Poor get smallest piece of pie

For years, inside the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP) as a member, and now, suspended, outside of the Society, I have tried be a voice with the poor, persons in need. We are saying that the Milwaukee Council and Central staff of SVDP have lost its way and are not serving people in need as they can be. We have tried to dialog, use fact, letters and pictures to demonstrate how the Mission of St. Vincent de Paul has been thwarted in Milwaukee, the second poorest city and the most racially segregated city in the USA. People in need understand our message while those in control “Marginalize and Ignore” the messenger so they can ignore the message.

Our latest attempt is building a pie chart (side and below) to show how the 3.5 million dollar budget of the Milwaukee SVDP council and central office is being spent. This pie chart was based on the numbers in the projected and approved 2014–2015 budget of the Board of SVDP at a meeting last fall, which, before I was suspended, was present and witnessed. The local board, central office and council are very secretive and non-transparent but the percentages are based on numbers and terms used in the multi-page budget.

However, the President and Executive Director continue to say that we can be “Ensured that 91.5% of every dollar raised went directly to support people in need. SVDP is a Catholic lay volunteer organization yet has a staff of salaried employees, around 40 working in a thrift store in Greenfield (largely white), a middle class income suburb which does not serve Mission of St. Vincent de Paul or the Mission of SVDP Thrift store. Yet in the low income neighborhoods of North Central (largely African American) and the South Central (largely Hispanics) people calling the central office of SVDP looking for aide in clothing, beds, household items, appliance or future are met with the response “We do not serve your area.” It is doubtful if any of the 75 or so paid staff make household person to person visits which are the heart of the mission of SVDP.

When people in a non-profit agency raise money in name of poor but do not spend that money to aid the poor directly we have a moral problem. The only way to change it, in this case, is for the people who are in need rise up and demand a bigger piece of the pie. There will be an attempt to do this at a meeting next Tuesday, 6:30 – 7:30 at the Center Street Public library. For more information contact ReformSVDP@nonviolentcow.org
|Poor get smallest piece of pie

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