It's a Wonderful Life, in Owosso

After being elected to City Council, I begin to see many things in a new way, including old holiday movies. If you are a regular viewer of the great Frank Capra holiday movie "It's A Wonderful Life" starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed, I invite you to watch it this year thinking about how communities work, and the role we each play in the health of the place we live.

In addition to inspiring thankfulness for one's family and friends,"It's a Wonderful Life" has a primary message spoken by the angel Clarence: "Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?" Of course, we may feel that more acutely in a small town because there is less chance, for good and bad, to be anonymous. But what we do here makes a difference.

But there are other messages to find in the movie for Councilmembers, community volunteers and committed citizens. At the end of a year when the economy has not been kind to Owosso, I am thinking about how people can work together to help neighbors become homeowners. While the movie follows the frustrated dreams and redemption of George Bailey, the sub-story is about the Bailey Building and Loan. While stodgy and struggling, the Building and Loan was a community-based institution whereby local people were not only encouraged to save up for their own financial dreams, but those savings were made available to their neighbors in the form of mortgages. It was an organized way for neighbors to help neighbors, including immigrants, the poor, and the powerless.

In the last few years, we have discovered the housing finance system, which we thought of as local and relationship-based, had become the plaything of speculators, large impersonal institutions, and short-term investors. This created space for the greedy, both among homebuyers and lenders. Housing, which had been the reward, for and reservoir of, personal savings, became a source for unchecked spending and personal debt. After the weak foundation of this new housing finance system cracked, the housing market built upon it could no longer stand. The result in Owosso has been several hundred foreclosures, personal employment and financial opportunities lost, and declining property tax revenues. It feels as if Potter left Bedford Falls and moved to Wall Street.

The challenge for Owosso and other small towns is to rebuild the local-to-local systems that made the customers of the Bailey Building and Loan homeowners. Fortunately, we still have good local lenders, and some community organizations committed to improving housing quality and affordability. We need these and other groups to come together to find ways in which we can use our local resources to help our residents become homeowners and occupy the vacant homes that are found on almost every block of our town. I am hoping the City of Owosso and its new housing program can help be a catalyst and leader in this effort.

There are some other lessons from "It's a Wonderful Life" remember Sam Wainwright, the local business climber who makes it big in New York? Well, he stays in touch with George Bailey, and it's George who recommends the use of a local vacant factory to house a new business venture. We too need to build the contacts with our many alumni who move away and find success elsewhere; let's encourage them to make investments in Owosso, or perhaps even move back home.

Finally, the thing Owosso has never lost is its ability to raise up talented young people of character, just like George Bailey. And just like Bedford Falls, we take pride in our high school graduates and we love to help them achieve their dreams, whether they be college, travel, entrepreunership, or some form of service to their country or community.

Despite the tough times in Owosso, we are not Pottersville. Let's always remember the difference one life makes, and all the lives that each of our lives touches. Think how much more of a difference we can make if we are deliberate in the care of our relationships, the exercise of our values, and our love for our community. "Merry Christmas you old beautiful Building and Loan!"