The Peoples Agenda
We want to spark a positive conversation about the issues and will work to rally community voices to convince the candidates to join with us in a pledge to make these issues a priority in their administrations if elected.
POVERTY :: We all deserve communities of opportunity and human dignity.
We need both short and long term solutions to poverty and homelessness. Efficient and affordable public transportation is vital to building working communities.
• Support for improved homeless services, including greater access to application assistance for Social Security benefits, temporary housing for those Americans on waiting lists, augmented mental health services, a free homeless shelter and a safe parking lot for those who sleep in their cars.
• Mandating the Homeless have a voice in formulation of the policies that directly affect them.
• Creation of a Homeless Resource Center,where the city's homeless and poor can learn about all programs and services available, and have a safe place to congregate during the day.
• Focusing new efforts to promote and foster locally owned small business opportunities in low income areas.
• Engaging law enforcement to enforce and prevent Wage Theft.
JOBS :: We all deserve opportunities to earn a better life for ourselves and our families.
We need jobs that will lift up communities by paying living wages, providing quality health care, and creating a healthy working environment.
• Augmentation of Workforce Development programs, specifically for the homeless, unemployed, underemployed and for those released ex-felons who have paid their debt to society.
• Greater Cooperation with the Shelby County Sheriff's Office to provide greater job skill training to selected inmates in at the Shelby county Penal Farm.
• Focusing efforts to attract the new jobs of the Green economy, leveraging Memphis's status as a trade and distribution center to attract and develop economic opportunity in the field of alternative energy especially local solar and biomass production and refinement.
• Expanding and promoting greater diversity in Memphis City contracting selection processes.
• Support for comprehensive MATA reorganization, including improving customer service, improving online route planner, maintenance of vehicles, improved maintenance of wheelchair lifts, more rain shelters in lower income areas, and pursuing a grid/loop system for bus routes.
HEALTH :: We all deserve nourishing and healthy neighborhoods.
Quality and affordable health care and access to healthy foods is a basic human right and the negative effects of current policies are destroying our communities.
• Promoting community gardening in lower income communities that lack access to produce and fresh vegetables,to aid in reducing the number of Memphians who are considered high risk for obesity, heart disease, type two diabetes, and stroke.
• Implementation of bike lanes and pedestrian routes must include the voices of our low-income communities and its benefits must be directly felt by them.
• Improved funding and support for MCHCD Lead Abatement Program, to locate,test and address the high levels of lead contamination within many areas of our city. Lead poisoning has links to learning disabilities in children as well as a host of medical and psychological disorders.
• Support HCD/Community Enhancement re-organization and work in better concert with the Health Department and Environmental Court to prevent and clean up blighted areas, illegal trash, and tire dumping sites, which create breeding grounds for disease carrying mosquitoes and rodents.
• Better coordination with Shelby County Health Department, on issues relating to curbing Memphis' nationally high level of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
CRIME & VIOLENCE :: We all deserve safe and free communities.
We must support common sense policies in dealing with the tremendous crime and violence that sweeps our city. Reforms of our criminal justice system must start by addressing the root cause of crime, poverty.
• Development of a Juvenile Restorative Justice model for MPD and the Office of Youth Services and Community Affairs for use in curbing juvenile crime. Restorative justice techniques have shown dramatic results in reducing Juvenile recidivism as well as provide better community rapport with MPD and a cost savings for Memphis and Shelby county.
• Expanding Community policing programs for law enforcement to better interface with the community, and empowering the Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board to better investigate citizen complaints of police misconduct. We must heal the breach between the community and MPD.
• Expanding and supporting existing successful re-entry programs for nonviolent offenders to end the revolving door at 201 Poplar.
• Focus on retention of qualified law enforcement personnel within the Memphis Police Department.
• Support and execute targeted demolition of condemned vacant properties in high blight areas, blight is a magnet for crime, fire and disease and prevents economic development.
• Increasing and improving training for Law Enforcement personnel in the investigation of sexual assault related crimes to increase successful prosecution of these cases.
