ARISE Voter Task Force offers precautions for the 2008 Election 

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THE ARISE  MISSION: to build an organization made up of congregations and other community groups to both revitalize their own memberships and to improve Capital District communities, especially our distressed neighborhoods.

ARISE  is a coalition of local congregations and community groups who are taking a proactive approach toward helping the poor and revitalizing our region.  Rather than running soup kitchens or homeless shelters, we are empowering the poor and people of conscience to connect with their governments to get training, jobs, housing, quality education, and equal justice.

 

ARISE currently has 35 organizations in Albany, Rensselaer, and Schenectady counties whose memberships total more than 12,000 people.  Our member congregations include Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Muslim, Presbyterian and Unitarian, among others.  We include neighborhood groups as well.

 

OBJECTIVES:

o strengthen community and build leaders in member organizations,

o mobilize people of faith to be leaders in the reshaping of public policy,

o empower economically distressed and politically marginalized people, and 

o unite suburbs and cities in an agenda for shared prosperity and social justice

ARISE ’s recent accomplishments:

     HOUSING:  ARISE is a founding member and a lead partner in the Empire State Housing Alliance, working to create and preserve more affordable homes.  This two-year campaign has resulted in the Governor recently announcing a $400 million Housing Opportunity Fund, the largest increase in housing investment in
New York State in over 10 years.  Locally, the Albany County Housing Trust Fund has already begun building 64 new units of affordable housing in the South End, Arbor Hill, and in
rural areas of the county.

 

 

      JOBS AND COMMUNITY BENEFITS:  ARISE has been a founding member and lead partner in CEEEJ, which has begun the process  of negotiating the first Community Benefits Agreement in the Capital Region, making sure that the disadvantaged residents of Albany seenew jobs, training, local art and culture, youth programs, and economic development connected with the Albany Convention Center.

    REGIONAL PLANNING FOR REVITALIZATION:  ARISE has been the leading grassroots voice in the state for regional planning and anti-sprawl development policy, and has supported and promoted the proposals of David Rusk, a national expert and partner with ARISE, for regional collaboration as a key to upstate revitalization.  Governor Spitzer has met with Mr. Rusk and ARISE, and agreed to incorpo­rate these ideas in a new effort to improve local government efficiency and competitiveness.

    STATE ECONOMIC POLICY:  At its Action Meeting last October, ARISE received commitments for ongoing meetings with the Departments of Transportation and Labor, the Empire State Development Corporation and the governor's top economic staff., to craft state policies for training, jobs, and Community Benefits Agreements as avenues for economic opportunity in state-supported projects.

    EDUCATION:  ARISE partnered with BOCES and Questar III (BOCES of Rensselaer) very early in the process of conceiving Tech Valley High, as a way of making more Capital Region students "job ready" in a high-tech age.

     VOTING SYSTEMS: ARISE members have kept on top of developments in voting techno-logies, and met with legislators and members

of State and County BOE offices, offering their informed  preference for paper-based, verifiable voting systems.  The decisions are in, and the less-transparent DRE’s have been almost unanimously rejected by NYS counties!

ARISE accomplishments over several years:

   JOBS:  Convincing the Albany School Board to hire a Minority Hiring Coordinator for its recent $187 million school construction project.  This has resulted in the hiring of an unprecedentedly high percentage of minorities and women into this project.

     EDUCATION:  ARISE successfully lobbied the NYS legislature to increase the funding for the Liberty Partnership Program by $1 million!  This program works with high school students at risk of dropping out of school, to get them through high school and into college.  The program has the phenomenal retention rate of  98 percent per year.

    LOCAL ISSUES:  Conducting 'Holy Ground' walks of poor neighborhoods in Albany, Schenectady and Troy, identifying residents’ fears and needs, and presenting them  to their local mayors.

    LEGAL REFORM:  Working with legislators and law officials to revise the Rockefeller drug laws, so as to give more discretion to judges in individual sentencing.