A new organization, the Community Forum for Economic Development, was formed in 2006 by a group of long-time activists in the South Bend community. These activists were concerned about the effects on people of “economic development” efforts by local governments and private entities.
A major early initiative was an effort to link tax abatements, subsidies provided by local taxpayers to companies investing in the area, to concrete benefits to the local community by the company seeking an abatement. The principle was that the more benefits the company provided, the longer abatement it could qualify for.
In doing so, we challenged the prevailing wisdom that “economic development” simply meant attracting businesses to the City or County, often with taxpayer -provided subsidies. We argued instead for an understanding that true economic development must include improving the lives of area residents as a fundamental component.
This understanding meant that we were involved in several efforts to protect the quality of life of residents of St. Joseph County. These included efforts to stop Tondu, the coal gassification plant that wanted to build near New Carlisle; to protect county residents from health problems associated with concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs); and to encourage the formation of the South Bend Community Garden Group, which has since evolved to become Unity Gardens.
We also focused on where new development efforts often were located: on “greenfields” such as Blackthorn and even further out in the County, on former farmland. Older areas, often near neighborhoods with Black and Latino residents, received less attention.
This led us to promote the development of LaSalle Square, an inner-city area that had been deserted by companies looking for more affluent customers. We participated in sessions that envisioned the future development of LaSalle Square and in community efforts to preserve LaSalle Library. Many of us volunteered for the VITA program, which did free income-tax preparation for low- and moderate-income taxpayers and had locations in both LaSalle and Western libraries.
In all our work we supported the rights of workers, their ability to organize trade unions, and – to quote our mission statement – to obtain a living standard sufficient to sustain life in dignity. And in all our work we tried to embed an understanding of how past – and continuing – discrimination against minorities, particularly Black people, has affected our society and, most importantly, what we can do about it.
Providing information about current developments has always been a focus of the Community Forum. So, we held monthly meetings and also annual Forums. Our early Forums focused on the topic of economic development. The first public Forum, in April 2006, featured two nationally recognized experts in this area: Greg LeRoy, from Good Jobs First, and Madeline Janis-Aparicio, from the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. Marty Wolfson, an economist and member of the Community Forum, spoke on local conditions and our organization’s perspective on the meaning of economic development.
In subsequent years, we continued our focus on economic development. We opposed expanding the Blackthorn TIF District to include building in Portage Prairie, an area of farmland far removed from downtown South Bend. When the City nonetheless incorporated Portage Prairie, we organized and argued (successfully) for the TIF district to also include the area around LaSalle Square, so that tax revenue from the district could be used to promote development in this urban area.
We also opposed rerouting the South Shore Railroad through the established Ardmore community. We argued, instead, that if the Railroad were to be relocated, it could do so at the Honeywell site. That site, close to LaSalle Square, could spur development in the area we had previously identified as neglected and one that could provide economic opportunities for its concentration of Black and brown residents.
An attempt to address the problem of “food deserts” on the West Side of South Bend was the Urban Garden Market. Initiated by the Community Forum, this project gathered together local farmers and vendors to set up shop on Bendix Avenue, and then on other locations on the West Side.
Another group that the Community Forum helped form was the South Bend Reparations Working Group. After an insightful lecture on the oppression, discrimination, and racism faced by African-Americans after the Civil War, this group was inspired to come together to help others become aware of this history, and to do something about it. The lecture was given by Darryl Heller, the Director of the Civil Rights Heritage Center and a former President of the Community Forum.
We also continued our focus on workers’ rights. We worked with former employees of the AJ Wright Company. They had been left high and dry when the company suddenly decided to leave town in 2011. Since AJ Wright had not fulfilled the terms of the 10-year tax abatement it received from the City of South Bend in 2004, the company was required to pay more than $3 million to the City. We helped workers formulate a request to the City to receive at least some of that money. Unfortunately, the City was not willing to share with the workers the money it was receiving.
Another campaign to support workers was the attempt to stop the Indiana legislature from passing “Right to Work” legislation. If a union is the recognized bargaining agent at a company, it is required to represent all workers in such issues as grievances and contract negotiation. This misnamed bill’s real purpose was to deny unions the ability to collect reasonable payments from workers for representing them, thus weakening the union’s ability to represent its workers.
Related to this effort was the local campaign to pass a “living” wage. Recognizing that the minimum wage was woefully unable to support a decent standard of living, activists throughout the country initiated campaigns for a “living wage.” Our campaign proposed that a living wage should apply to workers employed by the city of South Bend, by companies that had contracts with the city or by any employer that received city assistance (such as tax abatements). Although our living wage ordinance didn’t pass, it affected the general understanding of what workers need to have a life of dignity.
As the Community Forum grew in size and experience, we took up other issues of importance to the community such as education and housing.
We held an all-day conference on the School to Prison Pipeline. Speakers and workshops described the disparate treatment students, especially Black students, often faced in discipline, suspensions, and general treatment, and the likelihood that this treatment would make finding a job and avoiding prison more difficult. We focused on the need to follow the Consent Decree, a legal judgment that required the avoidance of segregation in the South Bend public schools. Activists in the Community Forum and in the South Bend NAACP pulled together teachers, students, and administrators in education to form CAFÉ, Community Action for Education.
In housing, we held monthly forums on Mayor Buttigieg’s effort to address the problem of vacant and abandoned housing. Many residents were concerned that too many houses were demolished, houses that could have been rehabilitated. Former President of the Community Forum Regina Williams-Preston pointed out the negative effects that overly aggressive code enforcement efforts were having on the ability of people to stay in their homes. We popularized the slogan Development Without Displacement to address this problem. Later activists from the Community forum formed a group called Housing is a Human Right, to emphasize the overwhelming problem that finding a safe and affordable place to live had become.
Although we still maintained our initial interest in traditional economic development topics, clearly our perspective had broadened. We also came to two important conclusions. One was that the issues we were concerned with were interrelated. For example, it was difficult to find a good job if your education was substandard and you were subject to discrimination, and without a job that paid decent wages it was difficult to afford safe housing. The second was that the solutions we proposed to the problems we addressed were all focused on justice. It was justice we demanded for residents who lived in neighborhoods overlooked by developers seeking more affluent customers; it was justice we demanded for employees working hard for companies that did not pay them enough to live in dignity; it was justice we demanded for students who faced discrimination in getting a good education.
In light of our multi-issue perspective, and in light of out consistent focus on justice, we decided to change our name to the Community Forum for Economic Justice.