On the Martin Luther King Multi Service Center’s website you’ll read nothing about the rich history of this 42-year-old institution on Indianapolis’ Northside.
Nothing about how it began as a community center for the Butler Tarkington neighborhood or why it was renamed in 1983 after one of the greatest individuals this world produced or about the center’s four decade legacy of programs and service.
The website’s ignoring of the MLK Center’s rich legacy shows the soul-less heart of an agency which last week announced first they were “closing”; then going on “hiatus” and finally undergoing a “restructuring.”
MLK’s convoluted, erratic train wreck spotlights the growing fragility of Indianapolis’ social service safety network of community centers and a dangerous mutation of Indianapolis’ vaunted servant/leader concept of volunteer service to non-profits.
MLK’s financial stress was telegraphed in early December when they “temporarily” suspended their senior citizens program for lack of funding despite the fact that in 2012 the Mid-North Neighborhoods Quality of Life Plan had MLK as one of the lead agencies providing services to the area’s senior population.
Major funders and foundations, like United Way, treat seniors as a throwaway commodity. The United Way’s hyper focus on improving early childhood education has diverted their focus away from other critical social service needs. That myopia helped contribute to the MLK train wreck.
Another factor in this mess is the inexperience of MLK’s Board of Directors who made their decision to “restructure” the end of January, but didn’t want to go public until all planning was in place, not realizing the word would leak out.
When the crisis became public, MLK Board Chair Dr. Kimberly Sterling, a respected chemist, was interviewed on our WTLC-AM (1310) “Afternoons with Amos.” Listeners and the community were stunned at how unprepared Sterling was, repeatedly refusing to provide details of MLK’s alleged precarious finances, talking in corporate speak, seemingly lacking any soul.
Not only did MLK’s leadership not provide details on their financial morass, the United Way stiff armed media, flatly refusing to provide similar data to Indianapolis Star columnist Erika Smith.
Breaking the blackout, sources gave me page one of MLK’s just-filed 2012 IRS Tax Return; the most recent.
It showed a $224,256 deficit, but net assets of $1.168 million. But as late as June 30, 2009, the MLK Center was financially healthy with a profit of $193,643 and net assets of $1.632 million.
The refusal by MLK and United Way to provide specifics of MLK’s financial condition is insulting to a community that craves answers.
The MLK Center at 40 W. 40th St. sits in the shadow of historic North Meridian Street. But within one mile of MLK’s location are pressing human service needs. Census tracts where overall poverty ranges from 26.0 percent to 45.4 percent; and child poverty at obscene levels from 45.1 percent to 66.1 percent.
Did MLK’s Board take those sobering stats into consideration during their deliberations? I suspect many of the Board members didn’t have a clue of the economic condition of the area they’re tasked to serve.
Seemingly unaware of the rich history of a center they had legal and moral responsibility for, the Board didn’t reach out to community leaders when it became apparent that they were in extreme financial straits. That naivety and inexperience networking with community leaders was tragic.
City-County Council Vice-President John Barth was a board member till last month. Why didn’t he sound the alarm on MLK’s weakened financial condition to his fellow councilors, especially those representing MLK’s service area?
Worse, why didn’t MLK’s Board go to area councilors for help?
The top leadership of United Way should’ve known a sudden closing, during Black History Month, of an agency within 1,000 yards of their headquarters named after a Black icon, would be viewed negatively by our African-American community.
On our radio show last month, I directly asked United Way CEO Ann Murtlow about the MLK senior program shutdown and what negative signal it would send if MLK Center completely shut down. She dismissed my concern.
For Murtlow and her top executives not to provide such a heads-up on MLK’s troubles, demonstrates insensitivity and lack of understanding of our Black community.
Murtlow has headed United Way a year. Numerous folks at United Way agencies complained to me about disturbing changes in attitude by United Way officials toward social service agencies. Unlike previous United Way CEOs, they tell me, Murtlow is inaccessible and invisible to agency leaders and to Indy’s African-American leadership.
Numerous sources, including former MLK Board members, told me United Way exerted severe pressure on MLK to get its fiscal act together.
While laudable that United Way insists on the highest standards of fiscal accountability and probity, the attitudes of some top United Way execs toward MLK are out of bounds.
I’m also told United Way’s agency accountability system includes representatives of Indy area funders. When they see an agency like MLK getting into financial straits, they pull back on their funding.
The pullback by other funders that happened to MLK is happening now with Indy’s other multi-service centers. Including those in far better shape than MLK.
The MLK Center’s financial crisis occurred the same week the Brookings Institution reported that income inequality growth in Indianapolis between 2007-2012 was the 7th highest of America’s 50 largest cities.
The United Way’s cavalier response to the crisis at MLK reinforces my belief that Indianapolis’ top leadership just wishes Indianapolis’ poor and working class would vanish into thin air. What a sad state of our city!
Next week: my review of Mayor Ballard’s State of Our City.
You can mail comments to Amos Brown at acbrown@aol.com.
