They also learned the necessity of frequent meetings between beginners and those who knew enough to guide them. They demanded a lot, encouraged a lot, insisted a lot and gave a lot.
With drugs, the history of rehabilitation is more mixed. We do know, however, that the success rates of some faith-based drug treatment programs are by far the highest. It is not unusual for their success rates to reach 80%-85% (for instance, during my time in San Jose, at the Rescue Mission there.)
These successful faith-based programs are not the ones who separate their faith from the program. To the contrary, their faith permeates every part of the program. They actively try to convince addicts to turn to God and to dedicate themselves to living as God wants.
These programs can only try to persuade, as no one can really control what another person believes. Usually, people are permitted to stay in their program without taking the step of faith. But like alcoholics, drug addicts usually do not have the inner strength needed to succeed without looking to God for guidance and support. Those who succeed are usually those who sincerely do that.
This is disturbing to many of us for many reasons, however well documented the high success rates may be. We do not want faith forced on people, least of all on ourselves. Some are uneasy at the idea of people even trying to persuade others to turn to their God. Most especially, we have many concerns about the use of public funds for programs that are based on coming to a relationship with God.
With all this uneasiness, however, we still need to decide what we want most. Is it to see the addict, or alcoholic, or criminal make that u-turn decision and straighten out their lives? Is it to reap the benefits to society that this brings to us all? If so, we need to learn to tolerate its being done in a faith-based way.
The problem of the poor has many similarities to the problems of such people. That is because many of the causes of their poverty are so difficult for them to change. Trying to change several such causes, not just one, makes it even harder. Deciding to change them and to escape from poverty usually requires, in effect, a “u-turn” life changing decision.
That is not to say that poor people cannot better their lives significantly without such a decision. Just moving from welfare to work can cause enormous changes all by itself. The requirements of work typically change attitudes, choices, and even character, across the entire spectrum of a life. Its effect can be very striking.
But if going to work is all that happens, and if there are not other significant life changes, there may be some improvement, but without real escape from poverty.
One thing about the poor we worked with did not truly strike me until well into the third charity I founded. It was while we were going over what we knew about every single client we had, in an effort to determine what our success rate with them had been.
We were amazed to realize, first, that, of our clients who had teenage children, all but one of those teens was delinquent. That is, they already were involved in the justice system and had a record. The sole exception was under psychiatric care and heavily medicated.
This fact alone was very striking. But as we looked further through the records, we also had to conclude that every single client we had ever had was dysfunctional. Not only that, but they were dysfunctional in multiple ways.
Some of these dysfunctions will be addressed in another chapter. But they are a major reason that escape from poverty is not simple or easy. Such escape does indeed require working, and working takes them a long way. But until their dysfunctions are addressed, it can be very difficult for them to do well in a job, or to even keep a job. Even with a good job, they still may fail to prosper as they should.
The problem of their poverty usually did not come about overnight. It also usually is not remedied without a massive effort. Making such an effort typically requires a “U-turn” decision. The biggest help to making, and following through with, a “U-turn” decision is a life committed to following God. That is supported by scholarly studies that confirm the value of religion in escaping poverty.1
Again, many have a concern that clients not be subjected to religious teaching. Actually, very few of our clients found the religious nature of the program to be a problem. In fact, all but a few already believed in God. Talking to them about God, and about living according to God’s laws, was not offensive to almost all of them, however much it might offend some of us.
There were only two clients in Austin, for instance, who objected to the religious nature of the program. Both chose to leave the program as a result. One showed up again six months later, however, participated fully in the program, including the religious aspects, and graduated very successfully after another six months.
If clients already believe in God, how does it help them to be in a faith-based program? That happens because simply believing in God is a very long way from committing one’s life to God and trying to live according to the teachings of the scriptures.
The scriptures address all their most serious problems and dysfunctions. Becoming part of a church gives them and their children much emotional and moral support and training, as well as good role models. Regular study of the scriptures helps them to learn about what is right and moral and good. A regular prayer life helps them to do those things. A stronger relationship with their God gives them more strength and desire to do the things that will best help them conquer their problems.
There is really nothing else that any purely secular program or effort can offer them that can approach having all that. Nothing devised by human ingenuity or genius has helped so many people change their lives so drastically, down through the ages and even now, as the diligent practice of faith in God. [1]
The proof is easy to see. It is in the success of the graduates of programs that are built around teaching those things.
1 See “Who Escapes? The Relation of Churchgoing and Other Background Factors to the Socioeconomic Performance of Black Male Youths from Inner City Tracts: in The Black Youth Employment Crisis, ed. Richard B. Freeman and Harry J. Holzer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), pp. 372-73.
