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South Bend Redevelopment Commission <br />Rescheduled Regular Meeting -August 25, 2006 <br />6. NEW BUSINESS (CONT.) <br />A. Public Hearing <br />() continued... <br />private sector has spent billions upon the <br />poor in the form of income support, safety <br />nets, rental assistance, transitional aid, and <br />supplemental spending, but these sectors <br />have rarely invested in the poor, empowered <br />them with assets, enabled them to own a <br />piece of their neighborhoods, or encouraged <br />them to build wealth. Thus, while the U. S. <br />has succeeded in preventing the vast majority <br />of poor families from falling through the net, <br />or through the bottom, it has failed in <br />offering the asset-building tools necessary to <br />let those families move from the bottom to <br />the middle to the top. It ignored them to a <br />great extent. Our country has an economic <br />development plan, our state has an economic <br />development plan, our city has an economic <br />development plan, but we need to have a <br />serious economic development plan for the <br />`hood, for the poor, for those who really <br />don't have an economic plan, don't have the <br />ability to develop an economic development <br />plan, and so we let them fall and they <br />continue to fall, without the proper care and <br />concern for the city. If the city does not care <br />for the poor, who's going to do it. I know we <br />can say that the church should do it. Well, <br />you know what? The city is supposed to be a <br />part of the church, also, or the community, or <br />at least that's the way....everybody in here is <br />probably a part of somebody's church. <br />We're on this committee here. I'm a part of <br />the church. You guys may or may not be. <br />But, I'm saying that is a part of it. The <br />reality, and that's what we do not want to <br />lose when we leave here. We don't want to <br />51 <br />