success and society.

i work for a non-profit that provides services to homeless teenagers and young adults. most of the youth that we serve are very poor, african-american, and from the south and west sides of the city. we have two different kinds of housing programs, a group residence and an independent living program where teenagers live in their own apartments, subsidized by our agency. let me say from the outset that i think our programs are fantastic, and we have some really phenomenal staff that give these kids practical skills that will be incredibly useful as they try to navigate the world. the work is noble work, and someone needs to be doing it.

but sometime, i sit back and i think, is this really doing anything? are we really changing anything?

at our agency, we have graduations for the youth who move from the group residence to their own apartments, and also youth who graduate from the apartment program and out of our programs completely. these graduations are great things to see, as the youth and staff have really worked hard. the youth are proud of themselves and excited for the future, and the staff are so proud of the youth for overcoming the obstacles in their lives. i honestly enjoy going to them, since sometimes i can feel removed from the day-to-day work that goes on to serve these kids. however, they also make me sort of sad.

because everything is relative. it's easy to get caught up in the enthusiam of the evening - all the encouraging words, the evident pride of the youth who is graduating. but part of me always knows that it could have, and should have, been easier for this kid. i can pretty much guarantee that every youth whose graduation that i have attended has had a much harder life than i have, and has seen and gone through things that i can't even imagine. and on the evening of a graduation, there is as much pride and admiration in the fact that a youth is getting his own apartment and works a minimum wage job as there was when i got my bachelor's degree - even more, i'd wager, as oftentimes the youth never believe that he/she could do it in the first place.

as upper middle class kids, we never doubted that we'd go to college. never doubted that we'd get a good job. never doubted that we'd make a comfortable salary and live in a comfortable house and have a dog, a cat, granite countertops, an inground pool, whatever little slice of consumer heaven it was that we really wanted. and then i sit there, and i watch kids who have struggled their whole lives just to have their own little 400 square foot studio, and i just feel foolish. foolish for my own assumptions about success and what it entails, but also foolish that the system that enabled those assumptions sits largely unchanged. we can work our asses off, day in and day out, to give these kids a leg up in the world, and we'll be lucky if a few of them can get a college education and a secure salaried job. very lucky. something that seems so basic to me is so elusive to most of them.

that makes me angry. i'm sure it sounds disingenous, like shaking your fist at a rainstorm from inside the house. but really, i get a pit in my stomach when i think about the fact that they may not ever make more than minimum wage, that they may never get out of the dilapitated buildings and low expectations of certain neighborhoods on the south side. because as much as we'd like to think so, the efforts that we make at my agency don't change the fact that most people born in the ghetto don't really escape the ghetto. broader social systems see to that. and there’s nothing you can do but keep showing up to work every day, hoping that the few youth in your program get a few concrete benefits from the work you do, and that maybe someday things will be different.

but i don’t see how.