Manipulation vs Constructive Planning
While people, situations, conditions within the Barrio were unique; human responses to agendas of good and evil are universal. Search for fertile ground, set a common goal, work hard, promote growth, self-sufficiency, and never, never, never give up.
Struggle is an equalizer, tension leads to equilibrium, and necessity is the mother of invention.
To be a cry-baby results in empty outcomes.
The City Council was about to decide on the CDBG Grants. With no time to get a job, I joined the Citizen’s Review Committee for CDBG applications. An accelerated learning experience on what other social needs, besides housing, were being competed for by low-and-moderate income residents of the City, providing elected City officials with an overview on the health and needs of their communities. Residents hoping to benefit came to defend their needs, competing for limited funds. Social groups in different areas would show and play favorites, even not knowing whose houses were to be impacted. Full of hidden agendas everywhere. TBA’s was the first and only request for sub-recipients at that time.
Good and noble elected officials care about the community’s needs, while the not-so-good-elected official would use this opportunity to give favors to those who would increase their votes and enhance their personal careers. This is an inbuilt weakness of most government programs. Equivalent to cronyism.
Until the day we revealed we were applying as ‘sub-recipient’, the City’s Community and Development Department (CDD) helped us with all kinds of information, not telling us they were also submitting their own competing application for our Barrio, and fully aware that if either was funded, they would run the program. They expected our application to give more credence to theirs, a better documented proposal. When they found out from our final draft that we were requesting for ‘sub-recipiency’, all cooperation ended.
Not only that, but we began to hit all kinds of roadblocks, at first, subtle and discreet, but increasingly more blatant and abusive as time went by. Their tricks were the usual “No, we never received the information”, “Re-do it, you have the wrong dates”, “The numbers you have do not concur with HUD’s guidelines”, “You were late by three days”, “You have not answered questions relating to section 23, Paragraph 8, sub-section b, c and f.” Bureaucratic jargon and trappings. Before he was replaced, the Director from the Department, Phil, a nice person, eager to try the unusual, was very intrigued by the Self-Help Housing Program. He asked me many questions and I told him in detail my experience with Visalia, California. He wanted that portion to succeed, but not the other parts. His second in command was Max Gonzalez, who stayed invisible behind the scenes. Max did not want the Self-Help Housing Program nor the Rehab Program or any other part of our proposal to go through because, as we soon discovered, the Barrios were all his own priorities. Hidden agenda. He came from somewhere there, he knew what needed to be done to defend and protect his turf - and his job - and he noted that Ellen and I were not even ‘Mexicans’, while he was.
It is an unspoken fact that a very common roadblocks to the advancement of minorities often comes from the hidden agendas of the very same minorities themselves. Women are a very good example: in the business world, they cut each other down as one of them begins to move ahead.
Men don’t care what women do to each other as they do each other in. Worse it is with ideologies where liberal women attack conservative women in politics, while never the other way around. They fail to understand that the damage they do to their gender is considerable. Democrat - males and females - are shamelessly eager to do this and attack their counterparts in the Republican party. The same is the case with certain Blacks attacking Blacks. To their credit, Republicans do not do this, but to their discredit, they do not come in their defense either, which is among the reason why they become the weakest link to their fellow conservatives. Democrats protect and promote each other very effectively, contrary to Republicans.
What I saw within the Hispanic City staff, then and later, was an insidious undermining of the accomplishments of the kids in the barrios. Horrific when coming from a Hispanic staff! - Not all of them - and I would go as far as to say that one staff member, Max, mentioned above, more than Benitez, instead of support, singlehandedly annihilated the one chance this microcosm of an experiment by TBA ever had to create a monumental change in the future of his own people city-wide. For a while, I ignored this thinking that they resented me for not being Mexican. We saw the same at the City Council level from the one Mexican descendent, Bejarano, who did not stand up for the accomplishments of the Barrio kids. As it would become more apparent as things developed, this is not a casual observation. Personal hidden agendas by minorities are often among the worst roadblocks to progress in improving themselves.
