Poverty Awareness Month

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Gal 3:28

Susan’s Story: Each month Susan receives $303 in food stamps and $80-$100 in child support. She works 18 hours a week and is eligible for Medicaid.

I am a 34-year-old white working mother of two children, ages 13 and 7. It’s hard with an early teen in the house with all the pressure they sustain.

I cook all the meals in my house. I cook spaghetti or pizza at least once a week. We always eat dinner together at the table.

I shop where I can make the money or food stamps stretch. Because you still have to buy paper goods, personal needs, pay bills, and take care of school needs with whatever money I have. I have a real problem with transportation. Sometimes friends take me but using public transportation limits what I can carry.

I would like my family to have more fresh vegetables ad fresh fruits because it is better for them. Toward the end of the month things get tough and my children don’t get the nutritional foods they need to survive and do well in school. I have to borrow or do without.

We’ve been homeless before, and it was almost impossible to survive and get shelter. Love was all I had to truly offer my children. I wish I had training to establish a career to help support my family better.

Global Poverty

Rosita from Nicaragua: “I look around the kitchen of my home and the cupboards are nearly bare. When I hear my little brother crying because he is hungry and my mother has nothing to give him I think I have no choice but to back out into the streets to sell myself.”

Unemployment and underemployment have risen over 60% in Nicaragua compared to 25% a little over a decade ago. Only 15% of Managua’s residents can afford to eat 3 meals a day and doctors are seeing a growth in epidemics and pre-mature deaths from chronic malnutrition.

Scripture calls for a liberation of those who are poor and oppressed. Poverty, therefore, is to be condemned and eliminated, not tolerated.

(Isaiah 58)

Suggestions for Action

Use our education and skills to help others improve their lives

Encourage “underconsumption” each Friday, buying and eating less and donating the savings to Catholic Relief Services or to a local food pantry.

Visit Catholic Charities USA website and join “The Catholic Campaign to Reduce Poverty” and read the policy papers on Poverty.

Donate monthly to the “Black Bag” to help the poor in our community.

(Education for Justice; Catholic Charities USA)

Haiti Update

Catholic Relief Services

As of January 20, 2010 this is the situation in Haiti with Catholic Relief Services who received the second collection from all the parishes in the Diocese of Austin along with other U.S. dioceses.

Each day more CRS staff from around the globe arrive in Haiti, joining our existing staff of just over 300. Our headquarters building in Haiti was damaged but did not collapse. While aftershocks continued—including the 6.1 temblor January 20th—staff slept outside and worked at desks pulled into the streets.

One week after the devastating earthquake CRS staff:

Unloaded 120 containers (2100 metric tons) of vegetable oil and grains from the U.S. government onto the only working wharf in Port-au-Prince.

CRS is in the process of arranging secure transport to CRS’ warehouse, where it will be distributed to the growing number of camps.

CRS has been asked by the United Nations to lead the response at one of the first formally organized camps, located on a golf course, where as many as 50,000 people are sleeping every night.

CRS has arranged to supply the camp with water, food, and plastic sheeting for shelter.

CRS trucks in needed supplies continually from CRS warehouses in the Dominican Republic where more CRS volunteers are working.

CRS has formed 6 medical teams to provide health care at shelters and area hospitals and CRS has already distributed medical supplies and drugs.

Project C.U.R.E. has donated 3000 pounds of additional medical supplies that are en route.

Three operating rooms at St. Francis de Sales Hospital, which withstood the quake, are now running and surgeries on the most critical injured patients are being performed.

CRS helped this hospital get up and running after the quake.

Supplies have been provided to this hospital.

CRS helped build this hospital which provided free care and treatment for the poor.

Visit www.crs.org for future updates and to make a donation

Poverty Awareness Month

POVERTY: WHY DOES IT MATTER?

It is important to address the issue of poverty not only to improve the lives of those less fortunate but also to improve the quality of life of our community as well. Crime rates, work force productivity, and drop out rates are all directly affected by poverty rates. While these problems are troubling in their own right, they also take a serious financial toll on society.

Hunger doesn’t just take a toll on the 1.3 million Texas families who experience food insecurity; it costs the state more than $9billion a year in charity, treatment of diet related illnesses, and lowered productivity.

Health care for the uninsured is not free. Federal, State and local governments pay approximately 85% of the $40billion in annual costs for uncompensated care nationally. Economists estimate that two-thirds to three-quarters of the cost of uncompensated health care is directly shifted to higher hospital charges and health insurance premiums. (Center for Public Policy Priorities)

Low-income kids are more likely to drop out of high school. Dropouts cost the state $730billion in foregone income and tax revenue. Dropouts are more likely to rely on government assistance and eight times as likely to be incarcerated as high school graduates.

To afford to live in the Austin-Round Rock area, a family of two parents and two children needs a household income of $53,080 to cover basic expenses—more than double the federal guideline of $22,050.

In order to earn the $53,080, workers in the household would need to earn a combined wage of $27/hour.

The median wage for all occupations in the area is $14.38/hour.

This means 40% of families live below the “Central Texas Security Index” suggesting that any major change in their family income or expenses threatens their ability to make ends meet. (CPPP)

Basic Needs Coalition of Central Texas

Migrant and Refugee Day 2009

“I would like to invite all Christians to become aware of the social and pastoral challenges posed by migrant and refugee minors.”

Pope Benedict IXV 2009 Message November 2009

Prayer

By Jane Deren

We Pray:

For migrant and refugee children who are in camps or in environments where their basic need for safety, food, shelter and health care are not being met:

Lord have mercy.

For migrant and refugee children who lack access to adequate education:

Lord have mercy.

For migrant children who are forced to work in fields and factories:

Lord have mercy.

For migrant children who lack a positive social environment that supports their physical, cultural, spiritual and moral development:

Lord have mercy.

For migrant children born in a country different from their parents, and for those children who join their parents after sometimes long separation; these children must deal with the challenges of two cultures.

Lord have mercy.

For refugee children seeking asylum, fleeing their own country, where they are not given adequate protection:

Lord have mercy.

For these children, Jesus’ words resound in our hearts: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

May we remember that hospitality and solidarity to strangers, especially to children, become a proclamation of the Gospel of solidarity. May we have mercy on migrant and refugee children and take them to our hearts, especially during this season of Christ’s birth.

In Christ’s name we pray.

Amen.

(www.educationforjustice.org)