THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 14, 1996 TAG: 9610140034
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 67 lines
Virginia churches have called a summit meeting to discuss forming a public-private partnership with government and business to help the poor.
Churches have traditionally been a safety net, increasing charitable contributions when government actions increased the ranks of the poor. But welfare reform threatens to bring a crisis to Virginia that the churches alone cannot solve, religious leaders said.
Already, more than 10 percent of Virginians live in poverty, and welfare reform will plunge even more into financial straits, said Dow Chamberlain, executive director of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy.
``My belief is that God probably is going to judge us by how we take care of the poor,'' Chamberlain said. ``If that's the case, we'd better be concerned.''
Today's daylong summit, called ``Walk With the Poor,'' is expected to draw 250 clergy and church-related social agency leaders to First Baptist Church in Richmond. Religious leaders have agreed that it has never been more critical for churches to work together and speak with one voice, said the Rev. James F. McDonald, general minister of the Virginia Council of Churches.
Leaders hope to join denominational forces and lean on public officials to do more for the poor, most of whom already have jobs, Chamberlain said.
``If a person works and is still poor, work alone doesn't get them out of poverty in this state,'' he said. ``Those are the realities we have to address here in Virginia.
``Here we have a situation where 20 percent of our children are growing up in poverty. My God, 20 percent! We're basically writing off one-fifth of our population.''
The keynote speaker will be Dr. Ronald J. Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action and a professor at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Topics will include human dignity, concern for the poor, charity, justice, human work, living wages and responsibility.
Churches have long given charity to the poor. Soup kitchens, clothes closets, food pantries, homeless shelters, day-care centers, all have increased since the 1980s as churches stepped up their efforts to help the poor, Chamberlain said.
``The difficulty is that churches are unable to come up with cash assistance on a regular basis,'' Chamberlain said. ``Since (the government) is in the process of dismantling cash assistance for the poor, I think the churches are going to have to press for a new public-private partnership.''
Chamberlain said federal and state cash assistance to the poor is around $245 million. The churches cannot absorb that amount when welfare reform really takes hold, he said.
``But we're going to have to pull together something and begin, also, encouraging our public officials to have just a little more integrity about our system here and recognize that we can't simply abandon people,'' he said.
The state has to have more responsibility, he continued, saying that churches provide 70 percent of the cost of housing the homeless, compared with Virginia's 4 percent.
``And they can come to us with a straight face when people are made homeless by a cut in cash assistance and ask us to do more?'' Chamberlain said. ``How can you do that?''
The summit will focus not on fixing blame but on fixing the problem. Churches must be motivated to do more for the poor, including developing partnerships with business and government, while challenging politicians and business leaders also to address poverty, religious leaders said.
``I don't know where we'll come out,'' Chamberlain said. ``But I hope we can begin getting a movement in place to be as effective as we can with donations, and demand a public-private partnership.'' by CNB