Crawford Conversation discusses healing the cancer of poverty

By Gary Ogle
gogle@wbcowqel.com

There are two parts to any conversation: talking and listening. Crawford Conversation guest Dave Phillips did the talking Wednesday about dealing with the cancer of poverty and he had plenty of willing listeners.

Speaking before a nearly full Family Life Center audience at Gospel Baptist Church, Phillips shared the motivation and the success of Cincinnati Works, an employment program started by him and his wife, Liane, for the chronically unemployed.

Liane Phillips wrote a book, “Why Don’t They Just Get a Job”, about what became the couples’ second career after her husband retired from his first as an accountant. For Dave Phillips, the jobs program is a means to an end – the end of living in poverty for people, many of whom have never experienced anything else in life.

When discussing the motivation for beginning Cincinnati Works, Phillips immediately referred to what he called the “unacceptable nature of poverty.”

“It is a cancer that is killing people. People in poverty are our neighbors and we ought to do something about it. There is a solution for some of them. The ones that are willing, capable to go work and stay at work, Cincinnati Works model works pretty good.”

So good, in fact that it has surpassed the Phillips’ original goal of helping “maybe 100 people” a year get work and begin down the path to self-sufficiency. Now the program, which has been singled out for awards, assists as many as 500 to 700 families a year according to Phillips.

But he is quick to note that journey isn’t a quick one, nor is always easy. It is however, rewarding.

“It takes about six or eight years to get somebody to the point they are economically self-sufficient, meaning they are no longer working poor,” Phillips said. “Because when they get their first job they are working poor.”

Phillips said his commitment and the program itself was not what he had originally envisioned. He was looking for a “retirement gig,” something in which he could give back to the community. But he quickly realized he didn’t really know what to do or how to do it, so he studied and did research.

Then he did something else. He ran the program like a business. It was then that it flourished. That was almost 20 years ago.

“I had watched entrepreneurs all my life, how they built businesses,” Phillips said. “So we built Cincinnati Works using a business model, using research and what happened is we soon surpassed our goal of helping, maybe 100 people a year.”

Dave Williamson, director for The Crawford County Partnership for Education and Economic Development, believes jobs are about more than a paycheck. He called it the “core for all of us.”

That is why the effort has already started to design a Crawford County model of Cincinnati Works that will become the “Crawford Works and Hope Center.”

“It’s beyond what government is doing,” Williamson said. “It’s private sector.”

The goal is to corroborate and coordinate with other groups and their current efforts, like the new group BORN – Bucyrus Outreach and Restoration Network. Williamson said those groups will prepare people and the idea is that Crawford Works will help them with the next step.

Pat Hord of Hord Livestock is one of those who is eager and excited about the opportunities he sees to really attack poverty in Crawford County where as much as 16.6 percent of the population lives below the poverty level.

“Today is really about beginning the conversation with the community,” Hord said. “Beginning something that makes a difference in our community as far as poverty and where it intersects with business.”