Balancing Service and Advocacy

The balance between service and advocacy is something I have been trying to grapple with, especially in the Legal Clinic this year. In many ways, I am drawn to the advocacy level. My mind is constantly on the macro level – thinking of ways to solve systemic problems and enact structural change. Working at Bread for the City this year has been a blessing because it has forced me to look at poverty in the lens of real people, real experiences. Poverty isn’t just a structural issue – it is a real problem that affects people who walk into Bread for the City each day.

Because I experience real people each day - sit with them, listen to their story, and try and be present in their life journey, it has been a challenge trying to also balance advocacy type efforts. I know that in many ways, I cannot do the advocacy work without knowing real people who will be impacted. But I also know that the advocacy work must be done, to ensure that the structures of society are not kept unequal and unfair. And… this advocacy work is something I am interested in and want to continue to pursue.

Working on the Fair Budget Coalition and the SE Preservation Project has been great experiences of advocacy for me this year. Learning about the D.C. budget and working in the Housing group has helped me grow in my understanding of what is needed for fair and affordable housing. Working on the SE Preservation Project has helped me dive into Gentrification in a practical and applied way. I am tempted to make these projects more of my work each day. I find myself going to meetings, talking about ideas, collaborating with others in the community… these projects make me excited and ignite my passion for structural change.

Yet I am learning I must balance these efforts. I must decide what is important for me to work on, and how I can still be present each day at Bread. If I am not intentional on this advocacy work, there will more and more gaps of time for clients to see legal assistance when they walk in. Sure, it’s true… we’re technically only officially open Mondays 1-3 pm for walk-in clients to get assistance from attorneys. Yet the on-call system we have each day helps ensure that simple referrals can be given to clients, and simple questions can be answered, meeting their needs more efficiently. I think of Ms. D., whom I helped this morning. If I had decided to go to the budget meeting this morning, no one would have been able to answer her Social Security question and she would have continued to be discouraged and frustrated with SSA’s overpayment mistake. Because I was here, we looked into her issue, found some information, and she left with at least a little hope in the overpayment problem.

So then I think after today – after taking many calls and walk-ins, I still have no explicit answer to the balance. Over this next year and a half, I will continue to try and be intentional about my service and advocacy efforts. Hopefully, by making intentionality a priority, I’ll be able to make the most good for both efforts and will in turn, find both my needs and the needs of Bread clients are met each day. That is my continued challenge for this next year and a half.