scale, but as you told me, we need to hang out with people where we want to be. but again, it's just, we are meeting people where they're at and working with people to get them off drugs, alcohol, and to show them hope, what it's about. >> we are joined by pastor shirley holloway, again, another place where paul ryan visited, visited bishop holloway twice. here and in d.c. i've met or maybe 18 years ago when this executive with the post office of pastor comes from a family of pastors living in the suburbs and went to speak at a homeless shelter with all her playing on as she said, and when

all of the women, she's going back just pulled over the side of the road and asked gore to speak to her about what she was doing. to make herself. i remember her taking homeless men and women into home in gaithersburg which did not please the neighbors. and so then she moved into the neighborhood where there was a problem with a rundown house to i let her pick it up from there to talk about what she does house of help and the city of hope. >> thank you, bob. good afternoon, good morning, everybody. i've been working really hard. house of help city of hope as a nonprofit faith-based organization that helps residents and also helps its volunteers. and just recently we had to downsize. but downsize is a nasty word but

it's a good thing. it determines when i use it and how you shift. so we decided to downsize. while we would downsize to make what we did equality of what we do better even if we couldn't increase the quantity. and so i just left my staff. we just put in for a $1 million grant to take and juveniles. we house women, children, we do domestic violence. whenever a person comes in we give them a personal prescription. and i think that's what creates a problem and makes it bigger. we wanted to everybody in the pot and give them the same thing. folks are unique and different so you have to find a unique and different approach. so we take anywhere from rapist pedophiles, something i thought i would never do but god said to me if you don't help them, who will? if you don't stop them, who will? sometimes you have to take the hard cases even if you don't want to do it. because if you don't do it, who

will? to i like to think we're in the business of doing what other people don't like to do. we are in the business of helping people that others don't want to know. so we have to forgive, forget, release and relinquish but if you don't do those things you will hold them where they are and they will never go to where they can go. we always see what are going, not where they are. we always see what they're going to do, not what they've done. he keep preaching that and we keep speaking that but, of course, those are just words. you have to have behavior and action. so what we are doing is we put them in a program where we give them an opportunity to grow slow. we put standards on them that are not too high but yet they are attainable but yet they are not easily manipulated. so that's a unique design. most players know how to play the game. the one who is in charge of the game has to change the rules so they can't get adapted to the game. so that causes them to eventually have to give will.

we have a role up your sleeves and get down and dirty ministry. i love it or i wouldn't it for anything in the world. i've seen pedophiles changed i've seen the demo program for six years. i seem to adapt to any rules, regulations we give them. icing drug addicts in the program for 17 years and entrepreneurs. they will submit to urine tests just like that because they have deployed themselves other eco. what you have, then real victory sets in a victory cannot come in until your ego goes. where ever your ego is it will keep you in bondage and it will lock you in your magister when you humble yourself, and that major nothing to hide, no fig leaves, you are what you are, you are where you are, and which do that then god has said i will exalt the humbled and i humble exalted. so we teach them to be humble. first to yourself, first to god,

and do so and then with others. we've helped over 60,000 family. recently the last two months we had to shift out of our location, everybody is down at grace rich. god said i want you to redevelop their mind that they are now not just fishing but they are a pond owners. i'm going to say that again. first you fish for them and defeat them come in you teach them how to fish and then you teach them to be the owners of the pond. that's a whole different game, a whole different mindset. for the next 90 days that's what i'm teaching the people that i felt that it came to help me help others. you are no longer just fishing. you now own the pond. thank you so much for listing. >> i would like to talk about this whole issue of foundation. many years ago when my daughter was 13 and my son was 16, i spent a week in the ministry.

midway through the trip, garcia jubal who couldn't hear, mother and father started the ministry said to these two women come on want you to take bob's daughter, my three granddaughters in the van, take them to dinner, have been backed by 9:00. and she said, they were leaving coaches about come relax, their ex-prostitute and heroin addicts. the kids will be just fine last night and i said that when i was giving testimony just before the congressional hearing, and i turned to this psychiatrist and i said, how many of you would trust your therapeutic intervention to the point where you would turn over your children, the keys come to think what i said i would turn over my children to any one of the people who have declared they are cured. and one of the reasons i have

that confidence that i want you to discuss this, is that evidently you cannot be hustled, which means that people that difficult fooling you. talk to me about that. how do you affirm that somebody has really changed or are they just playing games? spirit it's interesting you bring that up because we have a couple that i think about a year, almost two years ago they started coming to beyond the walls and the recurrent heroin addicts. they were shooting up in the parking lot to be able to coming to church and not be sick. so if you come out to beyond the walls and you see some things in the parking lot, told get alarmed. but anyways, their name is victor and jamie. we just met them where they're at. which is allow them to continue to come, and we encourage them, praise them, love them come

loved one to get cheney ended up going into a treatment center. victor, took them a little longer, but they now, i now have given them the keys to the church. they claimed the church. pages recently this last weekend they get married. she had lost custody of her five children. she was seven months pregnant shooting dope when she's coming to beyond the walls, and her little girl was born heroine for a, which was a miracle. i was a psychic james that god really does love her. because we came from that, i could tell when they were ready to be trusted with the keys to the church. so now they are on staff, and so it, yes. a hustler knows the hustler. but the person sitting behind a desk that the social worker that's going to college, not live the life, it's easy to play

them. the other thing is that person sitting behind a desk that's gone to college and got my degrees, and i'm okay for higher education, believe me. i don't have any but that person treats that person on the other side like just a number. c., we met jamie and victor where they were at and retrieve them at a person or not like a heroin addict, because whether you're a heroin addict, a pedophile, rapist, whatever, you are still a person. if you always keep people in categories, you'll never get them out of that category. >> paul is right. stylistically it is an intrusive model. i tell people that the difference between what we do and what other people do is, i won't be that crude because you've got cameras are so i won't be that crude, but i will just say it like this. we are not this far away.

we are very close to the people who are being treated. so what happened is you have to come into scripture jesus had, he said she was not dead, she was sleeping. of the people laughed but i tell people you've got to get close enough to the victim to do proper diagnosis. some people do drive-by diagnosis so they can't see the difference. they can't see the nuance. there is a difference, a fundamental difference in a person when you're close enough to hear what they're thinking. so the difference between what we do and what someone else will do, they will try to treat them at arms length. you cannot do that when you have critical behavior changes that you're trying to do. so it really doesn't matter if you have high education if you're from the hood. it is the strategy. and a strategy for us is very intrusive. we don't say here is your cup,

and you go in the restroom? we say we're going in the restroom with a couple with you. we will all just way. we are going to see. so that's the difference is to me, bob, that's what you get when you these type of intervention strategies. they are close enough to what is not that you just can't be fooled, you are watching every nuance. >> i've seen all of them. there's also in each of you at assumption going in that every caterpillar can be a butterfly. that every caterpillar. because there's an industry that needs caterpillars to stay caterpillars. because if you are paid to care for caterpillars, when they become a butterfly, you lose money. >> absolutely.

>> so there's a vested interest that some people have in keeping caterpillars caterpillars, where as you are trying to work yourself out of a job as it were. these people are not clients. they are butterflies in the making, right? >> that's right. that's a good point, because i don't treat the people i work for and work with as clients. they our friends. they are fathers, husbands. they are people at the end of the day. and one of the things that keeps me grounded is that i realized that we all are that decision away from a mistake. and if i understand that and the true essence of it is that just because you make a mistake doesn't mean that you're a bad person. i've had situations where some of the individuals work with me have been caught with a pistol. but that individual before it became public told me, came to me and said, mr. curtis, i want

to let you know because i value what we are doing as a group that i want you to know what i did and why i did what i did. and that alone gave me a greater understanding that we all are a decision away from a mistake by that person, whose characteristics that you talked about, omar, is off the chain. he's a good person. ..

i learn from people talking to me. i'm listening and learning from them. like you said i used to tell people when they would say things about anton before he was totally transformed. they would say, well, he had a gun. i would say, did he shoot you? [laughter]. he didn't rob you. you made a difference. he would have shot nobody but, just making a joke. >> but i think, from my experience these and women, from my own personal observation, you are willing to lay down your life. >> absolutely. >> i remember when i first met omar, there was young hispanic man that was going to be paroled to san antonio. a condition of his parole he couldn't be a gang member. but a condition of his coming

back he had to be a gang member. so omar, got on the plane, never been to san antonio, accompanied young man, met with the mexican mafia, in their room, they were laughing in the room, speaking in spanish who was going to kill him. ol' march appealed to them to give him his life. they said if you have enough courage as a black man to come sit here and ask for his life, we'll give it to you. that is the kind of commitment. other young mexican mafia men approached him said i which i could exit. that is typical with curtis. when we were negotiating the gang truce in bening, and i'm driving home, curtis calls me on the phone because these two huge guys started to do fight in front of the kids, and curtis said to me, bob, these guys are fighting. i heard curtis intervene and he

dropped his cell phone. and i rushes back. one of them actually did something to the other. he was in the hospital. i went to the hospital. curtis stayed on the scene. and we were able to resolve it but the very fact that curtis coming from, he was not always this quiet mild-mannered guy you see here. when he was in high school, they would say, he's here. so for curtis to come from that background and to physically intervene in between -- i heard him say, if you guys want to hit somebody, hit me. he wasn't challenging them to fight. he said, take your anger out on me. i wept as i heard it on the phone. but it speaks to the kind of sacrifices and chances that you grassroots leaders do every day.

and darryl talked to me because when i sit in your boot camp in the roundtable that we have, i see men, some of them older than you, but they listen and they are, they learn. tell us about curt moore who i met. >> bob, let me also say this quickly about making an impact. we live with these people. that's one of the reasons why they can't pull the wool over our eyes. we know them you know, and we're one step away. every day we get up we have to recommit to what we do. when you talk about really impacting people, we have to make that choice daily to help people. i like one of the fellows said, i put it another way, buster talked about the caterpillar and butterfly. people's present situation don't dictate their final destination.

they can to through real transformation when they meet us. we're transforming people. curt moore done 11 years in the federal prison system. wrote me a letter when he was coming out to reenter society and actually, could i help him to reconnect? and he got out, joined the church. no job. you know, 11 years in the penal system felony. one of the boot camp guys, travis reed, gave him a job. travis is a repair guy who fix cars. curt went there and started washing cars. talking about real transformation. knowing when people have changed, it is transformation of belief, it is transformation of behavior, and it is a transformation of character. education is the segue to opportunity but transformation will keep you on the job.

so curt moore began to wash cars and what he began to wash cars we helped him get a truck. just a old ragged van. he went to do mobile car washing. a lot of guys said you can't find a job. >> create one. >> create one. that's it. with curt, this is a true story, curt started with that ragged mobile car wash place, i let him wash my car, messed it up, streaks everywhere, but we gave him a chance. now curt moore have 20 dealerships. him and travis reed, the guy who gave him a job, just closed on their first building and in that 42618 zip code, which is the worst zip code of city of indianapolis. they bought a building. they will detail cars and do

collision repair work. >> has about 15 employees. >> curt has, no, not 15 now. he has 25. >> wow. >> employees. when you talk about grassroots people, real change come from the bottom up, not top down. bureaucrat can not change grassroots people. when you talk about making real, real, impact in lives of people, when i think about curt and, this is amazing to me, bob, it is amazing to me, bob, he has two locations now. a guy who just got out of prison six years ago. but not only is there curt moore, there is mark webster. these are boot camp guys. mark has a catering business. nobody would hire them. there is capacity in a lot of grassroots people. we just need an opportunity. >> absolutely. >> bob? >> yes. >> we'll segue into the next segment but as we do, let me

somewhat launch the q&a from the leaders. how do y'all pay for all this? i talked about resources. you talked about downsizing, all these miracles. how do you finance what you, what you just described? and what are challenges related to these? >> that's good. >> straight, fellows. one of the ways we do, we have a house in development. so the people that we help, from he leave of house of hope and go to city of hope, we help them get a job. they're able to pay for their rentals. that brings income into the ministry. we also do catering. we would do rental of our facilities. creative ways comes as you go. you know, as the talent comes in and you work with them and they come together, then you work with that talent.

one of the things that i wanted to say was practicality in making sure a person stay focused, for the first 90 days we don't let them go anywhere. somebody goes with them. also, we also go, when they finish the 90 days which we call icu. icu, where you have to have a wrap-around service. a lot of times when they're coming through their mind wants to change but their habit doesn't. you have to make the habit and mind and emotions come together. you have got to work with them just like you would a little baby child. tough hold their hand. they need the 90 days until their thoughts are strengthened. once their thoughts are strengthened we give them a little window and go in the bathroom with them. we hear what you say but here is the card. when we finish with that phase two, and you have completed six months to nine months of that humble to that, then we start building you. we say you can't give hope until

you get help. what is the problem with bureaucracy, they want to give hope but not giving no help. that is wasted money. that is wasted resources. what we do, every week we bring you to what we call relapse prevention meeting where you sit down and you talk about how you're coping with life. then we go to your apartment check and see. if you're apartment is not clean you're a step from using. if you're apartment are not organized you're a step from using. you can't obey some of the rules. you have to obey all the rules. everybody saying -- what we do then, we start building with them. and this is one of the things i say after 60,000 families and 20 years of this, you can't build them, i don't look for poster boys or girls. how you develop is up to your development. you take your time to development. nobody needs you to be testimony. your testimony comes when your test is over.

if it takes you one year, if it takes you three years, if it takes you five years, if you have to come into the program four times. i have people clean eight years but come on four time. what about quits on first time or second time they thought they were ready. he didn't get ready until they got tired of failure. that's is what i think our uniqueness ours is. until the breath leaves your body i will be right there for you. how we deal with monies is, i do rentals, i do housing. i just opened up a resource department. and, you know, i say we don't have time for grants. gus, said you crazy. gus said to me, i'm giving you opportunity what i called to you do. now build the people. put all of my people in college. everybody is getting their college degree. whatever area they want. we're defining their strengths with where they can help, help the people. >> what you just described

violates the model for 90% of the funding sources in the world because funders want you to get people on their feet, off drugs, within of the funding cycle which is definitely one to three years. >> yes. >> what you just said answers one of our questions, and that is, you're not fundable by most sources. >> no. >> right. anybody else want to? >> all of others is funded by giving of the church, the people of the church. we have a couple of outside businessmen hear what they're doing and they sow into that. we recently acquired a ministry called advent ministries which is we started manufacturing bunk beds. we bought it as turn-key, put it right into the building of the church. the vision of that is to hire men that are hard to find employment because of felony

convictions. so the vision of that is to manufacture these bed bunks or bunk beds are really high quality. do in-house. everything is done right there. eventually that will be a profit for arm. other thing i got a printing press, and i just print the money. [laughter] >> to make any money, he has to stop giving the beds away. >> the church also comes alongside and it helps us out with money. then we ask some of the guys who are part of the boot camp, who believes in the boot camps, give a donation to the boot camp. here recently i was on radio with bob, greg garrison show, they heard my story. we got funding through the greg garrison show. we have a 46,000 square feet

building donated to us. what we do now, we painted it, getting electricity in it. we're getting ready to making furniture and re-up holster furniture to get funding. that is pretty much how we're funded. >> wow. >> we have contracts with the school system. as i said, once these guys are transformed they have a market advantage when it comes to security. we do some contracts. we apply for grants. we have donations, and i guess as y'all, i guess i'm going to get in the furniture business. [laughter]. i'm going to start making some. >> for us, we get small contracts in. not enough and i don't think truly we ever going to get enough money to do what we really need to do but what we do is, you know, we make the means end by getting enough money to give some of the money to the guys and do what they need to

do. but reality is, we don't get enough funding to sustain what we do. >> part of what the center for neighborhood enterprise does, we don't operate programs. but we serve them. and i remember what i'm always trolling for people like george kettle, the late george kettle, who at 74 retired, one of the cofounders of century 21. i recruited george and his son to come visit shirley and her ministry, when he saw what she was doing, he was so moved. she knew she wanted to buy this 48-unit apartment complex run by drug dealers. george put up, a half million to buy it. another half million to renovate it using her people and his own contractor. and so now that building, we did the same thing with jubil. when i met pastor freddie, i said to him in 1990, they were operating out of old barracks,

the fire department, health department could close them down overnight, but freddie, i said i will help you get a new building. i was blessed to organize a meeting of grassroots leaders and funders. one of them pledged a million dollars but he wanted his million to be in last. so local business leaders were recruited and we built a $3.5 million brand new facility in san antonio that they use as their primary treatment center. so what the center hopes to do is by working with opportunity lives, our partner here, that is, has been claire burns has been going around with us and reaching each of these communities and telling their story through opportunity lives. that is a public platform and they, we have the series the

comeback, we hope viewers tune in to the opportunity lives website or center to enable enterprise website so you can see first-hand their stories. we hope by advertising and letting people know what works, perhaps a fraction of the funding that goes into attack ads for political parties, they will invest a portion of that into life saving enterprises in these communities. so that is a goal of the center in terms of being a resource to help. so right now we would like to open up and ask for a few minutes from some of our thought leaders to ask any questions you may have of the panel. then i would like to ask members of the audience if you have questions for a time we can take those as well. yes? want to introduce yourself? >> gerard robinson with the american enterprise institute. thank you for the very powerful testimony you give and work you do. i'm in education. two questions.

number one, you work with a lot of adults transitioning out of prison or out of counseling situation. what can we do on our side of the fence to support you helping with adults? two, working with young people as gang members, what is the recommendation for to us help that population? >> well, i think the first thing is to, i think institutional challenge is necessary in this sense. some of the, some of the previous ideas that don't work, which have been, you know funded fully and researched well, we should have the same litmus test applied to us. so we need people like american enterprise independence statute and others to come behind us and follow us and say, what is, what is the process? because sometimes like we're doing here, we're describing what we do but i think there is a thought that it won't

intellectually hold up and it can, see, but we needn't lex walls to hold up our testimony and -- needn't intellectuals to see there is change. sometimes they say he changed but it don't make sense. that is a real thing to me right now. >> talk about measurable outcomes on what we do, you can't measure us until you research it. he was going to work in indianapolis working with males, iupy, they couldn't get results from the males. they asked me to could lecture with them. they were getting paid but i was getting results. to bridge what he said you have to come along put research to what we're doing and hold us side by side.

you really start talking about the whole measurable outcomes. i guarranty ours will line up with theirs. >> i have to offer a comment. i remember, one of my criticisms for 10 years, kettle worth parkside kim gray defied all the odds as a result of residents taking charge. they sent 800 kids to college in 10-year period without any of the parents getting married. but not a single researcher from any of the universities ever came down to inquire how they did it and what lessons can be drawn from it. 18 years ago when curtis and i were involved with bening terrace, 53 murders in a five-year period. got leaders got them to our office, negotiated a gang truce.

that gang truce lasted for 12 years without a single gang-related murder in 12 years. not a single researcher ever came to inquire how you did it. the pbs did a special on it and all networks found us but not a single researcher from harvard, princeton, none of the think tanks ever came down to inquire of these folks, how did you accomplish what you did? and what is the consequence for changed public policy? and that is one of the reasons why we wanted to convene this session and have you. yes, glen. >> yeah. so, again, thank you. very powerful and very inspiring. i say that in part because my question has a critical aspect to it. it is about getting to scale. it is about the difference between, i will use anecdote

here, i don't mean any disrespect. i'm talking about individual gifted leaders and a national program that can reach hundreds of thousands and millions of people. my concern here is that whereas the quality of the leaders that we are graced with their presence today is one thing. a massive effort to replicate what they do will draw in people who may not be of the same caliber, commitment, talent, selflessness, integrity. so, when you talk about a program, when you talk about a policy, country of 300 million people, you have to think through how you go from specific examples to this larger, larger thing. i'm wonder what your thoughts are. >> i wanted to answer that too. >> see, that is what i was say something critical.

see, you're right. this is what i was saying. that this is not, that we are unique in probably our, the way we do what we do but this is not unique to what we do, see. there is an approach that is necessary. so first you have to have an intrusive strategy. that is why i was saying that. not that you just have to have intrusive people. strategically the way you platform this has to be intrusive strategy. you have to have invasive strategy, which is culturally invasive. you have to people cultural leaders that people can trust. thirdly you have to have institutional think tanks like bob is doing. what that does is, it gives you the platform by which you build the scale. if you do it anecdotally going to different neighborhoods to figure it out, you can't do it. it will bring some people that are not as potent but, every

team has some weak links. >> right. >> but at least you have a team to build from. i think if we do it that way, see if we say, this is an example. if you say, every program that you perform, whether it's drug rehabilitation, pregnancy reduction, whatever you want to call it, every program that we do must have an intrusive model and define what an intrusive model is, you will then be able to really propagate the right type of people to come to that type of program. you see what i'm saying? see, if the practitioners are that way, then you will, you can scale it up that way. see it is not only one anton, he is the best but there are hundreds of thousands of them. see what i'm saying? >> let me say, glen, that is why the word enterprise is in our name. we believe the principles that operate in the market economy should operate in the social

economy. we know in market economy only 3% of the people are entrepreneurs. this was something that didn't exist six years ago. so what we do is we believe that the principles that you, that you heard here are like the platform. what we're seeking is advice and council from business people who take idea from someone's kitchen to generate a fortune 500 company. that happens along a trajectory. you take an idea. then you invest in it. because venture capitalist looks for entrepreneur. and then what does the venture-capitalist bring? capital but also knowledge about how to grow the. too much capital can suffocate it. too little can -- too much can strangle it. too little can suffocate it.

we are inviting business leaders who know how to grow a company to come alongside of us to counsel and coach us to take this to scale. but you got to believe it's possible to go to scale and even to invest. but if people were unwilling to invest, even in the documentation of success, how convinced would they be to help with the growth? you can't even convince them to come take a look at what works. so how can you then, ever talk about growing it, if you don't even believe it exists or has any value for you to inquire about it? with that i think we need to move, and i would like to ask any questions from the audience. i think we have a microphone. does this work? any questions from the audience or. there is one back there. yes, ma'am. >> do i -- [inaudible]

>> thank you. pastor shirley, you mentioned about looking into grants. i was also wondering about everyone else on the panel in sort of traditional grant structure if the fact they play such an important role in what you do if that will be hinderance in getting funding for your organization? >> we look for grants for what we do. so if the grant coincides to what we service in applies to what we provide, that's a grantable fund. if it changes, what we do and how we do it, then i won't apply for it. so we don't shop for money. we shop for assistance. the second thing is, does faith, does my faith stop it? i'm getting ready to take lgbt

classes because i need to know how to relate to that population, not from my religion but from my help. see i can help anybody. i don't need religion to do that. i just need relationships. so i don't try to apostlize people for my help. that is holding people captive. saying you do this, i do this. no. we will help you regardless what your faith is. i've taken in muslims. i've taken in atheists. i've taken in whatever. they will say to me, are you willing to help me? well, if i can't convince you of my love, i can't convince you of my god. i don't want to give you my god. i want to give you my love. that doesn't cost you anything. >> there are some, there are some, if you look at it from a faith perspective, there are some barriers. but if you look at it from a functional perspective, there are perhaps a larger barrier. number one, most of them are

don't have time to raise money. >> right. >> you're so busy doing what you do. >> right. >> so then you have to hire someone to raise the money but you need the money to hire the people to raise the money. that's another barrier. the third barrier are the requirements of the grant. >> absolutely. >> if the grant says, we had to give a grant back in our neighborhood. we had a warring reality between two gangs. they lived on two sides of our church which is on the county line. so the state gave us a grant to work with the juveniles but because they came from two different counties and money was only for one county, the kids from the other county couldn't eat pizza at the meetings. so we had to give the grant back because the grant, the requirements for the grant were written by phds who would never come to the neighborhood. so that was a third barrier. then the final barrier for the

grant was that, the relationship that you need. grant fund-raising is a science and it's a skill that most of just don't have. and so, you end up making beds you know, and selling pies because you know how to do that. you can control it and you don't have to be audited. the audit, the audit, the grant assumes that you have general operating funds. >> that's right. >> if you don't have general -- you have to have someone to manage the grant because you can't take indirect costs out of the grant. you need money to pay auditor for the grant. a lot of non-profits not being able to afford the audit of the grant that -- so it is, then you go to jail. >> absolutely. [laughter]. >> not because you're corrupt, but because you're underfunded.

that is why what bob's talking about, taking this to scale but more enterprise model. the way you take an idea to a vc. you go to venture capitalists, they invest in an idea. then you use the capital to buildout the enterprise. what all, if these guys had a business plan that could yield a return on investment in capital, they could go to a whole different community, make their presentation, and there are billions of dollars being invested every week in businesses by people who want financial return. we have to find the resources in this country that want a return in human capital. yeah. >> glen robinson, brown university. this can't be a new idea but just occurred to me. if you could demonstrate to the

government authorities that the success of your interaction with your client was saving the state $100 and they get to give you back 30 for every one hundred or make it 60 -- >> right. let me give you an example, run be rebels, they operate in a violence-free zone. they have interesting relationship for the county past 10 years, they have taken young, violent offenders, who otherwise would be remanded to the adult facility to spend 20 years, they're remanded in the their homes, supervised by ex-offenders in the community, ratio of six to one. people monitor them in the same neighborhood. they have to check in three times a stay. but they're required to go to training and whatnot. 8% of the young men who completed the program are

successful. last year, running rebels presented the county a mock check for $63 million that the county determined was the money that they saved by not sending these young men to prison. and so they take a portion of that and give it to running rebels, i think two million, that carries the cost of the program into the future. so even in a situation where we have demonstrated cost benefit, there is no rush to embrace it. i think people don't idea how entrenched poverty industry is in maintaining their control. i mean, so we have made a case. in our violence-free zone. we're able to show that we can reduce violence in schools by 25% in three months.

which means that we reduce costs and expulsions, police service calls, all of that. we've demonstrated it. baylor university did a three-year study. y'all that are hung up on that. it has been accepted for academic review. and even with that validation, glen, there is just no rush to come to us and say, okay, you have passed the validation test. now here's the investment in this great idea of yours. that is what we're fighting against. so with that, i want to segue into the next panel but i see special guest has arrived. congressman paul ryan. this is a good time, paul. you couldn't have been perfect. come on up. i want our panel to, to thank them. take your bottles and --

[applause] >> hey, darryl, how are you doing? >> congressman, how are you doing. >> hey, paul. i didn't mean to make y'all leave. what is the deal here? >> hey, shirley. how are you? >> i'm good. >> have you tried, you did? what do you want to do? >> right here, paul. >> is prime time coming in. >> this is a good time. >> we have, one of the first times in this city where the prince pal presenters were poverty warriors practitioners. our thought leaders are here, they will come and as respondents to our grassroots leaders. i think we have had a spirited

conversation and -- >> grassroots and ivory tower. >> our other special guest arrived right away. come on up, deion. >> here he is. hey, prime time. how are you doing? [applause] >> hey, mr. ryan. take a picture of this and send it to me. >> we got that covered too. we just had, deion, you've been working with omar in dallas. also you have have been one of few celebrities that spent a lot of time in the hood operating a school, operating a sports program. and i wish, paul, you would talk about why you got this thing going. when we first met and i ask you the question that we asked on the video. as a former vp candidate, and

now chairman of ways and means committees, why are you interested in this issue? >> well, first of all, because we can do a lot better than what we've been doing. it's just that simple. then if you want to do better restoring upward he mobility and fighting poverty you have to figure out what works. and when you get out of this city, get around america, you can find people like omar, like shirley, like paul and everybody else, darryl, you can find things that work. so as policymakers it is our job to go learn and listen. that is what the comeback is all about. claire back here with the video, that is what that is all about. showing there are amazing things happening. we should learn from them. when we try to do policy at any level of government, that policy ought to be respectful of, supportive of what works and not dismissive of and displaces of what works.

that is basically what we're trying to accomplish here. it is just that simple. >> deion, tell us about your work with omar and why you have signed on to kind of be a supporter of movement, man. >> first and foremost it is genuine and authentic. when you alluded to the word comeback, i think all of us are dealing with some type of comeback in our lives, every last one of us. that is commonality that we all share. that's what ties us together. we have all come through trials and tribulations and we're here. some of us are still making a comeback as i speak. this is real. this is so authentic. and it's where we came from. my mother, single mother. father not in my life. stepfather, biological father, they would never play the position well enough i would deem them to be father. i have never called a man daddy. so i'm dealing with a plethora of single mothers at school in a

city. it is my heart beat, my passion to give them a way up and a way out. not a hand out. but for them understand, there are different resources. we had a phenomenal structured organization and structured event this past thursday we called single but not alone. we called all single parents in the dallas metroplex to come to this one location at a school where we brought them help from health care. we brought them job employment. we brought them resources for transportation. we brought them, someone stood up and say, i have 14 jobs that you can start today and be paid by next friday. that is a resource. >> amen. >> that is the way you make acomback. not i have a check here that will pay this bill, the next one you will be in the same situation. that is my heartbeat. we all say we want to help

poverty and we want to help kids and rescue, secure education but we're dropping these kids off to school repetitively but not doing nothing for the parent just dropping them off. so if we build that, if we build that young man and that young woman, that currently making a comeback just like our comeback, now we're putting a strong hold on poverty. we're helping one person at a time. >> yeah. >> i sort of feel underdressed sitting next to him. [laughter]. >> i wanted to be conservative but effective. >> paul, we understand you're from wisconsin. they don't even wear seersucker suits in wisconsin. these trips, paul, tell us about your journey. what was your biggest surprise i

guess that you did not anticipate? tell me. >> well, number one i think it is important to know we all share the same values an principles and we express them differently and what i learned was there is a lot to learn and what happens is policymakers, they don't view the human side of policy making. they do sort of analytical side. they do the ivory tower side. they do, the old thinking i think in the war on poverty is, kick it upstairs to the federal government. then you can be more efficient in how to to deresources and fix problems. and what you end up doing you reduce these ties that bind people together which is people together fighting poverty eye-to-eye, soul to soul, person-to-person and it's connecting people together in the communities who are helping each other, that is really what matters. and so you can't get that in

some program run by some, you know, building over here. that is one thing i really learned. so we shouldn't be at odds with each other in the war on poverty where government does this and civil society does that one should respect the other. that is what i kind of learn from a policy standpoint but from just a human standpoint we need to redeem the idea that redemption is really cool. we need to redeem the idea that redemption is the success story in people's lives and our communities that we want to see more and more and more of. and that, that to me is probably biggest thing i got out of this. that is to see redeemed souls and people who do redeeming, it is heroic, it is exciting, it is infectious. we need to do everything we can to make that a normal idea in society again. >> we just got word that you met

curt moore in indianapolis. >> yeah. >> curt is co-owner of a building in the community, has 25 employees and they have contracts with 22 dealerships. >> i met with curt, yeah. >> but we wanted to see this. the question was raised before about why there is not an embrace of this, this idea. and i talked about the resistance we're getting from the poverty pentagon? >> there is that. it is basically the status quo and the status quo has its adherents because they're doing well in the status quo. we see this in congress every day. how do you break that up? the way i look at it, focus on outcomes and results. so the policy side, if we can focus on what works and not on the status quo i think we can win the argument. so that the argument isn't

republicans or democrat or liberals or conservatives about what works and doesn't work, go out in communities that support that, make it not an outcome or partisan thing or idealogical thing, what works thing. that to me is kind of conversation we ought to have. why patty murray and i are doing the bill to move measurement system on measuring the effectiveness on war on poverty from inputs and efforts. program spending and bureaucracies outcomes and results. getting people out of poverty? is it working? what that ends up doing is it propels resources and power into the hands of local community poverty fighters who are actually succeeding. when they can show what works and you can cross-pollinate. that is what c and e does. darryl has great program at boot camp. shares what boot camp does in

indianapolis. martin and bright, i always get that wrong. share with kansas city and dallas. you're doing dallas cfc. we're doing milwaukee vfc. that is kind of ideas we want to see more of and bureaucrat and somebody with phd i don't know how to fight poverty in bureaucracies putting rules and regulation that prevent that kind of thing from happening. to me it is about changing approach, not based on input and top-down but organic, grass roots bottom up and show what works and go with what works. it is orient 9 results in fighting poverty. that is how you successfully take on poverty pentagon saying justify the results. they can't. focus on results. that to me is the debate this should evolve. shouldn't be red versus blue. should be what works what doesn't work. >> there is no one way. >> that is exactly right. >> i'm not a math major but

three plus one equals four. two plus two equates to four. zero plus four equates to the same thing. there is not always one way works in the solution. what works in indy may not work in dallas. what works in dallas may not work in austin. but we work towards the same goal. often people making crazy decisions have never set foot in the inner-city unless it's a photo-op. that is where i have a problem. yeah. what about the people really doing it and pushing envelope, anton lucky, living it day by day, week by week, month by month. we're seeing single mother and seeing father, he results to a life of crime because he sees no way up or no way out. he doesn't want a handout. he is willing to work but he can not find employment. so it is no one way to do this. i just wish, as people like you to take the initiative. so powerful i looked in your eyes in your office. i said why do you do this? you said eloquently.

because i want to provoke change. i want to provoke change. that's what you're doing. a lot of people trick-or-treating in these wonderful offices and it is not even october but the man i'm sitting by i'm telling you he is real. i would not waste my time -- i got a wonderful life. i have means. so i would not waste my time to come here had i thought, had i known that he is trick-or-treating. it's real. it is authentic. i love what you're doing. i love what you stand for. we're really trying to provoke change. we will provoke change but if we could have more help and assistance we could do it expeditiously. we're doing it one step at time. we're going to get there. >> deion, you also, i think part of our challenge is to give the kind of recognition to this movement that it deserves. opportunity lives has been really an effective partner in

really getting this out. we've seen over six million people went on the website to look at the series. this is the first time that we've ever had this kind of recognition. it is the first time that a celebrity like you would take the time to -- >> i don't know about celebrity. >> i do. >> i had a gift that i maximized my moment. >> i like that. [laughter] >> too many times against green bay if you ask me. [laughter] >> love brett favre but i had to do what i had to do. [laughter]. >> but i really think that it's critical to get this word out. and i'm really glad we hope this comeback movement will move to the kind of scale that again, glen asked, how can we replicate this?

how can we take it to scale? i said there is lack of imagination. 60% of the apple's income came from a product that didn't exist six years ago. why can't we take that same level of imagination and invest in promoting this kind of comeback movement? the thirst is there. when you hear a homeless man in boston who turns over a backpack with $46,000 in it, and somebody posts his name and face and tries to raise money and they raise $93,000 in two days because that says that there is a thirst on the part of the american public to support virtue of our founders. and there are four situations like that. the "marathon man" up in detroit was walking to work. 230,000 was raised for him.

so what i hope this comeback movement will do, with the help of you and paul, is to promote the actions of our leaders so that they will become household words. and that people will begin to invest in them. i think it is the only salvation of this country. >> it is the mind-set on what the public thinks is the war on poverty that we're trying to attack which is, it has mistakenly reinforced this notion, oh, this is government's responsibility. i don't have to do anything about this. i pay my taxes. i do my job. i send my money to washington. they'll fix this what we've done as a result of that we isolated and marginalized poor from among us. what you're showing, what the leaders are showing, no, it is opposite of that. everybody has a establishing and everybody can do something. we're trying to break down the mind-set which is, everyone, no matter who they are, no matter what their income is where they live they can do something

positive. they can make a difference. in order to fix this they have to. so that is what we're trying to do, say this isn't government responsibility, it is a responsibility of our communities so which can reintegrate people and actually bolster the fact that these homegrown, organic, bottom-up grassroots efforts are the best ever and it is not better or more efficient to displace that to kick it upstairs to some federal program. the federal government can provide resources and it is good at that but it can't displace the human interactions, the faith, the personal touch that occurs when you do this at the local grassroots level and reinforce the idea that everybody has responsibility in their communities to do something, whatever it is they can in their current capacity. that is what we're trying to reinforce here. we think if we can do that. change the way people look at fighting poverty and get behind the solutions that work and get people more involved, then we can really start moving needle.

that is basically thinking here. >> the commonalty our country shares as well is heart. all the different instances you told me about, the guy with the backpack, heart. but no one wants to be first. no one wants to be a leader. no one wants to stand alone as well. when we place something on the website to raise money or to allocate funds, as long as we're not first, we're willing to do it. because not a lot of leaders. not a lot of people willing to sit on the front row or be on front lines. when someone terribles initiative to say, you know what? i will fight poverty, i will stand in, you stand right next to me. then another person is propelled to stand. now we're fighting this, with a young, vibrant army. no one wants to make the first initiative. commonality once again we share, this country has heart. we just got to uncover it with all the trials and tribulations and pain and nonsense we go to

on day by day life and get back to the heart of who we really are. >> you had a question? >> yeah. >> we take some questions. >> congressman ryan was talking about -- >> there is a mike phone. >> congressman ryan was talking about what sells, i would argue the problem with facing poverty programs fail to reduce poverty they have enormous political success and that the politics of american cities are based on failure at this point, on failed programs. and so to talk about what, what we need to do is talk to the country what succeeds and what fails. that will fail because for many, this is true story, america works is a company in new york. >> they're in milwaukee also. >> in milwaukee, baltimore and

peter cole, one of the people founded america works was talking to a non-profit in new york and they, he said to the people at the non-profit, i don't understand something. i, given you x-amount of dollars and i have given you y number of people placed in jobs, much better than you have ever done before. the woman said, yes, that's absolutely right. but, peter, said you're dropping my contract. yes, that is absolutely right. he said why? because you don't come out for us on election day. you are not our feet on ground. you are not our organization come election day. i need these people for my political interest. i would just argue this is cynical and goes to glen's question about replication. i would argue until the poverty industry is defunded.

until you can't win by failing by way of federal funds about more moral example what we're talking about, it can happen because they're talented and on scale necessary to redeem a place like west baltimore. last thing. thing that struck you about west baltimore, and no one talked about faith-based successes in balt more. no one talks about america works successes in baltimore. they were simply not part of the conversation. only thing was, how dealing with the police, moderately evil are very evil. that is the entire discussion. that is good discussion you have if you want to keep the industry

in place. don't ask any fundamental questions. >> the way i look at this your observation which is as astute observations, america works people had same results in milwaukee, getting people on lives to self-sufficiency, out of poverty that is all that should matter. do they succeed, if they do, they should continue, if they don't they shouldn't. so to me instead of taking full frontal assault on status quo making us against them, republicans against democrats or liberals or conservatives, whatever, having some big political stalemate i would argue it is smarter and better to say, why don't we go with what works? let's agree beforehand that from now on we'll measure success not based on effort but on results. right now the measurement of success is effort. how much, how many programs, how much, you know funding and how many people on the programs, not

results. are people getting out of poverty? are communities healing? are objective metrics met or not. >> that is entirely rational. >> that is entirely rational, but it hopscotch as political fight that is stalemate for a long, long time. if we want to get through the stalemate, agree on front end, i think we're getting agreement from people on the left, change the way we measure success based on results in outcomes, not input and effort. if we can do that i would argue we far better succeed changing status quo than having this fight we've been having for year. >> i don't think we've been having. of a fight at all. i would point out to you that new york has gone through this fight for 25 years. it succeed for a while. >> who was dig architect. >> robert dor.

>> very important and good guy and new administration came in to attempt to repeal all of that. because the assumption you have that we can agree on what counts as success i don't think that hold. >> i know. moral high ground is here for the taking. moral high ground is absolutely here which is what do we as society value more? a person succeeding in life and shaping their destiny and reshaping their version of the american idea or a person stuck in poverty and we're telling them here is something to help you cope with it? what is the moral high ground? i think we can achieve the moral high ground together specifically with grassroots leaders working together to show here is how you save souls. the more high ground is there, we should never deny it, because i think this shows better results. >> i think you're right -- >> actually really sorry, paul. >> i have to get going. i have to be at the capitol at 3:00. >> thanks, guys. deion and paul.

we want our panel to come up, with good times. [applause] >> i asked our next panel to come up. [inaudible conversations]. [inaudible conversations].

we want to get started. bill? >> yeah, good. let's get underway with our, some of the folks here, actually hold the title of phd in spite of all the criticism that we've heard of phds. some of us are guilty of that. >> mud slinging starts. >> the mud slinging starts. plunging right into it. i asked pastor soaries to stick around as moderator of the panel. . .

>> in education policy. he's been there for what, six hours now. six hours and 10 minutes. not that he's counting. clarence page is a syndicated columnist with the "chicago tribune." and in 1989 he won the pulitzer

for commentary. mr. page has been a loyal fan of the grassroots approaches to the problem of the inner city and has written eloquently about the programs that are represented here in newspapers across the country. the editor of national affairs magazine and a fellow at the ethics and public policy center. and he, too, has written recently. i highly recommend an essay he wrote in the journal first things called the long way around. taking the long way would usually an excellent summary of the principles behind these programs. fred segal is a senior fellow at the manhattan institute. most recently the author of a book called revolt against the masses. i think in the context of what we've been discussing here today is the author of a book written

in the mid '90s called the future, talking about the experience of new york city and the decline of a civil society in the face of some of the government programs and cultural changes that we've been talking about. and, of course, pastor buster soaries you met before. glenn lowry has been, we've asked him to talk very briefly and i should add quickly said some of you old his ph.d status, are used to going on at great length but i think we have an hour for all of us. so we just when every free flowing conversation right after professor lowry talks a bit about these programs in the context of a fellow named james c. scott who wrote this book, seeing like a state, which i think would be a very valuable book for anyone interested in these questions to read.

so professor lowry. >> it's really a pleasure to be here. that earlier panel today was quite inspiring to me, and the celebrity and political leaders individuals also quite inspiring, make me think something along these lines. i want to first make a point of personal privilege and observation. yes, i do the ph.d. am also the alumnus of a halfway house where i recover from a cocaine addiction 27 years ago and it changed my life. amanda ran that house was a christian dedicated community worker. we've used the n-word ask me what were you doing out on the streets of boston, like any n showing your a-s-s. i could've walked out. i could've walked out on my right. i'm glad i stayed because i did not know the answer to that question at that time.

but enough about that. james scott is an anthropologist political scientist at the element, an academic and he writes big weighty tomes and visit one of them. in this book he reminds us of the failure of massive state-sponsored public interventions like the collectivization of soviet russia's agriculture, or the mass relocation of rural populations in the interest of somebody's plan. he points out how they failed. he then analyzes why they failed. i've only got a few seconds. bottom line is, some kinds of knowledge which is necessary for big bureaucratic and state interventions lose track of other kinds of knowledge about our absolute fundamental for solving -- solving problems. systematic bureaucratized knowledge of the kind you get when you take a census for example, requires a level of activity where you lose sight of all of the fine detail and

complex interconnection that makes real communities work. experts wh would have the ideas apply broadly across many different venues don't have a local knowledge that they need in order to be able to solve the problem in any particular venue. people working on the ground in such places who have seen their lives come full do have that knowledge. win the state acts according to james scott, it pushes the latter kind of knowledge off the stage in the interest of making room for the former. sometimes that can merely fail. sometimes it leads to massive disasters in which millions lose their life to famine, repression and so forth and so on. it's never a good idea. that's james scott's argument in a nutshell. i'm just here to recapitulate it at your local ivy league professor. i want is a couple more things on my own account if i make. >> very quickly.

>> i made some notes as i was listening. it's not just the poverty industry that stand in the way of expanding this to. the ideological stakes are huge. we are talking about labor, relations, international trade, how you run health care in this country. we are talking about the credibility of the diametrically opposed philosophies or ideologies about how to govern ourselves. this business is political. i'm sorry, inescapably, necessarily. that doesn't mean it has to be partisan or not get anywhere. but did not see that it is political, did not see the players are not simply for people that to some degree the poor people and their poor communities are pawns in a larger game would be to make a big mistake. epistemic battle, by which i mean how do you know if something is true? i've already described the different kinds of knowledge. spiritual battle. i pause because well, we've got

reverend so when so, mr. so-and-so, everybody is talking up what god is doing. supposed to be secular here. supposed to be in nonreligious, supposed to be states not going there. supposed to be separation. but, in fact, to get anything done to actually reach people it would appear that you have to go in a medium which doesn't articulate very well with a kind of neutrality in a kind of a religiosity. i'm not trying to pick a fight with anybody. i'm just trying to understand something about the terrain we're working on. i got a young man, he could steal the candy bar and he doesn't steal it. he reckons he will get caught in the prices to wipe another account is that i am not a thief. which ones you think is going to keep them on the straight and narrow? the constant marketing of micro-incentives to make sure that he knows that the cost of

violating the rules is too high? for the invocation within him essence of who he is so he doesn't want to steal a candy bar because he's not a thief? it strikes me we're in this latter idiom and that's an important thing to say to the left and to the right. you've got reductionism, materialist conceptions of human nature running rampant all across the political spectrum. finally, addicted the battle, and i will subside. my communities and my people, don't tell me there's not no there there. don't make these communities and these people into the subject of your charity. don't smother them with the soft bigotry of low expectations. treated him just like you would your own communities and your own people because they neglected their children, call them on it. if they behave additionally, call them on it.

-- thuggish lee. don't patronize me. thank you. >> fantastic i think that's a great segue into the question that in just going to throw out to you folks. you heard about this gap between the world that many of us live in as writers, as academics and so forth, and the world that you just heard from. our challenge today is to make some steps of building bridges across that gap or preparing the way to move some of what we've heard, some of the wisdom we heard into the world of public policy. how do we go about that. and just and historical note. bob said this is the first time in washington that this sort of thing is happen to actually bob arranged one of the early versions of this back at the american enterprise institute in the mid '70s at the beginning of what became mediating

structures project. peter berger and richard john neuhaus who are academics at the time sat down with folks very much like the ones we've heard from today, also to listen. bob was the one who arranged that kind of exchange. bob went on to become one of the first to write a theoretical account of the approach, a grassroots approach in case someone's to life about the house of emotion in philadelphia. so anyway, what response do we have to this gap. how can we as people who are knowledgeable about public policy can about the larger world of public affairs. how can we begin to bring the wisdom, the grassroots into the councils of public life? anyone. >> first of all, thank you for extending the opportunity to participate in today's bill. may take away simple. education matters.

we hear education gata medicus and we have to take place in a school building. what i've learned is education is ubiquitous. it takes place at home, and faith-based centers, in halfway houses, in parking lots. it takes place all over. i can tell you we are 41 states where education is a number one line item in a budget. 27, k-12 higher ed and combined for 14 states its k-12 alone. we have the money and we have money to invest. what can we do as administrators to make sure that investment we are making it reaching the people that should be quick sometimes with to meet people with our, not what we want them to meet us. may take the what is education matters and 92 rethink how we deliver them. >> in listening to this i'll start with a confession. i have a ph.d and it worked on capitol hill and on capitol hill and work for president. i've committed all the sins your want of the things that struck me and thinking about, the

question, why don't people see this is working and sent the resources? i was left thinking about the great lakes student walter burns was once asked why is there such hostility american system among intellectuals. he said the problem with americans is if it works great in practice but never work in theory. [laughter] in essence were looking at something similar. what you have to do when you run into situation is to say what's wrong with the theory? it's not what we do enough. if we asked what's wrong with the theory i think we would find yourself looking at a couple of different sorts of explanations. with stories like these add incredible people like the ones we've heard from today suggest to us is something a lot of people who work in social science, and social work, into political sphere implicitly don't believe which is that social capital, that draws us together, that makes communities, social capital can be built not just destroy. it can be gained not just

didn't. it's not only built in gained when you're rearing young children its building at all the time to every time more than one person is together doing something they are building norms. does can be destructive, constructive, for the better are the worst. they are always building something. so the question is what do you build parks so much of a conversation is about what we are seeing destroyed, what we need to nourish and protect us if our entire stock of social capital was great at the beginning of time at a job is to nourish debt, to make sure we don't lose it. we are always losing it, always doing stupid things, destroying our inheritance. at the same time we are always building new things. the question is what are we building, what will that led us to do? not nearly enough public policy thinks about the role of government can play in creating this space for social capital like that to be built in a positive nourishing way. too often we think about how to manage these kind of processes

rather than about how to nourish the circumstances that let it happen. we are no good at it. this is not a left-right division. this is easily the most bipartisan fact about social policy at the national level. everybody agrees about the wrong question, and the question is how do we manage this problem so that they can be diminished? what we're hearing today is a part of the question to ask is how do we nourish that space so the people who want to solve these problems and who exist at the level of the problem, meeting it face-to-face, and and and can have a chance, have a shot. i think that does require us not to think about scaling up in the usual way, not to see what all of you are doing an and think hw do we turned it into a government program that would achieve is for everybody? the intentions are good. the problem is not intentions. there are situations where there's a kind of poverty industry. i think all that's true. there's a lot of very

well-meaning people who were going about trying to solve these problems in a misguided way. and in trying to figure out how to take what you are doing and manage it at a national level. when what we should be figuring out is how to create this space for people to arise out of these communities. all kinds of committees of the nato. and help one another. on a sandy and i just think that's a question we are not even asking that question. >> before fred's picks up i would like to, speaking as i think the token non-ph.d holder i have a few honorary so. one of them for free speech. i am the token media member on the panel. there some free questions you asked congressman ryan, but i would want to get to what i came over, he got saved by the bill

because i want to ask myself running for president. because i've been following him around as he's been under bob woodson's guidance doing a great job of going out doing something i missing anybody to since jack kemp and that's go after before he start telling people, what you going to tell them come listen to them. find out what's on their minds. how are they kidding with these problems. going out into real civil society in the old admin burkean consents which is conservatism. but developing civil society, churches, schools and institutions at the grassroots. when i was despairing in chicago of all but insurmountable problems we got out of there. in any case before i go on too

long, which may be too late for that already, but one thing about bob, what abraham maslow said, the only tool you have iss a hammer. all the problems look like nails. i am immensely frustrated as a longtime political, social, journalist over how our language fails us or our language fails us in defining problems and diagnosing the problems and coming up with answers. it is essentially two of our political language. i'm of a mind that i think about scaling up and replicating the wonderful programs and policies that i've seen in action on the grassroots. but it's difficult in conventional journalism, for example, an old mentor of mine said that news is what happens when things are not going the way they're supposed to. all right?

so as a result, millions of kids were not drug addicted are not news. the millions who are not in gangs are not news. people like tammy great with the honor to know before she passed, over there send hundreds of kids to college out of kenilworth parkside. that's not news. that's a nice metro store back in the neighborhood section. isn't this nice come kids getting on the bus going to college, et cetera. this is what i live with everyday. i love ideas. i love something you. a new idea that is showing some promise of actually working. but when it does work it's not news. it's hard to tell your city editor, how many died out of their, blah, blah, blah, none. this one really works. and, of course, we are much us in in the news to believe any programmer who works. there must be some corruption in

there somewhere exploring all of us. in any case, i would like to see a paul ryan or somebody else way to check industry i wa was hopig jack can't get it back in 96 running as a running mate unfortunately the way our election campaigns are set up, now they've got a good at it as a vice president, who cares? you are just supposed to be filling in for the impatient when the top of the ticket can't appear. they're sort of a suppression, possible ideas that are outside the normal matrices that was set up on the political right and the political left. so i would like to see in some way that, well, this is constantly a task that i to do with as a journalist, trying to put a spotlight on good stories out there and generate some

public conversation about them. and it would be so much easier if we had, the civil society had its donald trump, it's a candidate who is to promote not just themselves but promote some real ideas that need to be talked about. the other day my buddy chuck todd said, you know, love, you know, love him or hate him he got us talking about immigration. at the newspaper where i work, they say the same thing. well, others don't want to talk about it, democratic or republican. it's not because it divides the party but it divides the party will talk about it. is still a problem. what do we do with our immigration policy? in chicago we get enough grassroots problems to deal with, you with same things in washington.

i've seen through the people doing some terrific things, violence programs, various educational programs to drug addiction programs, et cetera. a real honest debate about this will come with a people ready to champion the issues and am waiting to see that happen. maybe four years from now. i'm at the age now where, next four years. meanwhile, we've seen a lot of things go wrong. anyway thank you for letting me ramble on and i look forward to the discussion. >> one thing. i think you're right about the traditional media that people, editors the bad news, if i may raise the evil of social media go in the context, one of the things the opportunity lives as indicated that people come and where did in the earlier panel

come as much of the press on what to do the bad days, people are really thirsty for good news, and the popularity of tapes that were made that's all participate in, the fact that so many people have tuned in a number of us have talked about this for a long time. the difficulty is always been an academic prose or in written prose, how do we tell your story. the problem was converting stories into print. but with social media, we have a new way of telling the story. it sounds simple but clear burns has become an expert at taking your stories and telling them in a compelling way, with content. having, watch th these days yesterday it's not just

inspiring pictures. there is real content of what you say. you all described in some detail your approach and your capacity to change people's lives in a very thoughtful way. so i think as an intermediate platform between what we all deal with in terms of written scholarship and the source themselves i think we have a whole new way of conveying the good news spent i'm glad you mentioned that the social media, i keep forgetting been the 20 centric i got i am i am. this is why we have kids. that's what i told my son, this is eurocentric or i'm just lucky to be around any. what i am learning to love twitter. i understand the social media business but i'm beginning to understand the. i've seen what can happen. the last tw years of the tea pay movement rose largely because of social media. occupy wall street rose largely

because of social media. ideas now, people can get a platform now. you are not a lot of people who do want to do some good news. they want them hopefulness, news that shows there's an avenue out of here. not just a lot of symptoms. i don't know what this is going but i want to live long enough to watch and be part of it because i think we're just beginning to learn the value of social media for this sort of thing. >> professor? >> a couple of things. i want to start off with buster soaries talk about the out of doors and butterflies. -- caterpillars and butterflies. the fantastic polarization is taking place in urban american and suburban america, and part is based on the fact that in the big cities like new york you get an 85% vote for one candidate as

opposed to another. it creates a difficult situation. as to what glenn was talking about materialism, i think that's right and it's not just marxist. it's the libertarians. libertarians on the right, marxists on the left are both stout materialist who simply don't deal with the underlying spiritual moral dimension of life. anti--- the accuracy to get a mechanism in place, everything else follows. i think they are just wrong. and yes, this is all political, but it's not just a question of people being pawns. if you asked what organization was the most important for the election for president obama, in 2008 it would've been the seiu, and the president of the union's name i just blinked on, i'm sorry, said her friend of mine,

we are the most powerful political force in the country. we the public sector unions. and is right and they were and are. but this polarization, i'll stop with his polarization question. we are so fantastically polarized that we have been this polarized since 1896. i don't i'm a historic of these things seem obvious to me as a menacing obvious to others the 1896 was the year against jennings bryant rant against mckinley to making the character cities, the developed areas of the country. bride carried populous rural america. -- bryant -- polarization was dramatic. if anyone touches someone like mine mayor don't applause you was a populist, what they're telling us they don't know what is worsening. [laughter] -- what his words mean build applause you is a statist. in terms of populism, he won in

a landslide according to my friends at the new yor the new e the dumbest people i've ever met. he won with a small percentage of the vote since women got the right to vote in 1919. smallest percentage but that was a landslide. it's not a useful term anymore whether the left or the right. it might've worked a little better for the tea party but it doesn't work very well. let me say one thing to clarence about twitter. my youngest son who's among other things an army ranger did an article for the "daily beast" on twitter fascism. he didn't mean this sarcastically. is talk about the people behind the hideous character, dylann roof, that guy in south carolina.

obviously a hideous character. it turned out he had been following, not metaphorical fascism. you're telling your parents their fascist because this had to go to bed. a real honest-to-goodness fascist or he had been following their websites on rented. i don't know what that is but speed is that's what children are four. spigot down its imports are accepted. this was serious. he was deeply interested in fascism is a triumph of apostle triumph of fascism based on race were. that's part of why he did what he did. the affect of social media as of social media at the appointed instance by polarization, it's to reduce our collective intelligence. because ideas which have long series history to get reduced to comic book characters. this isn't a left or right

question to i'll stop with this. when people were marching in new york about police brutality, i went out to ask of them, let's talk about this. you know how many people in your were killed by a policeman now as opposed to 1990? it's about one-sixth now. there's been a very sharp reduction. the response i got was, who cares? this is not about evidence. this is about ideology. this polarization has reduced these ready-made ideologies people put on and get it comes to their persona. it's who they are. anyway, this is very, very and i -- [laughter] >> the good side of it is about twitter is a tool edge of the dark side and a bright side. the dark side is that people of all types connect with each other not including disenchanted

young men which is another issue we haven't talked about today but grassroots fellows are giddy with today, young men in particular now who are tripping off in many different ways like this young dylann roof. we are in an era of flash mob politics as i call it, which means issues and leadership investments, things pop up overnight. we have that ability so we need to get in front of it and use it for positive good. >> glenn raised a legal questions about religion. because all of the testimonies are explicitly religious but i think if you peel away any of these models, you will get an argument that for us, religion is a means and not in and. if someone else comes up with a means, that is as effective as religion, welcome to the party.

the problem we have is that, i think the religious right hijacks so much of the language, you know, you talk about language, hijacks the language so that when you say morality, there's a religious construct that comes to mind because of the moral majority, et cetera. but there is a moral consensus that is required for civil society. and if you don't have a moral consensus then everybody will come all of us will leave here with a chair, because there's no security. the assumption of the american model is that we cannot control behavior but rather we buy into a moral consensus. a cop in every classroom. the assumption is if i'm driving of the light turns red, i'll stop. and when i buy into that i am a part of civil society.

for us, religion is what helps people come to those conclusions. and so omar does not talk about success in terms of producing clients. he talks about success in terms of producing citizens. is language embraces the idea that there's something bigger than a churchman. is not just try to get church members it is time to retreat citizens, and a part of that model includes i pledge allegiance to the flight of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god. and that's where this movement, i think, can strike a chord if you can use these digital platforms to get into the hearts of people to award a great. as deion said this is a hard thing. you see because it's interesting. i think you are exactly right that so much of the language of morality and virtue has been

kidnapped and incorporated into the political dialogue as a weapon. what everyone here is talking about is we creating virtue, and has been one points out, virtue is a something without a big star up at the beginning of the republican we've been living out of it ever since. a lot of the discussion sounds like that. once you have abandoned certain principles, once you've abandoned certain institutions, users ground and you only lose ground and all you can do is defend the receding borders of the familiar an old institutions. but what these folks have done is we create a civil society, reinstitute virtue, right, that the matter, the founders principles, right, that we all talk about intellectually and in

a scholarly way, those principles are absolutely vital, right, for resurrecting lives. this is an extraordinary thing anyway. and as you say, pastor soaries, it's producing citizens, not just in some economically productive, but people who are imbued with a virtue, and viewed with a commitment to civil society come into the american experience which is really an extraordinary thing i think. but anyway, so congressman ryan as you know at one point proposed i think is called opportunity grants which was a way of collapsing a lot of categorical funding into a voucher that could then, i know voucher is a bad word i can't remember what he called it, and that would then be, that could be taken to any group that appealed to the person who was

in neein the end it was seekinge help. in other words, cash at categorical programs, putting it into a voucher and taking it to groups not unlike these that we've heard from today. here's my question. is that a good idea or are there other ways of bringing the ideas that we've heard about, the experiences we have heard about, into the practice of public policy? that seems to be, and bearing in mind that it's a politically fraught exercise for all the reasons that professor siegel was talking about and glenn loury was talking about. is this the ultimate goal that we should be looking toward or the other things we could do? >> let's suppose we reduce taxes. people would have more incentive to give to charity, to give on their own without having all this passed through the government.

lower taxes, more disposable income, more charitable giving, more civil society. the trouble with the kind of idea that congressman ryan presented is in parts of the country this would have some positive benefits. and other parts of the country like a big cities they would simply get ground into, go into the meat grinder and come out as the same old baloney. >> i think it sounds like, i thought it was a great idea into i wrote about and my readers tell me what's the matter with you? [laughter] but that's all we're supposed to have, find a process, right? everybody agrees on nothing but we all have some very in the middle we can come to some agreement on. i think your idea of a tax cut so the people of more money for charity is a good idea, but folks on the other side would say that money will just be

dispersed in all kinds of different places. one way to direct that money toward a desirable and would be some kind of a voucher or something which would be a specifically targeted to certain into. these are political questions, questions before you try to work up to a consensus. but i have found that i thought paul could've done a better sales job on it with the public. because anything he says now, because he's paul ryan, folks on the left are going to say he just wants to cut tax. he just wants to cut spending and this is another sneaky way to do it. so it's going to be more of an uphill climb for him but it's an uphill climb to sell any big political idea. >> i want you guys to keep talking but i want you to be cognizant of the gap between his political conversation, which is real, and the lack of politics discussed by the previous panel. no one talked about the mayor,

the city council, the district, no one. award politic never came up in the politics drives this conversation. i just want to point that out. >> is that a good thing or a bad thing? >> is just real. i am the co-moderator. >> it's one thing to have a policy but it's another thing to do policy and that's where politics gets in. that's my little lecture. >> you mentioned vouchers and you're right, the meat of you say it's a bad term and get the largest voucher program in america is called section eight. very few people would want to give it of section eight. it's called the housing voucher program. i would support the concept if you're taking state, federal money, give it to people where it matters, where they live. i would also say as administered i think there should be some rules and regulations in place the regulation is always been. i think over regulations that the problem because i want to make sure taxpayer dollars are being invested public i think we

can learn from and all of you today a lot of governors were you can influence policy% because you're not a paid lobbyist our you can't afloat% amid because you're not on his or her pack. where you can make a difference at the gubernatorial is they often have governors, cabinets for families and children with i worked for governor rick scott of florida we had one. we would have meetings across the state. great opportunity for people to say my name is gerard robinson, here's a recommendation for you. you have department heads from education, from law, social science. frankly, we don't always get together at the same time but his way for us to walk outside of our own lane and try to do something collectively. take advantage of the scuba tank habits because we often don't hear enough of voices of there. >> on the voucher question i just want to sound a cautionary note, okay, unintended consequences, okay. once millions of people are

carrying around billions of dollars worth of voucher come it's going to attract a lot of people who want to provide the services and then the need to regulate, to make sure the service providers, annexing of the federal government is in the business of monitoring, standardizing, whatever. i'm not trying to predict anything. i'm just saying, well, it might kill, you know, so anyway. let me just -- deal with the constitutional right which are going to be about? not have to stand back from the very thing that major program work in order to satisfy the federal regulators. >> and they call it a whole grant going to georgetown. >> i think part of the problem is one reason for the great success that we've heard about today is the work being done is happening at a scale that is a human scale. that's one reason why you are always short of money but it's also one reason why what you do

works. in trying to solve the problem you are short of money you want to make sure you do not destroy what works. there's a problem going to scale. going to skip major not at the scale to the people you're trying to help. you are not standing in front of them saying i understand your problem and here's what i would do and here's why. you are saying this is what the rules that i can give you an here it is. there's a reason for the. generally speaking and well-intentioned reason. people are looking successful things. someone said before in a previous panel he wished he had a printing press to print money. thdepression as the printing prs but there's limits but he put his name on a budget every year that is a $4 trillion budget and he thinks surely we can help people like you do what you do. i think it's a real question whether that is true or false. it's important to make sure that in helping you don't change the fundamental character of the programs that exist in such a what they don't work anymore. i think paul ryan's attempt to make this bottom up, to allow it

to support things make sense. it's an attempt to solve a problem. i think glenn is right. at the end of the day if you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars, summon was how do we know where it's going, how do you know if it's working? before you know what the rules are written to make sure that in your back restored. it's not an easy problem to solve. >> let me put this done in the most radical form. i heard again and again from the groups that we were listening to matt that is at the heart of these programs, a human relationship. and that's way too bland a term to describe the intent, bond that forms, right, between the folks that are working on the folks that are working this. this is an incredibly close human relationship that has as many varieties and forms as the

people that they are working with. it's almost, almost everyone of these relationships as pastor shirley says. you tailor a plan for each person, right, that you're working with. does that just simply automatically rule out any kind of useful intervention by government? question number one. and question number two going to an area that i'm a little more familiar with come is there, nonetheless, a role for philanthropy and private charitable giving? on a large scale. we think of charitable giving as $10 to united way but we have some fairly substantial, substantially wealthy donors who are giving a lot of money to nonprofit organizations that are almost indistinguishable in form and results from government,

right? not to name any of them, but i'm sure they come to mind. so anyway, i we talking about an insurmountable gulf between government and other other ways within the private sector to actually bridge this gap? >> i'm very optimistic about both the private sector and government, e.g. keep the government properly reigned in. one thing, philanthropies are very good on the accountability question. they give money and take chances, but they also are, tend to keep better track of the money in my experience in government agencies do. very often we don't hear about as far as government money is concerned until the u.s. attorney steps in. somebody should have gotten to this with a net.

people knew that there were things going wrong, but the communication, the accountability all that broke down. with philanthropies that much less likely to happen. and secondly i think that the government has a problem with flexibility. you may have an idea, well, for example, public housing, just one. public housing, a great idea initially, and then it turned out the high rise public housing was wonderful for seniors and terrible for families, in many ways. and so we had learned the hard way, but so had to come along and tear down. remarkably there was more cooperation between president bush and mayor daley, or richard at the second as we called them, and it was between bill

clinton's administration and the chicago city hall. but it got done. unfortunate after these high rises were torn down, the street gangs that had inhabited them were dispersed throughout our communities and took the truck trafficking in guns with them. the elder gang bangers were in prison so it was anarchy on the street and we're still living with the high homicide surge as a result of that. so again unintended consequences. so this is one of the big problems with big government programs. but it does mean you should not try to house people but it just means you change the program, maybe housing vouchers will work better than high prices famously do that. i'm optimistic on the whole but i find the best programs tend to be public-private partnerships where you mix corp