The Bell of Hope

It is one thing to read in a newspaper that the United States has an eight percent unemployment rate and it is another to see what that means firsthand.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to work in the Skid Row district of downtown Los Angeles as a Chrysalis intern. Chrysalis is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1984 to provide resources to the homeless and low-income population of the area.

One thing the numbers don’t tell you is that poverty is a vicious cycle. Many of my clients over the summer were at points in their lives such that they were not sure where their next meal was going to come from; it was not hard for me to understand why many of them resorted to crime. Sadly, getting in trouble with the law only creates more barriers for people in poverty to find a decent job and rise out of it.

This is a nationwide issue that our government cannot continue to ignore. There simply wasn’t enough discussion about poverty or our overcrowded prisons in the last election cycle. Solving both problems begins with putting these issues at the forefront of our political discourse. Sure, it might be easier for lawmakers to lock people up. But as a concerned citizen, wouldn’t you prefer to see your tax dollars go toward turning a life around and making our society better?

Chrysalis tries to do exactly that. At Chrysalis, I worked one-on-one with some unbelievable men and women who were unable to secure permanent employment because job interviewers could not overlook their rough pasts. Many had significant gaps in their work histories because they had been in prison for over 20 years, had had their lives shaken up by substance abuse, or lacked the proper training and education to successfully maintain a job. For these individuals, Chrysalis became the added support that could get them over the mountain of challenges they faced.

Imagine you are an employer and you are looking to hire someone. You interview a person who is hard working, organized, and friendly, but he has never used a computer before in his life. It was my job to help stop that from happening, to work with clients to craft resumes, prepare for job interviews, and practice their English and math skills if they were still pursuing their GEDs.

President Barack Obama said in his victory speech in November that he wants to make America a place where, with enough hard work and commitment, anyone can succeed as long as they try. I believe that this can only happen if we begin with those at the very bottom. We can no longer ignore the unpleasant truth that stares us in the eyes. We can no longer choose to carry on with our lives as if poverty isn’t a real problem in our country.

To me, relying on prison is more like sweeping the mess under the rug rather than actually getting it out of the house. When we send convicts to prison, we let their lives go to waste.  If we instead aimed to rehabilitate criminals who have committed crimes that warrant less than a life sentence, they would be able reenter society, regain the dignity that comes with having a permanent job, and contribute positively to our communities.

The best part of my summer experience was seeing what a bit of hope meant to individuals who had at one point given up. When Chrysalis clients find permanent employment, they ring a bell in the lobby. At that very moment, everyone, from interns to the CEO, stops what they are doing and joins the newly employed in the lobby as he or she talks about his or her journey in what becomes a magical moment. I could see the happiness and confidence restored to the faces of our clients. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once famously said, I knew that they had made it to the mountaintop.

We need to make it to the mountaintop, too—as a society. The mountain of poverty is not getting any smaller. In fact, the opposite is true. There are now 50 million Americans living in poverty, including 20 percent of all children. That is why we must raise ourselves up and meet the challenge head on, so that one day that shining bell of hope can ring over America as a whole.

Each and every one of us has the power to help end the poverty-crime cycle. Homeless people and ex-convicts often find themselves judged based on their appearances or their pasts. But many who have made mistakes are ready and eager to move forward. Once the people of our country come to realize this collectively, we as a nation can work toward removing societal barriers that make it nearly impossible for those who have hit the bottom to recover. We can give our citizens the second chance they deserve.

Dennis O. Ojogho ’16, a Crimson editorial comper, lives in Lionel Hall.