Close the Gap: A Community Guide

STORY: Access to Jobs


EMERGE is a non-profit organization serving low income residents of the Twin Cities. EMERGE links residents to employment, training, and housing. With its new building in North Minneapolis, the organization aims at community redevelopment through entrepreneurial efforts. Employment is an essential part of people's lives, although almost 80% of the region's jobs are located 5 miles outside the city centers. EMERGE is filling the need through its Access to Jobs project. Despite its sound business model and success in serving the community, EMERGE cannot fill the gaps caused by 20 years of underinvestment in transportation infrastructure. The "spatial mismatch" created by disconnecting people who are in need of economic opportunities from locations where such opportunities exist requires attention from the public sector and other stakeholders in society.
Key Terms
Spatial mismatch Indicator
Right to work Poverty
Equity Public Sector
Limited Resources Place disparities
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Before Viewing

How do you get around the Twin Cities? Would it be easy to get somewhere without a car? What types of activities would be difficult to do without transportation?

After Viewing

  1. What are the goals of EMERGE?
  2. How does EMERGE contribute to community revitalization?
  3. Why is transportation so important?
  4. Does EMERGE manage to respond to everyone in need of employment or transportation?
  5. What is spatial mismatch?
  6. EMERGE leaders believe that support should come from the public sector. Do you agree?
  7. How does underinvestment in the transportation system affect all of us?
  8. Was anything missing from the video?
  9. How can you make a difference?
Suggested Activities and Resources:

  1. The Right to Work

    This activity will help participants gain knowledge and understanding about the right to work, and examine barriers to this right.

    1. Introduce the activity. Write "right to work" on the board or flipchart sheet and ask participants to brainstorm any concept or idea which they associate with the right to work.

      Define the right to work. Based on the list generated by the group, develop a definition for the right to work. Ask participants if they agree with the definition and whether there is anything else they would like to add to it.

      Discuss in small groups. Divide participants into groups of 5-7 participants in each, and have them discuss the right to work and come up with a list of barriers to the right to work. Discussion questions may include: Why it's important to have that right? What would happen if people didn't have the right to work?

      Report back from the small group to the larger group. Allow 1-2 minutes for questions and clarifications after each presentation.

      • Discuss and debrief as a large group:
      • Did you enjoy the activity? Why? Why not?
      • What new information did you learn?
      • What was the most surprising thing you heard from others? Do you agree or disagree? Explain.
      • Why is it important to have a right to work?
      • What other factors affect our ability or inability to enjoy this right?
      • How does the transportation system or lack thereof contribute to our right to work?
      • What is the connection between access to jobs and community development?
      • What would you change in the way things work now?

    2. Continue discussing the right to work within the human rights framework. Introduce international human rights documents containing provisions relevant to the right to work:

      • Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Article 23
      • The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) - Article 8
      • The International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) - Articles 6, 7, and 8
      • Convention on the Rights of the Child - Article 32

      Discuss and compare different documents and provisions. Hand out copies of the documents above to the participants. They can look for or highlight areas that discuss the right to work. Additionally, they could talk about what it means to lose the right to work, both in the Twin Cities and in places outside of the Twin Cities, and in other economically disadvantaged regions of the world. What kind of implications does the loss of right to work have on individuals, families, and communities?

  2. Resources:

    Participants can review the Racism and Metropolitan Dynamics: The Civil Rights Challenge of the 21st Century at: www1.umn.edu/irp/publications/racismandmetrodynamics.pdf

    Other useful sites:
    Twin Cities Compass www.tccompass.org
    Mind the Gap Report www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2005/10cities_sohmer/20051027_mindthegap.pdf