What will happen to the children? Who will step in when welfare is abolished.

Barry, Verne ; Cooney, David ; Craig, Conna 等

The new Republican Congress has promised to put welfare reform at the top of the agenda when it convenes in January. Conservatives are championing radical change: the end of the welfare state. Specifically, conservatives are proposing to abolish most welfare payments, including Aid to Families with Dependent Children(AFDC), food stamps, and federal housing subsidies.

Even if conservatives had not seized Congress by promising to rein in the government, welfare reform would be unavoidable. Federal and state governments spent more than $320 billion on means-tested welfare in 1993; by 1998, the welfare tab will cost on average nearly $5,000 for every taxpaying household. But those who focus only on cost cutting misunderstand the primary goal of conservative reforms; To wipe out the scourge of illegitimacy in the United States.

Policy Review asked a cross-section of social service veterans, all in the private sector, to discuss the effects of reducing welfare assistance. Specifically, we asked these experts what would happen if the government stopped adding people to the welfare rolls: Those already on welfare could continue to receive benefits, but no one else could apply for AFDC, food stamps, or housing assistance.

VERNE BARRY

Conservatives and other limited-government advocates, always eager to point out the dangers of welfare, too often fall into the trap of springing forth with "alternatives" to the support system that welfare has come to represent. These alternatives sometimes fail to address the root causes of our welfare culture.

Conservatives are correct in pointing to the multi-generational families of welfare recipients as evidence that welfare makes people think of themselves as entitled to the handout. And then it's a small leap to become convinced you need it. But the strength of the case breaks down (mainly among "fiscal" conservatives) when the talk shifts to how social services are better administered by the private sector. Churches and charities, the argument goes, can better deliver these services because they are local, accountable to their communities, and in a better position to understand the unique problems of their neighborhoods.

Maybe so, but hold on a second. Softening the argument for welfare cuts by assuring the other side that churches and charities will pick up the slack can easily miss the point of welfare reform. The biggest problem with welfare is not that it costs taxpayers too much money, although that is surely a problem, but rather that it clearly creates dependency and a dearth of personal responsibility. Such irresponsibility becomes a crisis when it is neighborhood- or community-wide, as so often has happened in our nation's inner cities.

If all government welfare ended tomorrow and churches and charities picked up the slack 100 percent, the relief enjoyed by taxpayers would soon be tempered by the reality that the social tragedy of welfare had not changed at all. The purpose of welfare reform is not just to change who is doing the giving. It is, rather, to change the hearts and minds--indeed, the lives--of those who have never known anything else. It simply doesn't work just to help people: We must help people help themselves. Too many of the churches and charities I've seen never affect people at this deeper level.

There are other problems. Churches are in the soulsaving business, not the social service business. Even those churches who closely subscribe to the social gospel are not in a position to provide the kind of all-out social support the present welfare state has institutionalized without becoming huge and bureaucratic themselves.

Reform already has begun to happen in the world of private non-profits. The United Way, for example, is guided in each community by a "community-based board" that knows better than you do which agency should get your money. Small charities clamor to get into the powerful United Way network because there is so little money left over after each year's United Way campaign. If welfare dependence were undiminished but shifted to the private non-profit sector, political pressure would attack the united Way as never before to ensure that politically correct agencies and other favored institutions were taken care of.

The question is not whether the private sector will pick up the slack. It is whether former welfare recipients will pick themselves up and start following the patterns of responsibility the rest of us have always taken for granted. That's called changing lives, and it's a lot more important than changing who doles out the goodies.

I can't help but remember a scene from "Alice in Wonderland." Alice is walking along a path in the woods when the path splits in two--one path going left and one path going right. She wonders aloud which path should she take. The Cheshire Cat sitting in a nearby tree asks her where she is going. Alice answers, "I don't know." And the Cheshire Cat replies, "Then it doesn't make any difference."

DAVID COONEY

Welfare was created to provide temporary financial support to families in economic transitions. Instead, it has become a way of life for a substantial portion of America's economic underclass. The results have been disastrous socially, economically, and morally, and should have been anticipated. As with many public policy issues, the welfare program eased the pain but did not solve the basic problem causing the pain. Thus, the problem has continued--even increasing in volume and scope--while sinking lower on the national priority list, because policy makers have achieved a comfort level.

Now, decades later, we as a nation are confronted by three-generation welfare families fully schooled in working the system, but totally unschooled in surviving in a competitive marketplace where education, employment, and other tools of upward social and economic mobility are available. In these circumstances, the "welfare problem" takes on a higher priority because its effects are no longer in the comfort zone for most Americans. The pain welfare inflicts is reflected in a variety of social, economic, health, and education statistics that cut across the full spectrum of society.

The easy solution seems to be to allow those who are welfare-dependent to remain so, but to reduce the problem over time by not adding new recipients. A corollary temptation is to assume that those now unserved will suddenly alter their current lifestyles, and perhaps receive interim support from a variety of private-sector agencies in the forms of housing, employment, child care, and other services.

Both the "solution" and the temptation are poppycock. Welfare was created to meet a specific real need. That need still exists. Failure resulted not by creating welfare, but by not providing viable alternatives as incremental steps to independence. Those alternatives will not appear overnight, nor will they come primarily from non-government sources. Charity works best on immediaate problems like housing and hunger, but it rarely has a significant impact on long-term problems like employment and education.

The only practical way to reduce the welfare rolls is by funding job-training, job-placement services, and through support programs such as child care and adequate transportation. That such programs should be available to people prior to their entering the welfare rolls is inarguable, but this is not always possible.

Termination of enrollment without the other steps merely will drive the social and economic costs into different columns of the public's ledger--crime, public housing, food programs and other areas. The results will be all bad for the underclass, as well as for the middle and upper classes that will eventually have to share in the social costs as well.

There are no easy ways to achieve significant social change. Sudden and arbitrary changes to the status quo merely add new problems.

CONNA CRAIG

"I'm a system kid. I've been in foster care since I was two years old. My dad's in jail and my mom is missing. When I'm 16, I'm going to get pregnant so I can get a free apartment and get out of this place. Until then, I'm owned by the state."--Katie, age 14.

Katie is one of 600,000 system kids who will spend all or part of this year in state-run substitute care--including foster homes, group homes, and shelters. She will likely remain in foster care until she "graduates" from the system by turning 18. With no permanent home and no family to turn to, Katie is examining her options; welfare is one of them.

In 1995, there will be more American children in foster care than there are people living in Washington, D.C. At its inception, foster care was meant to be a temporary solution, a means of providing a home-like environment for children whose own parents are unable or unwilling to care for them. But all too often foster care is not temporary: Forty-three percent of foster children remain in care for longer than two years. Annually, about 15,000 teens "age out" of foster care and, like Katie, are left to navigate early adulthood without the supports that many of us take for granted.

If further AFDC were to end today, we would be forced to create alternatives to welfare for the steady stream of young adults who exit one state system--foster care--only to become dependent on another. Regardless of how the welfare debate goes, we need to change the shape and nature of foster care to prevent a generation of children from being lured into other forms of dependency.

National figures on outcomes for foster children are scarce. However, in the early 1980s, a New York City study found that one-third of foster care graduates were on AFDC or the city's Home Relief Program within 18 months of leaving care. The New York study and others led Congress in 1987 to allocate funds for services to children preparing to leave foster care, including job training, budgeting, and career planning.

The results beg for new approaches: In Los Angeles, 39 percent of homeless youth are former foster children. A Minneapolis study found 38 percent of that city's homeless had been foster children. And although independent living programs do not advocate AFDC dependency, there are strong motivations (other than financial ones) for young women and girls in foster care to have children: Many foster children experience so much disruption that having a baby can seem like a sure means of forming a lasting bond. According to Peter Correia of the National Resource Center for Youth Services at the University of Oklahoma, "Sometimes these kids just say, 'I'll have a baby.' But it doesn't have to be that way."

Julia, for example, was removed from and returned to her own mother 10 times in two years. Then after 10 years in one foster home, she was placed into a state-run group home for girls. She recalls her independent living training: "They taught us how to balance a checkbook and fill out job applications." Julia, now 21 and unmarried, had her first child when she was 18.

Julia was working part time and in high school when she turned 18. She was also two months pregnant. "I remember going down and applying for it [state assistance]. I had just quit my job because I needed to spend more time doing homework so I could graduate. I was pregnant. I needed some money." When asked how she knew about welfare she responded, "We all just knew about it." Julia reports that of the 12 girls who graduated together from her group home, "almost all of them have babies now. Three or four are on welfare."

Two years ago, the day after her second child was born, Julia left the welfare rolls. Why did she make the change? "I decided that my girls deserved better. When I was on welfare I just couldn't make it. I did not have a single present under that Christmas tree for my daughter and that broke my heart. It's so much better now that I'm working. Our world has totally changed. I wouldn't give up what I have right now for anything. I don't have a college education but I'm fine with that. Why complain about what I have now? I made it."

Does she mind that part of her earnings support other young women on welfare? "I don't mind helping them for a while," she say, "but I mind when people abuse it. The thing about welfare that really makes me sick is the people who just keep having more and more kids." I asked Julia what advice she would give to girls who are in group homes now. She responded, "Oh, it's very difficult. Sixteen-year-olds don't listen to grown-ups."

Foster care reform aimed at reducing the potential number of welfare candidates begins by listening to the children. At a recent conference for 200 teenagers in state care, state officials asked them how they would change the system. "We talk about independent living--but these kids say they want to be adopted. Even the teenagers say that," says Correia. "They want to belong, and why wouldn't they?"

The American Public Welfare Association reports that 69,000 foster children have court-mandated case plans for adoption. More than 50,000 are free to be adopted today, but will wait between 3.5 and 5.5 years. Meanwhile, thousands of qualified families wait for children--infants and teens alike--of all ages, races, and backgrounds.

Removing the barriers to adoption is a crucial step toward reshaping foster care. This will be vitally important if welfare benefits are eventually reduced or terminated, because states and localities simply cannot afford to frustrate the best impulses of the private sector.

We could take a cue from Massachusetts Governor William Weld. Weld announced Assignment Adoption in November 1993, a comprehensive plan that embraces everything from court reform to coordination with private adoption agencies, to find permanent homes for children in state custody. The program helped to increase the number of foster child adoptions from 725 in 1993 to 1,068 in 1994.

The Institute for Children maintains that every child is adoptable. Some older children choose not be adopted. Others cannot be adopted for legal reasons, as even abusive parents can maintain parental rights. For some of these children, independent living programs can work--if they go beyond training and provide children with incentives to succeed. Texas, for example, has created incentives to keep foster children in school. The state waives tuition and fees at state colleges and vocational schools for foster children who are on their own at 18.

The results are promising. In four years, the number of Texas youths who go directly from foster care to college has more than quadrupled. In 1992, Texas contacted 311 youths three months after leaving foster care and found that 130 were employed, 95 had completed high school or obtained a GED, and 235 lived independent of any maintenance program. "We are helping young people to make it on their own. Better educated people are going to do better in life and will delay having children," says Thomas Chapmond, chairman of the National Independent Living Association.

Chapmond reports that for foster children who age out and either go on to college or into the workplace, the critical factor is one-to-one contact with a mentor. "Every one of the kids who has made it has at least one person--a teacher, coach, volunteer--who has taken an interest in that child's life." Chapmond's organization makes mentoring one of its key ingredients, involving people who want to help needy children at a crucial point in their young lives.

And their needs are not likely to vanish: In every year from 1983 to 1992 (the year for which the most recent data is available), more children entered the system than exited. State and federal expenditures on foster care now total $10 billion per year. Cutting off additional AFDC benefits likely would increase the number of kids in foster care and strain state budgets--unless real changes are made in our foster care system.

In short, adoption--private, independent, and public--must be rehabilitated. This includes applying stricter time lines for terminating parental rights and expediting adoption. Independent living programs can follow the lead of Texas and incorproate cost-saving measures and voluntarism to achieve better outcomes for children. Mentors for foster children can be recruited from neighborhood and ethnic associations, churches, and interested individuals and families.

For the sake of all the Katies and the Julias across the nation, and the 1.8 million children who will enter foster care between now and the end of the decade, we must act. Children need permanent families and, when they are truly ready, the tools to eventually begin their own.

VIRGIL GULKER

Imagine this news announcement from your governor:

"Lansing, Michigan--The governor announced today that "no new applicants" for the AFDC program will be accepted after July 1995. Those seeking family assistance, housing or food stamps either would have to qualify under another government program or tap into private sector aid. Meanwhile, church leaders met across the state to ask whether churches in Michigan could provide shortterm relief for the roughly 17,420 families who are first-time applicants for AFDC each year. State officials estimate that if the 11,000 congregation in the state participated, each church would "adopt" 1.5 families, at an average cost of $952 per month, excluding health coverage."

Would the churches in America be willing to make such a commitment? Yes and no.

Yes, because many pastors recognize the need to involve the church in the lives of poor families. For many pastors the issue represents a simple choice: Will the church lead the welfare reform parade, infusing the process with compassion, relationships, and values? Or will it opt once again to follow in the wake of the parade, content to pick up the shattered lives and broken family relationships created by yet another failed government program?

The neighborhood church already is the focal point for outreach services to the needy. A report in the 1993 edition of the Independent Sector--based on the largest study ever undertaken of the community-service role of religious groups--concluded that churches and synagogues "are the primary service providers for neighborhoods" and that "the poorer the community, the larger the role and impact."

Simply put, churches already make significant contributions to local communities. In 1991, for example, the estimated value of volunteer time to church congregations was $19.2 billion. An estimated 49.4 million adults volunteered with religious organizations.

Churches can have significant local impact because congregations are meant to be a gathering of people, each with a variety of talents, whose shared commitment to the dignity and well-being of families can transcend their own diversity of race, age, gender, marital status, or economic need. As church members share their skills and resources--particularly in the context of family relationships--life situations can change. These relationships are critical to the success of any prevention program.

"We try to see that none of our congregation of 2,000 is on welfare," says Bishop Phillip Coleman of Greater Bethlehem Temple Apostolic Faith Church in Jackson, Mississippi. "There were some in the past, but we have helped them find jobs." That's the affirmative answer to the end of welfare, the answer that insists that faith make a different in everyday life.

Unfortunately, for many churches the answer is no, and for two reasons: Some religious leaders will assert that care for the poor is the responsibility of the government. Others will claim that churches just do not know how. They are able to give things, including holiday food baskets, but they do not know how to recruit, train, supervise, or affirm church members to come alongside a disadvantaged family.

Governors should recognize that church leaders would require training to help them build within their own congregations the infrastructure for a volunteer services system, one that prepares church members to mentor and assist economically disadvantaged families. Such training could be provided by church volunteer organizations such as Kids/Hope/USA or Love, Inc. Unlike subsidy-based programs such as AFDC, the church-based system combines a case management model with a virtual army of church volunteers.

Trained, supervised, and affirmed, these volunteers represent the rich diversity and gifts that exist in most local churches. Old and young, single and married, male and female, rich and poor, single- and two-parent families, black, brown, and white-these caring friends can draw on their life experiences and a shared value system to offer physical, emotional, and spiritual support for the family.

Here's what a church-based outreach to welfare families would look like: Each disadvantaged family and an assigned church mentor work with a case manager at the church to assess immediate and long-term needs, creating a three-to-six-month empowerment plan for the family. After addressing the family's immediate needs, the mentor uses the plan as a guide to link the family with other community resources and with trained church volunteers.

It's the volunteers who really roll up their sleeves. They provide direct assistance with housing, job training and placement, child care, tutoring, living skills, and other developmental services. On-going evaluation of the care-giving relationship insures that the experience is productive for the volunteers and the client family.

Communities have a right to expect the church, the most sustainable neighborhood organization, to provide specific spiritual and developmental services for families in need. "The battered children and broken families in my care have an urgent message for the church," says Loren Snippe, director of the welfare department in Ottawa County, Michigan. "Welfare systems can only treat the symptoms of need; they can give food and money, but they can never share the living skills and values required to change lives. That is the role of the church."

Should government be in the business of forcing the church to help the poor? Probably not. But if America's churches claim any fidelity to the New Testament pattern, the state shouldn't have to.

STAR PARKER

When I applied for Aid to Families with Dependent Children in the early 1980s, the negative stigma of going on welfare had been replaced with the notion that I was a victim of society, and therefore welfare was owed to me. Welfare was the easiest option, with the only restrictions to return my CA-7 questionnaire within five days of receiving my check, to not open a bank account or receive cash or gifts with value exceeding $25, and to not marry or move in with a man.

And as with so many others raised under the liberal notion that welfare is an obligation of the rich to the poor, I'd decided that returning to my parents home was childish; getting married was Victorian; seeking full-time employment was for Uncle Tom.

Very few in our nation today actually need welfare payments, food stamps, and housing assistance. Even many of those living in the housing projects of Los Angeles find money for hair dressers and nail salons, and wear Cross Colors and Nike's. If the government were to stop adding more people to the welfare rolls, many of these people would be forced to find work and live within a budget.

The harsh realities to ending additional welfare benefitswould be with individuals and families who need temporary help to weather hardships. But from what I've seen, and from the people I talk with on the air, AFDC in its current form is not the sort of help they need.

Consider the 38-year-old grandmother in South Central Los Angeles who lives with her 16- and 18-year-old daughters, both of whom have children, both receive AFDC, food stamps, Section-8 rent credit, and HMO medical services. Their combined, monthly government package is equivalent to about $2,135.

Now consider what their lives could be like without government assistance: Both teenagers find minimum wage jobs, bringing in $700 a month each, while their mother baby-sits their three children for free and takes in three more at $50 per hild per week, or over $600 a month. If the men who fathered these children paid child support of only $100 a month, this household would have another $300 a month. Add it all up, and the combined income is $2,300 monthly minus taxes.

A misconception among many Americans is that these unwed mothers and other welfare recipients don't have families to take care of them, or that those families are too poor to help. Most of the welfare recipients I talk to have access to extended middle-class family members who would more readily provide help if welfare was not available. Of course it would be inconvenient to rely on family help, and of course it would involve sacrifice--but isn't that what families and friends are supposed to do in times of crisis?

Would the cut-off of welfare lead to more abortions, domestic violence, and theft? In the short run, probably so. But there is every reason to believe that extended families and community-based groups such as churches, half-way houses, and Salvation Army outposts would step into the lives of the poor in transition. Orphanages and group homes could be opened to provide for indigent children and families. Perhaps the best way for the government to help is to give these groups tax breaks and create new tax incentives for donations to them.

Welfare in the 1990s is not like it was in the 1960s. Today it's an option, rather than a temporary springboard to help families recover from external hardships. The system has evolved into a permanent dependency that perpetuates illegitimacy and criminal behavior.

I am fully confident that our society is capable of dealing with the problems resulting from cutting off welfare benefits. I believe we have a vast number of resources to tap into that could handle the problems of the poor. Government has destroyed its own system and now it's time for a new approach.

JOHN M. PERKINS

All we have to do is look at the condition of our cities, and we can see the effects of welfare. Programs like AFDC, combined with food stamps and housing assistance, although meant for good, have broken up more families than slavery ever did. As a result of these broken families, children are being raised without fathers in the home. This single fact contributes more than anything to the chaotic atmosphere in our inner cities.

But what would be the outcome of terminating such programs--of not adding any more recipients to the welfare rolls?

A lot depends on whether our motives are pure. And in this case, the perception will be just as important as the reality. If blacks and other minorities believe that conservative whites want to terminate welfare because they are cold-hearted racists who only care about saving tax dollars and who do not have the best interest of the black community at heart, there will be a backlash so severe it would make any kind of welfare reform nearly impossible.

Therefore, in our attempts at welfare reform, leadership should be broad-based: It should include traditional liberals and conservatives and, in particular, it should have visible black leadership. Saving tax dollars must not be the primary motivation for welfare reform. Our motivation must be a genuine concern to free those who are trapped in the destructive grip of the welfare cycle.

For those of us who live in the inner city, the idea of removing the "economy" that is generated by food stamps and AFDC is a frightening thought. I assume that there will be a temporary increase in crime in order to fill the vacuum left by the loss of this reliable income. However, because we are not talking about cutting existing benefits, only potential ones, this rise in crime should be minimal and short-lived.

The real goal of welfare reform is stable, two-parent families creating a livelihood for themselves and their children. This concept is generally passed down from generation to generation through intact families. But because of the damage of several generations of people who know nothing about the work ethic or of the discipline necessary to keep a family intact, cutting welfare should only be the first step. Education--including everything from how to function as a family to the fine points of holding down a job--must be made available and insisted upon.

This is where churches and social care ministries come in. In a recent article, William Raspberry emphasized the important role private charity can play: "Private charity establishes a bond--a sort of social contract between donor and recipient, giving the latter both the incentive and the opportunity to even the books."

Much has been written in the past couple of years about the role churches and grass-root religious organizations are playing in the development of families and communities. People who are motivated by their religious convictions are much more effective at administering charity than impersonal government agencies.

Why? Because they are much more likely to do what is in the best interest of the person asking for help, even if it involves "tough love." But what often happens is that these individuals and institutions find themselves competing with the government for the loyalty of the welfare families they are trying to help. I've seen this scenario too often: We say, "if you don't make improvements in your life, then you really don't want our help." And then the veterans at system manipulation say "fine"--and move right into the welfare system where there is much less personal accountability.

Private organizations demand accountability and therefore are in the best position to develop families and communities.

The problem with private charity is that it is not very well coordinated. There is no link between different charity organizations, and there is often very little link between the greatest needs of the community and the giving of an organization.

There must also be a centralized way to connect someone in need with an organization that can meet that need. For instance, there would have to be a working relationship between the welfare office and people in the community. The church could not go out and look for these people; the welfare office would have to work with them. All of those who apply for welfare would be referred to one of these select churches or organizations (depending on location) to take the responsibility for the nurturing of these people.

I recently visited an organization in Canada called NeighbourLink, which is working to do exactly this. NeighbourLink helps private charities respond to the needs of their neighbors by creating a network of churches and service agencies and linking them with community needs. NeighbourLink serves as a clearing-house for these agencies, which helps to avoid duplicating efforts of social agencies and keep them in tune with the needs of their community. (There is a similar organization in the United States called Love, Inc.) In most places, by applying these ideas, we would see a successful response to the needs of the poor.

There are, however, areas in which the concentration of welfare recipients is too great. Places like Gary, Indiana; Watts, Los Angeles; Chicago's south side. In these places, charities would feel overwhelmed by the sheer numbers. In such neighborhoods we have the greatest demands and the fewest resources. These are vast, needy communities where churches are very weak. In such places there would need to be a link of resources: a link between the inner-city church and the affluent suburban church; a link between the foundation and the indigenous ministry.

In this area there is another hurdle that must be cleared. There has been a poor history of affluent white churches working with indigenous black leadership. Instead, white churches give most of their support to members of white-led ministries who are new to the community and who may not even live there. This makes access to resources difficult for the people who could make the most difference in the community--those who live in the needy areas and know them well.

There is a national church-based group called the Christian Community Development Association, which is already doing a good job at bringing together suburban and urban churches and linking private charity with local ministries within the inner city. What makes this association unique is that the people who are working in the community are also committed to living there and making changes from the inside out. It is people like these who should be trusted with the responsibility and the resources to move individuals and families from the welfare rolls to the tax rolls.

REVEREND ROBERT A. SIRICO

Between November 1980 and January 1981, many ablebodied people receiving welfare benefits were petrified that Ronald Reagan would slash welfare completely. They hustled to get jobs. Many eventually got back on the dole. They became convinced that the reality would diverge from campaign rhetoric. But it was clear that simply fearing the loss of social assistance may have been the greatest motivator to get their lives in order.

Times have changed. In those days, the politicians who controlled the purse strings were committed to a doctrine of redistributionism, and failed to understand basic economic logic. Those in charge today will surely take a more sophisticated view. They understand that using government to subsidize socially destructive behavior is neither smart nor moral. At the very least, we should begin to see a reversal of the most egregious aspects of the social assistance state and the dependency it fosters.

It is time to begin drawing up blueprints for what we are going to have to do after AFDC and other welfare programs are gone. Private charity will have to swing into high gear. People of goodwill will have the responsibility to engage themselves, on a much greater scale, in the problem of how to help the needy.

Real charity brings with it a host of practical advantages over government programs. But it too can produce incentives to destructive behavior if economics is not taken into account. We must be wary of replicating the mistakes of government welfare. People will have to stretch their imaginations, and not just look to the welfare model. We will have to carefully reflect on what constitutes human happiness and tailor our charitable efforts to suit the answers.

The ultimate goal of private efforts should be to strengthen the self-sufficiency of poor individuals. Real assistance should look deeper than mere material help. It should consider how the assistance will affect character and behavior. It must be sensitive to the human need to be productive. The efforts should not simply aim to make people feel as if they are making progress by receiving cash subsidies or the private duplication of government food stamps; genuine charity should do whatever is possible to take away the barriers to authentic self-sufficiency.

Remember the fuss over so-called "McJobs" in the 1980s? Liberals filled their days taking stabs at the very work ethic that is critical to self-respect and, consequently, human happiness. They believed food stamps gave a level of dignity to the poor that soup kitchens could not offer. But what of the dignity that comes with real productivity? Authentic dignity comes from using one's talents to the fullest. Self-respect to a large extent comes from mixing our labor with social resources in the market economy. Even private charity can sometimes serve as an impediment to this end.

As part of my training in the seminary, for example, I worked at a soup kitchen in a church basement in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The nun running the operation told me that the numbers of diners would fluctuate daily, and that the group would be smallest on the days right after the arrival of welfare checks. There was no means test to receive a meal. Some days whole families would arrive for their meal. I witnessed one person arrive in a taxi. One couple told me they needed to eat quickly since they were planning to go shopping after dinner.

Certainly many clients of the soup kitchen needed the meal, so we had done well by them. But what about those who had simply treated it as a convenience? Our efforts did not help them to lead virtuous lives. In fact, it created a disincentive for them to spend their money wisely and to use their time well. It may have filled them with nutritious food, but it did not encourage them toward long-term independence.

There are, of course, positive charitable schemes that should be used as models. One is the St. Martin de Porres House of Hope, a homeless shelter in Chicago run by Sister Connie Driscoll. In 11 years, the shelter has served well over 9,000 homeless women and children. It has seen the birth of 1,100 babies and cared for more than 400 pregnant teens and pre-teens. The shelter operates on an average of $6.38 per person per day. Compare that with the national shelter average--mostly subsidized--of $22 per person per day. Only 6.5 percent of those who have been through Sr. Connie's program return to the streets. The shelter receives no federal, state, or local government financial assistance.

Sr. Connie's program is unusually successful because she treats each resident as an individual with free will whose needs are much deeper than mere material provision. She requires her residents to have a certain amount of discipline and show a willingness to help themselves. They must continue their education or job training, learn skills, and rid themselves of drug habits. They must take care of their children. Sr. Connie's approach helps her women become responsible members of the community. She knows there is dignity in productivity and self-improvement. To her charity is not a right, but a privilege with attendant obligations.

With the Republicans controlling the House and Senate, there will be significant opportunities to work toward dismantling the welfare state. With such opportunities come obligations, especially by men and women of faith, to come to a deeper understanding of the needs of the poor. They will be called to use their hearts--and their minds.