Wearing red “Faith & Democracy” hats and singing “When the Saints,” Gamaliel NY and friends emerge from United Health HQ in Washington DC.  500 people from 37 states packed the lobby calling for a health reform with “everybody in, nobody out!”United Health’s lobbyists have been leaders in the fight against reform.

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DEMOCRACY DAY IN DC!

ARISE leaders join 2,500 for a day of action focused on new Congress, President

 

Washington, DC – At 12:30am just after midnight on December 4 near Colonie Center, a bus was loading passengers bound for Washington DC.  42 people from ACTS Syracuse and ARISE packed the seats on their way to the nation’s capital.  Once they arrived, they joined the 200 people from six Gamaliel NY organizations (ARISE, ACTS, LION – Long Island, NOAH Niagara, VOICE Buffalo, & NW Bronx Community-Clergy Coalition) for a full day of active and engaged citizenship:

 

9am:  Healthcare Action at United Health HQ (pictured above)

500 people packed the corporate lobby, entering with a trombone and a casket in a New Orleans-style funeral procession representing the killing of the poor and middle class by HMO-driven healthcare dysfunction and lack of coverage.  After delivering a letter to the office of the United Health chief, the crowd exited with a spirited version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

 

10:30am:  Immigration Rally at Cannon House Office Bldg.

700 people filled a terrace outside the Cannon bldg. in the shadow of the Capitol to demand an end to immigrant raids and deportations and a start to immigration reform.  As liberation songs were sung, Hispanic Caucus leader Luis Gutierrez (D-Chicago) committed to set up meetings with the Hispanic Caucus leadership and with Speaker Pelosi in the early days of the next Congress to discuss the drafting and passage of immigration reform legislation in 2009.

 

11am-1pm:  Congressional Visits

200+ Gamaliel NY leaders visited 10 Congressional offices and Senator Schumer’s office to carry the message of healthcare reform, immigration reform, and a stimulus bill with jobs for the poor to major leaders in Congress.  Highlights included meetings with staff in the offices of the new chair of the Hispanic Caucus, Nydia Velazquez (D-NYC); the chair of the important Transportation Cmte., Jerrold Nadler (D-NYC); the Ways & Means chair Charlie Rangel (D-Harlem); and a near-miss visit from Senator Schumer himself, who was prepared to meet with us himself until the Senate Big 3 auto bailout hearing went over-time and prevented his attendance.

  1pm:  NYS Legislative Reception

Gamaliel NY arranged a special reception for members of the NYS Congressional delegation, and it was attended by representatives from five congressional offices:  Gillibrand (Capital District), Higgins (Buffalo), Slaughter (Western NY), and Maffei (Syracuse), and Senator Schumer’s representative.  In a room packed with over 100 NYers, we introduced the Gamaliel NY member groups to the congressional staff present, received a commitment from each to help us arrange in-district visits, and promised to be back in February to follow through on our pursuit of healthcare, immigration, and positive stimulus bill reform.

 

3pm:  Realizing the Promise Forum

2,500 people in the Washington Hilton, 500 from New York State.  It was the first national gathering of progressive people’s organizations since Election Day, the first national effort to shape the DC agenda from the bottom up.  Gamaliel NY was represented on stage by Rev. Kevin Agee of ACTS and Teresa Anderson, President of NW Bronx Community Clergy Coalition, one of the co-emcees of the event.  Media coverage included C-SPAN, NBC, Washington Post, The Nation, and more.

 

The message of the meeting was twofold:  this is a historic moment of opportunity AND we community organizations are just beginning the work that will realize the promises of the new president and the agenda for change.  Everything that took place was designed to signal that community organizations were ready and willing to take a seat at the table with the new President and the 111^th Congress to implement BIG, not minor, reforms in policies for healthcare, immigration, and economic opportunity.  Present to receive this message were:  Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to Barack Obama; Melody Barnes, chair of Obama’s Domestic Policy Council; Chris Van Hollen, #3 power in the House of Representatives; & John Sarbanes, progressive congressman from Maryland.  People left inspired, exhilarated, pumped, and primed for action in the coming weeks.

 

People Get Ready!  New Opportunities Forum March 25

 

Albany – ARISE is preparing for its most ambitious meeting ever on March 25, 2009.  Designed as a community action forum that will “brand” ARISE in our region, raise money, and bring many of our task forces’ projects to fruition, the New Opportunities Forum for Tech Valley (NOF) will gather over 100 of the area’s top business, political, educational, and labor leaders with 300 community participants.  Now that the Luther Forest AMD plant has a scheduled groundbreaking in June of 2009, it is critical that ARISE and our allies follow through on the equity agenda we defined at our first regional forums in 2002 and 2003:  pipelines of opportunity from poor neighborhoods to Tech Valley industries and related developments.

 

ARISE long ago laid down the imperative: let this region be the first to use high-tech growth to lift all boats, to revitalize poor neighborhoods, and to fuel smart growth in towns and rural areas, not sprawl and inequality.  The NOF will aim to define and launch the specific programs and collaborations that will make good on that promise: 

• Community Benefits Agreements to create good jobs, training, and community improvements where major developments take place;

• Regional Planning for housing and transportation that will put affordable homes near the transportation networks that get people to AMD and other job centers in the region;

• Re-Entry Jobs that will tie persons formerly incarcerated into productive roles in the 21^st-century economy and prevent crime and recidivism;

• City School District programs that link up with community colleges, training programs, and colleges and universities to build a diverse and growing workforce for Tech Valley.

 

There is a role for you in this historic meeting:  ARISE will need workers for logistics (hotel, materials, silent auction, banquet), issues (defining the action steps), & corporate fundraising (meeting with political and corporate underwriters).  Contact the ARISE office and get involved!

 

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THE ARISE  MISSION: to build an organization made up of congregations and other community groups to both revitalize their own memberships and to improve Capital District communities, especially our distressed neighborhoods.

ARISE  is a coalition of local congregations and community groups who are taking a proactive approach toward helping the poor and revitalizing our region.  Rather than running soup kitchens or homeless shelters, we are empowering the poor and people of conscience to connect with their governments to get training, jobs, housing, quality education, and equal justice.

 

ARISE currently has 35 organizations in Albany, Rensselaer, and Schenectady counties whose memberships total more than 12,000 people.  Our member congregations include Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Muslim, Presbyterian and Unitarian, among others.  We include neighborhood groups as well.

 

OBJECTIVES:

o strengthen community and build leaders in member organizations,

o mobilize people of faith to be leaders in the reshaping of public policy,

o empower economically distressed and politically marginalized people, and 

o unite suburbs and cities in an agenda for shared prosperity and social justice

ARISE ’s recent accomplishments:

     HOUSING:  ARISE is a founding member and a lead partner in the Empire State Housing Alliance, working to create and preserve more affordable homes.  This two-year campaign has resulted in the Governor recently announcing a $400 million Housing Opportunity Fund, the largest increase in housing investment in
New York State in over 10 years.  Locally, the Albany County Housing Trust Fund has already begun building 64 new units of affordable housing in the South End, Arbor Hill, and in
rural areas of the county.

 

 

      JOBS AND COMMUNITY BENEFITS:  ARISE has been a founding member and lead partner in CEEEJ, which has begun the process  of negotiating the first Community Benefits Agreement in the Capital Region, making sure that the disadvantaged residents of Albany seenew jobs, training, local art and culture, youth programs, and economic development connected with the Albany Convention Center.

    REGIONAL PLANNING FOR REVITALIZATION:  ARISE has been the leading grassroots voice in the state for regional planning and anti-sprawl development policy, and has supported and promoted the proposals of David Rusk, a national expert and partner with ARISE, for regional collaboration as a key to upstate revitalization.  Governor Spitzer has met with Mr. Rusk and ARISE, and agreed to incorpo­rate these ideas in a new effort to improve local government efficiency and competitiveness.

    STATE ECONOMIC POLICY:  At its Action Meeting last October, ARISE received commitments for ongoing meetings with the Departments of Transportation and Labor, the Empire State Development Corporation and the governor's top economic staff., to craft state policies for training, jobs, and Community Benefits Agreements as avenues for economic opportunity in state-supported projects.

    EDUCATION:  ARISE partnered with BOCES and Questar III (BOCES of Rensselaer) very early in the process of conceiving Tech Valley High, as a way of making more Capital Region students "job ready" in a high-tech age.

     VOTING SYSTEMS: ARISE members have kept on top of developments in voting techno-logies, and met with legislators and members

of State and County BOE offices, offering their informed  preference for paper-based, verifiable voting systems.  The decisions are in, and the less-transparent DRE’s have been almost unanimously rejected by NYS counties!

ARISE accomplishments over several years:

   JOBS:  Convincing the Albany School Board to hire a Minority Hiring Coordinator for its recent $187 million school construction project.  This has resulted in the hiring of an unprecedentedly high percentage of minorities and women into this project.

     EDUCATION:  ARISE successfully lobbied the NYS legislature to increase the funding for the Liberty Partnership Program by $1 million!  This program works with high school students at risk of dropping out of school, to get them through high school and into college.  The program has the phenomenal retention rate of  98 percent per year.

    LOCAL ISSUES:  Conducting 'Holy Ground' walks of poor neighborhoods in Albany, Schenectady and Troy, identifying residents’ fears and needs, and presenting them  to their local mayors.

    LEGAL REFORM:  Working with legislators and law officials to revise the Rockefeller drug laws, so as to give more discretion to judges in individual sentencing.