Organizations That Will Help Needy

Can We Keep Faith and Balance the Budget?

How do we continue to practice the spiritual values of love, compassion and caring for the less fortunate, which are at the core of all major religious traditions, while digging out of debt in America?

A growing number of Americans are sliding into poverty each week due to high unemployment. No one wants to see taxes increase, but since there appears to be little job creation in sight, what is the alternative?

Some believe programs that provide goods and services for the poor of this country not only increase taxes but encourage an unhealthy reliance on the government for sustenance.

Others believe that while government spending is not the ultimate answer, meeting the needs of the less fortunate and the poor, should guide policy makers.

If we were to draw from the teachings of the world’s religions and our own spirituality, how might this inform our economic decisions? 

For Catholics, the principles that guide economic decisions have been set forth by the  U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops , according to Ray Chimileski, Deacon of St. Luke Parish in Long Valley, and Rev. Father Joe Goode, Pastor of  St. Mark the Evangelist  and  Our Lady of the Mountain Roman Catholic Church  in Long Valley.

“In 1986 in a document about the economy, the Bishops took up the cause of the truly poor in our country and they used the term ‘preferential option for the poor’ which has become a guiding principle in the church's work for economic justice,” said Rev. Goode. 

He said the purpose of the principle is to invite policy makers to always consider whether their decisions will help or hinder opportunities for the poor.

“This of course is a large undertaking and you can just imagine the challenges that are faced if we look at all our decisions in this light,” said Rev. Goode.

And what is to be done when the population of the poor is increasing as it is today?

“As we engage in our outreach every week, we are seeing a growing number of individuals and families who are in need,” said Deacon Chimileski, who is also the founder of  Operation Chillout , an organization that has provided food, clothing, and other necessities to homeless veterans throughout New Jersey for the past 12 years.

“We are seeing suburban families living in their cars in parking lots and going into Starbucks in the morning to wash up,” said Chimileski.

Legal assistance available to needy storm victims

“the tornado took our home away from us and we’ve been living in motels and, when the money runs out, shelters, ever since,” Victoria Anders said, sitting in a conference room at the Tuscaloosa office of Legal Services Alabama.

“We’ve got car troubles, need food stamps and we hope we can file for bankruptcy,” she said. “But we are too poor to hire a lawyer.”

She was unemployed before the storm and the couple lives on Keylin’s monthly disability check.

“But that’s not enough,” Anders said, adding that the couple stayed at the shelter in the Belk Activity Center and the Salvation Army in Birmingham for a while.

“we just want to find help from somewhere.”

The couple turned to the Tuscaloosa office of Legal Services Alabama, a statewide nonprofit organization that provides civil legal assistance to the poor. Legal Services Alabama employs more than 100 lawyers in 10 offices throughout the state, including seven in Tuscaloosa, said Willie Mays Jones, the supervising attorney for the Tuscaloosa office.

Jones said the Tuscaloosa office has been in operation for more than 30 years and is funded by federal dollars and private grants. in the wake of the tornado that decimated so much of Tuscaloosa, with much of the destruction in low-income areas, the office received two grants from national organizations earmarked to help tornado victims.

The Jessie Ball duPont Fund awarded the office a $250,000 grant, while the Annie E. Casey Foundation came through with another $50,000, according to Charles Yow, a legal services attorney based in Birmingham.

The grants have enabled Legal Services to hire Laurie Synco, a 2010 graduate of the University of Alabama Law School of Law, to concentrate on the needs of tornado victims. Synco, a Troy native, joined Legal Services on June 20, and paralegal JoAnne Bonner-Colvin has been assigned to help her.

Synco said the grants also have enabled Legal Services to reach out to small municipalities and rural areas that incurred tornado damage.

“we are not only reaching out to individuals but also to things like volunteer fire departments in unincorporated areas to see if we can help with insurance claims and the like,” she said.

The organization will help individuals with storm-related issues with insurance or housing. “For a lot of poor people, dealing with agencies like FEMA can be intimidating, and they often just don’t seek help they are entitled to,” she said.

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