Thursday, March 21, 2013

A Convenient Faith?

A few months ago, I wrote a satirical piece designed to emphasize the importance of the agency at which I'm currently interning. In hindsight, it seems as if writing to defend the work of a homeless outreach agency, an agency that provides meals and various assistance services (including housing searches) would be unnecessary. At the very least, only the most detached, cruel and selfish people would have an objection to such important programs, right? It shouldn't matter where the funding for my agency comes from, since their work is essential and alleviates a great deal of human suffering. 

Alas, apparently my 30 or so page views were not enough to demolish the naivete and negative stereotypes  with which the average American views the poor. Even more discouraging is the tendency of Christians, a group of people that above all others should be inspired to strive for social justice, to downplay the problem of poverty in an endeavor to support their own political agendas. 

A friend of mine recently shared an economics article written by an alumni from my undergraduate institution. Now, I don't question the good intentions of this writer. I also don't question his expert knowledge of economic principles; he has a Ph.D and at least one book published after all. That being said, no amount of cold detached principles, knowledge or even good intentions can substitute for a real understanding of poverty.

To be fair, my only experience with poverty has been the semester and a half that I've spent as an intern at a homeless outreach agency. And it only makes sense that we naturally tend to dismiss the poor, as there are legitimate psychological reasons and motivations behind the relative detachment and indifference with which the middle and upper classes view the poor. An article I had to study for a class, Cognitive and Behavioral Distancing from the Poor by Lott, does an effective job of both explaining the problem of poverty and why people who aren't in poverty live in denial of the suffering of others. Since it's a long article and I have other points to make, allow me to just pull a few quick highlights from this article (Lott) in contrast to the claims made by the economics article (Ritenour)

"Other articles (Bullock & Lott, 2001; Lott & Bullock, 2001b) have documented the dramatic and increasing inequity in economic resources between the rich and the poor in the United States. For example, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (Shapiro, Greenstein, & Primus, 2001) reported that between 1979 and 1997, the after-tax income of the poorest fifth of U.S. households decreased from $10,900 to $10,800, while that of the top 1% of households increased from $263,700 to $677,900."
- Lott, 2002

"In fact, most officially poor people in the United States are in fact living relatively comfortably."
-Ritenour, 2013

"Clydesdale (1999) concluded that “Americans with high social statuses, whether economic, occupational,or educational, are more likely to view the poor unfavorably” (p. 103)..In [another] important finding, a phone survey revealed that respondents who had personal contact with the poor were less likely than others to blame them for their circumstances (Wilson, 1996)."
-Lott, 2002

"If people who do not work receive income maintenance from the state, it reduces the quantity of income they have to give up if then do not work, thereby making leisure more attractive at the margin."
-Ritenour, 2013

Bottom line, people who are detached from poverty are able to deny and distance themselves from the problem. People distanced from poverty also tend to view poverty from their own limited and privileged perspective, making it difficult for them to picture a scenario where someone can be both a good, hardworking person and poor. In light of this, they can apply their political beliefs in limited government (which I would generally consider to be good principles by the way) to argue for the destruction of the welfare system. What's more, many Christians use Biblical principles in favor of private property to argue against any government-mandated redistribution of wealth. But do government programs truly represent theft? Let me just highlight a few verses here. 

5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. 6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Romans 13: 5-7

It seems like God is okay with taxes, as they represent a vital support to our communities and to our government. And I truly doubt that most Libertarians or Conservatives would oppose all taxes, as government cannot function without them.

But what about welfare and other wealth redistribution programs? After all, the government is terribly inefficient, and these programs aren't really helping the poor anyway, are they?

I'm not going to claim that the various government agencies designed to assist the poor are perfect; I'm not even going to claim that they should all exist. But, as Christians, we need to be very careful before we advocate the abolition of all welfare systems in favor of the private sector. I never did understand the whole private sector argument. When government and the private sector can't fully meet the need, do we honestly think that private sector charities are enough to help our brothers and sisters in need? Christians should be less susceptible to this foolishness, as we understand that people are born selfish, flawed and sinful. 

I may not be able to speak for every federally funded agency, but no one can ever question the work that is done at mine. 

My agency has a Housing First program funded by HUD. Programs that follow this model have been proven to be both helpful and, believe it or not, cost effective. What's more, members in this program have been chronically homeless and have a disability. In fact, a recent report I conducted indicated that at least 2/3 of clients in our program have a mental illness, and about a third of clients had at least 3 disabilities. By providing housing without making demands or threats, Housing First helps bring stability and hope to these people's lives. But its programs like this that would be cut if we abolished government support programs. 

I suppose I can't blame some people for feeling this way though. After all, until you've met a homeless woman so traumatized and mentally ill that she's afraid to go to shelters, or an older man with such poor health a case manager had to call 911 for him, or another woman whose paranoid schizophrenia made it difficult for her to even cash checks, or a woman whose severely developmentally delayed with no family support or...

You get the picture. 

I'm not typing this to gain myself moral high ground. I'm not a good enough or strong enough person to work at a place like my interning agency. But I write this to combat a simplistic and faulty understanding of poverty, and to defend the work of those in the social services.  Because at the end of the day, principles are fine, but what you do with those principles, the life you live, that is what really matters. A Christian faith that drives people to charity, whether through the public or private sectors, is noble. But a faith that seeks to exult political principles over programs that actually help people; that faith has become seriously derailed. 







Sources:

Lott, B. (2002). Cognitive and behavioral distancing from the poor. American Psychologist, 57(2), 100-110. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.57.2.100

Ritenour, S. Economics for Everybody. (2013, March 20). The Poor, Economic Policy, and Christian Ethics [blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.economicsforeverybody.com/2013/03/the-poor-economic-policy-and-christian-ethics/









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