Paid to Outreach, Paid to Ignore: The Cost of Our Silence

Brothers and sisters, let’s talk about what it really means to be disenfranchisedin America. Not the kind of disenfranchisement they put in textbooks. I’m talking about the real thing. The kind that leaves people dying in alleyways while millions of dollars move quietly on paper between City Halls, police departments, and nonprofits that claim to serve the people.

Look at Rochester, Minnesota. March of 2025. The City signs an agreement with Step Forward Outreach LLC—six months, thirty-six thousand dollars. That’s six grand a month, paid to provide “outreach engagement services” for people without permanent housing. Now, if you’re listening to this, ask yourself: how many of our people are sleeping under bridges tonight? How many are hustling for their next meal or their next fix, while the city moves money like clockwork?

And let’s not stop there. Roll back the tape to 2021. That’s when Rochester inked a deal with the Sports Mentorship Academy. A hundred eighty thousand dollars in ARPA funding, spread over four years, supposedly to build community liaisons, strengthen engagement, and help deal with the crisis that COVID left behind. 2021 to 2024—taxpayer money, federal relief money, community promises. Yet what was happening in those same years? People were being killed. Overdoses climbing. Gun violence ripping through neighborhoods. Families burying their loved ones.

Ask yourself: where was all that outreach then? Where were all the hands that were paid to lift people up when the caskets started piling up? Because let’s be honest—these agreements don’t tell the full story. They tell you what looks good on paper. They tell you somebody’s getting paid. They don’t tell you who got left behind.

And here we are in 2025, and Rochester has had over twenty overdoses this year alone. Twenty! That’s not numbers on a spreadsheet. Those are lives. Sons, daughters, mothers, fathers. That’s families torn apart. That’s trauma passed down like an inheritance nobody asked for. And what do we see? The same cycle. Write a contract, cut a check, hold a press conference, and hope the people don’t ask too many questions.

But the people are asking now. Because here’s the truth—poverty and addiction aren’t just about individual choices. They’re about systems designed to fail the same communities again and again. They’re about police budgets ballooning while housing stays unaffordable. They’re about “outreach” being subcontracted while real neighbors get ignored. They’re about cities checking boxes for compliance while the streets check bodies into the morgue.

And when we talk about being disenfranchised, this is what we mean. Disenfranchised from your vote meaning anything when the policies never change. Disenfranchised from your tax dollars serving you, because they’re funneled into deals that don’t stop the funerals. Disenfranchised from the promise of America, because the system only promises to pay itself.

Malcolm X once said you can’t separate peace from freedom, because nobody can be at peace unless he has his freedom. Well, what freedom is there in burying your child because fentanyl was easier to find than a bed in treatment? What freedom is there when you work every day, pay taxes, and still the city tells you there’s no money for housing but always money for another program, another consultant, another “outreach plan”?

The people deserve accountability. The people deserve transparency. And the people deserve better than being statistics for grant reports.

So as we expose these agreements—2021, 2025, and beyond—remember this: every time you hear the words “community engagement” or “outreach services,” don’t just clap. Ask the hard questions. Who’s getting paid? Who’s keeping the receipts? And most importantly, who’s still being left behind?

Because until we demand answers, until we demand a system that values life over contracts, the disenfranchised voter will remain just that—counted on paper, discounted in life.

And my brothers and sisters, that’s why we’re here. That’s why Da Urban Conservative exists. To tell the truth when the truth is uncomfortable. To call out injustice when it’s hiding behind legal contracts and budget lines. To remind America that the people at the bottom aren’t invisible. We see you. And we will not be silent.

This is Da Urban Conservative Presents: Disenfranchised Voter. Stay vigilant. Stay questioning. And never forget—the struggle continues, but so does our voice.