wfn.org | NCC April 11 Testimony on Welfare Reauthorization

["Carol Fouke" <carolf@ncccusa.org>]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.
Phone: 212-870-2227; E-mail: news@ncccusa.org; Web: www.ncccusa.org
NCC4/11/02 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Testimony on Welfare Reauthorization as Prepared for Delivery
Before the Committee on Ways and Means
Subcommittee on Human Resources
U.S. House of Representatives
April 11, 2002
Brenda Girton-Mitchell
Associate General Secretary for Public Policy
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

My name is Brenda Girton-Mitchell. I am the Associate General Secretary for
Public Policy and the Director of the Washington Office of the National
Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (NCCC).

The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. is the
principal ecumenical organization in the United States and includes 36
Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican member communions (denominations) with a
combined membership of more than 50 million Christians in nearly 140,000
congregations nationwide. A list of our 36 communions has been submitted for
the record.

Through the NCCC, members join in a common witness through ministries of
faith, justice, education and public witness. While I do not claim to speak
for all members of the communions constituent to the NCCC, I do speak for
our policy-making body, the General Assembly, whose 350 members are selected
by those communions in numbers proportionate to their size.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for providing the opportunity for me to testify
before you regarding welfare reform reauthorization.

I wish to make three principal points in my remarks:
1. The primary purpose for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families
Reauthorization (TANF) should be the reduction of poverty.
2. TANF should receive increased funding in order to serve all those who
need assistance.
3. The states should be given more flexibility regarding time limits and
work requirements.

All member communions of the NCCC acknowledge a moral obligation to provide
assistance to and justice for those who live and work on the margins of our
society. In May of 2000, the NCCC launched a ten-year campaign focused on
mobilizing Christians to take seriously the issue of poverty and to take
specific steps to challenge it with all the tools and energies at our
disposal. Toward that end, in the fall of 2000 we conducted a survey of our
member communions, their social service organizations, and our state and
local partners to learn what their experience had been with TANF. A copy of
our survey findings is available on the NCCC website at
www.ncccusa.org/publicwitness/tanfsurvey.html
<http://www.ncccusa.org/publicwitness/tanfsurvey.html>.  Also available is
an interreligious statement (www.ncccusa.org/publicwitness/tanfcall.html
<http://www.ncccusa.org/publicwitness/tanfcall.html>) signed by 25 religious
bodies that includes policy recommendations for TANF reauthorization.

Last spring, we held a national TANF consultation, which was attended by
invited representatives of our member communions, our state and local
ecumenical, and interfaith partner organizations from 29 states and the
District of Columbia. The input from this consultation and our survey helped
to shape our recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services
last fall. And just last month we hosted TANF Action Days in this very
building to share our concerns about the impact of TANF as it has been
experienced and evaluated by churches as they attempt to help those who live
in poverty.

There was unanimous agreement that the primary goal of Temporary Assistance
to Needy Families should be the reduction of poverty, not the reduction of
caseloads. TANF should be to provide assistance to low-income families to
enable them to have decent lives. No family should be worse off as a result
of moving from welfare to work than it was while receiving TANF assistance.
Religious social service organizations tell us that they are overwhelmed by
the demand for help, as TANF recipients struggle with the requirement that
they work. Many recipients cannot locate decent childcare. Often the people
they relied upon in the past are not available to help because they, too,
are TANF recipients who are required to work. For most, the cost is simply
too great or access and supply are so limited that it is impossible to get a
child to care in time for the mother to get to work.

Although the very robust economy of the last few years helped some TANF
recipients get jobs, it has driven up the cost of housing so that recipients
are more desperate than ever about finding shelter for their families. Our
survey revealed that churches are being overwhelmed by requests for help
with housing and temporary shelter.

TANF should receive increased funding in order to serve all those who need
assistance. The NCCC and its partners in the religious community advocate
increased funding for both TANF and child care. Specifically we believe that
funding for TANF should at least be indexed to the cost of living. Without
increased funding it will not be possible to provide the supportive services
that are essential to help people move from welfare to work at family
sustaining wages. Most of those who remain on TANF do so because they face
multiple barriers to employment that cannot be easily resolved.

The states should be given more flexibility regarding time limits and work
requirements. Flexibility has been one of the successful elements of TANF.
With flexibility states have the option of choosing a combination of
approaches to meet the needs of their communities without being locked in to
a national formula. When we asked our survey respondents to identify things
that kept TANF from working well, over and over they said that the time
limits are too strict and too short. Respondents focused particularly on the
need for more flexibility regarding remedial education, job training,
medical, mental health and dental care in order for people to be able to
function in the labor force. There was strong agreement that participating
in post-secondary education should count as fulfilling the work requirement.

We also believe that there are some people on TANF who cannot or should not
work - people with disabilities that may not meet the requirements to
qualify for Supplemental Security Income but nonetheless keep them from
being employable, and those with care giving responsibilities for young
children or elderly or handicapped relatives. We believe that states should
have the flexibility to exempt such people from time limits to the full
extent of the need and not just within the arbitrary limits set by the
current TANF law.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, as a representative of the faith
community, let me conclude by preaching this message to you. This
legislation affects the very people God calls us to serve. We know you share
the calling to serve others and implore this Committee to use its financial
might to provide the resources necessary to help those living in poverty.

There is a lot the Church can do, but it must be in partnership with, not as
a substitute for, government. This issue is so important to the NCCC that it
has been the featured topic in the last two issues of the annual Yearbook of
American and Canadian Churches.

We in the faith community are ready to work with you to help this nation
rise up and meet its obligation to its entire people. The measure of success
will be not simply in job placement, but in real poverty reduction. This
nation has the means; now we must have the will to provide the necessary
funding and flexibility regarding time limits and work, so we can
demonstrate that we truly care about all of Gods children.

-end-