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Federal Document Clearing House
Congressional Testimony
April 11, 2002 Thursday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 1246 words
COMMITTEE:
HOUSE WAYS AND MEANS
SUBCOMMITTEE:
HUMAN RESOURCE
HEADLINE: WELFARE OVERHAUL PROPOSALS
TESTIMONY-BY: BRENDA GIRTON-MITCHELL,, ASSOCIATE
GENERAL SECRETARY FOR PUBLIC POLICY,
AFFILIATION:
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN THE U.S.A.
BODY: Statement of
Brenda Girton-Mitchell,
Associate General Secretary for Public Policy, National Council of Churches of
Christ in the U.S.A.
Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Human
Resources of the House
Committee on Ways and Means
Hearing on
Welfare Reform Reauthorization Proposals
April 11, 2002
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
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 communion's
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:
1.The primary purpose for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families
Reauthorization (
TANF) should be the reduction of poverty.
2.
TANF should receive increased funding in order to
serve all those who need assistance
3.The states should be given more
flexibility regarding time limits and work requirements.
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/
tanf.html Also attached 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
(attached). 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
Iegislation 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.
LOAD-DATE: May 1, 2002