By Margie Sponholz
Milwaukee is one of the poorest cities in America, but Senator Lena Taylor has a plan to change that.
To combat poverty and crime in Milwaukee, Taylor created what she calls her LOVE and FAITH Initiative. Taylor said that the name is symbolic of what the community needs, and that it represents the faith she has in Milwaukee’s residents.
LOVE and FAITH is also an acronym that stands for: literacy, opportunity, voice, environmental industry, forestry, agriculture, innovation, technology and health. The last five letters of the acronym represent industries that jobs could be created in in Milwaukee. Taylor wants to train residents in these career fields so they can learn useful skills to better their lives while also helping the community.
“It is my desire to use LOVE and FAITH as a way to take industries like urban forestry and water, and use those industries as a cornerstone in what we do in the community,” Taylor said.
One of the goals of this plan is to combine federal, state, local and philanthropic programs to make them more efficient. That way people can receive multiple government services all at once.
In addition, Taylor wants to create physical locations, or hubs, around the city where a variety of these services can be delivered. Each hub would serve a different purpose. For example, one hub could be an orchard with fruit-bearing trees dedicated to growing food. Residents could learn how to plant trees, harvest food and eat a more nutritious diet.
This would benefit poor areas of Milwaukee where there are few grocery stores and it’s hard for people to eat healthy. Taylor said she envisions taking individuals that already have to do community service work and training them at hubs in the industries in the LOVE and FAITH acronym.
The training they receive at the hubs would give them the opportunity to use the skills they learned to earn money for further training or jobs in those areas while also benefiting the community.
People doing community service because they receive food stamps or government assistance could eventually go on to support themselves and become independent. Taylor’s goal is to have the City of Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works help with job training, and to use Milwaukee County parks as hubs where people could work.
The initiative will target the most impoverished and most violent neighborhoods in Milwaukee, such as Harambee and Washington Park. Community programs that involve exercise can reduce violence, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association, which is what Taylor hopes will happen in Milwaukee.
“I just am so excited about this effort,” said Taylor. “I’ve been working on it since 2010 and in the last three years it has been amazing, just the connections that have been made. I’m looking forward to the collaborative impact it has on our communities.”
In order to fund her initiative, Taylor decided to stop spending money on putting waste wood into landfills, which cost about $100,000. She also plans to put that wood to use in projects that she will carry out through the LOVE and FAITH program.
Taylor hasn’t officially launched the LOVE and FAITH initiative yet, but plans to do so in the near future.
