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Testimony on Welfare Reauthorization as Prepared for Delivery Before the Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources U.S. House of Representatives April 11, 2002 Brenda Girton-Mitchell My name is Brenda Girton-Mitchell. I am the Associate General Secretary for Public Policy and the Director of the Washington Office of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (NCCC). The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. is the principal ecumenical organization in the United States and includes 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican member communions (denominations) with a combined membership of more than 50 million Christians in nearly 140,000 congregations nationwide. A list of our 36 communions has been submitted for the record. Through the NCCC, members join in a common witness through ministries of faith, justice, education and public witness. While I do not claim to speak for all members of the communions constituent to the NCCC, I do speak for our policy-making body, the General Assembly, whose 350 members are selected by those communions in numbers proportionate to their size. Mr. Chairman, thank you for providing the opportunity for me to testify before you regarding welfare reform reauthorization. I wish to make three principal points in my remarks:
All member communions of the NCCC acknowledge a moral obligation to provide assistance to and justice for those who live and work on the margins of our society. In May of 2000, the NCCC launched a ten-year campaign focused on mobilizing Christians to take seriously the issue of poverty and to take specific steps to challenge it with all the tools and energies at our disposal. Toward that end, in the fall of 2000 we conducted a survey of our member communions, their social service organizations, and our state and local partners to learn what their experience had been with TANF. A copy of our survey findings is available on the NCCC website at www.ncccusa.org/publicwitness/tanfsurvey.html. Also available -- at www.ncccusa.org/publicwitness/tanfcall.html is an interreligious statement signed by 25 religious bodies that includes policy recommendations for TANF reauthorization. Last spring, we held a national TANF consultation, which was attended by invited representatives of our member communions, our state and local ecumenical, and interfaith partner organizations from 29 states and the District of Columbia. The input from this consultation and our survey helped to shape our recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services last fall. And just last month we hosted TANF Action Days in this very building to share our concerns about the impact of TANF as it has been experienced and evaluated by churches as they attempt to help those who live in poverty. There was unanimous agreement that the primary goal of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families should be the reduction of poverty, not the reduction of caseloads. TANF should be to provide assistance to low-income families to enable them to have decent lives. No family should be worse off as a result of moving from welfare to work than it was while receiving TANF assistance. Religious social service organizations tell us that they are overwhelmed by the demand for help, as TANF recipients struggle with the requirement that they work. Many recipients cannot locate decent childcare. Often the people they relied upon in the past are not available to help because they, too, are TANF recipients who are required to work. For most, the cost is simply too great or access and supply are so limited that it is impossible to get a child to care in time for the mother to get to work. Although the very robust economy of the last few years helped some TANF recipients get jobs, it has driven up the cost of housing so that recipients are more desperate than ever about finding shelter for their families. Our survey revealed that churches are being overwhelmed by requests for help with housing and temporary shelter. TANF should receive increased funding in order to serve all those who need assistance. The NCCC and its partners in the religious community advocate increased funding for both TANF and child care. Specifically we believe that funding for TANF should at least be indexed to the cost of living. Without increased funding it will not be possible to provide the supportive services that are essential to help people move from welfare to work at family sustaining wages. Most of those who remain on TANF do so because they face multiple barriers to employment that cannot be easily resolved. The states should be given more flexibility regarding time limits and work requirements. Flexibility has been one of the successful elements of TANF. With flexibility states have the option of choosing a combination of approaches to meet the needs of their communities without being locked in to a national formula. When we asked our survey respondents to identify things that kept TANF from working well, over and over they said that the time limits are too strict and too short. Respondents focused particularly on the need for more flexibility regarding remedial education, job training, medical, mental health and dental care in order for people to be able to function in the labor force. There was strong agreement that participating in post-secondary education should count as fulfilling the work requirement. We also believe that there are some people on TANF who cannot or should not work - people with disabilities that may not meet the requirements to qualify for Supplemental Security Income but nonetheless keep them from being employable, and those with care giving responsibilities for young children or elderly or handicapped relatives. We believe that states should have the flexibility to exempt such people from time limits to the full extent of the need and not just within the arbitrary limits set by the current TANF law. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, as a representative of the faith community, let me conclude by preaching this message to you. This legislation affects the very people God calls us to serve. We know you share the calling to serve others and implore this Committee to use its financial might to provide the resources necessary to help those living in poverty. There is a lot the Church can do, but it must be in partnership with, not as a substitute for, government. This issue is so important to the NCCC that it has been the featured topic in the last two issues of the annual Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. We in the faith community are ready to work with you to help this nation rise up and meet its obligation to its entire people. The measure of success will be not simply in job placement, but in real poverty reduction. This nation has the means; now we must have the will to provide the necessary funding and flexibility regarding time limits and work, so we can demonstrate that we truly care about all of God’s children. |