Open Letter to Professor Matthew Desmond
Dear Matt,
You may remember my emailing you last year to tell you that your book changed my life.
After I finished reading your POVERTY, BY AMERICA, I learned that my hometown of Littleton, Massachusetts had (and still has) a poverty rate of 6.3%. Thanks to you and your ideas, I committed myself to doing whatever I could to end poverty in my little town and actually thought: Littleton’s going to figure this out and become the first community in the nation to intentionally take its poverty rate to zero. Littleton would be famous for something meaningful.
But how?
You see, Matt, the message I got from your book was this:
Poverty is created by systems.
Systems are created by policies.
Policies are created by people.
So, last July and August, I went to Littleton’s leaders, aka, four of the five members of our Select Board. I told them about your book.
The most enthusiastic of the bunch, this guy named Chuck, still hasn’t given me back the copy I loaned him despite my politely asking multiple times. Candidly, I’m beginning to think he burned it.
But when I approached the leaders of Littleton, I asked them this:
If there exists a license that came into existence from a public vote, is administered by a public body, is overseen by a public agency, and is taxed at both the commonwealth and municipal levels, why not have the public—in this scenario, the impoverished—be the beneficiaries of the profits borne of that license?
If someone steps forward with a viable (though radical) compassionate (and a bit post-capitalistic) 100%-of-profits-go-to-end-local-poverty business model, wouldn’t you be all over that idea if you were elected as a leader of a small town?
Well, you, Professor Desmond, would be all over it. But you wrote the book on it.
And you’re not at the Big Kids’ Table here in 01460.
And neither am I.
Yet.
Earlier today, my nomination papers for Select Board were certified by our town clerk.
My name will appear on the May 11th ballot.
There was once a time when Littleton’s Board of Selectmen was also known by its other title: The Overseers of the Poor.
We used to take care of our own.
We could again.
You, Matt, helped me realize this is true: we just need to change the policy.
With hope and in solidarity,
Jenna