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Antonio 31-October-1996 
 
 
96439              Advisory Committee Examines 
            Community Building Efforts in San Antonio 
 
                         by Julian Shipp 
 
SAN ANTONIO--With the goal of strengthening the denomination's capacity to 
build community in the midst of growing diversity in American society, 
members of the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) met here 
Oct. 24-27 to explore some of the issues currently under study by its task 
force on "Building Community Among Strangers." 
 
     Six metropolitan areas -- New York/Newark; Atlanta; Cleveland; San 
Antonio; Tacoma/Seattle; and Oakland/San Francisco -- are the focus of the 
study. The report is scheduled to come to the 214th General Assembly 
(1999). 
 
     The Rev. Don Shriver is an ACSWP committee member, a member of the 
"Building Community" task force and retired former president of Union 
Theological Seminary in New York. 
 
     He said that events such as the recent disturbance in St. Petersburg, 
Fla., following the shooting of a black motorist by two white police 
officers, are difficult to characterize, since various significant social, 
racial and economic factors are involved. The estimated three-year-long 
study will address these factors, recommend solutions and suggest what the 
church's role should be. 
 
     "It's very disconcerting, in fact, to try to characterize the American 
city when you have so many dimensions of human division to deal with," 
Shriver said. "But the number of things dividing us seems to be on the 
increase." 
 
      San Antonio is the ninth largest city in America by population. 
According to local Presbyterian and city officials, the city is roughly 50 
percent Hispanic, 41 percent Anglo and 8 percent African American. The 
city's poor reside on the east and west sides, where life is not easy. 
 
     For example, teenagers there rarely see their mothers, who often work 
long hours. Their fathers, if known to them, are often in prison. Even if 
both parents are at home, the pressure from peers to experiment with drugs 
and sex and participate in gang activities can be overwhelming. 
 
     According to recent city statistics, 47.2 percent of the families on 
the west side live below the poverty level -- four times the national 
average. More than 69.5 percent of adults in the area have not completed 
high school and 49.9 percent failed to finish ninth grade. 
 
      Five rival gangs border the immediate areas of Culebra Street 
(north); 1-10 (east); 24th St.  (west); and Beuna Vista (south), with many 
more in the surrounding area. These gangs frequently become surrogate 
families for the youths involved in them as they struggle to fill the gap 
in their lives for a sense of meaningful participation and belonging. 
 
     Devoting a full day of its time together, ACSWP members first visited 
a predominantly African- American east-side community to tour Habitat for 
Humanity of San Antonio houses on land donated by the Holy Spirit Sisters, 
whose convent is located on a hill adjacent to the residence of Lloyd Jean 
Williams. 
 
     Williams, a Habitat homeowner who also provided the group with a 
catered meal at Madison Square Presbyterian Church, said Habitat was 
established locally in 1976 -- the first of more than 1,200 affiliates of 
Habitat for Humanity International, based in Americus, Ga. By the end of 
October, she said, 117 Habitat homes will have been built in San Antonio. 
 
     The Rev. William Lytle, a retired Presbyterian pastor, member of the 
local "Building Community" task force and a former General Assembly 
moderator from San Antonio, told the Presbyterian News Service that both 
Madison Square and First Presbyterian churches were instrumental in 
ensuring Habitat's success in the city. 
 
     Locally,  Lyttle said, the "Building Community" task force was 
conceived to be both interfaith and ecumenical in nature. In addition to 
five Presbyterians, the 20-member task force is composed of Lutherans, 
Catholics, a Jew and even an agnostic. They are bound by the common goal of 
"trying to build bridges between the people within the city," Lyttle said. 
 
     Traveling next to the city's west side, the group visited the House of 
Neighborly Service (HNS), a neighborhood center founded in 1917 by the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Located in the heart of a predominantly 
Hispanic, low-income area, the center expresses its Christian witness by 
providing social services directed toward mutual support, self-development 
and self-help for residents. 
 
     According to Dorothy Williams, HNS administrative director and a 
lifelong Presbyterian, the center also offers Christian nurture through 
scripture study, devotionals and community building. In 1996, the PC(USA) 
awarded a $10,000 grant to HNS that will be used to strengthen its ministry 
to urban unchurched youth. 
 
     One young person who has already benefited from HNS ministries is 
Santiago "Saint" Caldera, HNS sports coordinator. A former gang member, 
Caldera and Tommy V. Moreno Jr., HNS program director, began working with 
kids at the center by providing a drug- and gang-free place for them to 
play in 1994. Since then, through the efforts and programs of all the HNS 
staff, several kids have responded positively to the challenge to commit 
their lives to Christ. 
 
     "I tell the kids to turn their lives from the negative to the 
positive," Caldera told the Presbyterian News Service. "But in some cases 
the gangs are all the families they have." 
 
     The group's last stop was Madison Square Presbyterian Church, where 
they were met by three members of the local "Building Community" task 
force, the Rev. Ann Helmke, Dr. Michael Gilbert and Cary Clack, for a 
discussion on the status of community building and peacemaking efforts by 
minorities in San Antonio. 
      
     Clack, an African-American columnist and staff reporter for the "San 
Antonio Express-News" and subcommittee member of the Black/Jewish Dialogue, 
a group established in 1994 by the San Antonio Jewish Federation, said he 
believes the city's blacks should become more politically involved. 
 
     Although Clack does not anticipate racially correlated violence such 
as the beating of Los Angeles motorist Rodney King or the shooting incident 
in St. Petersburg, Fla., occurring in San Antonio, blacks in San Antonio 
have a "tendency to leave things alone" in matters both civil and 
political. He also said African Americans there have a "third place 
mentality," stemming partially from being the third largest group of city 
residents. 
 
     Helmke, a Lutheran pastor, was credited with giving voice to the 
voiceless by organizing the 1994 San Antonio Gang Summit. To date, the 
peace treaty between the city's rival gangs has held, and more efforts to 
get San Antonio's youth involved in the community are under way. 
 
     Helmke said she believes the program, which drew more than 700 active 
and nonactive gang members, worked in part due to the high level of trust 
given to participants, the high amount of communication among everyone, the 
lack of a hierarchial structure, and shared power and authority. She also 
said the church must lead the way in transforming society from the 
devastating effects of substance abuse, crime and violence. 
 
     The Rev. Peter A. Sulyok,  ACSWP coordinator, said information gleaned 
from the San Antonio meeting will be fed into the work of the national 
"Building Community Among Strangers" task force, which will meet Oct. 
31-Nov. 3 in New York. 
 
     Sulyok said the national task force members will share their recent 
experiences and use them to develop the local groups. They will also 
witness community-building initiatives in the New York area, meet with the 
local New York Presbytery group, and devote one day to the consideration 
and final drafting of their churchwide study document. The document is 
expected to be available for the church by Dec. 1, 1996. 
 
     "In every American city, collisions of racial, ethnic, sexual, class, 
cultural and religious diversity challenge us to discover and live out a 
new way of building community among strangers," Sulyok told the 
Presbyterian News Service. "Our great reason is our faith that God was in 
Christ reconciling the world." 

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