By David Dahmer – Madison365 –
Dr. Rev. Carmen Porco, the longtime executive director of Housing Ministries of Wisconsin who has been a highly respected anti-poverty activist and a well-known advocate of low-income housing, officially announced his retirement in June following over a half-century of work, including developing the revolutionary Wisconsin Anti-Poverty Model to lift people out of poverty and to transform their lives.
“It’s difficult because I’ve retired from the organization where I don’t have the everyday responsibility,” Porco tells Madison365, “but I’m going to continue to try to promote some public policy debate and keep trying to get the attention of our elected officials to say, ’Look, you’ve wasted trillions of dollars under the guise of providing housing and other services for the poor … but it’s not effective.’
“And it’s not effective because your system of delivery is deficient. It’s not holistic in terms of bringing other entities — health, education, employment — into the picture of shelter,” he continues. “And it’s also deficient because you have never developed a positive psychology about the contribution that poor people make to our society in numerous ways.”
On top of being the CEO of Housing Ministries of American Baptists in Wisconsin since 2009, Porco has also been the founder and executive director of Northport and Packers Centers, Greentree-Teutonia Community Learning Center, and Plymouth Community Learning Centers since 1994.