Think and Act Anew

The Time is Running Out

The readings at Sunday’s liturgy reflected the urgency with which God expects us to act in carrying out his work.  As St. Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians, “the world in its present form is passing away.”

Even though the readings spanned centuries - from the times of King David to the century after Christ - the message is the same today: proclaim my message, follow me, work for the common good.  It is not an easy path to take. Two of our colleagues at Catholic Charities found a way, though, and have transformed the lives of hundreds as a result.

Kevin Concannon, now USDA Under Secretary for Food and Nutrition and Consumer Services, has spent his entire career helping others.  From the Catholic Charities movement in Maine and throughout his distinguished experience in government, he has demonstrated his commitment to ensuring that children live in hunger-free communities. He inspires us all to envision a society in which everyone has enough to eat and lives a life of opportunity and hope.

Janet Valente Pape has spent the past two decades working on domestic violence, homelessness, aging, disability, imprisonment, and racism issues - known contributors to poverty. While serving as Director of Catholic Charities in Wichita, Kansas, she supported and advanced programs that promoted diversity. As Chair of the CCUSA Board, she led a march across the bridge in Covington, Kentucky, to highlight the links between poverty and racism, and co-hosted the first ever Internet conference on poverty and racism. 

When we watch the news these days, we may feel that the world as we have known it is passing away.  We may feel that the problems of the economy and unemployment and poverty are too vast and complex to resolve. But Kevin and Janet are proof that one person can effect great change.

The Psalmist reminds us that God’s love and compassion “are from of old.” Like Jonah, like the Apostles, we are called to set aside the distractions of our daily lives and do God’s bidding in the here and now.

I’m sure there are hundreds of other humble heroes like Kevin and Janet, people who heed the urgency of God’s call. Who are the people helping those in your community for whom “the time is running out”?  Let me know. Let’s tell their stories here.

Do you know anyone who has made a difference in the lives of poor people? Started a food bank? Led a fight for housing?  Started a prison reading program?  Share their stories in the comment area below or on Facebook and follow the conversation.

Rebuilding the Dream of Martin Luther King

At Catholic Charities, we work every day to keep the dream of Martin Luther King alive. But as this recession has deepened, we see that dream threatened as layoffs and unemployment erode the progress black Americans have made to climb out of poverty and share in the American dream.

When Dr. King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech on August 28, 1963, about half of all African Americans lived in poverty. The efforts of Dr. King and the Civil Rights movement, coupled with the Johnson Administration’s War on Poverty in the 1960’s, marked the beginning of upward mobility towards the middle class for African Americans: good jobs, home ownership, a college education.

The country’s economic expansion in the 1990’s also did much to reduce poverty among African Americans, as related by the Economic Policy Institute:

Over the 1990s, there was strong job growth and the black poverty rate dropped 9.4 percentage points from 31.9 percent in 1990 to 22.5 percent in 2000. The black poverty rate in 2000 was the lowest black poverty rate on record. The 1990s decline was the biggest drop in black poverty since the 1960s. It was amazing to see the black poverty rate cut by almost a third in a mere 10 years.

But then came the Great Recession, and the number of African Americans living below the poverty line soared to 27.4 percent - nearly 11 million people - in 2010, up from its historic low just a few years earlier. (Contrast that with the overall official poverty of 15.1 percent, which rose from 11.3 percent in the same time period.) The Department of Labor reports that since the recession officially ended, the overall unemployment rate has fallen to 8.5 percent, while the black unemployment rate rose to 16.7 percent, and now stands at 15.8 percent. Even when employed, the median income of the black population is $32,068, lower than the overall median income of $49,445.

While the recession and ongoing slow recovery have hurt the American middle class as a whole, the black middle class has been especially hard hit because of massive layoffs in the federal, state and local public sector:  “About one in five black workers have public-sector jobs, and African-American workers are one-third more likely than white ones to be employed in the public sector,” as The New York Times noted in November 2011. Government jobs provided millions of African Americans a ladder out of poverty and into the middle class. Now, many are gone. While 1.9 million private sector jobs were added last year, 280,000 government jobs were lost. 

Before the recession, African Americans also were realizing the American dream of owning a home, and that, too, has reversed. Reviewing the mortgage foreclosure crisis in its report, Lost Ground, 2011, the Center for Responsible Lending finds that although the majority of affected borrowers have been white (5.1 percent foreclosure rate), people of color were almost twice as likely to have been impacted by the crisis, (9.8 percent). CRL also found that despite good credit scores and income, African Americans were offered loans at higher interest rates than white borrowers and were targets of predatory lending.

Yes, much progress has been made since Dr. King cried out his dream from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Many organizations, including Catholic Charities agencies, have stepped in since the 2008 financial crisis to stem the erosion of that dream.  Clearly, we all need to do more. America will not truly recover unless our African American brothers and sisters are included in that recovery.

We must keep the dream alive. We must rebuild an America for everyone. This is our hope. This is our faith.

Turn! Turn! Turn!

This week marked one of the few times when people around the world act in concert: we turned the pages of our calendars to a New Year.

At the beginning of each New Year, we look at the clean slate before us, and we make resolutions:  to lose weight… to save money… to exercise… to become better people.  We take comfort in knowing that change is not only possible, it is probable.   We believe we can turn our lives around.

In the 1960’s, a generation believed they could turn around the direction of the nation. Pete Seeger captured this spirit by turning some verses from the book of Ecclesiastes into “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” a song that became an anthem for peace and tolerance.  It was sung then by a variety of artists, from Seeger and Judy Collins to The Byrds, and more recently by Bruce Springsteen and Roger McGuinn. 

When I think about the 46 million Americans who were living in poverty at the end of 2011, with whom we work every day, I think of “Turn! Turn! Turn!” because each of them wants to turn the circumstances of their lives around. 

As our nation struggles to turn the economy around, “Turn! Turn! Turn!” can once again be our anthem.  

The lyrics tell us there is a time for every purpose under heaven.  Here’s what I think:

It is time to for us to find our common faith and heal our differences.

It is time for generous hearts.

It is time for a new generation to work together for the benefit of the common good.

It is time to recognize that buried deep within each human being is the image and likeness of God, including those who are marginalized.

It is time to turn our priorities around.

We can be better. We can make a difference.

I swear it’s not too late.

Reflection for the Christmas Season

In her book Dead Man Walking, Sr. Helen Prejean quotes an early Christian theologian who says: “There are many annunciations, but there are few incarnations.”  In other words, God is constantly sending us messages, but we simply do not recognize them.  I suspect that is the case because God is continually breaking into our world in mysterious and unexpected ways.  As the saints tell us: God interrupts the routines of our lives in ways that surprise us and do not meet our expectations.  (Do you think that Mary really expected to be visited by an angel?)

This is not surprising for those who work at Catholic Charities.  God comes to our door every day in disguises that most people cannot see through: in people whose behaviors and language can be offensive and erratic; whose appearance can push others away; whose lack of proper manners and etiquette disappoint our sensitivities.  And yet, we look deep within them and we see hidden underneath all of these superficial appearances the indelible and unmistakable image of our loving God.  And so we treat them with the respect and dignity which that image within them deserves and demands.  And we pull them into a circle of acceptance from the shadows of disregard that unfortunately marks most of their days. We are called--we are mandated--to do no less.   

At Christmas, Jesus appears in the form of a baby--vulnerable, weak, and yet full of wonderful potential.  We are reminded that every child is given to us as a sacred trust.  If that child is lacking in any way when we have the resources to ensure otherwise, then we as a society have failed the child and failed our calling to be God's people--a people that mirrors the unconditional love of our God.

I think people get this demand of our faith more profoundly at Christmastime than at any other time of the year.  We find ourselves immersed in mystery and wonder and cannot help but exhibit the good will in our hearts that we otherwise keep hidden.  The challenge is owning that spirit by our actions throughout the rest of the year.  Then an annunciation will truly become an incarnation.

In the words of the medieval mystic, Meister Eckhardt, what good is it for Christ to have come into the world so long ago, if he is not born anew in my heart this year?

A Million Empty Homes, but No Room at the Inn

Walk into just about any church this time of year and you will find a crèche, with a manger, Mary, Joseph, some shepherds, sheep and cattle. In the story of Jesus’s birth, as told by Matthew and Luke, there was no room at the inn for a tired pregnant woman and her weary spouse. As a result, the newborn Savior of the World was laid in a bed of straw in a cave.

When I look at these nativity scenes, I think about the thousands of American families who also have no rooms to call their own.  HUD reports that in 2010, nearly 242,000 persons in families were homeless on any given night.  Nearly one million children were homeless at times over the course of the 2009-2010 school year, according to public school officials.

Yet more than a million homes sit empty in cities and suburban lots and rural landscapes. More than 4 million homes have been foreclosed on.

Many foreclosed homes are now filled with mold. Others have been turned into marijuana farms.  A house in Detroit was covered in ice by artists who were making a point about the frozen housing market. Occupy Our Homes movements are springing up in cities around the country, demanding that banks negotiate with homeowners instead of foreclosing on them. 

The housing crisis is a human crisis. It is also an economic crisis that perpetuates the human crisis.

Back in May, the New York Times reported that economists were worried that growing inventory of bank-owned homes was further depressing home values, leading to more distressed sales or foreclosures. They estimated it would take three years or longer to sell all of the houses currently owned by the banks.

A few ideas about how to handle this enormous problem have been circulating recently.

In September, Glenn Hubbard, Dean of the Columbia Business School, along with Alan Boyce and Chris Mayer issued Streamlined Refinancings for up to 30 Million Borrowers, proposing a mass refinancing program that could benefit as many as 30 million borrowers who have government-backed mortgages. Unlike the other government programs to date, this plan would permit homeowners who are current on their mortgages to refinance at today's low rates and with reduced closing costs. Lowering the mortgage payments for these homeowners could generate savings of $70 to $100 billion per year, which would be pumped into the economy, increasing market demand, creating jobs, and stabilizing the housing market.

Tackling the problem of already foreclosed homes, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), HUD, and the Treasury Department has asked private investors, industry stakeholders, and community organizations to propose  ways that homes currently held by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) could be brought back to the market--e.g. through programs for previous homeowners to rent properties or for current renters to become owners through a lease-to-own option.

Will any of these ideas work?  What are the drawbacks? Are there innovative approaches in your community to keep families in their homes that could work on a national or regional basis? What would you do with these empty houses?  Post your ideas here.

We need to keep people in their houses instead of adding to the thousands of families seeking shelter each night.  And open the doors to those that sit empty because of an economic crisis that refuses to resolve. Because while we sing “Away in the Manger” this Christmas season, we know that for too many women, men and children, a night without a home is not that far away.

¿Cómo se dice “Please Pass the Fabric Softener”?

Sometimes the solution to a problem pops up in the most unexpected of places.

For customers of the Magic Touch laundry, many of whom are new Spanish-speaking immigrants, even the most mundane of chores can be … a chore.  Trying to understand the various options for wash, rinse and dry, or even just asking for change, they find themselves face to face with a language barrier. 

So one of the regulars, Hector Canonge, an artist, decided to hold weekly English classes at the laundromat, where people regularly gather. He called his project the Inwood Laundromat Language Institute, which was conceived initially as a work of public art. 

Sitting around folding tables in the middle of the Laundromat, the students first work on vocabulary related to the task at hand: “clothes,” “pants,” “soap.”  Then, using flashcards and the environment as tools, he moves to more advanced aspects of the English language, like possessives and verbs that are difficult to learn from a text book: “my sweater,” “wash the clothes.” The students come away with a real-world vocabulary they can use in their day-to-day lives.

This is a perfect example of thinking and acting anew. Instead of expecting ESL students to show up at a school or library or even a church, this artist used his creativity to conceive of a totally new approach that met people in the stream of their lives.  Would this work in other urban or suburban neighborhoods around the country? Is co-location an idea that can be used to help people gain other skills needed to move from poverty to self-sufficiency?  Artists have a special gift of looking at the world in new and unexpected ways. Should we tap the artists in our communities for more ideas? 

Read more about The Inwood Laundromat Language Institute in the Manhattan Times, and let me know what you think.

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I would like to add a note today. Over the next few weeks members of the Catholic Charities network will offer reflections based on the daily Mass readings for the 2011 Advent/Christmas season. Please join me in reading them on the Catholic Charities USA website, and post any reflections of your own here on the blog.

Feed the 5000

And All Ate and Were Filled

There is a subtle hum of joyful anticipation in the air. Flights have been confirmed. Turkeys and cranberries bought. Pies readied for the oven.

Thanksgiving, I’ve heard over and over again, is many people’s favorite holiday. It brings out the best in us – gathering around the table to celebrate family and friendship. It also is the one week out of the year that as a nation we gather food and funds to feed our neighbors who don’t have the financial wherewithal to set out a lavish Thanksgiving spread.

It reminds me of the miracle performed by Jesus in the fields of Bethsaida: the Feeding of the Five Thousand.

Jesus, looking for a little quiet time as we all do, found himself surrounded by crowds of people who had left their towns to follow him. Evening approached and it was clear that this now huge throng could soon turn into a hungry mob. The disciples, who frequently had trouble coming up with the right thing to do, suggested that Jesus dismiss the crowd so they could go and buy something for their dinner. Jesus, however, had another idea.

“There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.”

But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”

Then he said, “Bring them here to me,” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.

They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over—twelve wicker baskets full. (Matthew 14:15-20)

Our Thanksgiving traditions echo this Gospel. We feed extended family and welcome friends. We organize community dinners so no one need be home alone. We take some of what we have bought and give it to food pantries. There are even leftovers.

The important thing here, though, is that we follow in the steps of Jesus by feeding thousands of five thousands on this one day each year. We may not perform miracles, but we bring the Gospels to life in an extraordinary outpouring of love for our neighbor without judgment. In doing so we demonstrate our love for God and each other.

I’d like to give you something else to chew on as you reach for seconds this Thursday. What would our nation look like if we acted like this during the other 51 weeks of the year? If we can dwell in the house of the Lord—in love—on this day, why not every day?

I am convinced that we can, that we should, and that we must. For the love of God.

Feed the Community. Feed the Soul.

Several months ago, I was intrigued by a headline in The Boston Globe: “Is Ron Shaich Out to Lunch?” The story was an interview with Ron Shaich, the CEO of Panera Bread Co., about a crazy idea he was proposing for his company: “Let me pop this idea on you,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about starting a café where we don’t make people pay for their food.” His colleagues thought he wanted to start a soup kitchen.

But he had something different in mind. Shaich was inspired by a segment he had seen on NBC’s Nightly News about the Same Cafe in Denver, Colorado, which serves fresh, healthy, homemade food to anyone who comes. They ask only that customers pay what they can. Shaich realized that concept – which treats everyone with dignity and creates community – could be scaled by applying the business techniques that made Panera Bread cafés successful.

He created a model that became the unique, pay-what-you-can Panera Cares cafés, first in Clayton, Missouri, and then in two other locations in Dearborn, Michigan, and Portland, Oregon. The idea behind this venture: trust people; they'll often surprise you.

Shaich spoke at the 2010 TEDx St. Louis Conference shortly after opening the first Panera Cares. He explains his concept not only for the cafés, but also for the emphasis on our shared responsibility to each other as underpinning our humanity. He calls on other large US companies to apply their expertise to social problems – food distribution, home foreclosure, renewable energy.

His speech is inspiring, even exciting, for those of us in the Catholic Charities network who are searching for new models to reduce poverty in America.

While Panera works to find a model that can be self-sustaining across a national network, local community efforts continue to pop up.

In October, rock musician Jon Bon Jovi opened Soul Kitchen in his hometown of Red Bank, New Jersey. Red Bank is known as a high-end shopping mecca, but, on the other side of the train tracks that divide the town, 1 in 10 residents live below the poverty level. Bon Jovi’s idea for Soul Kitchen is that diners who can afford leave a donation of $20 to cover their meal and a stranger’s. Those who can’t pay earn their meal by working at the restaurant or in the community. Bon Jovi calls Soul Kitchen “the hottest café in all of New Jersey.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Soon, we will be sharing food around the Thanksgiving table with our friends and family.  That feeling of community and fellowship is the experience these cafés are trying to replicate but, this time, by widening the circle. Watch the videos. Give them some thought. Maybe while you are sitting at one of these cafes. If you are inspired, share your ideas with us – maybe the next big idea will begin right here.

That Growl in the Belly, Multiplied

What does hunger feel like?

That’s what Catholic Charities and other faith communities set out to do today – to find out what it’s really like to be a family that depends on food stamps (now called SNAP, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) – when we began our fourth annual Food Stamp Challenge this morning.  We went shopping at a Safeway supermarket in Washington, D.C., just steps from Capitol Hill; this market serves a mixed-income community, so was a good place to put to the test the food stamp allocation of $31.50 per week per person.  

This is some of what I was able to buy:

• A bag of apples for $4.99 (Thank God they are in season!)
• A bag of rice and a bag of lentils for $1.99 each
• A loaf of bread (wheat) for $.99 and a dozen eggs for $2.40
• Two boxes of pasta for $3.00 and 2 jars of tomato sauce for $2.50

My diet will be restricted to meals created from the above ingredients only for the next week. I will report back on my success (or failure); I expect I’ll get that growl in my belly that would normally signal “time for a snack.” But this week will be different.  How would you create a week’s worth of healthy meals from my ingredient list? I’m open to all suggestions. 

But while I might experience some discomfort over the next 7 days, I know that it will end. Not so for millions of Americans.  In 2000, as we turned the calendar ahead to a new millennium, there were 17 million people dependent on food stamps.  Today there are more than 45 million; about half of them are children. Most of the adults work, but if they qualify for the SNAP program it means they make less than $1,174 a month, or $14,088 a year.  There are real lives behind these numbers.  As the economy continues to struggle and jobs are lost or scarce, more and more people who need help come from our communities.  

With Congress considering cutting the budget for SNAP, we must redouble our efforts to focus the country’s attention on the realities of hunger and poverty.  I invite you to join us in the Food Stamp Challenge.  Here are some ideas about what you can do:

• Shop at your local supermarket for a week’s worth of groceries spending only the current food stamp allocation - $31.50 for each person in your household.  Share your experience and your meal plan with others on this blog.
• Contact your member of Congress; tell him or her that the budget should not be balanced on the backs of the poor, and ask specifically that SNAP be saved.
• Write a letter or op-ed for your local newspaper. Use this link to find news outlets in your community.
• Organize a group in your community or parish to take the Food Stamp Challenge together. Report back to your parish, and share your findings with us.

Feeding the hungry is mandated by Scripture and is one of the core tenets of Catholic social justice.  As we experience the tough choices families make to stretch their food budgets and publicly share our journey we will make their needs more visible and our commitment to change even stronger.  I hope you will share your thoughts and your ideas here. Let’s learn from each other.

The Devastating Reality of Poverty

Last month the Census Bureau  released its report on poverty in America in 2010 and revealed what we at Catholic Charities know all too well: poverty in our nation is rising, fast.  In 2010 the poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009 and 11.3 percent in 2000.

These are not just statistics. There are real lives behind those numbers. More than 46 million Americans were deemed officially “poor” last year, almost three million more than in 2009; 20.5 million Americans live below 50 percent of the government’s poverty threshold – which is about $5,570 per year. Twice as many of our fellow countrymen and women are living in desperation than ten years ago.  

Since the financial crisis began, the number of Americans coming to Catholic Charities for help with their basic needs – housing, food, prescriptions – has risen from 8.5 million in 2008 to 10.3 million in 2010. This is the grim reality of poverty in America today. Yet there is a growing mindset that poor people don’t deserve government help.  They should see what we see.

When you put a face on poverty, when you see more and more people who are losing jobs and homes and are hungry, you have a different perspective.  You realize that for us to move forward as a nation we must reduce the number of people living in poverty and repair the systems that are causing more to slip from the middle class into conditions they could not have imagined five years ago.  It is a moral issue our nation is obliged to address. Why don’t we?

There are many reasons, but one of them is a growing negative attitude towards poor people, e.g., “they are lazy,” “they should work harder.” David Brooks explored in his New York Times column last week, “The Limits of Empathy:”

Empathy orients you toward moral action… The problem comes when we try to turn feeling into action. Empathy makes you more aware of other people’s suffering… but it doesn’t seem to help much when that action comes at a personal cost.

Empathy, he argues, is insufficient:

People who actually perform pro-social action don’t only feel for those who are suffering, they feel compelled to act by a sense of duty. Their lives are structured by sacred codes.

We are well aware that we can’t always depend on how people feel to create needed change. That is why commonly held principles are essential for a society to exist. As Americans we look to the Constitution and its charge to provide for the general welfare. As people of faith our sacred code is rooted in Scripture: “Love your neighbor.”  As Brooks’ would say, our code “isn’t just a set of rules. It’s a source of identity. It’s pursued with joy.”

Pope Benedict XVI, addressing the global economic crisis in Caritas in Veritate, reminds us what it means to love our neighbor. Our future, he says, “depends, above all, on a recognition that the human race is a single family” and not just individuals who happen to live next to each other.   I mean no offense to the Holy Father, but this is nothing new. This passage from Deuteronomy dates back thousands of years:

If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be.

We know many people are anxious about our economy and its potential impact on their lives. But we urge them to open their hearts, lend a hand, and help us reverse the devastating reality of poverty that cripples too many in our American family.  We act out of faith. We pursue our mission with joy and hope.  Because no matter how hard we try to ignore their demands, charity and justice together are the two feet of discipleship.