logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

PILOTs, Xenophobia and Keeping One’s Eye on the Economic Ball

Rick Cohen
September 26, 2012
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

Hazelton

September 22, 2012; Source: Times-Tribune

Hazleton, Pa. is looking to local nonprofits for payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs), and this all-too-typical request from the mayor is of importance to nonprofits—beyond the standard concerns about taxing tax-exempt entities. A five-year analysis of Hazleton’s future fiscal condition conducted by the Pennsylvania Economy League predicts that the city will encounter a $14 million budget deficit by 2016. Hazleton Mayor Joseph Yannuzzi has written to churches, the public library, and other nonprofits to make voluntary cash payments or to volunteer services that would be recognized as the equivalent of PILOTs. This very brief Times-Tribune article only mentions the reaction of the public library, which concluded that it is hardly in the financial position to pay the city and that it is already offering a public service to the city.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Aside from the PILOTs issue, Hazleton is of importance to nonprofits because, under the city’s previous mayor late in the last decade, Hazleton gained a reputation as being hostile to immigrants, enacting a variety of laws aimed at “illegals” that some Latinos perceived as indicating that they were unwelcome in general. The Hazleton laws “empowered the city to fine landlords who knowingly rented to illegal immigrants and to threaten the business licenses of employers who hired them,” according to coverage in the Philadelphia Inquirer of the City’s current efforts to reinstate the laws.

As our coverage of nonprofits in Youngstown, Ohio noted, cities with healthy in-migration of immigrants tend to thrive; those that don’t, don’t. And those that are seen as particularly hostile to immigrant populations (Hazleton’s Latino population had grown to all of nine percent of the city’s total) do themselves harm. In fact, some of the nation’s smarter cities are showing themselves as welcoming ports for immigrants, recognizing the economic benefits of a healthy immigrant population, notably Baltimore and Philadelphia, which are prohibiting local police from conducting immigration status checks. Baltimore is also offering Spanish-language storytelling at local libraries, Spanish-language recreational and health services, and other outreach to residents who don’t speak English.

The challenge for nonprofits in the troubled city of Hazleton is not simply to fend off desperate, generic governmental pleas for in-lieu tax payments, but to be strong and vocal against the continuing efforts of Hazleton to be less than welcoming to Latino immigrants—and don’t tell us that Hazleton is only concerned about undocumented immigrants, please. It doesn’t wash. For example, we looked at the Hazleton United Way’s 2011 Form 990 to see the list of agencies it supported through grants. While there are plenty of organizations that we would presume (or at least hope) automatically include Latinos in their service delivery (for example, Catholic Social Services, the Salvation Army, and the Child Development Council), none of the organizations on the list specifically reach out to and represent Hazleton’s Latino residents. On the local United Way website, the words “immigrant” and “Latino” do not appear in the United Way’s 2010 report to the community and “immigration” appears only as a service in the brief enumeration of functions of Catholic Social Services.

Some people believe, quite correctly, that a healthy and vibrant nonprofit sector contributes to community economic vitality. In the case of Hazleton, nonprofits should be taking the lead to instruct the City’s fathers and mothers that that economic prosperity won’t work if the community is palpably hostile to specific racial or ethnic groups.—Rick Cohen

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Rick Cohen

Rick joined NPQ in 2006, after almost eight years as the executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Before that he played various roles as a community worker and advisor to others doing community work. He also worked in government. Cohen pursued investigative and analytical articles, advocated for increased philanthropic giving and access for disenfranchised constituencies, and promoted increased philanthropic and nonprofit accountability.

More about: AccountabilityImmigrationNonprofit NewsPolicies and LawsPolicy

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of Housing Insecurity for Black Women
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn
The Human Impact of the Global Refugee Crisis Must Be Understood—And Acted Upon
Anmol Irfan
Black Americans Need Reparations: The Fight for the CTC Highlights the Roadblocks
Jhumpa Bhattacharya and Trevor Smith
I Was Arrested For Protesting Racial Injustice—and Nearly Deported
Máxima Guerrero

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of...
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.