Walk it Out

Time for a wordy post: (to be complemented later with a video)

Today our morning devotional was lead by Pam, the intern director. She spoke on the passage in Luke about Jesus' visit to Mary and Martha and their different reactions to his presence. She challenged us to live in the moment, 'walking out' our faith here in Urban Promise on the working ground level, not just remaining in the land of wishing and dreaming that things could change.

She also mentioned that we may not know exactly how coming to Camden will impact us until later - which is a good thing for me to continue to keep in mind as I return to Seattle next week.

Yesterday, we were able to meet a number of people from other organizations that are also working to rebuild Camden. We were taken down to the historic Waterfront South area - we had been there on the initial tour, but did not get out of the car. We first met with a woman named Helene, who runs the Heart of Camden Housing organization. This organization seeks to revitalize this area of Camden by rebuilding the row homes and placing families in them that will raise the level of community in the neighborhood. Over the course of one year, with the close of the some of the industry plants at the end of the second world war, especially the New York Shipbuilding company, the employment opportunities went from 30,000 to 1,700 jobs. People left south Camden in droves, eventually leaving behind 4,000 abandoned homes. One of the largest post-war industries is scrap collection. All the scrap you can imagine is piled high and then shipped to China for processing and disposal. Because one can get money for scrap, all of the abandoned homes have been scavenged and stripped of everything but the outside walls. Appliances, windows, flooring, pipes, and doors have been ripped out and sold to the scrap collections. Many of the roofs have collapsed and frequently, one can see the sky through the open second story windows. The majority of doors and windows of the abandoned homes are boarded up, to keep out squatters and new scrap scavengers.

The Heart of Camden Housing project buys these abandoned homes and then renovates them. They rarely tear down the whole structure, partially because they don't own all the titles to an entire block of row houses. Apparently, they also want to keep the historic aspects of the community intact and seek to keep the exterior of their housing units true to their historic past. The inside is quite modern, but the outside still fits with the feel of Camden.

They operate out of an old theatre - the "Star" theatre that showed silent films, and are renovating the main screening area to be a gym for a nearby elementary school. After the roof collapsed, they basically gutted the whole building and are building from the inside out. While the inside of the gym will look new, the outside will look like the old theatre. The organization has discovered over the years that they can't fix Waterfront South without being involved in politics. Apparently, four out of the last five mayors have gone to jail for corruption; the only one that didn't was 80 years old and really just a puppet during the state take-over of Camden. Well, now the state has pulled out, but the non-profits are still there and still working hard to change Camden.

We also watched this movie called "Poet of Poverty" about Michael Doyle, a priest at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in this area of Camden. He has been there for a long while, when he was placed in this area after trying to destroy Camden draft records with a group during the Vietnam war. (He was not in favor of the war…) He is, however, a great writer and consistently wrote letters and poems about his experiences and the people of Camden. Sadly, at the end of this video, he comes to the conclusion that not much has changed over the past 25 years. He is still saying the same things about the issues in Camden that he was when he first showed up to serve.

You can watch this clip from the film "Poet of Poverty" to get a feel for what this neighborhood looked like just a few years ago (2007-8 ish)

It was really good to talk with the organizations before seeing this film, as there has been change and improvement in the neighborhood that the movie does not capture. About 200 homes have been renovated and filled with lively people and there are another 44 to be completed in the next few years. They have built a live theatre, a parking lot, an extensive garden with a greenhouse, and a 24 bedroom retreat center in the Center for Transformation run by the Sacred Heart Church. Beautiful art now covers many of the ugly pieces of wood that board up the abandoned homes, bringing warmth and vitality to the community. There is now a park with a tree-line blocking the view and smell from the sewage plant and licorice plant next-door, all playground equipment colorfully painted and fun to use. There is hope, Camden will succeed.