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IDENTIFYING AREAS/PEOPLE TARGETED FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT:
<br /> The Decatur Boys and Girls Club moved into and began to conduct operations out of its current
<br /> 15,000 square-foot facility in 1983. The Club's near north location is in the heart of two major ur-
<br /> ban renewal initiatfves:Torrence Park, late-1960s, and Longview-Tori�ence Park, mid-1970s.
<br /> Despite two structural facelifts,for the most part, the area is distressed—sociaily, economically
<br /> and physicaily distressed. People who live within the Club's immediate service area— bounded
<br /> by Garfield Avenue to the north, 22nd Street east, Prairie Street south, and Water Street to the
<br /> west—are characterized by:
<br /> • A high incidence of people living at or below the poverty threshold.
<br /> • A high incidence of single,female headed households.
<br /> • A high incidence of unemployment and underemployment.
<br /> • A high incidence of inen unattached from the labor force.
<br /> • A significantly high and growing number of high school drop outs.
<br /> During the two decades that Pve served as director of the Decatur Boys and Girls Club,one tl�ing
<br /> continues to be constant among and between parents, legal guardians, uncles and aunts, grand- '
<br /> parents, child welfare workers and agencies, or whomever else serves as caretaker for the thou-
<br /> sands of children with which I've had the pieasure to be associated:
<br /> They(all]want to grow and matur�e�heir childr�en in pos�tive,
<br /> hea/thy and productive cir�cumstances, and to be afded by
<br /> the necessary rights,privileges, opportunities, and supports
<br /> for their childr+en to become well-adjusted and productive
<br /> adu/ts.
<br /> Their hopes for their children, in far too many cases, are dashed and their desires unrealized, be-
<br /> cause, quite honestly,their children are not bom with equal chances at these simple quests.
<br /> I see a growing number of Decatur children living in poverty. Although poor children's parents,
<br /> I a disproportionate number of them single women,seek better empioyment,there are frankly few
<br /> jobs for which she qualifies and from which she can obtain adequate health insurance, child �
<br /> care, or other living expenses.
<br /> When its time to begin school, poor children are ill-equipped to learn; lacking the support and
<br /> stimulation from home, many of them consider dropping out. Overcome with the devastating af-
<br /> fects of poverty and hopelessness, poor children choose a lifestyle which lead to teen parent-
<br /> hood, substance use and abuse,drug dealing, gang activity and violence, and crime—resulting
<br /> in welfare, lowered education and skill reception for employability, various illnesses, assorted
<br /> rehabilitations,federal and state incarcerations,and premature deaths.
<br /> It is clear to me that these families—heads of households which send their children to the Club
<br /> daily—are in need of targeted, immediate and sustained economic developmenti Such families,
<br /> however, are in need of more than �ust] development which can upscale the material and finan-
<br /> ciai sides of their lives. The injuries and scars are too deep and severe. The families of the near
<br /> north communities and in other depressed areas of Decatur are in need of reorganization and re-
<br /> orientation of their entire economic and social systems (radicai changes in institutional and so-
<br /> cial and administrative structures, and culture). �
<br /> Consequen�y, as a word in advance, people living in areas in need of targeted economic devel-
<br /> opment must develop the capacity to establish an economic base of expanded opportunity for
<br /> economic development for the social development of the entire community of Decatur.
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