I was disheartened by a recent Rasmussen Poll that showed 64% of Americans do not think that government anti-poverty programs work.  I read this after a conversation with a friend who expressed concern about the direction of this country because of the growing number of people receiving “welfare”.

Catholic Social Service has worked with people in poverty and the Food Assistance Program (formally known as Food Stamps) and other anti-poverty programs for a number of years.  This is what I know:

• The average time on Food Assistance (FA) is 17 months.

-- 27% of recipients receive for 6 months or less.
-- 41.5% receive for one year or less.

• Only 14% of FA recipients report no income

• 31% of FA recipients are earning income

-- 11% have income from child support
-- 27% have income from social security
-- 23.5% receive disability income

• 57% of FA recipients have a high school diploma or GED

• 9 % recipients have more than a high school education

• 35% of eligible people do not receive Food Assistance

• The Food Assistance program maintains a 98% accuracy rate

I came to understand the importance of the social safety net of this country through the food stamp program by watching a video celebrating its 30^th anniversary.  This video shares that story.

You will never hear me argue that government anti-programs are the only solutions for poverty.  You will also never hear me suggest that government anti-poverty programs are long term solutions for individuals and families.  What I do suggest and promote is an idea that programs like Food Assistance is a hands up opportunity to help people out of poverty.

Food Assistance helps bridge the gap for people who have lost their job, experienced a reduction in hours, a medical hardship or a need for assistance when starting a family.  Food Assistance helps make certain that children don’t go to bed hungry and that our elderly receive good nutrition.

The greatest value of government anti-poverty programs is the ability to leverage those programs with community and faith based organizations.  The Teen Moms program of Catholic Social Service is an example of how to help make government anti-poverty programs work.  Most of the participants start the program receiving the benefit of government anti-poverty programs.  Through their time in the program the teen mothers set goal to increase their education level and to improve their employment.  Without the benefit of the government anti-poverty programs it would be more difficult for Catholic Social Service to help these young women at the level we do.  It would be a tremendous challenge to receive the kind of donations needed to provide the level of assistance that would provide food, medical care and cash assistance necessary to meet basic needs.

Some decisions have been made to make the government anti-poverty program less effective.  When welfare reform took place in 1996 the state of Kansas made some choices. They decided that any job was good job. So people who were receiving Food Stamps and Medicaid lost both when they got the job. Often the job was part time and did not include health care.  Kansas also made the decision to only provide child care assistance for mothers who were working. They would not help mothers who wanted to go to school to increase their skills so they could be more employable, advance in their careers, and best meet the needs of their children.  The state also established a five year lifetime limit for cash assistance.

Today I am very encouraged by some of the things I heard at a recent meeting with state officials discussing Medicaid. There appears to be an interest in stepping people off Food Assistance and Medicaid gradually as people get a job and improve their ability to care for themselves and their family.  Governor Sam Brownback has been very open about his desire to remove the marriage penalty that is inherent in our current poverty reducing programs.  Secretary Rob Siedlecki has focused energy in going after scams that defraud the state and take benefits from those who need them.

I have learned that government anti-poverty programs work.  They work most effectively when enhanced with a strong community or faith based effort.  Pope Benedict explains that it is the responsibility of the state (government) to create a just society.  He also reminds us that our responsibility for charity will always be there.

I am a news junkie. I like to get news from any source available. My days of watching TV dramas are gone and replaced with cable news shows. When the last talk radio station in Dodge City changed to music I had to get satellite radio. My entry into Facebook has not been so much about creating relationships as it has been about learning what other people are doing and talking about. But my favorite place for news is Twitter. Now, almost every second of every day someone is giving me a new piece of news. I have a broad range of “tweeps” I follow to make sure that I receive many perspectives.

I have two particular interests. I am very interested in politics and the human behavior of politics. I follow all my representatives in congress and in the state legislature. I follow the president and vice president. I follow all the primary news sources and all the US and Kansas governmental agencies I can. I do not follow candidate sites or individual reporters. I am also very interested in the social teaching of the Catholic Church. I find the breadth and depth of that teaching fascinating and it is amazing to watch the conversations and the many ways that teaching is addressed.

One would think that I spend all my time on Twitter. I don’t, but because my Twitter feed is on my phone I can take a couple a minutes here and there throughout the day to see if there is anything that I just have to know about. I have an “app” to save those things that I need to look at later.

There are few times that I just have to stop and read. And there are few “tweeps” that I begin to wonder about when I haven’t seen their avatar come by for a while. That happened to me this week. Someone re-tweeted a message from Busted Halo--an online magazine sponsored by the Paulists and written by young people for young people. Their name and focus of interest was intriguing so I added them to my "follow" list.

A couple of days later a copy of The Catholic Worker arrived at the office and as I began to thumb through, a reprinted article from Busted Halo jumped out at me. It was written by a young woman, Vanessa Gonzalez Kraft, who was telling the story of finding her family without health insurance to cover the birth of their second child. She wrote about how she and her husband, despite their efforts to make all the right decisions for their family, found themselves without maternity coverage on their health plan. She wrote about how she learned that many women in this country are in the same situation. She wrote about the need for health care reform, not only for her situation, but for the
many other women in the same situation.

I was particularly struck by the amount of work she went to in an effort to learn the issues. Her loyalty to the Catholic Church appeared to drive much of that work, leaving her readers with one of the best explanations of the church’s position on health care reform that I have read. She highlighted three issues that prevented the US Bishops from supporting the Affordable Care Act:

• The language in the legislation does not specifically state that no government funding will go toward paying for elective abortions.
• It excludes immigrants
  
• Does not have specific language protecting the consciences of doctors and institution from refusing services they believe to be morally wrong.

In a similar story, Anita Maling also shares in the video below how her family struggled with gaps in health care after her daughter was diagnosed with cancer. On the other hand, Anita expresses relief; with the passage of the Affordable Health Care Act, her daughter cannot be denied health insurance because of her pre-existing condition.

Statistics and studies can tell one story but nothing is quite as powerful as the true, touching accounts given by real families working to stay healthy and contribute to our country. Click here for additional stories featuring a young adult, a senior and a small business owner. According to the Catholic Health Association, the new health care reform act is already assisting individuals and families all over the country.

In the end, Vanessa and Anita are both right. We need health care reform. We need to meet the responsibility of our social teaching as described by Archbishop Dolan: “basic health care for all is a moral imperative.” The archbishop’s statement and the concerns with the passed legislation reminds us that we still have work to do to meet both obligations. I appreciate the reminder and the opportunity to ponder what came from my new source of news at Busted Halo, and I pause a little more than most when a new tweet comes my way.

When Boot Hill Casino and Resort was being built, Bishop Gilmore challenged us to work to balance the economic impact with the potential harm.  Our work with the Southwest Kansas Problem Gambling Task Force is doing just that.  If you want to learn more about the signs of problem gambling and the help that is available plan on attending the following event:

Gambling Addiction by Frances Waldren

6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

Thursday, July 7, 2011

At the Learning Center & First Stop Enrollment

Room 1

308 W. Frontview St.

Dodge City, KS  67801

Please come and enjoy the evening with us!

(This event is sponsored by CASA-Children Worth Saving, Inc.)

Please RSVP if you would like to attend to: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Phone: 620-225-1278

You are cordially invited to come learn and discuss a very important topic that is plaguing our world more each day!  Frances Waldren, Problem Gambling Specialist with SRS, will present information about gambling and gambling addiction, signs to look for in loved ones, and what the community can do to help.

I have been involved with adoption for over 20 years and there seems to be some myths that we just can't move past.  As a matter of fact, the children my husband and I adopted as infants are now 25 and 21.  We were asking the same questions.

As we are planning for a new series of adoption workshops for prospective adoptive families I thought I might share a few.