wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Rallying against hunger

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #7099 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Rallying against hunger
20-March-2002
02112

Rallying against hunger

Presbyterians, others lobby for less restrictive welfare system

by Evan Silverstein

WASHINGTON - For Hal Johnson, an anti-hunger activist and former Christian educator from Durant, OK, traveling to the nation's capital to lobby Congress on pending changes in welfare reform was all about children.

More than half of all students at the four elementary schools in Johnson's small Oklahoma town qualify for reduced-price or free meals, which reminds the long-time Presbyterian that too few low-income families on public assistance rise from poverty to self-sustaining jobs.

"I think it's hidden poverty," said the 65-year-old Johnson, who for a decade has been a "Hunger Action Enabler" (HAE) with the Presbyterian Hunger Program. "I think there's a lot out there."

Last week, Johnson and six other HAEs from around the country joined about eight Presbyterian Church(USA) representatives, including lay church members and national and presbytery staffers, in lobbying Congress for a kinder, gentler welfare plan designed to reduce poverty rates, not just welfare rolls. 

"I hope we switch it from getting people off of welfare to (getting them) out of poverty," said Johnson, who along with his HAE colleagues tries to keep Presbyterians informed about hunger-related issues. 

The Presbyterians gathered on Capitol Hill and at a local Christian church here with more than 100 other representatives of denominations and faith-based agencies from around the nation as part of "TANF Action Days." TANF, which stands for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, has been the nation's cash-assistance program for low-income families since 1996, when Congress eliminated the old federal welfare program.
The March 13-15 conference, sponsored by the National Council of Churches (NCC), was a mix of Bible study, policy analysis, strategy development and meetings with members of Congress to share concerns about reforming the welfare system now up for review and reauthorization. 

President Bush has made what some consider controversial proposals for revamping the system, including requiring more recipients to find work. Those taking part in the conference affirmed the "benefit to the entire community" of helping people move from welfare to work, when possible and appropriate, but also expressed concern that some new workers are poorer than they were when they were on welfare.

"The voices of the churches need to be heard, so that the most people possible can be enabled to successfully transition into the workforce to obtain family-sustaining jobs and then retain those jobs," said the Rev. Joy Kaufmann, a Presbyterian minister from Harrisburg, PA, who serves as director for public advocacy for the Pennsylvania Council of Churches. 

To do that, she said, will require new work supports for many long-term welfare recipients and a "modest social safety net" for those who will never be able to support families.

"We see what the president has offered up," Kaufmann said, "and we see that there are some parts to that plan that would probably be genuinely helpful to people. But there are other parts (about) which we have real concern. So we need to express ourselves."

            Under the 1996 reforms, many recipients have lost support essential to maintaining their households, conference participants said, noting that many new workers have jobs on which they can't support a family, have no health insurance, and have lost housing, child care, food assistance and other benefits that sustained them while they were on welfare.  
Access to help with drug, alcohol, mental-health and domestic-violence problems; education and job training; job placement and retention services; and transportation can all but make or break a new worker's success, the conferees agreed. 

"There's so many people that have fallen through the cracks," said Phyllis Canter, a longtime Presbyterian HAE from Abingdon, VA. "There are many that are facing unmet needs. There's going to be further need for help."

       A report called "A Call to Poverty Reduction in the Context of Reauthorization of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families," endorsed by 25 Christian, Jewish and other religious organizations, was released during the conference. It asserts that the divine imperative to end poverty is central to all their religious traditions and teachings.

 "We have a real concern that the vision of justice that we read in the Old and New Testaments be implemented here as much as possible on Earth," Kaufmann said. 

The report urges Congress to allocate more funds to TANF to ensure its ability to act as both a work-support program and a safety net for those unable to work to make a living. It also lists 10 principles for strengthening U.S. welfare policy, including providing training and education necessary for unskilled workers to acquire and retain jobs.

"We want to make poverty as abhorrent in this century as slavery was a century and a half ago," said the Rev. Robert Edgar, a United Methodist pastor and the NCC general secretary.

          Participants in the event agreed that no new worker should receive less in combined income and benefits while working than they got while on welfare. Policy should help, not hinder, people's efforts to better themselves, conference participants said, claiming, for example, that participation in higher education should count as work.

"No one can work a 20-hour week at a minimum-wage job and go to school and survive and take care of a family," said Carolyn Arbuckle, a HAE from Lewisburg, WV. "There's only 24 hours in a day for any of us. Unless we get education and job training where people can get out of the (welfare) system, they're not going to be able to get out of poverty."  

             The interfaith "Call to Poverty Reduction" and the NCC General Assembly's November 2001 "Resolution on the Reauthorization of TANF and Related Programs," urges more case-by-case flexibility in applying welfare policy. The resolutions call for the system of time limits on TANF participation - two years running with a five-year lifetime limit - to be replaced by an approach based on individualized plans for all recipients.

        The conference participants heard from U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) about efforts to strengthen anti-poverty programs through legislative advocacy. 

 	"It's coming down to everybody doing what needs to be done," said Conyers, "and what they can offer in terms of food, clothing, housing, education and training- the whole works."
Conyers, who created the Poor People's Caucus, said he was "very deeply impressed" by the faith community's lobbying efforts and support for the poor.

"We're in the process of coming together  to help shape our own U.S. policy," he said. "It's very, very important."

The Rev. Gary Cook, coordinator of the Presbyterian Hunger Program, introduced the group to ecumenical curricula - called "Hunger No More" and "Micah 6" - that he said could strengthen churches' social-justice ministries.

"Let's go home and see if this group can get another 100 congregations using it by summer," said Cook, a conference planning committee member. 
George Hufford, an HAE from Cincinnati, OH, said the event helped him prepare for the fight against poverty and the debate over welfare reform.

"I think this has been good at providing me with additional background that I can take back to other folks in the presbytery (of Cincinnati), so when they write postcards (to lawmakers), when they make telephone calls, when they write letters to the local newspapers and so forth, they've got a little more background to address some of the things that need to be addressed," Hufford said.

For more information on the conference and on the NCC's anti-poverty efforts, visit www.ncccusa.org/poverty. The NCC's Web site also includes resources on TANF and related programs at www.ncccusa.org/publicwitness/tanf.html.
------------------------------------------
Send your response to this article to pcusa.news@pcusa.org

------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send an 'unsubscribe' request to

pcusanews-request@halak.pcusa.org