I care deeply about my neighborhood, Homewood, and sometimes I wonder why it is so difficult to get other people in Pittsburgh interested in doing something about the injustices that go on here at a remarkably high level. There are close to two and a half million people living in the greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area, and only around 10,000 of those people live in Homewood. I have noticed that, in general, most people try to avoid my neighborhood. The systems and institutions that are characteristic of a healthy community seem to ignore Homewood. Nearly half of the homes are vacant. A strong underground illegal economy seems to have all but replaced the good jobs and businesses that once prevailed in Homewood. There are signs of hope, good people that remain in the neighborhood, resilient people that are trying to make a difference here, but still, in general, Homewood gets written off as a poor neighborhood that should be avoided by mainstream society in America. And that is why I struggle so much with what I do. My job is to somehow convince people to care about the high risk young people in Homewood. As a resident of Homewood, my hope is to passionately work toward the transformation of my neighborhood. It's tough work, but it is worth it.
My struggle, and the general struggle of the people and places in Homewood, is not a new phenomenon in America. Nearly every city seems to have a "high crime and low income" area that the mainstream culture tends to ignore and neglect. This happens in spite of many people and institutions in America that have attempted to do something about the poverty and blight in the inner cities in our nation. In American Project, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh writes, "Creating and sustaining local spaces for healthy development of individuals and families is a core concern of Americans. It is a challenge that is ingrained in the American way of life, whether in a rural farm town, a suburban tract, or a public housing development. It is at the heart of the American dream, deeply intertwined with other national principles such as unrestricted mobility and the freedom of individual expression. The capacity of Americans to live in decent homes and neighborhoods has become such a matter of national interest that examples of troubled or successful communities rise quickly in the popular discourse to reflect on the state of the nation overall. Indeed, the high-rise public housing complex has become a contemporary mirror for American self-examination; the ardent conservative, the mawkish liberal, and the hopeful progressive are all equally bothered by the persistence of these pckets of social and economic deprivation in a country experiencing great prosperity."
In that context, Homewood should grab the attention of the residents of the greater Pittsburgh metropolitan area. People should be greatly disturbed about violence and brokenness in our world. And perhaps that's where the problem starts in Pittsburgh. Everyone made a big uproar when orphans from Haiti were brought to Pittsburgh following the aftermath of the earthquake there last year, but the plight of children struggling in poverty in our own city goes largely unpublicized... except when a child from Homewood dies violently. Those incidents seem to get some brief media coverage, but it tends to go away quickly. And I'm not just blaming the media, as many well-meaning folks are quick to do. Churches in Pittsburgh, and Christians in the region in general, seem to know about the struggles in Homewood but they largely ignore the plight of my neighborhood. In my mind, Christians should be the first responders to complex, urban issues that result in poverty and pain in our American cities. Instead, most Christians in Pittsburgh avoid the problems in Homewood. That is sin. Ignoring the struggles of people in need in Pittsburgh is not a sin of commission by Pittsburgh-area Christians. It is a sin of ommission. And God does not see a difference between the two. Sin is still sin. Evil still causes pain in this world, and it is our role as Christians to intervene and do something about it. Sadly, many American Christians are too busy building bigger barns for themselves to care about the needs of the urban poor in our country. Homewood should be a mirror for complacent, comfortable people living in Pittsburgh. Instead, our mirror seems to be more closely tied to the ups and downs of our local sports teams. People are losing sleep and getting angry over Super Bowl losses and ticket scandals when there are children in Pittsburgh suffering from the effects of crushing poverty and urban blight. That's sad. But, hey, we can always flip the TV channel. We can always look forward to the next sports season. There are plenty of distractions in Pittsburgh to keep our focus as a city off the children who are dying violently from a lack of hope. As followers of Jesus, will we seek the shalom of our city for people who have been marginalized by mainstream society, or will we pretend that everything is going along just fine. That's not just a decision for a few dedicated residents of Pittsburgh. That's a decision for every single resident of the city... especially those who claim to have faith in Jesus but do nothing to help their brothers and sisters who are hurting right in their own city.
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