Empowerment Zone Assesses Promises and Realities at Age Six
Back in December of 1994, Philadelphia and Camden beat out 300 other urban areas to win one of six Empowerment Zone designations. New Jersey's then-U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, who helped author the Empowerment Zone legislation, was hand for the celebration in Philadelphia's City Hall. He said the new program was designed to put power in the hands of the people. "What this Empowerment Zone is all about is putting them in charge of the flow of this money so we get real results, and so that we get return on taxpayers' investment in urban America," Bradley said. But six years later, how has the Empowerment Zone delivered on its promises? That depends on whom you ask, even on Girard Avenue, the main corridor through the Zone. "It is working. Whoever's in charge of the money is doing a good job, " says Mike Stevens, who sits with a cup of coffee in front of a donut shop at 7th Street and Girard. Trash blows down the avenue, and many buildings have peeling paint and empty windows. But Stevens, who walks down Girard twice a week to a physical therapy session, says he's starting to notice a difference. "Things have changed down here, now that they are improving things. People are moving in with money to invest and fix up the places. There are more police around and the crime rate's gone down. You can see it and feel it," he says. Stevens says he's never heard of the Empowerment Zone per se, but he knows some sort of government program was in the area. Sitting nearby, Hakim Taylor also hasn't heard of the Zone. He says the neighborhood is still in bad shape when it comes to crime and drug use, and people need work. "There's a lot of homeless guys running around here," he says. "The shelter system is full with people with no where to live. A lot of them are illiterate, and they don't have skills. They need a place to get training and make a living for themselves." That range of reactions would be no surprise to Opportunities Industrialization Center President Bob Nelson. He helped craft Philadelphia's original Empowerment Zone application, and he remembers an early meeting where community members were invited to say what they wanted to see. Nelson says the needs came pouring out: better housing, better schools, better security. People wanted drugs off the corner, a reduction in crime, and more attention to improved health care services for the community. "Major to that, and probably more consistent with the intent of the legislation, was making sure we had the revitalization of the commercial corridors," Nelson says. But before that could happen, Empowerment Zone dollars had to travel a long path through several federal agencies, then through the state to the city. Twenty-one million dollars went to Camden, with the remaining $79 million divided among three Philadelphia neighborhoods. Nelson says activists in his area soon found themselves bogged down in meetings and paperwork. "If you are a person living in the community, a poor community particularly, empowerment to you means that if North Central is getting $29 million--write us a check, put it our bank, and let us decide what we do," he says. "Strictly speaking, that is the nature of empowerment: I will give you something and you will then pay for and orchestrate your own destiny." Bet whether it was a community's attempt at orchestrating its own destiny, or just bad management, Philadelphia's Empowerment Zone soon hit a snag with the federal government. A 1998 audit questioned about $150,000 in loans and grants given out by the Zone. Then came an embarrassing scandal over a Zone-funded entertainment center planned near Temple University. The project fell apart, and the hole dug for its foundation was only filled in last year. The problems have reportedly drawn the attention of the FBI, though the agency will neither comment on nor confirm the investigation. But Empowerment Zone director Eva Gladstein says it's ongoing, involving personnel who left the zone before she arrived. "I think we all will say that everything was not done perfectly, and there are lots of ways to improve," Gladstein says. "Frankly we've made huge improvements in the administration of programs and implementation of programs. So while acknowledging that, we also the positive work to be acknowledged, and that's been difficult at times." Philadelphia is not the only Empowerment Zone under the shadow of a federal investigation. DePaul University urban affairs professor Michael Bennett notes that the FBI has widened a corruption probe of Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell to include that city's Zone. And other cities have also faced harsh audits from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees zone expenditures. Bennett says criminal behavior may have occurred in some cases, but all the zones have troubles with the way they're set up--along census tracts instead of natural neighborhood boundaries. "The problems were how do you prove that the money you spent went for 'The Zone?'" he says. "The zones are so tightly defined that if you spent money on the company across the street, it could be considered an irregularity." Bennett says it's hard to measure exactly what the Empowerment Zones have accomplished. Philadelphia's zone boasts that 426 new businesses and nearly 18-hundred jobs have been created thanks to its activities. But census figures also show population in the Zone dropped 17 percent in the 1990s--four times the overall city's rate of decline. Bennett says that's not a fair indicator of how the Zone is doing, given that most inner city neighborhoods have lost jobs and people in the last decade. What's a bad sign for the future of Empowerment Zones, he says, is that people don't know they exist. "More than the majority of people and businesses have no idea they're in an Empowerment Zone," he says. Philadelphia's Zone is trying to make sure the program doesn't fade away by getting more people involved. Earlier this summer about 25 Girard Avenue business owners and community leaders met to talk about how to improve their down-and-out street. Participants tried out the sound of a possible slogan for the corridor: "One Avenue, many communities, one vision: Girard Avenue Main Street." The Empowerment zone is urging the merchants to take advantage of a $50 million SEPTA project to restore Girard Avenue's trolley line. More than offering money now, the Zone is trying to organize diverse groups in the neighborhood to pool their resources. The Girard group met in an old church just off the Avenue that's now home to the ad agency Monsoon Microstudios, which got its start with a 200-thousand dollar loan from the Empowerment Zone President Charlie Szoradi says locating in the Zone has been great for his business, but overall the area faces an uphill battle. "It's so beat up," Szoradi says. "There's just not enough money in the local tax loop to support the growth. Center City District has a team of numerous individuals in blue coats and blue buggies that go around sweeping the streets. I look outside every day and there are tumbleweeds full of debris from McDonald's because there's just not a budget." Some say there's a warning here for Mayor John Street as he tries to sell his $250 million anti-blight initiative. In some sense, the Mayor's plan is an attempt to take city-wide some of the dreams left unrealized by the Empowerment Zone process, says OIC president Bob Nelson. He says any new program has to be careful about what it promises. "'If I'm committed to staying, can you make it better for me to stay?' That was the promise that was held out to people: we're going to make this better," he says. "If you take your pride and translate that into staying, then we have a responsibility to make staying better. It didn't happen. It didn't happen as much as people would have wanted it to happen." That kind of disappointment, Nelson says, can feel disempowering indeed.  whyy.org |