opinion

Rochester anti-poverty plan has promise

Everyone in this community should hope that the efforts Rochester will make in coming days to curb poverty will be successful. This is about the lives of people and the life of a city, community and region.

But whatever action is taken ought not resemble in any form the failed practices of the past. That includes the sour spectacle of government throwing lots of money at a problem, with little to show for its efforts.

Lifting up the poorest sections of Rochester — and they are among the most troubled such neighborhoods in America — works only if poor people are in the labor force, if private companies accept their role as catalysts for change and if there is sufficient local will to overcome what is a woe of long standing.

In coming days, the Rochester City Council will take up what could be a good idea, even a transformative idea, if all the parts of this town, public and private, are in sync. Instead of government or businesses coming into neighborhoods, these neighborhoods will have worker-owned cooperative businesses that bubble up from within.

From that vantage point, the new businesses would write service contracts with one or more of the corporate big hitters in Rochester. Cleveland has this sort of bottom-up structure that has employee-owned neighborhood businesses hiring local people and doing work, from solar energy to laundry, for local companies willing to participate.

Poor neighborhoods suffer especially in their forced inaction. Because city schools fail to prepare enough children for the working world, families slip into a depressing roundelay of broken marriages, out-of-wedlock births, chronic unemployment and a rooted belief that the world is indifferent, or even hostile, to their survival.

Overcoming something of this depth can be begun if the worker-owned businesses obtain the private-sector contracts and foster the business relationships critical to their survival. Leaders at the University of Rochester, Eastman Business Park, Rochester Institute of Technology and other institutions have said, in effect, "Of course, we'll help." Local foundations also are eager to assist.

Such things have been said before. Then the economy sinks or businesses can't afford to do as much as the problem demands. Government is left to step in, to try on its own to save foundering businesses.

That must not happen. The City Council should ask tough questions. The distinction between what's promised and what's real must be explored.