Philadelphia Weekly

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Youth services offered by the Mural Arts Program face deep cuts.

Photo by Michael Feagans, used under a CC license.

One more looming casualty of Philadelphia's unending budget impasse in Harrisburg: the iconic Mural Arts Program.

City officials have been tense this week, with a looming vote expected in Harrisburg to approve -- or reject -- the city's plan to raise funds through a 1 percent hike in the sales tax. Without approval, disaster looms for a wide variety of city services.

City Hall's tightening belt has already trickled down to MAP -- which has spent recent decades making Philadelphia the "mural capital of the world" -- and the "Plan C" doomsday budget proposed by Mayor Nutter could bring even more pain. City funding makes up more than a third of the nonprofit agency's $6.5 million budget.

“This will affect cops, firemen, the trash situation, I get that,” says Kathryn Ott Lovell, the program's chief advancement officer. “But Plan C eliminates MAP as a city agency, it eliminates $1 million in city funding and it eliminates (director) Jane Golden’s ... position. We would have to restructure the staffing, budget, and all of our programs and activities.”

The city's cutback in payments to vendors this summer hit the MAP program that put ex-offenders to work creating murals.

“We have contracts with prisons,” Lovell said a few weeks ago. “But they stopped paying us last week and now all re-entry workers and muralists have to stop working.”

She added: “We’re using art as a vehicle to transform individuals and better their lives. But we stopped paying people ... and now they don’t have jobs.”

The doomsday budget could spread the pain even further -- ending City Hall support for after-school programs that reach out to the city's youth. Among those efforts: Mural Corps, Big Picture,ARTscape, ArtWorks ! and Cops and Kids programs for kids to seek haven, rather than spend time getting into trouble in the streets.

If Plan C goes into affect, the fall session of art education which has almost 2,000 youth participants -- and created 38 murals -- will not begin in October and remain in that stage indefinitely.

“Our programs are free, year-round and are offered to young people ages 11 to 18,” says MAP's executive director, Jane Golden. “I always feel it is one of the city's best kept secrets that we have such a large after-school and summer program. We pride ourselves on the rigor of the curriculum and that beyond an art program it is about leadership, youth development and inspiring young people to think about activism and civic engagement.”

“The highest time when kids get into trouble is in the after school hours,” adds Lovell. “What are they going to do without these programs?”

Students who participate in the program say they've benefited from making art.

“When you first join you’re not thinking you’re going to learn creative thinking. You learn how to express yourself.” says Shemice Evans, a student in the Mural Corps program who is starting NYU this fall. ““It’s crazy to see where I was three years ago and where I am now. ... I really believe that the mural arts program is really just a place where not only we become better artists, but better people too.”

Now students and ex-offenders are worried about their future with the program.

Jessica Merced, a recently released offender in the program, says its loss could lead to a rise in crime rates.

“If Angela (Crafton, coordinator of the offender program) hadn’t reached out to me, I probably would have gotten back into trouble,” Merced says. “When your back’s up against a wall and that’s all you know, you’ll probably end up back in jail.”

“For our young people who have few options, for people coming out of prison, and for those struggling with mental illness or addiction this work deepens their comprehension of their own strengths,” Golden adds. “It enriches their lives and ultimately makes them aware of their sense of possibility.”

Despite the threatened cuts, Golden has fought to stay optimistic.

“This summer puts all the other times of struggle into perspective," she says. "When I see no movement in Harrisburg, when I hear about wonderful programs closing their doors, when I watch the news and see how those with less are going to get less, when I look at our bottom line and know how much we have to reduce and finally, when I hear Mayor Nutter's sobering words about Plan C, I cannot believe it.

"But I just cannot give in to negativity and cynicism, every day I work on this. I try to move forward, remain strong, draw strength from people in communities, our young people, and the artists.”