[Faith & Hunger] Notes re: Faith and Hunger and welfare; next mtg Tues. Aug. 19th

[Dunleamark at aol.com]

Below are my minimalist notes from the recent FHN meeting. Please make  
corrections, add in points that I left out, etc.
 
Attendees include: Deb, Barbara, Arleen, Kitt, Robert and Mark
 
Next meeting Tues Aug 19th, 1 PM
 
We agreed to do another signon letter for faith groups to Gov. Paterson. A  
draft from Mark is below (note: I snuck in health care as well) The deadline 
for  sign ons was set for Sept. 8. We would send around Sept. 15th.
 
Deb I believe said she would take the lead in setting up a meeting with  OTDA 
Commissioner David Hansell, Barbara I believe with the Governor's Office.  
Mark I believe Division of Budget.
 
Mark is responsible for some updated welfare fact sheets. Mark is also  
coordinating statewide effort to have groups show the differences in cost of  
living for welfare participants from 1990 to 2008. (list is attached) We will do  
sample press release around this.
 
We will encourage groups to do local visits (or forums, visits, etc.) with  
state legislators on the welfare grant during the week of Oct. 13 to 17th. 
(Oct.  16th is World Food Day). 
 
Deb was to pull together some materials related to sermons / preaching that  
we would put on the website.
 
We will revise the effort around having legislators Live on the Welfare  
Budget. See if Hansell would help with this. Mark will talk with Denise Harlow  
about this with respect to the CAP agencies.
 
Barbara mentioned that Beth Emmett was doing some meet the candidates night  
on Sept. 21st. Perhaps we could get in a question related to welfare.
 
Didn't talk much about universal health care.
 
Mark
 
Initial draft - comments, additions, deletions, etc. Draft
 
 
Dear Governor Paterson: 
As representatives of the faith community in New York State, we urge you  to 
use provide moral leadership in ending the problems of hunger, homelessness  
and poverty in our communities. 
We speak with a prophetic urgency and embrace the biblical mandates to  feed 
the hungry and clothe the naked. Poverty is destructive of human dignity.  The 
Jewish, Christian and Islamic  traditions speak for the dignity of people in 
poverty in God’s sight, 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.  
It is immoral that in 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 need The basic welfare grant 
is  now $291 a month for a family of three; the shelter allowance varies by 
county.  
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 necessities of life.  
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. 
We are all created be’zelem Elohim -in the Image of God- and this makes  
every human life as precious as the next. By ‘pricing out’ a portion of this  
country’s populations 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 
guarantee  health care to all our resident. 
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 
others 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, cut 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. There is no lack of arguments  as to 
why the needs of our most vulnerable members can not be addressed today,  
right now, under the present financial situation. That is why poverty has become  
such an epidemic in many inner city neighborhoods and rural  communities. 
More funding of course is needed 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. But 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 and our lawmakers have chosen for  too 
long to keep poor children and their families in abject poverty. For too  long 
we have balanced 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 great share of the burden. 
In language that resonates with a deep understanding of religious values,  
one of your predecessors as Governor, 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. We urge you to propose restoring the value  
of welfare benefits at least back to its 1990 level; to propose qualify  
affordable health care for all; and, to commit to cutting poverty in half within  
the next 10 years. 
Draft Draft Draft
 
 



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