Updated and Edited Nov. 2020; Edited for Grammar March 2022.
Introduction
Sustainable Lives was originally called My First Name. I developed My First Name because I recognized that artists, musicians, and writers couldn’t afford to live while they were honing their craft. This was particularly true of artists, musicians and writers who did not choose a route into the art world by institutional (colleges) means. Although, I know plenty of ‘classically’ trained artists who don’t make a living from art, I never believed this was a flaw of the creative but on the part of society at large and the valuations therein.
My First Name was about building a theoretical possibility that an individual might be able to attain oneself through art, music or writing and make a living; it was the belief that there might be ways to live and work to include time for artistry. Our lives are so easily dulled by work being the central point of our life’s success or failures. Too much work and too little art are the reality; I wanted to solve that problem.
In the process of developing the ideas behind Sustainable Lives, I had to look at the individual and why, so often more than not, they do not create lives of metaphysical prosperity. The soul is so often left out of every valuation in our lives that people are despondent and morose. Depression is widespread and often treated through chemical agents rather than spiritual agents; art and spirituality don’t solve all forms of depression, but they can be a helpful start.
I started to work with ideas related to expense of society which make life so difficult and started asking questions. How do we make life cheaper and richer all at once? How do we make it possible for people to find a place in this society which raises the quality of life?
Sustainable Lives wasn’t ever designed to replace or overwrite the society that exists; it was meant as a means by which to fill in the cracks. Most of the cracks which exist in society affect a subset of individuals who are different in one way or another (outliers); creatives, poor and minorities fall through those cracks; the mentally ill fall through those cracks; the disabled and illiterate fall through those cracks.
As time went on, I worked on a variety of mini projects or experiments to develop the underpinnings of my ideas surrounding Sustainable Lives. All of these experiments dealt with the needs of individuals required to live a sustainable, healthy life from the metaphysical to the physical.
Sustainable Lives is meant to be a multifaceted entity which aims to improve the health and well-being of individuals in society through the physical and non-physical forms which shape our lives.
Sustainable Lives is meant to re-imagine society in a way which will benefit everyone. This is not so much about trying to replace preexisting entities but to create entities which fill the gaps through which individuals fall into antisocial behavior, despair, depression, or various forms of dysfunction.
Sustainable Lives is a slow growing idea which focuses on all sorts of sustainability ideas. It primarily focuses on those sustainability functions which are not present in our society
I returned home after serving as a medic in Afghanistan and found myself helping a friend work on a small arts cooperative called the Resonance Center. This was my gateway into an arts and music society. I loved all those years because I was able to work on my skills while supporting individuals who were also living and breathing the arts.
I wanted to figure out how to make life cheaper for creatives so they could focus more on honing their craft rather than surviving. Honing craft helps make the arts more desirable; and desirable arts help with monetization. Monetization of arts and the markets in which arts sell go hand in hand. To help artists further monetize their work, accessible markets must be created; or points of entry must be created for inaccessible markets.
I realized that artists and writers couldn’t focus on honing their craft and work a full-time job while engaging in the most human of all activities: relationship and family building.
Even if artists and musicians produce highly desirable work, many can’t afford to indulge in the arts because they are too busy trying to survive.
I grew up playing music and writing. Later I became a martial artist and all these together enrich my life. These enrichments have become imperatives of my happiness. I cannot draw or paint well, I have little desire to embellish my environment with beauty. Even without the desire to create a beautiful space, I feel the positive effects which come from beautiful environments. Enrichment in the arts is such an imperative in my life, I believe working on ways to bring arts to the lives of all citizens is an imperative of society.
I often thought if the world was built just a bit differently, I would never have happened on asking these questions; I would have never found a path leading to mystery, beauty, and awe. Because of my own experiences, I have been driven to find the answers to some of the questions I have listed above.
As I have tried to answer some of these questions, I have come across many people who have expressed that life is hard and it has always been hard. I have thought, beauty should be built into everyday life, by everyday people My thoughts have leaned toward the idea that art must be a part of everyday life and beauty must be weaved into our lives because art makes life bearable.
Some people are not artisanal connoisseurs. I do not believe this fact limits their intrinsic need for beauty. Some metaphysical needs can be met by beauty. Art can bring on a feeling of awe, and awe is sorely missed in our everyday lives. Many emotional experiences which lead to a sense of human health and well-being are absent in society without this beauty.
From this idealistic outlook, searching for the metaphysical fulfillment of man, I began to approach the problems that harbored the failures of artists. Of course, there are successful artists, but the value of art does not correlate to the need for art; and so often the art markets are limited (toward highbrow). The world we build is ugly. When the world we build is ugly the society we live in can make us miserable.
There is street art everywhere. Often the street artists are making the world better for everyone and the rich, seeing the value, move in and take over. This whole thing is ludicrous. This preposterous approach to valuing art does little for those who were successful in connecting with that which makes art, art.
The institutionalization of art through art schools teaches a lot of process and help young artists develop skills which help create desirable work; this may allow the artist to express some meaning. Artists should be using their skills to improve society through synthesis, which informs society of that which without art is lost. I personally believe this is an incredibly important need in society; however, questions of value, monetization and markets inhibit access to art by society.
The real problem of building a society in which artists and their work can add to the overall value of society is a problem worth solving. Art and beauty must be interwoven into the fabric of society by building a basis of value for it.
—
Once I got past philosophizing why art should be valued by society, I started to focus on the needs of individual creators. I hoped making life less expensive would create the space and time needed to refine their craft, decrease the need to work outside of their craft.
While I was focusing on these ideas surrounding artists, I became poor through a series of unfortunate events and personal mistakes. I found myself engaged as a cab driver and lived on around ten thousand dollars a year for several years. My ideas never left the possibility that an individual should be able to find fulfillment by engaging in work of their own choosing. I have always realized that society requires professional, vocational and non-professional services; but wondered about those who bring value to society, who fit in none of these categories.
Inevitably some fall through mysterious cracks in the fabric which ties all of society together; sometimes these are the most creative and innovative; these individuals add value to each of our lives. I was one such person fallen through cracks in the fabric of society, where had I gone? I was not a focused enough student to follow through in any professional career. I was a creative but not polished enough to produce salable work. I was innovative in business, but business is a tricky monster, and I was trying something much different from business norms.
Of course, not everyone who fall through these mysterious cracks are self-motivated, educated or developed as individuals. Often people who fall through the cracks are children or young adults; poor or under educated; developmentally, intellectually, physically, or mentally disabled. These are the many individuals who would benefit from a social fabric with a finer mesh, exceptionalism, and greater beauty in all things.
Sustainable Lives is an idea about trying something a little different from what has been tried before. Sustainable Lives is about building a finer mesh in the hopes that fewer and fewer fall between these mysterious cracks; in the hopes that those who are different, will add the greatest depth, excellence, and beauty, which will enhance all our lives.
Grass Roots vs. Institution
Grass Root operations are leaders of social change and produce leaders who push society toward the better. Institutions are power and reproduce power through a process of grooming, educating, and positioning those who will lead their institutions. Grass root efforts move the world forward, institutions maintain power. Even when institutions shift, they shift for their own benefits.
Cafes become central to the creative process. These are spaces which slow down time and life in a hectic world: where hearts and minds can gather; here, ideas flourish, groups gather, revolutions begin.
The Bars, for when the days start with coffee, the nights end with drinks. The revolutions further into the evening. These slow building revolutions are our creations of the world in which we live. Some may overlook the neighbor bar as a place which be cornerstone to that which ties us all together; for there is such addiction about. However, these establishments would not harbor such addiction when the culture itself answers the call to the metaphysical need.
Art and culture are what tie us together in industry which represents the spirit of man and creates a social context in which we can exist and grow.
I’ve been lucky to experience these environs and people in my own growth as a person. I believe they have shaped and molded me to become a better person than I once was, and an emerging leader in my own right.
Note enough can be said about the creators, owners and operators of establishments which are focused on pulling people together; and creating central gathering places in which people can grow and flourish. I cannot speak enough for these sorts of places in my own life; and how they have shaped me to become the man I am today. They all have created spaces and environments in which I could grow, flourish and be challenged.
The root of the grass nurtures the person. Roots in an art and culture society can nurture the person. It is important to build organizations and institutions this way so that we can remember our roots; and we are social beings who need to grow together.
Maslow
To understand the metaphysical needs of man, I have looked at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow’s model remains one of the best explanations of how a person’s needs: basic, social, and metaphysical, must build on one another. Most of Maslow’s work that appears in college textbooks stop at self-actualization; there is another level of attainment like the attainment of enlightenment or transcendence. Before transcendence, an individual’s needs must be met at the lower levels of the pyramid before the next level of need can be attained. By Maslow’s account the pyramid levels are physical, safety, esteem, love, self-actualization, and enlightenment.
Sustainable Lives is designed to functionally address some aspects of physical, safety, esteem and love needs in the hopes that everyone will be able to attain self-actualization. Not everyone needs to, or desires to endure the rigors of enlightenment; and so, the functional development of Sustainable Lives only deals in the physical and social world: leaving the metaphysical world to be decided by the individual.
In my own experience with poverty and the developmentally disabled I identified human needs for Sustainable Lives to include: food, clothing, shelter, medical care, mobility, communication, and emotional support. These needs bring a person up to the point in which they can engage self-actualization.
Dependent on the needs of the individual, physical and safety needs are often provided by many preexisting institutions. In fact, these needs are often built into the infrastructure through housing, policing, and fire prevention. Esteem and love are not typically needs which are met by infrastructures of society but by family or religious institution. This is a flaw in circumstances when children have no families or severely dysfunctional families. An individual’s access to therapy, life coaching or a community of caring individuals, can help meet these needs through the curation of individual development, emotional and social intelligence.
Self-actualization occurs through the development of social autonomy. Social autonomy can exist when previous needs are met with access to economic resources and learning resources.
My thinking on all these matters have shifted a bit with time as I’ve become more educated and more experienced. In this way Sustainable Lives is not just a simple idea; it is a flexible social philosophy which dips into the functional fabric of society – of infrastructure – within which individuals’ function.
Yunus
Maslow’s work provides some structure to what the needs of humans are; Yunus provides a structure for a style of business and a style of lending which takes humanity into account. These styles do not create a barrier between funding/business development and the poor. Yunus’ ideas behind micro lending and social business allow the poor to raise themselves out of poverty and create access to sustainable systems.
Known as Banker to the Poor Yunus developed the idea of social business. A social business is owned and operated by the poor, employs the poor, and/or provides services to the poor.
Examples of Yunus’ social businesses which grew to scale were telephone services, nutritional yogurt, clean water services and several other innovative businesses which were solvent while providing services to the poorest of the poor.
Social business also has leverage within communities to improve overall health, wellness, and social cohesion. Individuals who received micro loans and started businesses worked in small groups; they committed to each other and made promises to one another to follow through. These promises improved the rates of success for follow through and loan repayment.
Yunus’ work proves that there are no excuses for high rates of poverty. It is discouraging to see rates of poverty in the richest country on earth of 30-40% (this is relative poverty). I believe there will always be poverty, but I do not believe poverty will be the factor limiting an individual’s self-actualization. I believe quality of life can be improved; and we should see no more than 10% poverty rates in any given locality.
Sustainable Lives is a model which is designed to utilize the basic principles of social business and micro funding concepts to solve poverty issues; and create a path by which people can become self-actualized.
Balance of Individual and Society
Most people use anecdotal evidence to extrapolate an understanding of how the world works. From their parents, friends, educators, and preachers they derive conclusion. These conclusions become beliefs and people are extraordinarily stubborn when it comes to their beliefs. They will look for evidence to support their beliefs. They will talk about their beliefs to other people with similar beliefs. They will build social cohesion in groups like their own. This is the way humans’ function.
Some societies place more importance on the individual and some place more on the group. Balance is crucial to health and well-being; balance is crucial to sustainable living. I cannot say what the right balance to strike is – it is to everyone; and everyone will create and maintain the society in which they have come from, and live in.
Behavior change and social change are the elements required to improve the society in which we live. Change is hard on and individual level and a societal level; because we believe what we believe and most of those beliefs come from anecdotal evidence.
Anecdotal evidence is important in terms of how individuals develop, grow and make choices for themselves and their families. It is not always the best way to make decisions for others; or a basis upon which to build an entire society.
Pluralism protects the individual, but we must believe in something together, otherwise we are all apart. In a society of many differing groups and many differing ideas, unity can only come about when we all agree on something together.
I propose building sustainable lives the way in which we build infrastructure and industry to meet our needs. I propose we do so while balancing the needs of the individual against society. I propose we do so while building a society that meets the needs of everyone involved, including the poor and disabled.
This balance must come through while continuing to search for what will meet the needs of individuals in the best interests of society. My main argument here is that we must provide for the needs of those, who, either cannot meet their own needs, or have been disserved by the frivolous developments of a world built only for those who can afford the wasteful ways in which we build the world.
Getting away from anecdotes is challenging because stories provide the context for what ties us all together. Balancing individual and society are as much about blending a scientific approach in methods and research against the stories which create the social fabric which binds all of us together.
The Sustainable Live’s model attempts to do this by strengthening the social network of the community by engaging individuals civically and developmentally. The Sustainable Live’s model does this through life coaching and mentorship. Although the initial model did not include advocates, advocacy may be an additional layer which may help improve everyday lives of individuals who are under educated; or, in need of a translation of the technobabble related to the many professional fields – medicine foremost in my mind. There are, however, needs for intermediating between the layman and the professional in terms of advocacy including but not limited to finance, law, engineering, and many other fields.
Equality and Choice
When I was struggling through the philosophy behind Sustainable Lives, I thought a lot about freedom, equality, and the importance of choice. This is also a part of the balance between individual and society because every choice I make impacts society; and choice is an imperative of freedom, an ideal for which Americans strive.
In America there is an unhealthy social dynamic based on racial divides. All these racial divides seem to be based on the idea that one human or group of humans is better than another group. This type of supremacist ideology is incredibly harmful to society because it presupposes that one person is worth more than another person.
The philosophy behind Sustainable Lives rejects the idea that one person has more worth than another person. This idea allows us to keep our minds open to the idea that all individuals can become self-actualized. This idea keeps us from falling into the pit of prejudice.
Sometimes, the push to create a society where all people are of equal worth becomes confused with all people are equal. All people are not equal. All people are different, with a complex set of differences including behavior, intelligence, personality, education, skills, experience, appearance, tastes etc. When all people are truly considered equal in worth, it is easier to build equal access to the resources which matter in the development of man, from basic needs to social needs, all the way to self-actualization.
This all leads to the big three elements required to attain self-actualization: access to education, finance, and social/emotional support.
The Four Big Access Points
You can derive the big three requirements for self-actualizing by reverse engineering the lives of those who are actualized and looking at what they all have in common. Usually, this work is easier when you also do some comparative introspection on the reality and repetition of the poor from generation to generation.
The poor typically stay poor generation after generation, and this is true for middle and the upper class also. It is far simpler to replicate your parents’ success because your parents are successful. They have the educational experience to enrich your life. They have access to financial systems by which you can pay for education. They are typically able to give a reasonable level of social support.
Poor families, however, don’t typically have the education, access to finance or social support networks to provide for many of the psychological needs and sometimes don’t have the wherewithal to provide for basic needs.
To overcome the lack of access to the big three which the poor face, there have to be broader social support networks built into the society at large. This can be accomplished through business, nonprofit development and government, but must come along with a belief that poverty can be overcome when all people come together to overcome it.
A Social Fabric Against Poverty
Building the right kind of social fabric is the most important aspect of overcoming poverty. Social forces are stronger than many other forces that play a part in the decisions we make. Why do poor people keep on making the same poor decisions repeatedly? In part it is an issue of knowledge or resource availability; but, even stronger than that, are social relationships and the social forces they exert.
The poor don’t typically have access to professionals such as doctors, lawyers, and professors in their everyday lives. This is in part due to the restructuring of American Urbanism after World War II. No longer would professionals rub shoulders with under educated, disabled or poor. This removed professionals from the everyday social fabric of the poor.
This lack of access is only part of the social fabric problem. Because of market forces, professionals have less and less time to spend explaining how things work; thus, individuals receiving services suffer. This may be the professionals themselves being hurt by the expenses of the infrastructural fabric of society – non the less, it is a reality.
To overcome poverty, we must face the world as it is; and not only develop methods of bringing these imperative services to the poor, but also account for what is lost in translation.
This explanation is not meant to be exhaustive; however, it is a broad expression of what I believe can represent the social emotional supports necessary to close the gap between the social supports those in poverty experience, versus those of the middle or upper class.
Life coaching is a generalized term to include individuals who build alliances with their clients to create meaningful behavioral and thinking changes, which allow a client to get from where they are to where they want to be. There are health, relationship, professional, entrepreneurial, and spiritual coaches to name a few; and many more who may focus on a niche of their own. Perhaps there might even be coaches who one day specialize in the difficulties faced by the poor.
Mentorship exists in many aspects of our society from vocational apprenticeship to higher educational institutions in masters and PhD programs. I believe that every successful person can benefit from a mentor who has specific experience by which the individual can learn, grow, and thus be guided.
Advocacy is a process by which persons can represent the best interests of individuals who may not have a voice of their own. Advocacy typically exists in cases of individuals with developmental disabilities and mental health; but should also exist in medical systems, insurance systems, legal systems, and a variety of intermediating systems between the poor and social services; and those professionals they don’t have access to; or who don’t have time to educate the public, due to failed markets or absence of markets.
A Financial Fabric Against Poverty
Financial systems are designed for those who have money. The money management and lending systems are typically counterintuitive and set up in such a way that understanding them is counterintuitive. The credit card system follows suit in its counterintuitive nature. For the poor, credit cards become a way in which to attain part of a dream; or to pay for the basic means of survival, for which they cannot truly afford. What begins as a means of realizing a dream, turns into a trap which the poor cannot get out of. This is not due to a lack of intelligence, but to the counter intuitive trickery of a system which is meant to make money under any means legal.
Financial services catered to the poor look very different from those which are catered to those of means. These services may be as simple as advocacy for setting up savings and checking accounts to avoid high finance charges associated with check cashing. Loan services, including micro loans, loans without interest, service free loans or service fee loans become possibilities when catering to the poor; creating funding sources for the poor specially designed to develop social business become possible; venture capitalism catering to social businesses become possible. Yunus even suggests the development of social business exchanges.
Utica Transportation was set up as a social business. That is, Utica Transportation was designed to provide jobs to the poor and provide services for the poor. Utica Transportation was never fully realized because we were unable to drive it to the scale it needed to become before many of the ideas we had could be implemented. We did achieve raising the overall climate of the industry, provide cab drivers slightly better jobs, and reduce the cost of transportation being provided to the poor of our city.
Helping individuals create large scale and small-scale social businesses can completely change the economic state of any impoverished area by increasing the amount of commerce which is able to take place where none had previously been possible. It has been found that the more money the lowest percent make, of any population, the more income of those in the higher echelon make also. Economic prosperity requires that all are taking a part in economic development, this includes the poor; and social business is the best means by which the poor can raise themselves and their peers upward.
At each rung of development crucial points are passed in which a person will either advance to the next rung, stagnate or regress. In the case of poverty, even job attainment can seem impossible without basic tools of communication, transportation or even quality, self-representation like haircut, clean clothes, and reasonable shoes. As a person advances on the rungs of business there are similar needs to include access to office equipment, communications equipment, internet, marketplaces, and business acumen.
Poverty packs was the idea I have come up with to meet the need for basic tools toward employment or business development. These can be catered to the individuals and the path of development they are on. The idea of poverty packs isn’t new. I came upon the idea while thinking about the Red Cross packs put together for victims of fire, flood, or other natural disasters. Where the Red Cross may focus on meeting the needs of specific tragedies, the idea for Sustainable Lives is to create packs which are development tools. Some of these tools may be like what other organizations offer under limited criteria like fire, flood, or natural disaster.
Basic access to banking and financial literacy are problems for the poor. Many poor don’t have access to financial institutions, even though having something as simple as a checking or savings account can reduce costs associated with processing payments or cashing checks. Banks will often offer a free notary public to their customers. Banking services may seem outreach from the poor due to transportation problems; or because they have little funds available regularly. One arm of the financial fabric against poverty must involve advocacy or liaisons between the poor and access to financial systems.
Specific tools which can help the poor include micro finance. This may include the ability to service smaller loans than are typically serviced; grant funding for poverty packs or business development may be another. Any funding source which accommodates social business is accommodating the poor.
Financial fabric against poverty is primarily about helping the poor intersect with the financial services industry. It can be expounded to include those cost realities associated with development of self, from impoverishment, to being educated, employed, or starting a business. Usually, the hurtles which face the poor are overlooked by those of means because they are considered insignificant. The reality is, most problems faced by the poor are incredibly significant, but also relatively easy to solve by creating a financial fabric in society which accommodates their unique problems.
An Educational Fabric Against Poverty
Compulsory education is fine; vocational education is fine, if we could just get the guidance of these pre-existing educational institutions back into the guidance of teachers instead of law makers or book publishers.
I’m interested in access to education which integrates learning into society; so that, the people in society can learn about things which affect them most. I hope this would be led by professionals and perhaps carried out by liaisons. A lot of the confusion about information comes from the complex systems of marketing, consumerism, and news; and now in 2020 we see concepts including fake news, news analysis, historical narrative and other means of information conveyed under the name: ‘News’.
I’m also interested in creating additional ways in which people who don’t have access to education, or its outrageous costs, might learn the skills necessary to engage in employment, education, or business development. There are some programs provided by government agencies which provide these needed services but there are gaping holes in the options available. You can receive job coaching through government services to get jobs available, but often these jobs are minimum wage jobs which provide no real motivation or possible future. Basic jobs must meet the basic needs society places on the individual and the jobs available don’t pay enough to do so.
These Government programs also don’t tend to be very helpful to individuals who want to venture on their own, into their own kinds of businesses. A person who might be able to receive basic job skills in conjunction with the development of basic business skills, might be more motivated to take on a menial job because of their ability to build their own future; and have control over their own lives. The logical disillusion of this idea is: if they could be educated in business, they would go get a business degree; this notion is absurd. Education will help you know how to create and run business, but it is not a requirement for starting one.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t go to school to become educated and help them start business. I’m saying that if poor people must figure out how to pay ten grand a year (about minimum) for business school, they will never make it to the point of opening the business. For micro businesses the startup costs are between 100 and 1000 dollars.
There are several resources out there for individuals to learn about and engage in business development outside of the traditional educational system; but I think there should be a civic corps which creates a knowledge pool and mentor system, which anyone in each system can tap into without the need for individual funding.
Learning and growing are normal experiences of human nature. Humans are naturally curious; and want to know why. When people are put into positions which do not allow their nature to fruition, stagnation, depression, and deviance may be the result. It is imperative that there are natural methods of raising the knowledge of all individuals in a society. You may not be able to get the poor to engage in such a system of learning, but that’s not a reason to fail the poor; and perhaps such a system would encourage the poor to take the next step in self sustainability: an additive factor to society at large, rather than a divisive or negative one.
Human Need for Industry
Being industrious is a part of human nature. We need something to do to occupy our time. For many of us, there are natural forms of industry in the form of employment or businesses. Access to industry is limited for many, and these individuals become labeled lazy, which is meant to reflect the fact that they are not industrious. As a friend brought to my attention: there’s plenty that needs to be done, just no means by which to do it. The laziness may not reflect the individuals themselves but of the systems (cities and governments) which they are a part.
Look outside and you will find garbage to be picked up, structures to be painted or repaired. There are plenty of lawns which need to be mowed and sidewalks which need to be shoveled in the city. There are plenty of individuals who need help with their homework, or someone to help them navigate complex systems like, medical care or finance. Many individuals cannot often afford the help of experts; and while professional work needs to be done by professionals, there are all sorts of mechanisms by which industry can include paraprofessionals to improve the professions intersection with the poor.
Common routes to industry include compulsory education: get a high school diploma, keep a clean record, don’t do drugs, get a driver’s license and break into the employment sector with an entry level job. This will get you a little experience as a teenager or young adult, but for most people in this modern world, minimum wage will not cover the costs of living without considerable flexibility on the part of the individual to include shared apartments, living with a boyfriend/girlfriend, living with one’s family. Out of all these conditions, living in the family’s home is the most financially beneficial for all, but often creates relational friction between the parts. I believe this is primarily since there is no cultural tradition by which the family treats the upcoming child like an adult; and possibly, the house itself is not built in such a way to allow for enough autonomy of the young adult. (This is based on a broad section of American culture and family dynamics. It will not be true of everyone. 2020)
As the young adult may soon find out, the additive cost requirements for living in society are quite high. After the basic needs are met some more complex basics are needed. These needs are transportation and communication. Transportation both public and private can be extremely expensive depending on the environment in which you live. In a poorly structured urban environment, transportation requirements are high, and often necessitate private ownership of an auto. Cellular communication is a must. These expenses can be moderate based on what a person chooses. (Costs and concepts are constantly changing in this technologically advanced information age. Part of the work of Sustainable Lives will be to provide information on low cost of living solutions. 2020)
It may soon become apparent that the young adult may want to go through some form of vocational or educational experience which allows them to enter onto the next rung of employment. College or vocational school often seems a forgone conclusion, although over the course of some years, the vocational trades have been looked down on even though auto techs, plumbers, electricians, and masons are all paid equal or more than those with a college education.
What other routes of industry are available? Some might go to art school or business school and thus become salable artists or business owners. Of these, some may go on to teach. In general, the world of art, music and business is much more competitive with less stability than teaching or government work. Professional musicianship is a little more stable, but most individuals either cannot or do not master the instrument they focus on well enough to pick up those jobs. The difference between the amateur and the professional in the art, music or business world is quite a bit more difficult to achieve than some of the other skilled trades or professional occupations.
Routes for amateurs into a professional world are limited. It is important that the amateur have a natural means of study both in their chosen focus and in life, so they are prepared to eventually enter one of the formal institutions of learning – if they so desire to break out of the entry level sector of industry. These routes do not exist in our society and often lead to a systematic development of stagnation, depression, deviance or maybe even suicide.
There are two solutions to this problem which come out of both old and new ideas. The first is a new form of industry which brings back an old way of community engagement. This idea focuses on voluntary civic engagement and infrastructure. The infrastructure is informational and chunks the needed industry into small bite sized pieces that any individual can take on in a voluntary capacity. This design can improve many of the social level needs because it causes individuals to work with people they may or may not know. A young man or woman can take out an elderly/retired persons garbage and the elderly person can share their life or professional experience with the young man. It may not be a 1:1 person exchange, it might be a credit system which allows an individual to volunteer such that they get access to the services others are offering. Technology and the internet can make this kind of network possible.
(Sustainable Lives Houses) The second solution is an infrastructural project which collocates residences and development centers. This is an infrastructural program based on residential programs of various social services agencies but altered to lower the cost of living and the costs associated with personal development. These programs are meant to rebuild some of the old functions of a properly built city center with a focus on rebuilding old infrastructure with new ideas, which take the development of all individuals into account.
These ideas are not about diminishing or replacing preexisting ways of doing things but are additive in nature. Adding to the preexisting system can help fill in the gaps and create a social fabric which takes more individuals into account. There are all sorts of honored brother hoods which would never leave a man or woman behind. I believe this is a good ethic and should be applied to all of society.
Civic Engagement
When I talk about industry or access to industry for individuals there are always common misperceptions fluent in our society.
They don’t want to work.
You can ask people: would you work if you won the lotto? Often people say no. Often people who win the lotto don’t have the financial wherewithal to live off the funds they receive and end up in bankruptcy. The winning the lotto question is like becoming a rock star, an actor, or a professional athlete.
Not only is there a misperception of people’s willingness to work, but there is also a certain level of delusion in this idea.
Why would anyone want to piece together 40 hours of minimum wage from three part time jobs? These corporate fast-food or retail jobs don’t want to pay the benefits law requires and pass the burden on to the employee who must work harder than the average person just to keep the jobs they need to support their family.
The increased cost managing three jobs is beyond what is possible for most individuals. It is true, the fast-food job was meant to be a job for teenagers, but this is not true anymore. Fast-food is a landmark business in America and there are too few jobs for the high school educated since the manufacturing companies have diminished.
The truth is people do want to be industrious to a certain extent. This is variable from person to person. No one wants to be treated poorly. People are happy to be a cog, when they know they are being treated fairly for providing that service.
They’re lazy.
Sometimes standing in line and doing what it takes to get social services funding is more work than having a single, steady paying job.
There is something to being lazy: being lazy creates the absence of industry in a person’s life; and, as I have said above, industry is required for optimal health.
The lack of access to jobs or industry creates the need for intersecting with social services and creates a vicious cycle which repeats time and time again.
People get raised up on bad food and gather weight on their body. This weight causes early onset disease and crippling of the body. This early onset disease leads to disability and disability leads to accessing government programs and social services. Rather than developing health and wellness people are mired in unnecessary miseries.
I don’t see this cycle as laziness; I see the system and the culture enabling a massive amount of people to live depressing lives.
The proof is in the disparity of happiness between the super poor of the world and the poor of the United States. Why are the poor in the United States so depressed, unhappy, miserable…? You can see it everywhere in an inner city: slumped shoulders, yelling and shouting, fighting, excessive drug trade and prostitution. This is not to say the inner-city poor are all depressed. This is also not to say that all inner-city citizens are poor.
Our current system which cares after the poor does not allow for a person to be industrious or healthy. The combination of culture and services create a system in which people are allowed to be completely unhealthy and depressed; this is not laziness, it is a disease bigger than the individual, it is a disease of the people.
Civic engagement has been driven out of the public sphere. Those who have resources live outside of the sphere of the poor. They engage in their own lives and are too busy for the kind of civic engagement needed to bring the poor out of poverty.
Civic engagement can be the answer to creating an environment which are good for all of us. The garbage can be eliminated from the street, grass can be cut, snow can be removed, and blank walls painted with art. Trees can be planted, flowers can be maintained and watered; beauty can be restored to the city.
Once beauty is restored, we can focus on raising people out of poverty. We can improve literacy, engage in vocational training, and encourage community college. We can teach goal development in the areas which will allow individuals to slowly build their lives out of the poverty which they have struggled with.
One of the best programs I have read about is called Empath which works with woman to overcome poverty by creating goals in family stability, well-being, education and training, financial management, and employment/career management. This allows poor women to slowly move from crisis decision making to goal development.
As a plan to help individuals in our community develops, some of the things mentioned above become imperative to create another means for which individuals can engage in their own chosen industry. This can happen through the development of micro and small business.
A portion of civic engagement can include the social framework by which individuals can continually advance their lives. This allows individuals who don’t find their path in traditional employment or education, also have a way forward, rather than a nexus of nothingness.
One reality of human existence is that we all want a level of control over our own lives. A person-centered approach has been tested, tried, and proofed to be the best way to design any sort of program which can help people. This is the fundamental core of any civic corps. Let’s help people direct their own lives toward betterment and focus on creating the tools they can use, rather than blanket approach to the problems we face.
You can read more about how to create the civic corps that accomplishes these things further on as I extrapolate the individual real-world practices which can solve the kinds of problems we face.
Cost of Living
Although there are a variety of ways to look at cost of living and may be traditional ways of doing so, I will enumerate my own arguments here utilizing real facts and figures for the area in which I live in central NY. An interesting site I came across listed the cost of living not including rent which seems phenomenally ridiculous to me because housing is the largest cost and often reflects additional associated costs including utilities. (The reference page now includes a web page that has updated information on real costs of living by county within the United States.)
Often the arguments circulating about the cost of living end up focusing on the wage battles. I’ve often thought that legislation is a difficult way to go about solving issues because creating policy changes take long periods of time. I do think we should continue to keep the fight for a livable wage and actively engage in defining what a livable wage should be.
I think a much faster way of approaching the high cost of living is to reduce the cost of living through a conjunction of efforts that build efficiency into the design of everyday life. This can happen much faster than any policy change because it can be done through private citizenry in civic engagement, non-profit or profitable business sectors.
This is the information I use for income of minimum wage in NY State. $21,632 minus 20% tax (4326.40) equals 17,305.60. This does not consider any of the new impacts which may be created due to the Trump tax code changes. (This also reflects prices at the time of writing in 2018.)
From 17,305.60 I take the lowest all included utilities rent for a studio which happens to be $520 or $6,240. 29% of the gross income and 36% of net income. If the rent is coming out of the net income, I wonder why it is allowable to be 36% of wages. This is 6% above the 1/3 rule which I believe is too high. With the 1/4th rule the rent would be 4326.40. That’s 360.53. Even with the 1/3 rule rent should be 5710.85 or 475.90. Perhaps you are wondering why I would worry about $45 dollars from what it is now? It’s 540 dollars a year.
Check this out. 17,305.60 minus 6,240 (rent) equals 11,065.60 minus 3,000 (Food) equals 8065.60 minus 865.28 (clothing 5% rule) equals 7,200.
Out of the 7,200 we need to include those things necessary to work and play in the communities in which we live.
That 7,200 dollars left over from the very most basic needs does not cover transportation in a city system which is built so poorly that a person must own a private auto. It will not easily cover the cost of communications or the internet (which is a requirement as all the old ways of doing things are upgraded into the internet experience). You need the internet to look up phone numbers, look at maps, fill out job applications and go to college. Some jobs also require access to the internet.
Figuring out what the specific costs of transportation and communications is a bit challenging. However, I’m certain financing a vehicle over 10,000.00 would not be possible. I’ll use my example I pay $271 for a car payment. $198 for insurance and $25.00 a week for gas at the current rate of 3.01 a regular gallon. 3,252 plus 2376 plus 1400 equals 7028.
Okay, my cell bill would be $130 which covers my communications and internet.
So, I got my transportation and communications to 7,158. That leaves $42 dollars for life.
Oh, I forgot about laundry. We must be able to keep our clothing clean. There goes the $42 dollars. Although, I’m a minimalist so I only spend about $5 dollars a week on laundry. So, I guess there’s enough for a couple soda pops.
These numbers are based on being able to maintain a full-time job. They are the costs for a single person. They are the costs based on the cheapest available housing costs. They do not include the cost of extraneous belongings such as furniture or any other items such as entertainment.
The cities are built in such a way you can’t go out your door and meet basic needs or the metaphysical needs for beauty because the world is ugly. You can’t afford to raise a family unless both parents can maintain full time employment. This does not include additional costs for savings, medical care, or retirement plans.
The cost of living is too high, and it can be lowered through a variety of infrastructural improvements and markets which account for the needs of those who live within the constraints of minimum wages. We can work on all fronts to increase wages, decrease the cost of living, and create a world environment which meets our metaphysical needs.
We need more than what minimum wages can offer in our lives.
Individual Needs and How to Meet Them
I currently have six years’ experience working with developmentally and intellectually disabled individuals. I’ve also engaged with several outliers on the other end of the spectrum, holding their high educational attainments, but also dealing with other sorts of deficits in function whether they be social or emotional.
The quality of life for the averages is highly dependent on infrastructure and economy because they are often educated, have moderate incomes and the quality of their life depends on their surroundings.
I’ve become interested in filling some of the gaps which exist, either creating unmet needs or enhancing the quality of life. What I will expound on further are the solutions that I have come up with or solutions others have come up with that I am attempting to tie into a functional framework.
Where preexisting institutions already provide services, the challenge is to get those services to the individuals that need them most. Social workers and case workers are overloaded because in a society that only builds for the economically solvent individual, there is literally too much aid work to be done by the few numbers who do that sort of work. To solve this problem, building additional social elements in society are necessary.
In most cases, each of the solutions I bring up are simple in theory but meant to work in conjunction with each other to create a finer social fabric. These ideas need to be worked out in the real world through creating the business plans which crunch the numbers and small economic feasibility tests. If these feasibility tests work out, then the functional infrastructures they build can be adapted to different localities by anyone who is interested.
One of the reasons I’ve been hesitant to work on any aspect of this model is because it is meant to work in conjunction with all the elements to create solvency.
In the case of the transportation company Utica Transportation, the numbers don’t become solvent in the real-world model, but that experiment wasn’t trying to create a solvent Transportation company. Anyone can build a solvent business, but it is much more difficult to build a business which aims to improve the fabric of society through its very existence.
Our experience with Utica Transportation from the standpoint of this work’s development, was more about challenging the precepts of what a traditional taxi company could accomplish for the positive evolution of its employees and its customers. Utica Transportation never became economically solvent, but it proofed a lot of other ideas about how to build businesses which benefit society at large.
Problems and Solutions
Transportation
Transportation is too expensive for individuals who make less than 30,000.00 a year. There is limited access to excellence in public transportation or the infrastructure which makes it sustainable.
As I mentioned above, the costs of car ownership above a 10,000 loan – mine was 15,000 – is at minimum 7000 a year. The argument is made repeatedly that a person on minimum wage cannot really afford the cost of an auto. Yet, the alternative solutions are not adequate. The public bussing is mediocre at best; the private taxi, Uber or Lyft are all comparably expensive toward the expense of the customer and to the detriment of drivers. Bicycles are excellent alternatives but somewhat unreasonable during three months of winter. There is limited bicycle infrastructure to allow for safe travel of bicycles on major streets in the city. I also believe light rail should be reinstated in our urban cores so that we may reduce the overall cost of transport for the individuals who cannot afford the privatization of transportation.
I opened Utica Transportation with the high hopes of creating a solvent company which would solve many of the transportation problems which exist in this small urban environment. I wanted to use it as a catalyst for all the work that Sustainable Lives is meant to encompass. After the three years I put in and what I’ve been doing since has illuminated the reality that it was only part of the whole.
Operating a transportation system on a social business model is a possibility. At scale the taxi industry is capable of being part of a support mechanism for the well-being of individuals, at the same time as building many of the other aspects necessary to improve the urban environment in which we live.
In an honest world public transportation would take care of the needs of individuals which live on minimum wage or less. It doesn’t make sense to spend 7,000 a year on transportation which makes it the second most expensive need, while other needs are so much more important.
Transportation and Economics.
Transportation is 1/4 the infrastructure of any economic market. You need transportation to get the human to the product and transportation to move the product.
When transportation is not available to the poor, the poor are excluded from economic marketplaces. Without access to the internet the poor cannot take part in internet commerce.
Transportation which accommodates the needs of everyone is just as important in creating strong economic markets as anything else. In order to create a prosperous urban environment, the transportation needs must be addressed.
The Transportation Solution
A mixed-use transportation model is the most likely to meet the needs of all citizens in any given society. This is more about building the infrastructure properly. Building good infrastructure has been covered in many places, so I won’t extrapolate too much here.
The guidelines I am focused on are decreasing the overall cost of transportation, allowing equal access to roadways for all, including pedestrians, cars, buses, bicycles and possibly light rail.
It is important to build transportation models in which the infrastructure itself may be subsidized but the operation and upkeep of the transportation is independently solvent. This can only happen when the accommodations of public transportation are efficient enough that individuals no longer feel private ownership is an absolute requirement.
With additional infrastructure like bus only lanes, transportation can be more seamless, safe and on-time. Some cities offer free public transportation to its citizens, which can significantly increase quality of life. Designing functional transportation systems which drive operation costs lower, are imperative to building fluid systems which can improve everyone’s life.
Transportation and Government
Most of the funding for transportation projects come from government projects (taxes). The influential and governing often create the plans by which a locality is designed. If any locality is populated with the downtrodden, undereducated, or disengaged, it is less likely to design a cityscape or streetscape which is built for everyone.
It is important that the people engage and leverage politicians to serve their needs in ways which best suit them. If government becomes leveraged for the people everyone will be slightly dissatisfied with the outcome but, they will become happier and more satisfied because it will improve social cohesion.
Government is not responsible for parking. The idea that improving parking will improve a locations viability is nonsense. It is the responsibility of individual businesses to develop their own plans for parking. This is especially true when parking is required for large venues. Likewise, even in the city of Utica, there is the Stanley and people park blocks away to see they’re events.
Street parking can be specially designated business by business or by special permit where parking is limited. Better public transportation would allow individuals to leave their cars at home and spend time in a busy downtown. Many larger cities offer park and ride opportunities.
If the government and people have the wherewithal to build a street scape which improves everyone’s mobility you will see more individuals engage in the public sphere.
What should the streetscape look like?
(Note 2020: I specifically wrote this about my own city; however, the underlying concept of making thoroughfares available to all and building cityscapes which focus on the human rather than the auto are important. Overall, the general principle is to improve the overall value of land and buildings while creating a dense urban core so that nature surrounding cities can be left pristine. This is an environmentally and economically strategic plan.)
Get rid of the traffic lights. Traffic lights are expensive cost a lot of money. Traffic lights slow down traffic and cause aggressive driving. Traffic lights in a city with a moderate amount of traffic are unnecessary.
If you don’t have traffic lights, how do you get cars to slow down and make it safe for pedestrians to cross the street? One option is raised cross walks. One of the problems with raised cross walks are challenges related to snow removal in the winter. Every intersection can operate like a traffic circle with four yield signs and central planters in which you could plant a tree or flowers. This planter would vary in size or number based on the size of individual intersections. Pedestrians are safer at cross walks when cars are adequately slowed.
Diagonal parking can double or triple on street parking capacity. Diagonal parking makes both exiting motorists and bicyclists safer around parked cars and traffic. I encourage diagonal parking.
Bicycle Lanes can either be on the inside or the outside of diagonal parking.
Bus only lanes. Bus only lanes can help improve the capacity of buses to start and stop on route. Bus only lanes could allow other permitted vehicles traveling through the city such as emergency vehicles. These lanes also allow traffic to flow unobstructed by the stop and go of buses. Bus routes should operate on a grid system allowing individuals to quickly get from all points of the system. Taxi’s may be able to yield between the bus lane and traffic lane while standing to board customers.
The main traffic lane will slow at every intersection to navigate around the central circle. This will be a natural occurrence based on the design of the central circle.
Housing
(Note 2020: Rising costs in housing are partly due to changes in laws requiring landlords to maintain properties up to livable code rather than being able to rent a property out as is. Housing costs are a complex topic and so the general idea here is to promote alternative living markets which may help reduce the cost of living such as tiny house development or alternative building models.)
Housing costs where I live are too expensive given the income of individuals who live there. Low-cost housing isn’t low cost enough. I read an article today that stated section 8 is awarded to 1 in 5 families who apply. In the same article recognized that new built affordable housing is too expensive: and so the rents themselves cannot be affordable.
As a friend tells me: my argument falls flat; those 520 dollar a month studio apartments are close enough to affordable to be afforded by someone engaged in full time minimum wage work.
My arguments stem from the idea that a person’s housing should be affordable in a way that also allows the individual to afford growth and advancement; this advancement may be in business or business development, art, or cultural engagement, vocational or educational training.
Even if the housing is affordable, I wonder why the housing isn’t colocated with transportation, commerce, or other means by which to develop one’s person if they so desire.
If it is too hard to subsist then it is too hard to grow and stagnancy, poverty and depression are the constants.
We need to get away from the idea of affordable housing and come up with alternative housing models which allow individuals to grow and develop as people, develop a responsibility for the fabric of their society and live healthy and sustainable lives.
There are numerous models of housing which become viable when we stop thinking of housing in terms of units for individual people, families or shared occupancy by friends or lovers. This model of housing is individualistic and does not speak to the amenities of community or even needs of the individuals who live within. (Note: these models of housing also make breaking from abusive relationships difficult under certain circumstances.)
I do not look down on traditional housing. People live this way to live their lives the way they want. If people do want to learn and grow in a nontraditional sense, we need additional models which individuals can engage with.
There are two models which Sustainable Lives is meant to develop. The first is an old way of thinking about housing. It was called Tenement housing. Now, the negative connotation attached to tenement housing is come from influxes of immigrants when NY City was packed to the gills and whole families would live in a room. Sometimes these were referred to as flop houses. This is not the tenement that I envision.
The tenement I envision takes a three- or five-bedroom house and creates a house in which people can live around a similar cause. For instance, one house might focus on music, one on Art or one on business. This is like the residential model to offer support to the developmentally disabled. This is a wonderful way of looking at community housing and can be paired with social workers or mentors in an easy way.
Another housing possibility is to create tiny apartments like the tiny house movement. Building tiny apartments is already happening but only to squeeze additional money out of an individual property. Building tiny apartments into houses may be a possible business model which could lower the cost of rent as well as create money for the landowner if it were to be done properly.
Energy
The true cost of energy is a challenging topic. The real problem here is cost to the end user and doing something about that cost. How can we drive down the cost of energy to the end user?
There are two basic things to do about energy consumption. The first has to do with reducing the consumption of energy through conscientious means. The other has to do with creating more energy using conscientious means.
Using technology to produce energy won’t fix all the energy needs we have but it will help. I’ve never understood why solar wasn’t whole heartedly embraced for roof tops. Roofs and solar panels have similar life spans; and could easily be built in conjunction with each other to reduce the overall cost of energy.
Transportation is one of the other big energy drains and there is a lot of inefficiency in the system that could be refined. One way to do this is by building urban density.
Sustainable Lives might focus on the transportation and solar industries to meet its overall goal of reducing the costs of living.
Ways to reduce the overall consumption of energy is to create info sheets for best practices regarding how to reduce energy consumption. In this way Sustainable Lives simply helps by providing information to people.
It is important to create workshops which can teach individuals about different kinds of energy production to spark the curiosity of individuals who might one day turn their minds toward being industry leaders.
Urban Agriculture
The importance of urban agriculture can help build a stable food supply but also teach urban inhabitants about farming and bring them closer to the natural world.
Urban agriculture could be built into the urban fabric in such a way that it instituted the latest farming techniques. It could design a working permaculture model. It could become a functional theme park or museum which adds to the quality and the character of the city.
If a farm were run by professional farmers and the farm could enter into the local marketplace, the city would become renowned for its commitment to food and food process; this could change the dynamic of the city and bring more people here to live and grow their families.
The urban garden cannot be overlooked. Individuals should have personal gardens and there should be gardens strewn throughout the city to raise the quality of life and supplement the food source. There are already several large urban gardens; the largest challenge therein is the management of gardens through voluntary work.
During WWII and other times, urban gardens pulled people together and represented a function of civic duty.
It is important to differentiate farming from gardening as they are two very different things.
Public Safety
Volunteerism is the key to improving public safety.
The two primary organizations which deal with public safety are police and fire departments. These organizations are extremely expensive to the Cities which employ them.
One way to mitigate the cost and improve access to public safety is through the employment of volunteer fire police units. There are already laws on the state books which allow for this style of unit.
Increasing the number of volunteer fire police can add huge elements of community policing to the cities in which we live. These volunteers can educate the public and provide services to free up the active forces to focus on the most imminent crises we face.
Criminal Justice
One of the biggest problems facing the criminal justice sector are court cost fees. Often individuals who have limited resources are more likely to find themselves before the courts without the funds to pay basic court fees. In most cases community service should be offered in lieu of court costs. This allows individuals who do not have the resources to pay legal fees an opportunity to turn their negative behavior into positive behavior through mandated civic engagement.
The idea of using education as a corrective action is more beneficial to individuals and communities. This process allows an individual to learn, grow and create behavior change, allowing them to add a positive prosocial engagement instead of a negative one.
Social/Civic Counsel
Our great western civilization has reached such a pinnacle of growth and technology; we can be who we want and do what we want; yet there is an overwhelming absence of social cohesion; being whoever we wants seems to limit our ability to develop social ties with our community and turns out to create more negative than positive impacts on our well-being.
The idea of a social/civic counsel is meant to be an all-volunteer extension of city councils. This extension can help create a two-way communicative structure which allows the city to speak to its citizenry and the citizenry able to pass on concerns to their city.
An organization of this type can also allow greater mobilization of the community to solve its own problems whenever possible.
As the problems of the city are added to a database, that database can then be accessible by the internet and all individuals in the city could participate in small and large ways to solve not only the small problems we face but also the larger.
Sustainable Lives Business Entities
Where did all these ideas come from?
When I was around fifteen years of age, I read a series of novels about a prehistoric people. I wondered – where had all those prehistoric skills gone. Why is the education system the way it is? Why doesn’t this way of teaching cover the kinds of skills which represent what the world ought to be like?
This thought process was more about me and what I wanted to learn than it was about what is out there in the world. Some families hunt and fish. Those who don’t have the boy scouts which teach similar skill sets. Some families turn wrenches and of course, in general, what the parents are interested in or occupied by is what the child is exposed to.
I wondered why those skills weren’t made available in the school systems. After a lot more reading and learning, I began to realize what the point of the school system was. I learned how the school system was designed to get people into the work force of the day. Most of that work force was factories and now that is shifting a bit.
We live in a world of consumerism and service sector industries which don’t require much education, but these are often dead-end jobs for two reasons; one: they don’t leave room for advancement or development of the individual; two: they don’t pay enough for the advancement or development of the individual. This is true for furthering education or the possibility of raising a family. I’d like to work toward making every job a job that allows individuals to advance.
After I came back from Afghanistan, I spent a lot of time volunteering for a nonprofit arts cooperative called the Resonance Center. Much of my creative and business-like experience came from this time in my life. My ideas were spurred further there. I wanted to create something that would allow artists and musicians space to live and create. This was in part what the Resonance Center was all about.
I came away from the Resonance Center disenfranchised with the world around me. I was at a loss since that time. It was as if a deep and empty black hole had swallowed up all the space and energy which propelled me toward creating and breathing a spirited life.
I fell out of society at that point in time. I still had the Army, but I wasn’t really Army; just a soldier conscript with lots and lots of knowledge. For the next five years I barely functioned. I worked as a cab driver and continued to attempt to be a part of society by going to school but I also kept failing.
I was so disgusted with the state of my life and the world of the taxi that I started redesigning the industry in my mind. After I had all the answers, I decided to start the company Utica Transportation. We didn’t have much when we started but we made a go of it.
I never let go of what I was trying to accomplish. I kept reading and writing. I kept looking for opportunities which would add to my knowledge and skill so at some point I could bring this whole Sustainable Live’s idea together.
Aside from all these experiences I also have five years’ experience working with developmentally disabled individuals. I have worked with children and adults with a variety of different diagnoses. These experiences have aided in my understanding of residential services and how residential programs could be used in a variety of ways to advance the well-being of individuals from a variety of differing backgrounds.
What’s been done.
Transportation. The Utica Transportation LLC Story
After Afghanistan, I tried to get my life back together, go to school, pursue additional training through the Army and get a job. I was also volunteering at the Resonance Center now. One day I was sitting in a sociology class and so inspired by the instruction that I had all these ideas; but my soul was being crushed as I was creating an ever-growing overarching understanding of how the world works, and who it works for.
I dropped out of life with the idea of focusing on writing. My writing was so bad. I read and wrote all the time, and every word was agonizing. Every page I added was agonizing. My first writing project was an interesting story, but the writing wasn’t good enough to function as a publishable project.
I eventually ran out of money and needed to get a job. This was 2008 when finding jobs wasn’t the easiest thing to do. A friend of mine talked about how he made it through college by driving cab – so I went and applied to become a cab driver.
I worked as a cab driver for four years. The companies I worked for paid a commission. One of the companies I worked for got me a check of about 200 dollars for two weeks of work. I eventually left that job without notice. I felt bad that I was turning my back on them, but I needed an actual paycheck. Cab driving was a great job for someone on social security who could work to supplement their income; but not for a person who needed a legitimate full-time check.
I went to work for another cab company which didn’t operate much better. While there, I met who would later become my business partner in Utica Transportation. During the slow hours of the summer, I would sit and think about the problems with the cab company. After I had worked out all the solutions, I decided to begin my own company.
It took a long time for me to quit but one day I walked out because of how I was being treated. If I wasn’t to be respected as a human being, I wasn’t going to work there.
I was incredibly depressed at that time in my life. I asked my parents to move back in with them and had just enough money to move my stuff.
I started doing the work for the war book. I compiled notes and created a rough draft. I woke up and worked for as long as I could on the book and then went back to sleep. I did that repeatedly.
Eventually, I talked to a friend of mine who asked me if I would drive out to Boston with her. I went because I didn’t have anything going on. My shoes had holes in them, my pants were shredded. My dignity was shot.
I told her about what I had been working on with the idea for the taxi company and she said if I completed a business plan that she would lend some money to start the company. She really motivated me to get back on my feet and took care of me when I was there. She bought me new sneakers and pants and I felt as if my dignity was being restored.
I finished the business plan and wanted to return to Utica. She wanted to stay in Boston. Back in Utica I heard about a New Year’s party and decided to walk the six or seven miles to get there.
Henry was at the party, and we talked about the idea to start a cab company again. We stayed up late in the morning and he said we could go back to his place and work out the business plan. Henry said he had a lot of faith in me, and he was working far out, doing construction; and working at a hardware store.
I stayed at his house for about two weeks. I worked on the Utica Transportation plan for about 16 hours a day every day. It was midwinter and Henry and I were sharing a Jeep which had a cracked windshield, no mirrors, bare tires, and an expired registration.
Henry and I were very poor now. We ate chicken and rice. The espresso was good though; we lived on espresso. Henry’s parents were coming back so he had to get the house ready for them and we needed to find a place to stay.
I asked my parents to let me stay at their place and so Henry and I stayed in the upstairs apartment. It was a working bathroom but no kitchen. My friend from Boston helped with 2500 and our other friend Adam bought our first car. We slowly paid him back the 1000. That car lasted forever. It was a 2000 Buick Century.
Henry and I worked 12 hours on 12 hours off for 364 days that year. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to make the company a reality. When I established the LLC, we ended up delivering a weekly newspaper and so when I went to create the notice for the daily paper, we did the same thing. For the next six months we delivered bulk newspapers every day. I destroyed my shoulder lifting papers. The papers also were very heavy and bad for the cars. We eventually built a clientele and decided to give up on delivering papers.
There were points we wanted to give up, but I dug in and went to the train station and sat; I went to the bar district and sat. At one point four cops approached me and asked for my credentials. We didn’t look legitimate because we couldn’t afford signs for the cars. Our marketing was printed in black and white on 81/2 by 11-inch paper. I called them bookmarks and they had our company name phone number, rates, and tag line.
We were so poor in the beginning we worked off a flip phone. Later we were able to upgrade to Apple phones, but we were never able to become industry standardized because we never had the funding we needed.
Utica Transportation was a pure test of will. We believed that we could change the lives of people around us through building a company that took care of customers and clients alike.
Henry and I lived together for the first year and we lived off about 3,000 dollars total. This was not something achievable without the help and good will of others in our lives.
In our second year we were approached to take on a medical transportation contract. They helped us secure a blended insurance policy which was much cheaper than what we were currently paying.
Going into the third year I hated my life and didn’t want Utica Transportation to be my life anymore. I didn’t have the courage to tell Henry how I felt about it, but I hated my life. I was drinking a lot and eating horribly. I knew I had to change, no matter how hard it was.
Even though Utica Transportation only lasted three years I believe we raised the bar of for transportation in the area. We provided the best on-time service in the area and people called me for months after we closed; some customers reached out to us by e-mail.
For a few years we made the lives of drivers and customers better. We provided the best customer service for medical transportation in the area and handled a lot of business for Hamilton College. UCP ended up creating its transportation arm when we closed because we had been transporting an individual who had developmental disabilities; his mother appealed to the organization to do something when we stopped transporting him.
Utica Transportation was meant to become bigger than it did. It was meant to have a powerful impact on society; and we had a million ideas of how to do it. We were going to have medical information for medical transportation customers and other sorts of information that others might find helpful. It doesn’t take much to make the life of customers better – but it must be built into the intent of the company itself.
What’s Next
Life Coaching
Life coaching is the part of the social support network which focuses on the process which can help people get from where they are to where they are going. This process is a way of helping a person make the changes in their lives they want to make. It allows the individual to enter a process with the support of another person to shift one’s thinking and behavior toward a certain goal or desire.
Often life coaching starts with a conversation in which the Life Coach will parse out what is most important to the client. This process is very similar to counseling except that it does not deal with underlying traumas, distress or problems and focuses on the future development of the person.
Life coaching is one of the core aspects of Sustainable Lives. It helps deal with an aspect of the social need which is required to self-actualize.
Mentoring
Mentoring is like life coaching with the exception that it is more like consulting in nature. A mentor must have been where you are going. This allows the mentor to help you along the pathway while avoiding the many pitfalls which may exist along that path.
I have found mentoring to be the system which is used in apprenticeships and martial arts. Mentorship also happens in masters and PhD programs. Mentoring can happen on so many other levels; there can be entrepreneurial mentors, or musicianship mentors; there can be mentors who work primarily with activities of daily living or mentors who function as tutors.
It is imperative to have a system in which most individuals can mentor to others because there are certain human emotions which cannot be experienced without imparting knowledge or experience to others. There are emotions which come along when someone you mentored finally puts the pieces together; this emotional experience is an imperative for building a healthier sense of self and a healthier and more connected community.
Civic Corp
The civic corps is what ties all these possibilities together. There is no way to unite a people without volunteerism. Volunteerism meets a specific kind of emotional need in humanity. It suits our need to help others and raise each other up. Volunteerism elicits a positive belief in oneself and can also create a sense of well-being.
A civic corps can be the overlay which unites the government and the people. This can happen by creating a network of individuals who are liaisons between the people and council members. By creating this sort of network, communicative feedback systems can be created which allow problems to be visible.
Liaisons can also oversee volunteers of the civic corps and create a sense of teamwork which will allow each small contribution to have meaning in the bigger goal.
What is the goal of the civic corps? In general, a civic corps should be an integral part of the solution to whatever problems communities face. A civic corps can develop solutions to poverty, help increase the graduation rate, help decrease crime, keep the streets litter free and sidewalks shoveled.
When there is an overlaying corps which allows an individual’s small actions to be part of the whole solution, it can unite the people.
What’s To Follow
Developing A Team
I’ve realized over the years that what I want to achieve is ambitious and that if I could live many lifetimes, I would never be able to get this whole thing going. I don’t have the time to develop the multifaceted skills to develop the whole idea on my own. This is a strong outline for the ideas that I’m working with, and I think it will help people understand what the aim of it all is.
I’d like to put a team of smart people together who might be willing to work on this project with me. It’s a slow growth kind of project but if it gets done and done well it could literally create an entity that has the potential to have powerful and impactful change on a society that seems to leave many of us left behind.
Poverty Packets
The idea of poverty packs isn’t new. The Red Cross develops kits for individuals in a variety of situations which are helpful after natural disasters.
Poverty packets are meant to encapsulate the needs of individuals who are poor. The term packet is a misnomer, as initially, this idea was developed in order to meet the needs of individuals that would help them get to the next level of their development without backsliding.
Sometimes a poverty pack may be a basic need; it may be information to intersect with another government or non-government entity that will help; it may be food, clothing, shelter, access to mobility or transportation, communication devices or training.
Poverty packets are not meant to be a crutch or excuse to stay in the same position but a tool to help individuals reach the next development in their growth as individuals.
Sustainable Lives Houses
Housing is important because it is one of the largest costs facing people today. The second largest cost is typically the private auto, and this can be excluded from our lifestyle if our lives are built sustainably around an infrastructure that builds us up as people.
The idea of the Sustainable Lives house came from the development of the IRA model which are the residences which developmentally or intellectually disabled individuals live in with staff people who help them out.
This model can readily function for the average individual, paired with social workers, mentors or other community members who want to volunteer in these locations to help the individuals who are a part of it.
Business Development
There are a lot of different ways to develop business in the mainstream world. Most of them rely on access to acumen, funding, and extremely hard work.
The alternative business systems we need to develop are those for individuals who cannot find a part of themselves in the current system.
In my experience, the government agencies which are meant to help individuals start businesses will only help if you have money, a decent credit score or equity.
Starting a business, costs less than $100.00 and is not that hard to achieve if you can read and write. If you can’t read and write it’s slightly more difficult to achieve; but businesses are in the habit of outsourcing their deficiencies and focus on their strengths.
All individuals can start a business if that is what they want to do. Sometimes all a prospective business entrepreneur needs are a push out the door.
We need to rethink what it means to be in business. I believe this is possible by using the terms micro business alongside small business.
A micro business might be one which can be started with between 100 and 5000 dollars. It would operate with one person and likely bring in between 5-10,000 dollars a year.
Micro businesses are the perfect solution for individuals who make less than thirty thousand dollars and year and can increase their income by 10,000 a year, which is a big deal when you subsist on 20,000 or less a year.
Financial Advocacy
The poor don’t have the same access to financial institutions and tools that the middle class and wealthy do. This is a travesty. It is more expensive to be poor.
One of the things we can do to improve access to the financial industry for the poor is by creating advocates who understand finance and are willing to volunteer their time to advocate for the poor.
Other ways we can create access points to the poor is by developing tools specifically for the poor which can only be accessed by the poor.
Medical Advocacy
One of the ways medical systems can be improved in the United States is by improving the advocacy between the medical system, insurance system and the people who need the information to be put in perspective.
In Conclusion
This is the primary document of philosophy and development for Sustainable Lives, but it is not comprehensive. It will be a constantly evolving document which will be developed as time goes on.
Sustainable Lives is not meant to dually create solutions which previously exist but create a complete system of access and aid to those who might not currently have access toward basic needs, economies, or routes toward personal growth.