Are We Serious about the Poor?

After many years of hearing poverty statistics, we have recently been bombarded with the face of poverty.  The tsunami, and now Katrina, bring haunting images of the poor.  I spent Labor Day at the Albuquerque Convention Center talking with survivors of Katrina. Many of those who came to Albuquerque were among the last to leave New Orleans…maybe because they were residents of a public housing complex and they were not rescued in a timely fashion. One man had not been able to locate any of his family members, one woman sobbed as she told how she had to leave her beloved dog behind, another woman told how the rest of her family was in Texas and she wondered how she would be reunited as she had no money. Everyone I spoke with told me they had lost everything.

Of course, the face of poverty has been all around us but we haven’t always seen it. As Janet Pelz wrote in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “That is, until the poor came out of hiding and shamed us into seeing them.” NMCC’s ministry with The Storehouse shows us the anguish of the working poor who do not earn a living wage and must depend on the 1.4 million meals offered at The Storehouse last year. Our SAFE 2000 Youth and Family program brings us youth whose families suffer the violence of poverty. Our work with low-income housing has shown us how few funds and little attention is given to building housing the working poor can afford.

If all the member churches of NMCC came together to end the scandal of poverty in our state we could say, “We knew what Jesus would do, and we did it together!” There are a few important ways we can begin:

• If you live in Albuquerque, vote for the living wage of $7.50/hr on the October ballot! If you live in another community promote a living wage there.
• Now is not the time to end the estate tax for the wealthiest Americans! Call your representatives and senators and tell them to vote against repealing the estate tax because we need those funds for the poor.
• Urge a special tax to help pay for the necessary life building tasks for Katrina survivors and communities. If everyone who earns over $25,000 year were taxed $100, we could cover these expenses without burdening our children and grandchildren with more federal debt.

For too long now, people of faith have been silent as a culture of—each of us should take care of ourselves. We could own our health insurance, privatize our piece of Social Security and reject environmental regulation. However, people of faith know we are our “neighbors’ keeper” and we are all related to one another.

There are those in our own state who are desperate for someone to pull them off the roof!

I believe we can do this, if we are serious about the poor!