Give a man a fish he eats for a day; teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime. This saying attributed as a Chinese proverb misses what is likely the most important issue in that it only applies if the man has access to the lake.
My “entry point” on the issue of poverty came through the understanding of the real pressures faced by hundreds if not thousands of members of our community, pressures brought about because they have a criminal record. What do these “pressures” look like?
- Chances for employment are reduced dramatically with a criminal record. Staffing agencies as well as state agencies admit that it is virtually impossible to find work with a willing employer for those with a criminal record.
- At any point in time in Alamance County there are between 1,500 and 1,800 men and women on court ordered probation. With supervised probation comes a court mandated fee of $40.00 per month and may be raised higher if restitution is required. Failure to pay is a violation of the terms of probation and can result in being ordered back to prison.
- According to estimates, as much as 80% of delinquent child support payments are due to the inability of the parent to pay because he or she is unable to find a job due to a criminal history. The courts can order jail or prison time if the parent is found to be in criminal contempt of the child support order.
These are but a few examples of what faces many in our community. So Sustainable Alamance was started in 2008 to help answer the question, “Can we have a truly sustainable local economy if many citizens are not allowed to participate?”. My thinking was that if we can just find some work, any work, we can get a handle on this problem.
What I learned was quite different. Poverty is too often discussed as a lack of physical stuff, primarily money. Poverty is not a lack of money but a lack of resources or better yet access to resources. Poverty is also broken relationships, with friends, family, community. Poverty is a lack of hope, hope that I might make it out, hope that I might find a job that allows me to have child care, and that I am not forced to make a choice between food and education, but somehow I might have both.
Poverty is much larger than a job. Moving out of poverty requires a head and heart change. To make an impact on poverty we must be able to build relationships with the poor, so they will see that we truly value them as people. We must change our view of poverty as people and neighborhoods with deficiencies to be served, but as underutilized resources that need to be acknowledged, mined and developed, not just providing services to and for, but doing life WITH the poor. When we do “to” and “for” the poor, we are sending a message that they have nothing that we value in return, and we are trying make it less painful to cope with poverty. When we do life WITH the poor, we see that they have talents and dreams, and we merge our resources with their dreams so we walk together out of poverty.
My views on poverty have been impacted by the work of Ruby Payne (What Every Church Member Should Know About Poverty), Robert Lupton (Toxic Charity), and Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett (When Helping Hurts).
It is difficult to imagine the cold and wet, the isolation and the alienation. Homelessness seems so distant to many of us. We ask ourselves, “How can this happen?” And yet it can, and it does.
For diverse and sometimes complex reasons, it happens to ordinary people. And sadly, over time, the streets disconnect them from the rest of us. Homelessness too often and too easily destroys the human spirit.
People in communities across America want to live in a place where they have a chance to thrive. This is true in all kinds of places: small towns, rural areas, urban neighborhoods, American Indian Reservations, and others.
People talk about it in different ways. But when they talk about what holds their community back, one thing that comes up is poverty. Poverty is everywhere. It may look different….but there are things about poverty that look the same in all these places.
Poverty may look different to each of us as well. A single parent may see the cost of housing in terms of how many jobs it takes to pay for a place to live. To a senior who lived through the great depression, poverty may not look all that bad. For people who live on tribal lands, losing their culture and land may be worse than the lack of money.
- Nearly 46 million people in the US live at or below the poverty line: That’s 15% of the total population or nearly one out of every 8 Americans. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2012. U.S. Census Bureau.
- More than 16 million children or 22% of all our children under 18 are living in poverty. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010
And here in Alamance County:
- A household would need to earn $ 27,359 (about $ 13.15/hr) to afford the fair market rent of $ 684/mo for a two-bedroom apartment. A minimum wage worker would need to work 72 hours per week to afford that same apartment. Source: http://www.huduser.org/portal/datasets/fmr/fmrs/FY2014_code/2014summary.odn
- At Allied Churches, in 2013, we served over 655 different people in the shelter, that’s an average 70-85 men and women 365 days a year, including families with children each night. Additionally, we serve approximately 630 families each month at our Food Pantry, and, we provide meals for between 120-170 people twice a day, five days a week, in the Community Soup Kitchen
Mary has been coming to ACAC on and off for the past several months. This past week she received some fresh milk and cereal because she didn’t have enough money to feed her little girls. “It was a blessing because it’s good food; the people are very nice and give you what you need, and they have things that kids like,” says Mary. “My husband works but at the end of the month we just run out of money. I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t have Allied Churches.”
This story, our stories are more than stories about poverty; they are stories about relationships and communities. As we continue to build and rebuild Burlington and Alamance County, we should stop for a moment – step back and ask ourselves:
- What kind of Burlington do we need to have to worship, to live, and to work in 50 years from now? And
- How will we be judged 50 years from now in our efforts to build a good city, a just city, a charitable city?
Why must we value today, affordability? Why must we value affordability in Burlington’s changing communities? Why is affordability of incredible importance? For me, we must value affordability because beyond anything else, we value people. It makes us people who are related in the very essence of our being, people who have to live in community, in relationship to one another.
We value shelter. We need to respect the primary demand to have food and to have medical care; the demand to be clothed, according to seasonal variations wherever we live; the demand to be sheltered, not only against the weather and other extremities for protection, but also to find a place where we can learn what it means to live in an ever broader and larger community.
We value family and community because we realize, protect, and sustain our dignity and our rights precisely in relationship with others. And the basic building block of community is the family. Housing harbors families who need to be supported and housing exists in the communities that need to be fostered in order to protect those families.
And, we value opportunity. Communities connect to economic and political systems. And where houses are placed has a direct effect on wealth, education, employment, health, transportation, and safety. Housing is linked to opportunity, both individual and social.
The concern that brings us together around poverty reaches out to many more basic concerns, to social and structural change. When we advocate for affordable housing, for example, we are really advocating for people, for families, for community and for opportunity. And when we develop affordable housing, we are really developing people and families, community and opportunity. If we truly respect human dignity, and we want to protect basic rights, support families, foster community, and promote opportunity, we will value affordable housing.
Mary’s story of Allied Churches illustrates the vital role that charities play. Mary’s family needs food today, not a debate about international economics. People who care about hunger and housing must respond directly – by helping a family in need, volunteering at a community agency or supporting private agencies that assist poor people here and in other countries. But effective help for homeless people, hungry people, people living in poverty, walks on two legs – the leg of charity and the leg of public policy. People of good will must respond to immediate needs with immediate help; but the fight against homelessness & hunger, against poverty, won’t move forward if they (if we) don’t also use the other leg and advocate for better governmental policies.
To conclude, I am reminded of the words of Martin Luther King: “A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
In the United States, there are approximately 400,000 children in foster care, and they spend, on average, two years in the system. Although North Carolina has seen a decrease in the number of children in foster care over the past five years, there were still almost 14,000 in 2010. Through no fault of their own, children in foster care are victims of abuse, neglect, and severe trauma, almost always at the hands of those charged with caring for them.
Children in foster care often come from impoverished homes. Children in poverty tend to be exposed to food with lower nutritional value, struggle academically, lack hope and optimism, and suffer insecurities and distress (Jensen, 2013). In short, poor children suffer a disproportionate share of deprivation, hardship, and bad outcomes (Lewit, Terman, & Behrman, 1997).
So imagine with me for a minute what life is like for typical children entering foster care. They were born into poverty or very close to it. Their parents might be some combination of absent, addicted, abusive, illiterate, and distressed. They may have experienced multiple traumatic events, which will likely affect their ability to trust others, their sense of personal safety, and their ability to manage emotions. Half of them, statistically speaking, will not finish high school, and of those that do graduate, only 6% will receive a college diploma (Kennedy, 2011). This is not the kind of life we would wish for anyone.
So what do we do? In yesterday’s Washington Post, Kevin Welner (2013) wondered if President Obama, in his State of the Union speech tomorrow evening, would recommend appropriate treatments to alleviate the repercussions of wealth inequality in the U.S. “[E]ducation researchers like me have been hollering from the rooftops,” he wrote, “hoping policymakers and others will understand that poverty is the biggest impediment to children’s academic success” (para. 1). He cited an October 2013 report from the Southern Education Foundation, which found that 48% of the nation’s 50 million public school students were in low-income families. Did you hear that? Almost half of our public school students in the U.S. are living near the poverty line.
Like Welner, I hope that President Obama has the wisdom and spends the political capital necessary to advocate for policies that will ameliorate the causes and effects of poverty. That is, in my opinion, part of his job. My job, however, is different. I have to look around me and decide what role I can play in the reduction of poverty, what I can do to improve the lives of others that are caught in cycles of neglect and abuse.
My wife and I decided four years ago to open our home to children in need of care. We have the arms to hold them, the lips to kiss them, the food to feed them, the beds in which they can rest peacefully, and the strength to defend them from harm. We do not have magic powers to heal them, but what we do have we give freely and in abundance.
I recognize that obliterating poverty is complex and will require action on numerous fronts over a long period of time. But I firmly believe that part of the work can be accomplished by fostering children who are the innocent victims.
The United Way of Alamance County is an organization of donors and volunteers that to identifies human service needs, educates and involves the community and acquires and allocates funds to address these needs in a manner that ensures accountability and maximum effectiveness
United Way of Alamance County is uniquely qualified to discuss local data on poverty and all aspects of human service needs that directly relate to poverty. United Way of Alamance County is the primary partner involved in the Alamance County Community Needs Assessment to address issues such as transportation, domestic violence/sexual assault, adult/juvenile crime, elder/child abuse, education, financial stability, employment, homelessness, food insecurity, housing, etc. ….all issues that directly relate to poverty. Funding priorities for United Way and others are based on this report that is produced every 4 years in collaboration with ARMC, Alamance County Health Dept., Healthy Alamance and Elon University.
United Way of Alamance County funds programs and services that currently exist for the poor in Alamance County including:
- Medication assistance and healthcare for the indigent and uninsured
- Assistance for seniors applying for Medicare Part D
- Financial counseling, foreclosure prevention
- Adult day programs for elderly and disabled (so caregivers can go to work)
- Shelters for homeless, domestic violence victims and those with mental illness, substance abuse or alcohol dependencies
- Financial assistance for after-school and summer programs for working parents
- Self-sufficiency programs connecting people to job training, financial literacy and educational opportunities…to move people from being tax dollar consumers to tax payers
- Legal assistance to prevent evictions, obtain expungements and benefits
- Assistance for persons recovering from the financial and social challenges of felony conviction and incarceration
- Disaster relief for those who experience loss of their home due to fire
- Financial assistance for utilities, transportation, housing, returning to school and childcare
Without these safety nets of existing services more families would be experiencing poverty.
In addition to providing funding, we have several direct services serving the poor:
- VITA – (Voluntary Income Tax Assistance) – provides volunteer tax preparation for low-income, disabled, veterans and elderly.
- EFSP –Federal Emergency Food and Shelter Funds – providing rent assistance, food, prepared meals and shelter dollars to approved applicants.
- Duke Energy Funds –for heating, cooling and electric for low-income customers and residents
- NC 211.org and 2-1-1 a database of programs and services United Way of Alamance County manages for all Alamance County resources.
- Community Guide to Assistance – A comprehensive brochure of phone numbers organized around critical need areas for consumers, providers, for-profit and non-profit organizations. The Guide is a compliment to NC2-1-1. Over 10,000 printed copies have been distributed in Alamance County. The Guide may also be found at http://www.uwalamance.org/find-help and is also available in large print.
- Project Homeless Connect – The last Wednesday evening in January is designated by HUD (Housing and Urban Development – Federal Agency that provides low income housing funding) as time to get a Point in Time Count of the number of homeless people in our community. Federal and State agencies use this count to determine housing funding. It is more than just counting; however, there is a survey that has to be completed for each person counted. As you can imagine, this is a difficult task and we are sure we send in a smaller number than what the true number should be. In order to get a more accurate count, Project Homeless Connect has been set in place for Thursday, January 30 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Hope Church (former Brookwood Baptist on West Davis Street in Burlington).
When the community is in crisis and needs solutions…they look to United Way for the answers. Most recently, as soon as word spread of the closing of our community’s largest food pantry, local agencies, churches, businesses and interested community people looked to United Way to facilitate a response and a solution and we did…and continue to work on long-term solutions.
United Way is in the trenches when it comes to data analysis, support for needed services, initiating new solutions, collaborations among nonprofits and evaluating needs and progress.
The causes of impoverishment in our community and throughout the world are many. Among them count heavily the nature of the surrounding environment and that of the local economy. Where the land has suffered stress and no longer produces crops and materials, and where the local economy provides few safe and remunerative employment options, profound impoverishment results.
At Iva Kaufman and Associates, we seek out and support innovative programs to address both environmental and economic distress, intimately related factors which feed back upon each other. Through a combination of services, we facilitate the creation of solutions to these twin concerns in some of the world’s locations hardest hit with scarcity and all its ramifications.
For example, in Mexico and Guatemala, we support a project which alleviates poverty by reaching out to economically disadvantaged women with the small loan financing they need to set up their own businesses. Administered by the Namaste Foundation, a micro-lending non-profit based in San Francisco, the project is called Namaste Direct and has successfully assisted many rural Mexican and Guatemalan women with not only the financial means to engage in enterprise, but also with ongoing small business advice.
A second project reaching directly into the areas most affected by deep poverty centers around the planting of hardy and productive trees in areas of the world deeply impacted by environmental degradation, which results from a host of factors.
Right now Allied Churches is losing $10,000 every month.
My name is Jensen Roll and I am a sophomore here at Elon University, majoring in Social Entrepreneurship. Today I would like to talk with you about creative and innovative social businesses and how they can improve our community. Social businesses are businesses that focus on a social capital rather than a monetary capital. In Alamance County a good example of this is H.O.P.E, which stands for Helping Other People Eat. H.O.P.E is a new social enterprise that four of my friends from Elon and I, have started. H.O.P.E is seeking to provide sustained financial support for local food kitchens, like Allied Churches. The idea for H.O.P.E came through identifying the current problems in many nonprofit organizations here in Alamance County. There isn’t currently enough money in the business of helping people, and not everyone who is able to financial help those in need, is aware of the current need.
We believe that if people truly understood the need of the impoverished and hungry, they might be more willing to help them. To do this we have set up a certification system with restaurants in Alamance County. When you go out to eat at a H.O.P.E Certified restaurant there will be an opportunity for you to support Allied Churches. In the bill there is an area that will ask you if you would be interested in donating a dollar towards Helping Other People Eat. This donation will go directly to Allied Churches. H.O.P.E Certified restaurants will also have different opportunities for the customers to learn about hunger in Alamance County through table tents and different forms of media.
So as I hope you’re beginning to see, we are bringing people together around the cause of hunger and food insecurity, through donations and building awareness. As this happens, the number of people who are contributing to places like Allied Churches increases exponentially. This is unlike the current structure where a few generous donors are the main supporters. With H.O.P.E now there are hundreds, hopefully thousands of people, making small contributions towards Helping Other People Eat. Not only does this get more people involved and aware, it also gives Allied Churches a more sustainable source of income. Right now if their main donors were to stop donating, they would be very negatively affected, but with the H.O.P.E model, that is not an issue that would arise.
As we move forward as a community it is ideas like H.O.P.E that can be used to transform the way we think about business and to improve our community. To do this we need to start thinking in a more social entrepreneurial manner. We need to work together and take action as we are tackling some of life’s biggest challenges.