Less Welfare, More Charity

Published on 8-23-14

Excerpted from the CATO Institute (www.cato.org). Written by Michael D. Tanner – Originally Published on www.nationalreview.com, August 20, 2014

In 1985, wealthy New York businessman George McDonald was moved by the plight of the city’s homeless population; he was particularly struck by the story of a woman who had frozen to death on the streets after being ejected from Grand Central Station. Initially, he responded by providing the homeless with free meals, but he soon found that his generosity was doing nothing to help beneficiaries to improve their situation. The same people continued to show up for food month after month. His willingness to help might have kept people from going hungry, but it did nothing to help them rise out of poverty.

Read the full article on www.cato.org.

Where Empowerment Begins

James Whitford, Executive Director Watered Gardens Gospel Rescue Mission – Published in The Joplin Globe, April 30, 2014

 

I recall a trip to Grand Rapids where mission and church leaders around the nation gathered to discuss the role of virtue in a free society. During one of the dinners in a conversation about welfare, a gentleman who ran a mission in a large inner city mentioned “Mother’s day”. I could tell the others at the table got it.

I had to ask. He explained many of the welfare-dependent use the term Mother’s Day to signify the monthly date when welfare checks arrive. Why? Because welfare distribution has created a paternalistic viewpoint of government among many of the poor. “Uncle Sam” has become “Dad” or “Husband.” And, in the minds of many, that welfare check is viewed as charity, a gift or even worse, an entitlement. However, if government is by the people, then all it has comes from the people and therefore has nothing of its own to give to the people. So the government cannot be charitable, and welfare, in fact, short-circuits true charity.

I believe Joplin is solidly on a track to solve problems of poverty through true charity. While the government cannot enter into a personal relationship with a poor mother or inspire a young homeless man or give hope to the abused and addicted, you and I can. Face to face charity founded in relationship is the beginning of empowerment. It has been a blessing for me to hear more “empowerment” talk around our community like the use of “hand up” instead of “hand out.” Recently, I even heard someone use the phrase “hand across” to avoid the paternalism one might catch in the use of “hand up.” Although I’m excited to hear more discussion along these lines, proper perception is important. A “hand up” or “hand across” could imply that the poor need help to step up (where we are) or step across (to our side of the tracks.) But if we vacate all pretension and embrace love for our fellow man, we’ll be compelled to step out of our place and into the place of our poor neighbor for this pure and simple reason; to be with him. This is where empowerment begins. True and effective charity is born from a compassion that leads us to develop real relationship with the most broken and destitute even when there appears no hope for change.

I believe Dr. John Perkins would agree. He was born into poverty in Mississippi in 1930 and tragedy followed him through his youth. This nationally recognized author and founder of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) teaches that effective charity begins with real relationship and that anything else is bound to be ineffective and costly in the long run. In his book, Beyond Charity, he writes:

“In confronting these conditions, it is much easier to build a new prison or enact a new welfare law or give someone a handout than it is to develop the person. So far, we have settled for the impersonal and the bureaucratic. But, as we are seeing now, in the long run these Band-Aids will be much more expensive than we ever imagined.”

He goes on to discuss one of CCDA’s founding principles, Relocation. He argues that the most effective ministry occurs when love draws us out of our place and into the place of the poor. These are very exciting days in Joplin. We are realizing that instead of waiting in our missions and churches for the poor to come to us, we can fight poverty where it is, embrace the person as he is, and from a new perspective of humility realize a “hand up” or “hand across” may not be what someone needs to join us, but just what we need to join him.

 

Redefining Poverty

James Whitford, Executive Director Watered Gardens Gospel Rescue Mission – Published in The Joplin Globe, June 19, 2013

 

I remember meeting a man on the main road through Fond Parisien, a small community on the eastern side of Haiti. He was walking along the dusty roadside pulling a two-wheeled dolly behind him. I didn’t understand the word he hollered out, but I recognized what was in his hand as he waved it exuberantly above his head. It was a popsicle. A cooler was secured on his dolly and in it were plastic wrapped popsicles packed like sardines. The thought of one in the middle of a scorching day at the medical mission was enough for me to strike up conversation. I don’t recall the words we exchanged, but I do recall the man’s vibrancy. Even through a language barrier that required an interpreter, it was obvious he was full of life and hope. I’m certain that purchasing his popsicles that day didn’t help him come close to crossing the threshold of poverty as we define it in America. And yet, he never seemed impoverished at all.

In contrast, I know many people in our city who, through state welfare, have much more materially than my salesman friend in Haiti, yet seem much more impoverished. One man showed up at our rescue mission a few days ago who I know from some time back. He once asked me why he should have to work for his food after I offered him an opportunity to earn a meal voucher. Not long after that encounter he qualified for food stamps and then state funded housing and even a government subsidized cell phone. But he’s homeless again and needing shelter. Why? Because the tens of thousands of dollars he received in government subsidized goods and services were only a form of poverty alleviation rather than poverty resolution.

How do we resolve it?

Maybe we should start by redefining it. We have long defined poverty at some material threshold. Currently a family of four with an income under $23,283 per year is “impoverished.” Don’t believe it. The longer we define it materially, the longer we’ll throw material at it as a solution. What if we used productivity as the measuring stick? After all, productivity and poverty mix like oil and water. Arthur Brooks explores the science of charity in his book, Who REALLY Cares? In it, he cites research that reveals a person on welfare is statistically more likely to say he or she is “inconsolably sad” than a working poor man at the same level of material poverty. Not only that, but the working poor will on average give 500% more to charity than the comparable welfare recipient. My point is this: More often than not, productive people are happy givers. They are not poor.

I see the incredible value of this in our mission every day. From the four fingered man who helped us stuff envelopes for a food basket to the homeless guy who helped mow lawns for his bed and meals, few things build self esteem and change the poverty mindset like productivity. So the next time you drive up to someone holding a sign that says, “Will work for food,” consider how you might take him up on the offer instead of handing him cash. For him, it could be the beginning of moving from poverty alleviation to poverty resolution.

 

Why work?

James Whitford, Executive Director Watered Gardens Gospel Rescue Mission

 

Last week a couple of nice police officers approached me at the rescue mission to discuss a problem.  People are hanging out at the park in downtown on Main Street. I know. Your first thought is, “Well, it’s a park isn’t it?” But it’s not just people at the park. It’s “those people” at the park.  Your next thought might be, “Isn’t the mission on Kentucky Street?” Yep. We’re not even neighbors to Spiva Park. But that’s okay. The police officers were nice and I understood. People are complaining and fearful of the homeless.

I think the question that must be answered is “Why not look for a job instead of hang out in the park?” And although I doubt it was the answer they sought, the officers kindly entertained my discussion on the connection of a growing welfare state to a derailed motive and disincentive to work.

What are the motives that drive us to work every day? Providing for our family, comfort, even luxury might be common responses. Even more base and important are simply food, shelter, and clothing. Hunger drives a person to food, rain drives him to shelter, and winter to layer up.  The motive to work is clear. However, human nature always tends toward the easiest road to meet these basic needs.  And few would disagree that the easiest road right now is “Welfare Way.” If we don’t significantly narrow this tax payer toll road, we’ll see a continued loss of motivation to work. Maybe we should consider (and educate) the more virtuous motive that is the flip-side of self-sufficiency.  If we’re not “self-sufficient,” then we’re “other-dependent.” Consider the words of the apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, “We worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you” and the instruction to “…work with your hands…so that you may be dependent on no one.” A thriving city with a healthy economy is one that embraces this virtuous aspect of self-sufficiency, that is not being a burden to or dependent on another.  The homeless man who gave me his food stamp card four months ago gets this concept. To date, the card has accrued more than $800 but he has no interest in it because he understands that virtuous side to self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, a derailed motive to work is not the only road block to fixing the problem. The welfare benefit is actually incentivizing laziness.

A couple of months ago, the Cato Institute completed a study, “The Work Versus Welfare Trade-Off: 2013, An Analysis of Welfare Benefits by State.” Applying welfare rules from each state to a virtual family of a single parent and two children, the authors summed the welfare from various programs like SNAP, TEFAP, LIHEAP, TANF (food stamps, food commodity, utility assistance, cash) and a few others for which the virtual family would be eligible. In Missouri, this household could receive a total of $26,837 in benefits annually. Not only does that equate to more than 12 dollars per hour, but the total package exceeds 130% of the federally defined poverty level for that family. Don’t feel too bad. Missouri is only one of 35 other states in which welfare is beating a minimum wage job. So for many the question becomes, “Why work?”  When you combine a derailed motive with the welfare disincentive, maybe the best thing to do is just go hang out in the park.

 

 

Beyond good intentions, charity requires justice

James Whitford, Executive Director Watered Gardens Gospel Rescue Mission – Published in The Joplin Globe August 31, 2012

 

A well-dressed guy showed up at our mission who wanted to help by distributing government subsidized cell phones to our people. He was wrong on a couple of counts. First, they aren’t “our” people. Each is his own and with difficult decisions to make every day just like you and me. Hope, effort, potential, risk, and love are no less a part of the day for the homeless and poor than they are for us. We should always remember that.

Secondly, distributing cell phones to the poor doesn’t constitute real help. I certainly appreciated his approach more than the lady who preceded him. She simply pulled up in her wagon with cell phones in a box and began indiscriminately handing them to anyone who would sign the paper on her clip board. There was certainly a spike in street sales that day. As I spoke to him in my office, I wondered if he knew that his cell phones were the result of the Telecommunications Act that taxes cell phone corporations so the “underserved” can have what you and I pay for every month. (Yes, those fees are passed on to us. Take a look at your cell phone bill.) No, this man just wanted to help. And though I didn’t question his motive, genuine intent does not always equate to true charity.

Consider the word charity. The dictionary defines it as “generous donations or actions to aid the poor or ill.” The Bible interchanges the word charity with love. But I am afraid our nation is losing sight of what true charity really is. Are “free phones” for the poor sponsored by the government an act of charity? Is feeding the hungry with food stamps an act of charity? Does the provision of shelter using tax dollars fall within the definition of charity?

In the Pope’s 2009 Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), he pens these words:

“Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is “mine” to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or acting. I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice.”

Justice is prerequisite to true charity. How can charity be true if it’s accomplished by taking from one what is rightfully his? We have seen a great deal of funding flow into Joplin in the last year, both private and public. Did some of those public tax dollars do any good? Of course. Should we be happy for the people who are helped by public funding? I am. I simply suggest we recognize that this is not true charity and that rather than celebrate accomplishments achieved at the expense of working, taxpaying Americans, we should instead wince, drop our heads a bit and find a new resolve to stand for what is just, a place where liberty is preserved and true charity abounds.

 

Effective Compassion not Government’s Job

James Whitford, Executive Director Watered Gardens Gospel Rescue Mission – Published in The Joplin Globe

 

I was recently contacted by the Missouri Association for Social Welfare with a request to participate in the annual point-in-time homeless count. This is a particular day when all agencies serving the homeless are encouraged to do an on-site head count of the homeless and turn in the numbers to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As a champion of collaborative effort in Joplin over the past several years, I am always interested in gathering good data

for all of us to use. However, when that data becomes a tool for bringing government funding into our city, I can’t help but cringe. Remember, as a nation, we’re almost 17 trillion dollars in the hole. We all should cringe. I’m pleased like many others that Missouri has an A+++ credit rating with a balanced budget, but don’t forget that a third of the revenue in our state comes directly from Washington. Yes, Missouri is on federal welfare. So, any way you skin it, we are in a situation that calls for every one of us to do our part in finding alternatives to the use of government dollars in caring for the sick, the hungry, the elderly and the poor.

Years ago, when I started managing a large pizza restaurant, it was typical for the cooks to eat the mistakes they made. Food cost was high and figuratively speaking, everyone was fat. It wasn’t until I instituted the policy “no eating mistakes” that the number of mistakes dropped significantly. Here’s my point; problems rarely get solved when the presence of the problem guarantees our next meal. Yet, this type of disincentive is subtly at work when we report homeless numbers to a government that returns aid in response. And to compound the problem, aid doesn’t resolve the issues. Food, clothing and a house don’t solve the problems of hunger, poverty or homelessness any more than triple antibiotic ointment heals a wounded heart.

What is effective? Read Marvin Olasky’s The Tragedy of American Compassion. He delineates the marks of effective compassion: building or restoring family relationships, using discernment in the process of accountability, entering into economic exchange with the poor, providing freedom and exercising faith. Government’s primary responsibility is maintaining order in society so freedom can flourish, not demonstrating effective compassion. That job belongs to you and me, personally. And part of our responsibility in caring for our fellow man is to view him as God intends. Consider that my rescue mission alone has documented in the last 6 months more than 2000 instances of the homeless and poor earning what they need. Did we view Kathy as poor while she partnered in our “Worth-Shop” to earn Christmas gifts for her kids? Did we consider Joe “homeless” while he was framing in our new garage so he could earn tires for his car? Maybe we’d be better off and move toward real solutions if instead of counting “homeless” and “poor,” we counted “inventive, diligent partners with ingenuity, capacity and potential.” That would be a point-in-time count I’d like to see.

 

Time to halt the handout

James Whitford, Executive Director Watered Gardens Gospel Rescue Mission – Published in The Joplin Globe March 4, 2012

After working diligently to connect charitable organizations and churches on-line to better steward distribution of resources, the time had finally come to implement the accountability component, to halt the hand-out and challenge some individuals to take a hand up. With a curriculum in place to inspire the poor to dream of a better future, establish a life-plan and attain measurable goals, I notified the network of Joplin organizations that some of the most

“frequent fliers” would be flagged in the system and need to be in the class before assisted any longer.

Then “Dave” came in my office. He was homeless and had tried to get food from another organization, but the “accountability net” had caught him. He was visibly angry. I explained the class and how it could help. Not interested. I asked if he thought giving him food was really helping him. No response. And then I told him I would allow him to work an hour for a food voucher. He exploded, “Why should I have to work for my food?!” Want an eye-opener? Dave’s question was asked sincerely. He truly didn’t understand “will work for food.” Unfortunately, he chose not to work that day. Sadly, and in very short time, a food stamp card arrived in the mail for him.

More than 2.5 million dollars in food stamps were distributed in Jasper County alone just last month. And so it was the month before that. Unfortunately, as most know, abuse abounds. People in the know have shared with me the details; details about the daycare that charges parents for their kids’ lunches and then purchases food stamps fifty cents on the dollar to increase profit. Details about personal shoppers that fill up the grocery cart with what they need only to let the food stamp card holder check out at the register. Groceries and cash are exchanged just outside the door. Details linking food stamp abuse to increased drug and alcohol use. One time I even stumbled upon a food stamp for pain med trade about to happen.

So I called the food stamp office locally and in Jefferson City. “Our private charity food bank network would like to know who is receiving food stamps.” No way. Confidentiality. “What about a signed release of information?” No way. Confidentiality. “It’s a federal thing” I was told because “It’s federal money.”

The government was never intended to exercise charity. No institution should ever intend to exercise charity. “Institutional charity” is a misnomer. Real charity only occurs person to person where compassion leads to relationship, encouragement, accountability and character-building challenge. The system failed us when it gave food stamps to a man who thought it absurd that he should work for his meal. And of no less importance, it failed Dave. Today, I saw him lying in the woods barely responsive after drinking a bottle of vodka. How did he pay for that?

Broken people or broken system?

James Whitford, Executive Director Watered Gardens Gospel Rescue Mission – Published in The Joplin Globe February 5, 2012

Are the people broken or is the system broken? If you walk into our rescue mission, it may seem the people are broken. But it’s a rescue mission. It just feels that way. And sometimes, it just looks that way. That undone, unkempt and unloved person with a thread worn stocking cap is slumped over a table where some other look-alikes commune over coffee with an unsettling ease as if the man’s condition was merely one of their shadows. But they’ve seen it before. And so have we. Is it the drunk? Is it the meth addict who’s cycled out? No. It’s “Steve.” And yes, he’s broken.

Steve is an addict. He had been through our mission some time ago, was completely clean for several weeks and beamed then with the youth intended for his mid-twenties frame. When he fell “off the wagon,” he had to make a decision: be restored by the community who had relationally invested in his life or return to the help he had sought before. He chose the latter. Days later, after a medical discharge, he showed up with a hazard-labeled bag of six bottles: Risperdal, Klonopin, Lithium, Cymbalta, Buspirone and Zolpidem. In this struggling addict’s hands were anti-psychotics, muscle relaxers, mood stabilizers, anti-depressents, hypnotics and anti-anxiety meds. They were all prescribed on one day by the same psychiatrist. The next day, Steve was unresponsive on a ventilator in ICU from over-dosing.

Unfortunately, problems with medication abuse are not unique. Many times I hear the homeless and poor discuss hope of housing assistance or disability income via mental health or pain-related diagnoses when I know the true need is to be loved and challenged. The system seems detrimentally weighted to incentivize the poor to seek an illness. I know. That’s a hard pill to swallow. Making that pill even larger, the pharmaceutical industry plays its part in the incentivizing process, as well. But there are some who resist. Just a few days ago, a man in our shelter, quite seemingly in his right mind, reported with disappointment, “They said they can’t help me with housing unless I get on medication.” And another, contingently released from jail, “They said I have to take these pills to stay out of jail, but I don’t really think I need them.” I think he’s right. I’m the one who visited him while incarcerated when he was on no medication, clearer, calmer and more responsive than I had ever known him to be.

The next time you see a person on the streets that some kids might label a “zombie” or someone else might mistakenly label a drunk, just consider first that he or she may simply be a broken person that sought help from a broken system.

As I see it from the trenches,

James Whitford