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As SDC considers its next step since closing “temporarily” on April 26, 2024, it should return first and foremost as a commission focused on research, advocacy, and policy.
Currently, SDC has dual statutory roles. It’s a commission tasked with addressing the causes of poverty and a social service agency tasked with alleviating the consequences of poverty. SDC has de-emphasized its first role for decades.
If SDC can open again, it should bifurcate, separating its commission and social services roles. Then, SDC can reinvigorate its statutory purpose predating the “War on Poverty”: To “study, analyze, and recommend solutions for the major social, economic, and cultural problems that affect people residing or working within” Milwaukee County.
In the early 1960s, Wisconsin’s Walter Heller, a graduate of Shorewood High School and the University of Wisconsin, encouraged President Kennedy, as his Chief Economic Adviser, to attack poverty. Plans were made but never made public. Around the same time, Milwaukee Mayor Henry Maier, cooperating with the Milwaukee County government, created the Social Development Commission as the “overriding coordinating commission in the field of social development.”
In principle, Maier created SDC to attack poverty in Milwaukee County, primarily concentrated in two northern and southern segregated areas. At the time, 90% of SDC’s budget came from federal funds. The remaining budget came from SDC’s five founding members: The city, the county, the City School Board, Milwaukee Area Technical College, and the United Way. (See Social Change and the Empowerment of the Poor, p. 9, by Mark Edward Braun. This publication has rich details about SDC’s origin and impact on Milwaukee fro 1964 to 1972.
SDC began on June 4, 1963, before President Johnson, directly influenced by Walter Heller, started the “War on Poverty” to distinguish himself from President Kennedy’s focus on civil rights.
The “War on Poverty” led to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which funded community action agencies nationwide to support urban and rural communities facing high poverty rates. Milwaukee designated SDC as its community action agency.
However, federal funds could not flow to any agency unless individuals from the communities they served were on their governing boards, as much as maximally feasible. This shifted SDC from an entity Mayor Maier controlled to one in which the affected community had more influence. As a result, Don Sykes led SDC from 1968 to 1988.
Generally, community action agencies alleviate the consequences of poverty. SDC, however, is unlike any community action agency in the nation because it’s a commission. This includes quasi-judicial powers to hold hearings and compel testimony.
Nonetheless, SDC has primarily, almost exclusively, focused on the consequences. This is rational because SDC, as a community action agency, could obtain funds more easily. However, the consequences arising from poverty remain at levels no concerned citizen or official should accept.
Current Census data shows nearly 1 out of every 5 residents in Milwaukee County lives in poverty. Almost 1 out of every 4 residents lives in poverty in the city. In some Milwaukee ZIP codes, more than half the population lives in poverty.
If SDC can return after its “temporary closing” on April 26, 2024, it needs to bifurcate its role as a commission from its community action agency role. The 18-member commission, with six appointed state, county, local officials, six private agency representatives, and six community elected representatives, has the structure to act like the Wisconsin Policy Forum – but with subpoena powers – to engage in research that can change the economic landscape in Milwaukee County.
Funds remain relevant to alleviate the consequences of poverty, but the commission can engage in research and collaboratively (with or without subpoenas) work with other public and private agencies to address the causes.
Students of economics and history understand poverty is a Gordian Knot. There are no simple solutions. But, SDC can address one root cause at a time. It can recommend a solution and advocate, with help from the community, putting it into practice.
If it works, you have a model to scale up and shift to the next root cause of poverty. This may increase economic opportunities and move more people from poverty into the middle class, improving Milwaukee.
The next move is up to SDC.
Aaron Hurvitz worked for the SDC as the Social Development Foundation’s Development Consultant, then its Officer until SDC laid off all its employees on April 26, 2024. Hurvitz recently helped work on an appropriations request to Rep. Moore to support SDC’s work as a commission. SDC submitted the request on April 2, 2024.
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