April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
JOSHUA BOOKS
Priest-author and Atlanta developer share idea: revitalizing inner cities
"It sounded almost identical to what we were doing," the developer, Tom Cousins, told The Evangelist. "I was amazed [and] very impressed with his insight."
Father Girzone remembers Mr. Cousins' call 20 years ago, when the latter man said simply, "I just wanted to let you know it works.'"
The priest was then invited to see the progress being made in Atlanta's East Lake Meadows public housing project, where for two decades 97 percent of people were subject to felonies annually, the average age of grandmothers was 32, only 13 percent of residents were employed and only five percent of fifth-graders were meeting math standards.
The area was known as "Little Vietnam" by local police.
"I had done my own research [before visiting,] and it was horrible" before Mr. Cousins' intervention, Father Girzone said. "I could not believe it. He had torn down the whole slum area."
The school in the area had for years ranked last in the public school system, but the charter school Mr. Cousins and his crew replaced it with ranked first last year.
"These kids are going places," Mr. Cousins said. "They've got hope in their eyes and they see a way out [of] the generational trap that poverty brings about. They'll be taxpaying, law-abiding citizens."
Mr. Cousins and local leaders in other cities formed Purpose Built Communities in 2009 with the backing of U.S. business magnates and philanthropists Warren Buffett and Julian Robertson; they have led comprehensive redevelopment initiatives in eight other cities and are advising similar processes in dozens more cities.
The foundation created educational, recreational and self-sufficiency programs and rebuilt the East Lake Meadows housing development to attract mixed-income residents. Mr. Cousins' requirement that residents on public assistance be employed has resulted in 70-percent employment among that population today; the rest are elderly, disabled or in the midst of job training.
Violent crime has been reduced by 95 percent and more than $175 million in new residential and commercial investment in surrounding areas has been attracted.
What happened in Atlanta became a "model for what could be done about poverty in America," Mr. Cousins said. His goal is to "largely eliminate poverty in America. I think our best shot is to get the children before they get formed.
"If you read your Bible," continued Mr. Cousins, who is a non-denominational Christian, "that's what we're all supposed to be doing - helping the disadvantaged. That has been our private motivation.
"We follow Joshua," he said of Father Girzone's popular Christ-like character. "We try. That's inspired the project."
Sections of Father Girzone's best-selling book "Joshua and the City" feature Joshua advising a real estate developer on how to revitalize a New York neighborhood so people can live with dignity and pride.
"Buy up those blocks and tear down the buildings and rebuild that whole section of the city," Joshua says in the book. "Employ the people who live there to do the work. Give them jobs...New schools can be built for the children where their talents can be developed and they can be prepared for jobs and learn to feel a sense of personal worth.
"Many of those children are geniuses but are not college material. Their genius dies in their breasts because no one cares. The anger, the crime, the drugs, are expressions of their frustration. Locking them in prisons is not the answer. They need to be given hope."
Father Girzone never studied the topic of poverty or thought about such concepts before he started writing the 1995 novel.
"I really don't know where [the ideas] came from," he said. "I just feel like God has taken me from the back of the neck since I was a little kid and said, "This is what you're gonna do.' I'm glad [my books] help people."
Father Girzone and Mr. Cousins share the belief that poor people could be the country's biggest asset.
"Jesus is so concerned with the poor," Father Girzone said. "He associated with the poor all throughout His life. All my life, I kept trying to understand Jesus [and figured] there must be something about the poor He is keeping from us.
"I finally realized that there is so much creativity, so much originality, so much genius among the poor that, if they have the chance, they can really shine."[[In-content Ad]]
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