CURRENT UNITED POWER ORGANIZING PRIORITIES
10 PERCENT IS ENOUGH
The argument for capping interest rates at 10% is fourfold:
1) Moral and civic prohibitions against usury stretch back deep into our religious and national history. Our prophets and founding fathers made the clear case long before us that usury is patently wrong, against God, and against our national interest. From the time of Hammurabi to the Carter administration, usury was illegal. Modern practices of usury are an aberrant blip in history.
2) Our people are hurting because of crushing debt loads exacerbated by exorbitant interest rates – in the form of high credit card premiums, payday loans, banking and check-cashing fees, sub-prime mortgages, rapid-refund tax return schemes, car-title scams, and other practices that seek to generate income off of financial misfortune.
3) The elimination of usury laws in America from 1978-1980 ushered in an era of deregulation that allowed financial markets to run wild, accelerating the present economic crisis.
4) The elimination of usury laws helped shift the investment of American capital and talent away from manufacturing and material innovation and into an unproductive financial sector based on trading paper rather than producing long-term wealth. That shift has damaged other sectors of the economy, decimated America’s labor force and weakened America’s position in the world.
What we need now more than thousands of pages of new regulations, or the sour faces of executives forced to reduce their eight-figure salaries to a mere seven, is a 10% cap on interest rates. Why 10%? Because 10% is enough. Ten percent puts proportion and equity into the relationship between the lender and the borrower. Ten percent restores our capacity to form right relationships.
HEALTH CARE
United Power has successfully defended a recent attempt by the Cook County Board to cut the Health Neighborhood Referral Program (NRP). The NRP is a key resource for United Power’s member Community Health Centers who see tens of thousands uninsured people every year. The NRP allows these health centers to get medications and lab testing through the Cook County system without having to send them to the County Hospital Emergency Room. With the County facing a $500 million shortfall that resulted in the County closing 13 of its own clinics, United Power was able to restore the NRP to the final budget with a $3 million amendment.
HOUSING
United Power released a comprehensive study of city and state spending on affordable housing in October 2006. The research showed that both Chicago and Illinois lag behind their peers across the nation in terms of dedicating their own funds to affordable housing of all kinds. United Power’s housing team has established a goal based on this research of getting Illinois to dedicate $500 million annually to affordable housing. Currently, United Power is pursuing various strategies to generate additional revenue for housing preservation and statewide.
LEADERSIHP DEVELOPMENT
These tangible victories, dramatic issues, and issue teams and campaigns only represent part of the United Power story. The consistent interaction of leaders from every corner of the county and most racial, religious, and ethnic groups does not merit media attention, but is key to the construction of a new political culture and dynamic in the region. That culture doesn’t focus on who is the boss or the king, but on how to deepen the education and broaden the number of people participating in public life. United Power professional staff and top leaders are intentionally focused on developing new leaders from our member congregations and organizations. This occurs through various training opportunities, through experience and evaluation of action, and congregational work where leaders learn in their own contexts how to build a following and lead most effectively.
CONGREGATIONAL/ INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
In the last several years, United Power has reinvested in numerous member institutions through internal trainings and listening campaigns of various kinds.
In the last two years, this has increasingly involved member and potential member Jewish congregations. This intensive congregational work in the Jewish community began with Congregation B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in Glenview through it’s Panim El Panim relational meeting program. BJBE will be presented the URJ’s national Fain Social Action award for this campaign and its on-going social justice work with United Power in April 2007. Following BJBE’s example, Chicago Sinai Congregation is in the midst of its own Face-to-Face relational meeting campaign.
Beyond the Jewish community, United Power is actively working with Ascension Catholic Church in Oak Park, Third Baptist Church of Chicago, the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, St. Gerald Catholic Church in Oak Lawn, and the Interfaith Leadership Project of Cicero & Berwyn.
Additionally, United Power has engaged in a team building and deepening campaign in its eight member community health centers over the last year. These non-profit Federally Qualified Health Centers see hundreds of thousands of patients each year without regard to their insurance status. They have worked with United Power to train and engage staff and patients in organizing for recognition and their common self-interests. The victory around the County’s Neighborhood Referral Program is a direct result of this work.