call to renewal

The other day at work I met young woman who used to work in my office (in fact, her last day was the day that i interviewed for the position). So she came by the other day and I happened to be introduced to her again. She then began telling us of a protest she went to in Washington DC, and naturally my ears picked up.

She flew to DC in December to join 100 other Christians to protest the budget cuts of Welfare programs. She spoke clearly and passionatly and even though I had known her for 3 minutes I knew that I wanted to be like her. "We are believers" she said. "We believe in the Bible and live by it. The Bible has 2,000 some verses about taking care of the poor, and if you cut those out, the book will not hold together. If you claim to run a country based on God's teaching, you must take care of the poor!" She went on to talk about the inspiring people who lead the protest and then told us all 100+ of them were arrested but then released on a $50 bail.

It raises an important question to the religious right- what makes those verses used to justify stances on abortion and homosexuality more important than those verses about the poor?

I know that one justification given for the budget cut was to give more money to Hurricane relief. And that is important, I know. In a past editorial, the executive director of Horizon House inquired as to why people are more willing to give money to impoverished victims of a natural diaster than to impoverished victims of circumstance- the homeless out on the streets and the low income families in the inner city. I'll admit that it is easier to give money to the "innocent", victims of disaster, but there must be a balance. We must take care of everybody regardless of circumstance.

For more information go to www.calltorenewal.org

So today was my first day of "work", and it was basically an introduction to the organization and to the social problem of homelessness. One statistic that I learned is that the average hourly wage of a family on welfare is $7.62. To rent the average 2 bedroom apartment in this city, one must earn an hourly wage of $11.31! A brochure I read states that housing is considered affordable if it costs no more than 30% of ones monthly income. It also stated that single mothers on welfare often spend up to 75% of their income on childcare!

So this points out two obvious problems that contribute to homelessness, lack of affordable housing and lack of affordable childcare.

I also learned that homeless people rarely panhandle- beg for money on the street. Of course there are exceptions, but it seems that most panhandlers have housing and use money for drug fixes.

After 4 years of book learnin I'm seeing what its like in the real world.