HOUSE MEETING CAMPAIGN    Mar 2 – Apr 27, 2008 

A community is grounded in relationships, and true relationships are built when individuals can be truthful and vulnerable with one another.  Father Carlos has commissioned Willie Crafts (522-9640), J. A. Farias (695-4643), Dennis Hartnett (521-7595), Jesse Hernandez (681-7108), Aurora Valek (683-3999), Michael Vogelsang (558-9530), and Dan White (681-5270) to assist with small group meetings over the next eight weeks. Each meeting with up to 10 parishioners will be one hour and focus on two questions:  “What are your hopes and dreams for yourself and/or your family” and “What are the pressures and challenges that get in the way?”  A summary report of the hopes, dreams, pressures and challenges surfaced in the meetings will be published in the bulletin. 

On May 31^st, we will hold a parish wide assembly where the congregation may commit to researching and acting on an agenda of 5 or 6 of the most pressing issues that come out of the conversations.  Parishioners and ministry leaders, please call one of the above listed assistants to schedule your small group meeting. 

LISTENING MINISTRY Pressures and Challenges to families that have surfaced during the small group meetings have included: broken homes, single parents, long work hours, low pay, night and weekend work schedules, transportation difficulties, high debt, child care costs and quality, health care/insurance costs, housing costs, education fees and tuition costs, school drop outs, immigration, teen pregnancy, gang violence and drugs, children left alone to learn values as customers of the commercial marketers, bullying by children, property taxes, public lewdness and pornography.

POSSIBILITIES Many parishes have worked on researching and acting on local issues from dangerous bars, drug houses, abandoned buildings, gang loitering along Castroville Road, housing code compliance problems, stop light placements etc.  Successful strategies for addressing some of the education, child care, workforce development, living wage, children’s health insurance, immigration, taxation and housing issues in San Antonio, Bexar County, and Texas area have been developed by local parish leaders working together with leaders of other institutions with the same Pressures and Challenges.      

ACCOUNTABILITY Whatever Pressures and Challenges surface during the House Meeting Campaign, they will be published in the bulletin.  Those parishioners, who attend the assembly on Saturday May 31^st, can commit to researching and acting on an agenda of 5 or 6 of the most pressing issues that come out of the conversations.

COPS/METRO ALLIANCE Those commissioned by Fr. Carlos for the House Meeting Campaign are core team members of the Metro Alliance organizing strategy at Our Lady of Guadalupe.  OLG has been a member of Metro Alliance since 1999.  The House Meeting Campaign at OLG will not be a Metro Alliance selling or recruiting project.     

"Our Lady of Guadalupe"

is a member of the

"Metro Alliance"
Edited by Dennis Hartnett - Feb 2008

1.  What is Metro Alliance?

            Metro Alliance is a non-partisan, multi-ethnic, multi-issue, interfaith organization of churches, religious congregations, public schools, and labor locals in the San Antonio metropolitan area.  Metro Alliance was formed twenty years ago to allow ordinary citizens to negotiate effectively with the government and private institutions that affect their lives.  Metro Alliance helps its member institutions to act on their faith values and democratic traditions.

            By conducting thousands of relational meetings (one-to-one and small group or house meetings), Metro Alliance in conjunction with its San Antonio sister organization, COPS (Communities Organized for Public Service) have identified issues of concern to all sectors of the community and developed a broad-based vision to transform people’s frustration, pain and anger into a multi-issue agenda for a better future for families in the San Antonio metropolitan area.  Volunteer leaders of Metro Alliance work with professional organizers of the Industrial Areas Foundation and sister organizations in the Texas, Southwest, and National IAF Network to produce the political power necessary to generate resources for ambitious improvements to our state and our metropolitan community.  

2.  What is the purpose of Metro Alliance?

The primary purpose is power - the ability to act - and the chief product is social change. Metro Alliance leaders continue to practice what the Founding Fathers preached: the ongoing attempt to make life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness everyday realities for more and more Americans.

Metro Alliance is non-ideological and strictly non-partisan, but proudly, publicly, and persistently political. Metro Alliance works with IAF to build a political base within society's rich and complex third sector - the sector of voluntary institutions that includes religious congregations, labor locals, homeowner groups, recovery groups, parents associations, settlement houses, immigrant societies, schools, seminaries, orders of men and women religious, and others. And then the leaders use that base to compete at times, to confront at times, and to cooperate at times with leaders in the public and private sectors.

The IAF develops organizations such as Metro Alliance that use power - organized people and organized money - in effective ways. The secret to the IAF's success lies in its commitment to identify, recruit, train, and develop leaders in every corner of every community where IAF works. The IAF is indeed a radical organization in this specific sense: it has a radical belief in the potential of the vast majority of people to grow and develop as leaders, to be full members of the body politic, to speak and act with others on their own behalf. And IAF does indeed use a radical tactic: the face-to-face, one-to-one individual meeting whose purpose is to initiate a public relationship and to re-knit the frayed social fabric.

3.  What have these organizations done?

Together the leaders of COPS and Metro Alliance have worked on many strategies to build housing, improve schools, develop job-training programs, construct parks and libraries, and otherwise strengthen family and neighborhood life throughout the San Antonio metropolitan area:

v    San Antonio Education Partnership works through advisors to prevent dropouts in 15 inner city public high schools by awarding college scholarships to students who graduate with a B average and a 95% attendance rate.  The founding partners include General Robert McDermitt and other San Antonio business leaders, university and college presidents, school superintendents, city officials and COPS and Metro Alliance.  Thousands of scholarship winners have successfully completed their college studies.  Many were the first in their families to attend college. Some are physicians, lawyers, engineers and other professionals serving our community.

v    After School Challenge programs developed through COPS and Metro Alliance’s organizing efforts have reached over 150 schools, providing adult-supervised activities between the hours of 3:00 – 6:00 p.m. to more than 30,000 students in eight school districts.

v    Project QUEST is a nationally recognized workforce development strategy  proposed by Metro Alliance and COPS leaders and developed in alliance with bankers Tom Frost and Charlie Cheever, high-wage technical and health care employers, and the San Antonio City Council that has trained and placed over 1500 people in jobs with a salary of at least $20,000, benefits, and a career path.

v    Alliance Schools   COPS and Metro Alliance have a partnership with 16 schools in Edgewood Independent School District, San Antonio Independent School District, and Harlandale Independent School District in which the principals, teachers, parents and neighborhood residents have organized around each school to form a constituency working to improve community participation and the overall quality of public education.

v    Living Wage Strategy COPS and Metro Alliance fight for living wages (an amount which if paid by the hour for a work year [2000 hours] will result in a worker being able to support a family of 4 above the Federal Poverty Level) for all employees of taxing authorities and of those seeking tax deferral or abatement agreements from taxing authorities. So far the taxing agencies that pay all employees the living wage include the City of San Antonio, Bexar County, San Antonio Independent School District, Northeast Independent School District and University Hospital System.   As a result of the advocacy of COPS and Metro Alliance, the City of San Antonio and Bexar County include living wage requirements in all tax abatement agreements. 

v    Housing COPS and Metro Alliance have leveraged millions from the City’s general revenue fund to provide funding of no/low interest loans for families and elderly in need of home renovation or reconstruction.

v    The Investment Capital Fund The Texas IAF Network has obtained adequate funding from Governors Richards, Bush and Perry and the Texas legislature to train leaders and establish 180 Alliance Schools all around Texas.

v    The Human Development/Better Jobs Fund   In May 2001, the Legislature unanimously approved and Governor Perry signed a law advocated by COPS/Metro Alliance and the Texas IAF Network, which allows Texas cities for the first time to use sales tax revenues to invest in educating and training of PEOPLE instead of building THINGS like arenas, amusement parks and tourist attractions.

v    Health Care COPS/Metro Alliance and the Texas IAF Network fought in the 2001 Legislative Session for the elimination of state imposed barriers from Texas’ Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program).

v    Immigration COPS/Metro Alliance and the Texas IAF Network helped pass a bill to make driver’s licenses (a prerequisite for purchasing auto insurance) available for immigrants.

4.  Why did Our Lady of Guadalupe join the Metro Alliance?  Does the Church have a role in the political order?

           As stated in Political Responsibility Statement of the U.S. Catholic Bishops the Church’s role in the political order includes: analyzing issues for their social and moral dimensions; measuring public policy against gospel values; and, speaking out with courage, skill, and concern on public issues involving human rights, social justice, and the life of the Church in society.

            Involvement in the work of Metro Alliance is one way the faithful citizens of our parish can use their voices to enrich the democratic life of our community, state and nation and to act on their values in the political arena to help shape a society more respectful of the life, dignity, and rights of the human person, especially the poor and vulnerable.

           In isolation, churches and families have no chance against the social and economic pressures under which more children go to prison than college and sacred people made in the image and likeness of God lose dignity because of disability, poverty, age, lack of success, or race.  With Metro Alliance, as a context and as an instrument, Our Lady of Guadalupe and its families can move with dignity and confidence into the arena of institutional power, fight for their values and win.  

The Parishioners involved since 1999 in organizing our Metro Alliance core team have benefited greatly from the experience.  All have studied scripture, received training and been given many opportunities to learn and practice the relational skills necessary to build and lead a broad based organization.   

OLG Leaders who have organized and participated in Metro Alliance actions have gained practical experience with the meaning of scriptures in their everyday lives. 

           OLG Leaders who have helped organize COPS/Metro Alliance and Texas IAF Network actions have learned to identify issues of concern to all sectors of the community, strengthened relationships within and between member institutions, and forged alliances across religious and race lines. 

5. Invitation

            The regular monthly meetings of OLG’s Metro Alliance core team are open to all parishioners. 

            Come meet the individuals, parents, and grandparents of OLG who are working publicly with others who share our values for the needs of the next generation in health care, education, living wage jobs, long-term job training strategies, immigration, and access to water.   

6.  Contact 

Those who want additional information may contact or leave a message with Willie Crafts (522-9640), J. A. Farias (695-4643), Dennis Hartnett (521-7595), Jesse or Adelina Hernandez (681-7108), Aurora Valek (683-3999), Michael Vogelsang (558-9530), or Dan White (681-5270).