[Faith & Hunger] Faith and Hunger: SIgn on Letter to Gov. Paterson welfare, health signers needed

[Dunleamark at aol.com]

Dear Friends:

The Faith and Hunger  Network has written a letter to send to Gov. Paterson 
from the faith community.  The text is below. If you as a faith leader and/or 
your faith group would like  to sign on to this letter, please send how you 
would like your name and  affiliation listed on the letter to dunleamark at aol.com 
by Sept. 8. You can call  Mark at 518 434-7371 xt 1# if you have any 
questions. You can also fax the info  to 518 434-7390

Feel free to forward it to  others.

Thanks. And thanks to all who have already signed  on.

Mark Dunlea
Hunger Action Network of NYS

Faith  and Hunger Network

Dear Governor Paterson:

As  representatives of the faith community in New York State, we urge you to 
provide  moral leadership in ending the problems of hunger, homelessness and 
poverty in  our communities. Specifically, we urge you to propose restoring the 
value of  welfare benefits to at least its 1990 level and to propose quality 
affordable  health care for all.

We speak with urgency and embrace the biblical  mandates to feed the hungry, 
give shelter to the homeless, and clothe the  naked.

Poverty diminishes hope and crushes the human spirit. The  Jewish, Christian 
and Islamic traditions speak for the dignity of people in  poverty in God’s 
sight, and that it is society’s responsibility to address and  alleviate such 
inequities. Helping people in need is a matter of fundamental  principle, 
responsibility, righteousness and justice, not an act of charity.  

We believe it is immoral that in this the richest nation, New York  leads in 
the growing gap between the poor and rich. Nothing illustrates that gap  
better than the decline in value of welfare benefits. The grant has fallen to  less 
than 50% of the federal poverty level and is a significant factor in the  
high rate of poverty in New York, especially among children and in upstate inner  
cities. An entire generation of children has grown up since the last increase 
in  the basic grant eighteen years ago; even at that point it failed to meet 
basic  social and constitutional responsibilities to care for the needy. The 
basic  welfare grant is now $291 a month for a family of three; the shelter 
allowance  varies by county. Both are grossly inadequate.

We know that you  have long been committed to raising the basic welfare 
grant. We need your moral  leadership today more than ever. Every week in our 
congregations we see a  terrible loss of hope among those who depend on the State 
for the basic  necessities of life. We appreciate the leadership you have 
already shown in  helping to expand the food stamp program and in trying to protect 
the poor from  the impact of recent budget cuts.

The right to health care is also  a moral issue. "Of all the forms of 
inequality, injustice in health care is the  most shocking and inhumane." - Martin 
Luther King Jr. The call for health care  reform is rooted in the biblical call 
to heal the sick and to serve the least of  these. How provision is made for 
children in the dawn of life, the elderly in  the twilight of life, and the 
sick, needy, and those with disabling conditions  in the shadow of life are clear 
indices of the moral character and commitment of  a nation. While good health 
cannot be assured to everyone, good health care can  and should be guaranteed.

The Hebrew Bible says we are all created  b’tzelem Elohim--in the Image of 
God. This makes every human life as precious as  the next. In this light, we can 
say that, by "pricing out" a portion of our  population from health care 
coverage, we mock the image of God and  destroy  the vessels of God’s work.

New York is now in the middle of  studying how to best provide health care 
for all. Your administration is due to  make a recommendation this fall. All the 
other industrial democracies in the  world have already made health care a 
right. We need New York to set the  direction for the rest of the country by 
guaranteeing health care to all our  residents.

We are encouraged that you were a long time sponsor of  single payer 
universal health care while a state Senator. The biggest problem  with our American 
health care system is that we are alone among the world’s  democracies in 
allowing health care to be treated as a commodity where companies  are free to place 
profits before the health needs of individuals. It is morally  wrong to allow 
corporations to profit by denying health services to others. The  central 
role provided to for-profit health insurance companies also  significantly drives 
up costs throughout the health care system. We need a  health care system 
that puts health care ahead of profits, reduces costs, and  provides quality 
health care to all New Yorkers.

The list of issues  that need to be addressed in alleviating poverty in our 
state is unfortunately  long: rising energy costs, affordable housing, quality 
education, living wage  jobs, child care to name a few. We encourage you to 
look at the solutions being  promoted by the national campaign to cut poverty in 
half in America in the next  10 years. There is no lack of arguments as to 
why the needs of our most  vulnerable members can not be addressed today under 
the present financial  situation. That is why poverty has become such an 
epidemic in many inner city  neighborhoods and rural communities.

We call on you to increase  funding for our state’s 3,000 food pantries and 
soup kitchens, which feed more  than 2 million New Yorkers annually. The lines 
keep growing every year and will  overflow once again this winter with the 
rising costs of heat and fuel. We  recognize that such programs are not a long 
term solution; instead, they are  stark symbols of our society’s failure to 
share the bounty of the richest  economy in the world. 

The state budget is about our choices.  Lawmakers have chosen for too long to 
keep poor children and their families in  abject poverty, balancing the state 
budget on the backs of the poorest and most  vulnerable. We hear from state 
budget officials that they face a revenue  shortfall, so they can’t make needed 
investments. But revenue shortfalls are a  political decision, not an act of 
God or nature. New York has a particularly  unfair system of state and local 
taxes, where the poor pay more as a percent of  their income than the wealthy. 
The state budgetary needs should be met through  tax fairness that restores 
the principle that those who can most afford it bear  a greater share of the 
burden.

In language that resonates with a  deep understanding of religious values, 
one of your gubernatorial predecessors,  Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "The 
test of our progress is not whether we add  more to the abundance of those who 
have much; it is whether we provide enough  for those who have too little." We 
urge you to take up this challenge.  


Name __________________________

Name of  Faith Group ____________________________________________

Address  ___________________________________________________

Phone  _________________________

Email  ________________________________________  




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