Faith-based organizations fighting poverty need help

Faith-based organizations fighting poverty need help

EDITOR:

As organizations who work on a daily basis with people impacted by poverty, we are grateful for your efforts to raise awareness about poverty in our local communities and about the need for increased resources to meet the growing need for assistance, as evidenced in your Sept. 3 editorial, “Enlist as a foot soldier in the ongoing war on poverty.”

This month, we join with hundreds of faith leaders across the country to “Fight Poverty with Faith.” In communities across America, faith-based organizations are working to elevate the issue of poverty in the 2008 election debate and pressing our candidates to do more to fight poverty. Through this poverty awareness effort, we hope to get specific commitments from our leaders on how they are going to address this moral and social crisis affecting our nation. We believe the candidates should send a powerful message about their commitment to address poverty during their first 100 days in office. If fighting poverty is truly to be a priority, it must be confronted with a clear plan and set of goals early on in the new administration. We encourage all citizens to communicate with public policymakers to become more involved in specific activities to reduce poverty in half by 2020.

From our perspective as faith leaders, there is no other option. As we look around our own communities, we see far too many people in need. The price of food staples, such as bread, milk, eggs and flour surged at double-digit rates. A record number of homeowners in Ohio face foreclosure. Just this past July, one in every 375 households in Ohio received a foreclosure filing during the month, representing the nation’s fifth highest foreclosure rate. Further, with 13.1 percent of the population living in poverty, Ohio ranks 19th in the nation in the number of people with incomes below the federal poverty level.

The lesson is clear. When we ignore our society’s most vulnerable populations and do not strive toward the common good, we all pay the price. Today, nearly 37 million Americans live in poverty. One in five children lives in a household experiencing food insecurity, and 47 million Americans lack health insurance.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation and Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Youngstown call on all faith-based leaders and people of good will to join us in “Fighting Poverty with Faith.” The time has come for a renewed focus on making our economy work for everyone; a time to make reducing the number of poor in America a national priority.

BONNIE DEUTSCH BURDMAN

ALAN R. KRETZER

MARY ELLEN ANDERSEN

BRIAN R. CORBIN

X Burdman is director of Community Relations/Government Affairs and Kretzer is president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation; Anderson is president & CEO, Diocese of Youngstown Catholic Charities Corporation and Corbin is executive director, Department of Catholic Charities Services, Diocese of Youngstown.

Any of this sound familiar?

EDITOR:

Robert F. Kennedy said something worth considering: “As our population increases, as the problems of our society become more complex, and as the cost of political campaigns continues to mount — it becomes more clear that the package is often more important than the product, that the perceived image of a candidate is often more important than what he says...” February 22, 1967.

MARGARET WERDEN ROTH

Canfield