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94–006 PDF 2004

FAITH-BASED PERSPECTIVES ON THE PROVISION

OF COMMUNITY SERVICES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

DECEMBER 10, 2003

Serial No. 108–148

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

WILLIAM J. JANKLOW, South Dakota

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

CHRIS BELL, Texas

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

PETER SIRH, Staff Director

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Deputy Staff Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHILIP M. SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

CHRIS BELL, Texas

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

J. MARC WHEAT, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

ELIZABETH MEYER, Counsel and Professional Staff Member

NICOLE GARRETT, Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on December 10, 2003 ...................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Harrison, Alice, executive director, Hope Have, Charlotte, NC; Ginny

Amendum, Thompson Children’s Home, Charlotte, NC; and Pat

Marcum, Love INC of Mecklenburg County ............................................... 37

Marciano, Reverend Tony, executive director, Charlotte Rescue Mission;

Reverend Mable Hemphill, World Outreach Medical Center, Gastonia,

NC; and Shirley Stowe, Director of Nursing and Home Management,

House of Mercy, Belmont, NC ...................................................................... 10

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Amendum, Jenny, Thompson Children’s Home, Charlotte, NC, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 45

Harrison, Alice, executive director, Hope Have, Charlotte, NC, prepared

statement of ................................................................................................... 40

Hemphill, Reverend Mable, World Outreach Medical Center, Gastonia,

NC, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 16

Marciano, Reverend Tony, executive director, Charlotte Rescue Mission,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 13

Marcum, Pat, Love INC of Mecklenburg County, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 49

Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Indiana, prepared statement of ............................................................... 5

Stowe, Shirley, Director of Nursing and Home Management, House of

Mercy, Belmont, NC, prepared statement of .............................................. 20

(1)

FAITH-BASED PERSPECTIVES ON THE

PROVISION OF COMMUNITY SERVICES

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2003

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND

HUMAN RESOURCES, COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM, Charlotte, NC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in the

Council Meeting Chambers, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government

Center, 600 East 4th Street, Charlotte, NC, Hon. Mark E. Souder

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Souder and Myrick.

Staff present: Marc Wheat and Elizabeth Meyer, counsels; and

Nicole Garrett, clerk.

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee will come to order.

Good morning, and I thank you all for coming. I am honored to

be joined by Congresswoman Sue Myrick, a friend and colleague

who knows the value of the faith-based organizations and the role

they play in the community. We were both elected in 1994 and

have had a friendship from the start. She is one of the most effective leaders in Congress, and Charlotte is certainly proud of her

and should be proud of her in Congress. A lot of times in our home

base we wonder whether people outside know as much about us as

the people back home, but truly Sue has made a real mark in

Washington and it has been great to be her friend.

At this time of year, tucked away among the constant stream of

advertisements for the must-have Christmas present and the pressure to spend more and more money in order to bring the commercialized Christmas spirit to life, we are often reminded that not everyone lives as comfortable as we do. Newspapers and TV news

programs run features on the area’s neediest cases, hoping that

those of us who are blessed with more can help those who need it

the most.

Each and every day, not just during the Christmas season, there

are dedicated men and women who open their hearts and homes

to the less fortunate. They do this not for the glory of public recognition, or for the money, but for the simple fact that their faith

calls them—demands of them—action. They are committed to improving the lives of their neighbors, no matter the sacrifice to their

own safety and comfort. Often their only reward, which is what

they will tell us is their best reward, is the knowledge that they

have restored hope to someone who had been suffering. Men and

women who run the countless faith-based social service organizaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:19 Aug 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94006.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tions in neighborhoods all across the country are often the only

people willing to tackle the tough problems because frequently the

rest of us take an out-of-sight, out-of-mind approach to the issues

that make us uncomfortable.

If in the United States, we had an unlimited amount of money,

we would be able to fund every organization that is effectively providing social services. The hard reality is we do not have unlimited

resources. We have to find a way to get the dollars we do have into

the hands of the most effective agencies in the neighborhood. Frequently, that agency is a faith-based organization. Leaders of the

many faith-based agencies I’ve had the privilege to visit tell me

they are successful because they look beyond the immediate need.

Their focus is helping the client regain hope, and changing a life.

Fast fixes are not acceptable to these agencies. These men and

women truly make a difference not only in the life of the client, but

also the community as a whole. We need to determine how we can

best encourage and support the work they do without asking them

to compromise their beliefs.

We have been having this discussion in Washington for quite

some time. What I find the most frustrating is the tendency to lose

sight of the reason we are having the discussion in the first place.

We know that faith-based organizations are effectively transforming lives and communities. Where the discussion gets bogged down

is in the legal questions. We need to refocus the discussion on what

makes a faith-based organization successful. What is it that makes

them effective? The fact that faith-based organizations are effective

is the reason this discussion began in the first place. It is time to

listen to the providers tell us how we can best assist them in their

work. I doubt that government strings and bureaucratic red tape

are something they are actively seeking. I believe that one of the

best ways we as legislators can help is not by giving them more

government strings to deal with, but by helping them to facilitate

new relationships among the providers of social services and the

foundations that provide financial and technical assistance to the

faith-based and community organizations.

Today we have a great opportunity to talk with providers of a

range of faith-based services. We need to understand how the

unique element of faith impacts the structure and success of these

programs. It is also important that we understand how your programs transform lives by building self-confidence and self-esteem.

I would like to explain a little bit what this subcommittee does,

for those in attendance, for those who are testifying and why we

are doing this series of hearings. First off, anybody who attends

any hearing is always disillusioned by how few Members are there.

The difference here is we are not going to be interrupted by bells

like we are in Washington. We will not have as many Members in

and out that you get, but often it is usually just one Member or

two Members at most hearings anyway. That is the purpose of the

focus of the subcommittee chairman. Often they call us iron pants

because you sit through long hearings and you do that. I am on

nine different subcommittees in Congress. But the main focus you

have is in the one where you are a chairman, if you are a subcommittee chairman. This is an oversight committee. We have

oversight over the different Federal agencies. We do not draft in

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most cases, and we do not pass the legislation, although we do

have drug policy. We have oversight of the agencies. There is an

authorizing that develops the law, there is the appropriators who

fund the law, there are then oversight people to make sure that the

executive branch does what Congress intended and spends the

money that we have allocated correctly.

This committee is unusual because we also have authorizing

oversight because our primary responsibility is drug policy. So most

of the members of my staff work full time on the drug issue. That

is our primary assignment in Congress. We have held field hearings all over the United States, as well as in Washington. The

Drug Czar’s Office comes through here. We directly authorize and

oversee the national ad campaigns that you see on marijuana and

other initiatives. But because the drug policy overlaps a lot and because we deal with other things—and Speaker Hastert used to

chair the subcommittee, we collected a lot of things in it. We also

have oversight over the Department of Education; the Department

of HHS, Health and Human Services; the Department of HUD,

Housing and Urban Development; the Department of Commerce

and the Department of Justice, as well as the National Park Service and faith-based organizations. Needless to say, you cannot focus

on everything all of them are doing. You zero in on certain projects.

We did a 2-year survey on border security that is now the base document that we are using in the Homeland Security Committee that

I am part of.

But one of the things we said is we were going to focus on faithbased organizations. So we have been doing a series of hearings

around the country. So far, Nashville, Chicago, and San Antonio.

In January, we will probably be in a couple of more. This time out

west in Colorado and in California, maybe up in Seattle and then

finish with some in the northeast to give the field hearings, in addition to the hearings in Washington where we have been debating

the most controversial part, which is charitable choice, and whether the government should provide any direct funding. Those are

generally held in Washington, but we have been trying to collect

the information from the field from many diverse providers. We

have had a wide range of witnesses. We are going to do a 2-year

report that will hopefully be done by the end of this year if we can

conclude our hearings by March, and work with the writing and

getting it printed and so on and getting it through committee. That

is kind of the background for those who are not familiar with our

subcommittee and what we are doing in collecting it.

The hearing itself will be printed in a report document that people will have access to. All told, before we started this process, the

Indiana expression is, you could have counted the number of faithbased hearings on one hand and have enough fingers left to bowl.

In other words, there have not been very many hearings on the

faith-based thing itself. There have been hearings on the tax bill,

but most of the documents that researchers will go in and find on

faith-based will be this collection of hearings because there have

not been other ones conducted by the U.S. Congress for the most

part. Lots of opinions on the floor, lots of debates as we go through

a bill and attach clauses on faith-based, but not much actual study

and research.

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Today our witnesses represent just a fraction of the countless

faith-based organizations that are meeting the needs of the local

community in Charlotte. Charlotte has a rich tradition of faithbased organizations working together with their neighbors and

with government, and I expect that they will provide valuable insights to their work and identify areas and methods by which government can best assist the community organizations of all types

provide the best possible care for people in need. I very much look

forward to this testimony and will also be seeking additional written testimony and information that we get from other groups in

this area and in the region, because this is a regional hearing, not

just for Charlotte.

I also want to welcome the Olympic High School students who

are it. It is a good experience to see firsthand. It is like watching

sausage made, it does not always make you want to eat more sausage, but at least you get to know then how sausage is made. This

is one of the first steps of the legislative process. It is also one way

you can see why—if I can just make one additional comment—in

government, you have to, in addition to being a general expert who

can stand up in a town meeting and at least be plausible in front

of the cameras on every subject and the second you make a mistake your opponent will jump all over you. At the same time, the

fact is, you cannot be like a little 8-year-old soccer team where everybody runs for the same ball. You each have to have subcategories, and you become more in depth on some areas, and hopefully then win the support of your colleagues as you have that indepth knowledge. That is really the process that we are going

through today.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. I would now like to yield to my friend and colleague, Congresswoman Myrick for any opening remarks she might

have.

Ms. MYRICK. Well, I just want to thank Chairman Souder for

choosing Charlotte to come here because we have such good examples of faith-based initiatives. We are known around the country

for our public/private partnerships in working together to make

things happen. It is a regional approach, it is not just the city of

Charlotte. You will have people here from other cities around and

that is really good, because we always try and work together to

make good things happen for the region. I think you will be very

pleased, Chairman Souder, when you hear some of the testimony

from the people who are going to be talking to you, because they

are running truly substantial organizations that have been innovative. They think outside the box, they try and do things differently

and they have been successful, which is the key. They literally turn

lives around, and that is what this is all about. So I am very

pleased you are here. I look forward to hearing from them and

maybe asking a couple of questions.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative

days to submit written statements and questions for the hearing

record and that any answers to written questions provided by the

witnesses also be included in the record. Without objection it is so

ordered.

I also ask unanimous consent that all exhibits, documents and

other materials referred to by Members and the witnesses may be

included in the hearing record and that all Members be permitted

to revise and extend their remarks. Without objection it is so ordered.

I go through this every hearing. If I can just briefly explain what

that means. What it means is that you have to have—Congresswoman Myrick is on the powerful Rules Committee that sets the

guidelines the rest of us can do and runs our lives. She does not

get to be on a lot of other committees and she is not a member of

this subcommittee. So to get a waiver to go ahead with the hearings, the Democratic ranking member and I have to work together,

otherwise they could shut down a hearing because there is not a

quorum of that. Well part of that process is allowing all the Members who want to to submit any questions. When they review or

their staff reviews the record, if they want to put something in

based on what I said or somebody said here, or if they want to send

a written question. But we do not always agree on all the issues,

but very much of a bipartisan working effort between Congressman

Elijah Cummings who heads the Black Caucus, who is the ranking

Democrat on our committee, we work very closely on drug policy.

I have been in his district multiple times. And they are pretty

much letting us go through here. Sometimes we have Democratic

staffing members added, sometimes we do not. But that is what

covers and protects all the Members is what I just read. And also,

if we want to do followup questions, later on we say oops, we did

not get this in the record when we were reviewing it, we can contact each of you or insert different things so when people read not

only the report, but the hearing record, they can get a good mix.

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Now we do one other thing in this committee that is different

than other committees in Congress. Because we are an oversight

committee, we have our witnesses take an oath. Now what that

means is is that if you lie to most committees you are in reasonable

trouble; if you lie here, you are prosecuted for perjury because it

is an oversight committee. We have actually had some cases go

forth—this is the committee that did Waco. This is the committee

that did the China investigations, who hired Craig Livingstone.

Much of what you saw in the news for about a tumultuous 6 years

this committee was doing. And so it is a tradition of an oversight

committee—mostly not because of faith-based organizations, but

because of oversight responsibilities when government agencies try

to cover up something, that we have this tradition. So I need to

have each of the witnesses stand and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that each of the witnesses responded in the affirmative.

We are going to start with Reverend Tony Marciano, executive

director of the Charlotte Rescue Mission.

STATEMENTS OF REVEREND TONY MARCIANO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CHARLOTTE RESCUE MISSION; REVEREND MABLE

HEMPHILL, WORLD OUTREACH MEDICAL CENTER, GASTONIA, NC; AND SHIRLEY STOWE, DIRECTOR OF NURSING AND

HOME MANAGEMENT, HOUSE OF MERCY, BELMONT, NC

Rev. MARCIANO. Good morning, Chairman Souder and Congresswoman Sue Myrick. Thank you for allowing me to be here.

Faith-based organizations serve the people of their community by

fulfilling their vision of meeting the spiritual, physical and emotional needs of people. Faith-based organizations also bridge the

gaps and services that are not provided by other sectors of the community.

Faith-based organizations have a great deal of compassion for

the people they serve. Sometimes they lack the technical competence to provide the services to the people they serve. While the

organization may be meeting an immediate crisis such as dealing

with hunger or emergency shelter, it fails to meet the deeper needs

of the individual that may have driven the person to be in need.

Faith-based organizations that are known to be leaders in their

communities must bring a concept of dedicated competence to their

target population. By dedication, I refer to that level of calling by

God to serve the people who are within their target population. By

competence, I mean being staffed by people that are professionally

trained to deal with that population. In the substance abuse field

where Charlotte Rescue Mission serves each and every day we

have counselors who are certified in substance abuse counseling, licensed professional counselors, master’s degree counselors, counselors with their doctorates, staff who have the technical knowledge

of dealing with the chemically addicted homeless while having a

calling to full-time Christian service.

Besides bringing dedicated competence to the table, faith-based

organizations need to be adequately prepared for their population.

When dealing with the chemically addicted homeless, one study the

Charlotte Rescue Mission refers to is a landmark book entitled ‘‘A

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Nation in Denial,’’ Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1993, written by

public policy analysts Alice Balm and Donald Burns. These authors

shattered many of the myths surrounding the root causes of homelessness. They contend that the condition labeled homelessness is

best described as a state of disaffiliation or complete alienation

from meaningful human relationships in social support systems

most people have working for them. As Christians, we might also

say that it means a lack of sense of community or belonging.

Based on their research, Balm and Burns conclude that at least

65 to 80 percent of all homeless adults suffer from chronic alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness or some combination of the

three complicated by serious medical problems. Of the nearly onethird of homeless adults who suffer from chronic psychiatric disorders, half are duly diagnosed suffering from addiction to alcohol

and/or drugs as well as mental illness. A lack of meaningful human

relationships is one of the core issues of addiction. Dishonesty,

blame, irresponsibility and outright abuse of those closest to them

are all a part of the damage cycle of addiction. Mental illness adds

even more stress and strain to family relationships. So it is little

wonder that homeless people become alienated from their loved

ones.

Faith-based organizations must go beyond anecdotal stories to

understand the problems as well as the outcomes they seek to obtain. As we look at chemical addiction amongst the homeless, we

often think of the stereotype of homeless men. Let me share with

you the typical female addict at the Charlotte Rescue Mission

Dove’s Nest Program. Seventy-five percent have had experience in

multiple-treatment centers and are chronically relapsers. Most

have had involvement with the legal system at some level. Most

have lost their homes, families, children and relationships to God.

Average age is 37.9; 92 percent deal with abuse issues usually

more than one of the types such as 30 percent physical abuse, 41

percent emotional abuse, 92 percent sexual abuse, 36 percent childhood incest, 31 percent sexual assault, 25 percent rape; 45 percent

of mental disorders such as major depression, bi-polar disease, personality disorders, post traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders;

98 percent have a poly substance addiction.

As the faith community deals with the chemically addicted homeless, it is imperative that they see the individual before them as

one being made in the image and likeness of God, one whom God

has made as body, mind and spirit. It is important because each

part affects one of the other parts of the individual. For example,

a crack cocaine addict will deplete the serotonin in their brain.

When the person begins recovery, it will take 2 years for the serotonin to return to normal levels. Therefore, while the person will

experience episodes of depression during his initial 2 years of recovery, the depression will not be spiritually or emotionally induced, but rather is related to a substance induced neurochemical

imbalance.

The issues of dealing with the chemically addicted homeless are

systemic. It is not only the individual who needs help, but there

are family issues that also need to be addressed. Family members

need to learn to have boundaries so the addict does not return to

a dysfunctional environment that could trigger his or her relapse.

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Faith-based organizations provide an opportunity for the individual they are serving to recover, as well as learn a level of emotional

health that most people only dream of, all through a personal relationship to God through Jesus Christ. Faith-based organizations

need to deal with issues such as family development, co-dependency, emotional health, basic living skills, family exercise—I am

sorry, physical exercise, recreation, Biblical 12 steps, individual

and group counseling, family programs and reconnection to the

church community.

As our world becomes more sophisticated, the temptation of the

faith community is to solve social problems with simplistic answers. By that I mean resolving homeless issues by a simple faith

decision where it is expected all issues are immediately solved.

This concept does not allow the individual to process these changes

internally and transform their life. Secular programs remove faith

from the equation and simply use a clinical model to help the individual. Well trained faith-based organizations bring a fresh solution, incorporating their faith while at the same time using qualified, trained personnel to serve its target population with real answers for life’s challenges.

Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much for your testimony.

We will now go to Reverend Mable Hemphill, the World Outreach Medical Center in Gastonia.

[The prepared statement of Reverend Marciano follows:]

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Rev. HEMPHILL. Thank you so much. I would like to thank Congresswoman Myrick and this panel for having us here. The reason

I am saying us is because you are only seeing Mable Hemphill, you

are not looking at the hundreds of volunteers that spend so much

of their time.

One thing that I would like to say this morning concerning the

faith-based is—and I am turning the paper down because I am

not—it does not work for me. I came from the—I look at the

streets. I mean that is my day-to-day job. But we do not look at

dollar signs, we see people. And when we see people we do not see

problems, we see issues, and for every issue we find a solution.

Most people that you are seeing—or that we are seeing, the only

thing they have is their faith. They have no money. A lot of them

have no families, so that is it. They have no food and they have

nowhere to go. What we have seen in previous years was a lot of

the homeless people that were living under the bridges, that were

on the streets, that had addictions, the alcoholism, the drug addiction.

Now there is a whole new animal out there and that is the new

homeless, so to speak, and that is the person that has lost their

job, that has the five-generation textile mentality, where my daddy

was in the textile mill, grandpa, and so on and so on, and their

conversation around the dinner table was not a money issue, it was

just making it from day to day. We are also seeing now the person

that has lost their job that is living in a $200,000 house that is—

I mean everyone is like a step away from bankruptcy. So we are

seeing a lot of that.

So right now with the faith-base that is it. I mean there is nowhere else to go. We have a tremendous amount of compassion. We

can see way beyond the problem that the person has or the issue

that the person has, because for every issue there had to be a reason that person has that issue. I mean be it drugs, be it incest, be

it whatever. So we do not see dollar signs. We look way beyond dollar signs. We look into the future, and we see that person’s heart.

That is it. We see that person’s heart. We see the need and we

never ask questions regardless of race, creed, color, whatever. We

never see that.

That is about all I have to say. I kind of get to the point, because

when you see the day-to-day operations of everyone here, we have

very little time. We do not spend a lot of time on the hows and the

whys. We only see the solutions.

[The prepared statement of Rev. Hemphill follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. As I said in the beginning too, any of

the written statements will be in the record as well.

Ms. HEMPHILL. OK.

Mr. SOUDER. We now go to Shirley Stowe, director of Nursing

and Home Management for the House of Mercy in Belmont.

Ms. STOWE. Thank you for inviting me to be here. I appreciate

being able to share what we do.

House of Mercy is a six-bed family care home licensed by the

State of North Carolina as a family care home. Back in 1991 when

the Sisters developed this ministry, they went out and did several

years of observation, what the needs were. And I say they were—

my hat is off to them every day because they were way ahead of

their time. There is such a need for this. Their mission for us is

to serve the underserved and give compassionate, loving care to

those in the advanced stages of AIDS. That being said, back in the

early days of course there were no treatments for AIDS, so everyone came to the House and died. Over the last 5 years that has

changed a bit.

Our admission criteria requires that the person be in the advanced stages of the disease, but because we serve the underserved

we get people from all walks of life, and priority is given of course

to the homeless population. We take people off the streets and

sometimes are able to—if the doctor decides it is appropriate for

them to go on the medication, we may network them back into society. If they get to us in time and can actually stabilize their disease

process, then I work with case managers out in the community and

rehab them. I am saying this in a short term. This goes on for

months, sometimes years to accomplish this process.

Like my neighbor here, we do not look at their past. We love

them unconditionally when they come through the door. The staff

that is there—we are all there because we want to be there because

of the difference that we make. That may be holding the hand of

someone and helping them to die comfortably in a home environment.

We do quite a bit of networking in the surrounding—I am going

to say counties, because the HIV Consortium that is located here

in Charlotte serves a 13-county region and we do a lot of networking within that region. We apply for funds every year and

have been fortunate to be the recipient of those for the past few

years. About 20 to 30 percent of our actual operating expenses is

reimbursed through government sources, through Medicaid and Social Security programs. The remainder of that has to be raised

through grants, fundraising, etc.

We apply for every year for an Americorps member and have

been awarded the last 5 years a member and that has really made

a difference in—this is through the National AIDS Fund, a division

of the Americorps program. That person serves as sort of an extra

person to help with volunteer and recreation for our residents.

That person really does make a difference in our patients’ quality

of lives.

As I said, we provide 24-hour care. So the staff does everything

from the bathing, personal needs, to the laundry, to the house

cleaning. It is not a glamorous job, but it is very, very rewarding.

We are all hired by the Sisters of Mercy because they have basiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:19 Aug 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94006.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
19

cally aged out. There is not enough sisters to actually run the operation anymore. It has become a passion of mine, and really, I think

everybody that is involved in the ministry it is a very special place.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Stowe follows:]

20

21

22

23

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you each for your testimony and for your

service.

We will do a number of rounds of questions. We may ask you

some written questions so we kind of from hearing to hearing have

the same questions going to the different witnesses. But I want to

pursue a couple of different lines of questioning here.

Could I ask each of you to briefly state why you consider yourself

a faith-based organization? In other words, how does that make

you different than a traditional service organization? What would

you say are the components? Is it your staff hiring, is it a process

people have to go through, is there anything that is peculiarly

faith-based or are you a secular organization staffed by people of

faith, which is a slightly different type of thing because Christians

work for the welfare department, too. It’s not to say only faithbased organizations have Christians working there. What makes

your organization uniquely a faith-based organization as opposed to

a social service organization that Christians are working in?

Rev. MARCIANO. I think if you look at the first seven words of

the purpose statement of the Charlotte Rescue Mission—the first

seven words say to minister the good news of Christianity. We are

not a social service agency. I think we deliver incredible social services, but we are first and foremost a ministry. And I define the

word ministry as reconnecting people back to God. The target population that God has called us to serve is the chemically addicted

homeless. But no, we are not a social service agency. We are people

that are Christians. We are a Christian organization staffed by

Christians whose goal is to minister and, as I say, reconnect people

back to God, and our purpose statement I think clearly articulates

that.

Mr. SOUDER. Reverend Hemphill.

Rev. HEMPHILL. I am a licensed, ordained minister. I used to be

banker. I never planned on being a minister and thought my calling was doing something else, but my calling was with the—and

I do not like to say less fortunate—but was with that area of people. Plus, our ministry is in the basement of the church. We are

a mission. It was a Baptist church. It went from Baptist to the

Church of God. Now it is a mission with all faiths in there. We took

a look at the area. The area where the church is, we have Hispanics on one side, a crack house over there, we are in the hood.

We look like we are not, but we are in the hood so to speak. And

then we have the so-called rednecks behind us. We have kind of

a—it is a mixed neighborhood. A perfect place. It is really a mixed

neighborhood. So we took a look at the need, and the need for that

area was a—right now we are doing the—I just found it—not me,

but some people that work along with me. Every agency in Gaston

County and the surrounding counties, we are trying to get everyone

involved. But we took a look at the area and because of the area

and because of the need, we just founded the Southern Piedmont

Health Center, which is a no-cost clinic for the medically underserved.

So one thing that makes us unique is I am a licensed ordained

minister. It is in the basement of the church. We do not think

about whether you are a Baptist or whether you are Episcopalian,

if you are a Muslim, we never think about that. We only see how

24

we can best serve. And being a licensed, ordained minister, trust

me, you are a servant. You are not out there for the money. You

are a servant, not only a servant of God, but you are a servant of

the people.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Stowe.

Ms. STOWE. Well the Sisters of Mercy—first of all, the house is

located on their property and their convent is on our campus. It is

the old Sacred Heart College Campus. They are the ones that went

out back in the late 1980’s and actually scrambled up the money

to build the bricks and mortar for the facility. I am an RN hired

by the president, who is my boss, who reports to a board of directors and there are Sisters on the board of directors, and then the

board of directors, actually if they want to make any major changes

in the mission or anything like that—which has never been

changed, by the way—they report to the board of the Sisters. So

we are very—you know, we have a Sister that visits the site every

day. It is just that they just do not have enough people to—they

actually staffed the house and lived at the house back in 1991

when it was first opened, but they quickly learned that was just

too big a job, and there are not people to actually work there

hands-on, so they have hired—I have been asked a lot of times are

you a sister. People think out in the community that I am a sister

because I have been so heavily involved for so many years, but I

am not.

Mr. SOUDER. Well let me ask you a couple of very difficult questions that we are having to deal with, at least when it touches government-type funding. And interestingly—well let me ask you a

couple of questions. Let me ask you three different questions. Not

about who you serve, by the way, because literally there should not

be any discrimination in who you serve. Certainly if you had any

government funds, but most even private donors would not want

you discriminating in who you serve. It is partly a question of who

you hire and what you do. Could each of you answer this question?

Would you hire someone who does not share your faith? If it is a

Muslim organization, would you hire a Christian? If you are a Jewish organization, would you hire a Christian? If you are a Christian

organization, would you hire a Muslim on your staff?

Second, do you pray with your clients, and would that change

your mission if you were not allowed to pray?

And then third—and this is one that is not talked about as

much. Many organizations have a standard you do not have to be

convicted in court to fire somebody. For example, if you heard that

somebody in your congregation or group was abusing a child or was

running around with somebody when they were married, or there

was an allegation from somebody on your staff that they bought

drugs or were selling drugs but they were not convicted. If you are

a government agency you cannot fire—or if you get government

funds, you cannot fire unless it has been convicted in court. But

most religious organizations because they view themselves as, in a

Christian sense, reflecting the glory of Christ believe that even if

there is substantial evidence you cannot run the risk. So are any

of those three things—who you would hire, on what basis you

would limit your flexibility to terminate somebody and whether you

25

are allowed to pray—make a difference if you were told you could

not do those things?

Do you want to start, Ms. Stowe? We will go the reverse direction.

Ms. STOWE. As far as hiring based on religion, I do all the hiring

of the staff, the caregivers and I have never asked anyone what

their religion is. The only reference to religion would be that both

with employees and with volunteers is they are told we respect our

clients’ wishes. Just because we are Catholic, we do not ask the

residents what religion they are, that makes no difference.

Mr. SOUDER. Not the residents, the staff?

Ms. STOWE. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. Would you ask—would you have a staff——

Ms. STOWE. Absolutely not, no, no.

Mr. SOUDER. You would not have a Muslim staffer?

Ms. STOWE. No, we would not—we do not even know what religion our staff is.

Mr. SOUDER. So you would not ask them——

Ms. STOWE. No.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. If they share your belief?

Ms. STOWE. Heavens, no, no.

Mr. SOUDER. OK.

Ms. STOWE. We just do not want to impart any religious on our

residents either. Obviously religion comes up, because when people

are facing death, people turn back to their inner faith, whatever

that might be. And we respect each and every person’s own beliefs

on that.

Mr. SOUDER. Similarly on other hiring and firing practices?

Ms. STOWE. Oh yeah, we—I——

Mr. SOUDER. Would you terminate somebody without them being

convicted?

Ms. STOWE. No. We get a criminal history on everyone when they

are hired.

Mr. SOUDER. I am not talking about people. A lot of times a

church-based organization will be different from a secular-based organization.

Ms. STOWE. No.

Mr. SOUDER. Well, you have kind of answered the prayer question as well.

Reverend Hemphill.

Rev. HEMPHILL. I have no problem hiring whomever if you are

qualified, you know, because basically that is not what we are looking at. Sometimes I would like to just take a look and say well, I

am not looking for the person with the master’s degree, I am looking for the person that can basically do the job. But being Islamic,

being whomever, that plays no part in it, because one of the engineers that is part of this organization is atheist and I am a licensed, ordained minister, but I do not pray with, we do not pray

with our clients. I never thought about it. You know, they do not

even have, even though the ministry is in the basement of the

church, they do not have to come to our church on Sunday morning. I mean that is nothing, it is nothing relevant to that. It is totally faith-based. So it is people of different faiths.

26

Third, it is innocent until proven guilty. That is it, innocent until

proven guilty. I try not to put my opinions—I keep my opinions to

myself and everyone that is part of the organization, even to the

board of directors, we keep our opinions to ourselves because we

see so much. Even with the prayer, I mean if someone is atheist

maybe they do not want you to pray with them. So it never comes

up. They are not encouraged or even asked to come to church on

Sunday mornings. It is innocent until proven guilty.

Mr. SOUDER. Reverend Marciano.

Rev. MARCIANO. Can I go back to our purpose statement? The

first seven words is to minister the good news of Christianity. So

yes, in our application we ask you for your church affiliation. Our

statement of faith is attached to the application, so there are no

questions about who we are and who we are hiring. We expect people, as they sign off on the application, to sign off on our statement

of faith. That is key, because even though we have people from different denominations—Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, etc.—we

need to make sure that everybody is on the same page, you know,

as we work with the chemically addicted homeless. And this is kind

of a side note. We use the 12 steps and our counselors need to even

sign off on their willingness to use the 12 steps. There are some

Christians that do not believe in the 12 steps. So if they did not,

they would not fit with Charlotte Rescue Mission even though they

may be Christians. So we have a lot of issues that we have to deal

with.

In terms of praying with the clients, everything in the Rescue

Mission is required. There is no optional service. I jokingly say you

do not have to be a Christian as a client to get into Charlotte Rescue Mission. You do not have to be a Christian to get out of Charlotte Rescue Mission as a client, but the program is consistent to

everybody who is a part of it.

Regarding employees, I think, as has been said before, you are

innocent until proven guilty. I mean, if a client accuses a staff

member of sexually abusing them, we have to investigate it, and

I cannot fire somebody if the evidence is not there. The same thing

if a staff member is accused of using drugs, and I drug test them

and the drug test comes out negative. I cannot fire them even if

somebody said that they did something.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to pursue this one step further because it

is one of our challenges as we move through and there is a wide

diversity that as far as government programs and as far as the

most hotly debated component charitable choice, the programs of

Ms. Stowe and Reverend Hemphill are already eligible. There

would be no need for faith-based legislation, because while you are

religious in a personal level, it is not going into your program;

therefore, that is not really what is part of the national debate. The

Rescue Mission would be. So the challenges with your faith-based

organizations are different than the challenge with faith-based organizations such as a rescue mission.

Now let me briefly separate the two because I want to get on the

record what your challenges are. Reverend Hemphill, I heard Ms.

Stowe talk a little bit about where her funding sources were. What

are your primary funding sources at the present time? Do you get

any government assistance at the Federal, State or local?

27

Rev. HEMPHILL. None.

Mr. SOUDER. Mostly private donors?

Rev. HEMPHILL. Right now mostly private donations. We had one

501(c)(3) and when we founded the medical center, which we are

working on, which the CPAs and attorneys are working on now, we

have to get another 501(c)(3) because there were two different missions in there. So no, we have never gotten any government funds,

everything was private donations, businesses. We run on a shoestring budget. So it is really businesses donating time, materials.

I mean everything we have is donated. We have never asked for

government funding.

Mr. SOUDER. Have either of you—for that matter, the Rescue

Mission as well. Is there any kind or have you heard of in your

field, forget government right now, in any of your fields, any of the

articles you have seen, any of the networks that you may have

heard of these different types of groups where they work with

AIDS or homeless or whatever, seen any kind of place where they

say here are organizations that donate? Here are ways to work

with raising money or getting awareness? Is there any kind of

interconnectedness with that? And if you could also answer at the

same time, have you ever had any foundations or groups have any

kind of effectiveness criteria with which to measure? In other

words, one of the things that we, as every Member of Congress,

hear from foundations and others, it is very difficult to figure out

who is effective at the grassroots level and who is not. Have any

of you in your day-to-day run into either effectiveness measures

where funders are trying to look for that or have you heard of such

a thing or have you ever been to a conference or any guidelines or

is there any Internet developments of things of how to hook up

where resources are, because you are busy out there drowning trying to take care of people. The question is, how do you get awareness, get the information out about your effectiveness other than

an occasional media story or occasional press conference?

Rev. MARCIANO. One of the things that we have tried to do at the

Rescue Mission is—and we are blessed. Back in 1994, UNC

Greensboro did a study on us and it was called Treatment Center

on a Shoestring Budget and they compared us with treatment centers with 10 times the budget and 10 times the staff. What they

found is at the end of 30 days 75 percent of our clients were still

in the program. The national average was 25 percent. At the end

of 90 days 42 percent of our clients were still in the program. The

national average was 18 percent. I can get you a copy of the study.

And it is an outside study. So it is not us saying here is what our

outcomes want to be and here is what we decided our outcomes

were. This university professor looked at us and she assessed what

our outcomes were. That is really one of the things that we use to

market our effectiveness to individuals and to foundations, that we

are running at twice the national average with one-tenth the budget and one-tenth the staff.

Regarding fundraising, I think—and one of the good things about

Charlotte is, people help each other all the time. You know, there

is the Association of Fund Raising Professionals. Organizations will

help each other with fundraising techniques and those sort of

things. It is not the mentality that so often I hear of, there is a

28

limited amount of money and agencies are fighting over it. I think

the mentality is there are people out there that are looking for

ways to invest their charitable dollars, and if they are not interested in the Rescue Mission, maybe they are interested in your

agency, and let me tell you how to connect to them. I have done

that with other agencies. I was mentored by the executive director

of the Denver Rescue Mission and I take what he has taught me

and willingly share with other agencies.

Rev. HEMPHILL. We form a lot of partnerships. We have

partnered with every agency in our surrounding area. We have

partnered with—right now we partner with probably—I think it is

Hospice—some things I do not know because I have other people

that take care of this. But I know right now, we are probably doing

26 partnerships. All of our studies came through Volunteers in

America. I think it might be on the Web site, VIM, we just joined

the association and we have a consultant that basically is assisting

us. At the present time, I think it is costing $61 per person just

for the things we are doing. They basically, you know, take care of

every aspect as to seeing, you know, what it takes to run this ministry. What it will take 5, 10, 20 years to run the ministry. So we

do have guidelines. But our guidelines—we have a board of directors, Caremont Hospital, because we are so involved, we have a

board of directors of just different people from different walks of

life, our trustees. Everybody just kind of takes a look at the criteria

and see what it takes to make the ministry go and then our guidelines. I think now with Volunteers of America, because we just got

a consultant.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Stowe.

Ms. STOWE. We have a lady who handles the funding. I do not

have a lot of knowledge of exactly what she does to find funding

sources, but I know she scrambles a lot. So does my boss. And as

far as—and I know they do a lot of applications because we do get

money from foundations.

As far as the effectiveness and ways to measure, I do not have

a lot of statistics in my head as far as, you know, the breakdown

of who we serve and how many actually leave or how many die.

It does not really matter how many die or leave the facility because

we are there to serve whatever the need is of that client. But really

it is kind of difficult unless you go out and tell people about the

work or if people come onsite. I love to have people come in because

they are always impacted. I have had people say this place is so

warm when they just—you know, that tells the story best, is to

have people visit.

Mr. SOUDER. I yield to Congresswoman—go ahead.

Rev. HEMPHILL. One thing I would like to say is that—like I said

before, we do not see dollar signs. So it is almost—it is very difficult to measure because we do see so many—I mean we see different people from different walks of life. So then you probably

have to say how many people do you serve per year, and that is

very difficult because of our location. We are kind of in the center.

So we see—there is a group home—two group homes that is behind

us that—one is an alcoholic—two of them are alcoholic homes.

There is a halfway house in front of us, there is a Salvation Army

to the right of us. So it is kind of—everything that we do—we do

29

a lot of newspaper articles and—I think we just did some television

advertising on Channel 14 to let people know basically what we do.

But a lot of things are word-of-mouth. You know, it is kind of wordof-mouth. We do get a lot of people who just like to come in and

take a look at where we are. But it is word-of-mouth because it is

a revolving door. We have a revolving door here.

Ms. MYRICK. The administration has been working and through

Congress, we have been looking at trying to change—neutralize

and change Federal guidelines that make it easier for you all to

apply for Federal funds and to receive these Federal funds to provide the social services. You may not have an answer because you

maybe have not thought about it, and if not, I would like you to

see if you could get back, you know, after you have had time to

think about it. But is there anything that you can think of that

would make it easier or better for you, changes that could be made

so you would have what is considered an equal access to these Federal funds to provide the services? Is there anything standing in

your way I guess is another way to put it?

Ms. STOWE. I can think of one. This may not be in your territory.

We are so close to the South Carolina border. One of my huge frustrations is, we have a wonderful AID service organization just

across the border in Rock Hill, SC and the Medicaid—I guess this

is a state-to-state thing. But the Medicaid guidelines do not reciprocate and if I took someone from South Carolina into North Carolina, they would have to be a resident 3 months. We would have

no funding for 3 months. We cannot afford to buy their medicines

for 3 months. That is a frustration. I feel so bad for those people

down there. We want to serve people, and we have. We have taken

people from other States and they play little games and get their

medications elsewhere.

Ms. MYRICK. This is a common problem because we are so close.

We run into this with other things, too, but it is a very good point.

Rev. HEMPHILL. The grant application—some of the grant applications are this thick [indicating approximately 2 inches]. The

grant applications, I do not get to see it. A lot of things I do not

get to see. I happened to see that one. They are a little intricate,

but we know it has to be that way.

Ms. MYRICK. It needs to be simplified so you can legitimately do

it yourselves and not have to have somebody who has all this experience fill it out for you, right.

Rev. HEMPHILL. Yes, ma’am, because a lot of times we do not

have the funds to hire someone to do this properly and grant applications like this, I mean trim them down a bit.

Ms. MYRICK. Tony.

Rev. MARCIANO. Our concern has to do with the television show

Bay Watch. If I can tell you a quick story. A couple of years ago

was the only time in my history at the Mission I made a chapel

service voluntary. We had a special speaker that was coming and

I announced on Friday that it was going to be on Saturday night.

As I got to the Mission at 6:50 to round up the guys, I went into

the television lounge and the show was ending and as 7 o’clock

began to hit Bay Watch was coming on. I said guys, come on, Pastor Mack is here from Progressive Baptist Church. He is a great

man of God, you need to hear him speak. They said, well, RevVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:19 Aug 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94006.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
30

erend, we really would rather watch television, and as they were

saying that Bay Watch was beginning to roll. I teased them and

I said oh, you would really rather watch Bay Watch and they said

no, you do not understand. I honored my word and I kept it voluntary. But one of the challenges we face is that in the faith-based

initiative what has come back to me is that services are voluntary

and I jokingly say I cannot compete with Bay Watch. If they have

a choice of hearing a great man of God or watching a television

show called Bay Watch I can prove to you they will opt for Bay

Watch.

Ms. MYRICK. Good point.

Rev. HEMPHILL. May I answer. What I would like to kind of

interject here is, we know that you have very little time, but just

take some time and come see. Come and visit. You know, just drop

in during the week. You are very welcome to drop in unannounced.

Just kind of give me a call.

Ms. MYRICK. I will do that. I have been to most everybody else

who is here today, but I have not been to yours, so we will make

it a point to do that.

Rev. HEMPHILL. Oh, OK. Thank you.

Ms. MYRICK. Thank you all.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to thank Congresswoman Myrick. She has

to leave shortly. So I appreciate her coming this morning as we arranged and worked with her and her office to put together this

hearing. I know that Reverend Marciano has an 11:15 deadline

looming on me, so I am going to ask a few more questions here that

I want to followup with.

My district is in northeast Indiana, Fort Wayne is the anchor

city. There are a number of other cities in it as well. One of the

things that we were exploring is that in, I think in Reverend

Hemphill’s testimony you refer to it as a small business center,

that as we in the government have worked in small business resource centers, we pooled to provide grant writing for some small

businesses. The question is, why can’t universities in a given area

work with the faith-based office using to some degree professors

and/or students where you could in effect put in a building like we

do with the small business resource centers where you could have

ideally a place where you could get some relationships going with

a university, where you could get a temporary office where you

could get assistance, where you would have the Federal Register

come in, where you would have a place to see what kind of grants

would be available? Have you heard of anything like that in this

area before? Has anybody raised that and would it be something

that you think you might use if it existed?

Rev. HEMPHILL. That is a definite. In our area it would be widely

used because we had to—on our board of directors and also part

of the organizational committee, we have a grant consultant who

was the former executive director of the Boys Club and he just volunteered to come in and to help us because of what we are doing,

and we have very little time. And when you have very little time

and you are understaffed, he just kind of jumped in and said yeah,

I will be part of the organizational committee, I will be part of the

board of directors. He is a jewel.

31

Mr. SOUDER. And this would not have to be just for government

grants. It could also be for foundations, United Way. It could help

figure out what measurements they are looking for.

Ms. Stowe, do you have any comments?

Ms. STOWE. I think it sounds like a fantastic idea. Grant writing

is not part of my responsibility, but I think the organization is open

to help however we can get it. We do have some partnerships with

area universities to have student nurses come in and offer experiences. I love working with students and any time we have the opportunity to share that we do, but I am not aware of anything like

this.

Mr. SOUDER. Reverend Marciano, go ahead. I have a number of

things I want to go into.

Rev. MARCIANO. I like your idea. The American Society of Fund

Raising Professionals has said that 85 percent of an organization’s

income comes from individuals, 5 percent from foundations, 5 percent from businesses and 5 percent from wills. And as I work and

help out very young non-profits, the two things that they historically chase after is special event money, car washes and those sort

of things and foundation money and they put a lot of energy into

that. It may be taking your idea, and I like it, but teaching nonprofits to cultivate relationships with donors, if 85 percent of a

healthy nonprofit organization comes from individuals then they

really should be spending 85 percent of their development time cultivating those donor relationships. That is something that is usually not done in terms of training. And if universities and your idea

could help nonprofits do that, then the world is truly our oyster.

Mr. SOUDER. I have a couple of things I want to pursue directly

with you for a couple of minutes. We have been doing these hearings, what kind of fruition, what in effect can the government do

other than kind of mess things up, which we do very well, but what

can we do from a positive standpoint? It is clear to me, and this

panel is interesting because you have illustrated the diversity, one

element of the diversity in types that we are seeing all over the

country. In other words, first something that you may not be aware

of is that the first faith-based initiative started under, where there

was really a direct effort, started under President Reagan in the

early 1980’s with homelessness, because—excuse me, with AIDS,

because as you mentioned, because there was this theory that you

could catch AIDS, really about the only people that would do this

were people who were secure in their salvation, and so the religious

groups started first and were the first anchor of AIDS. Nobody

would take AIDS patients, so all of a sudden government grants

started flowing to religious organizations because nobody else

would take them.

The second group, when Anna Condradas was at HUD, was in

the homeless area, because there simply wasn’t enough of a public

will to put enough dollars into the homeless area. So homelessness

was one of the other categories where for years nobody looked at

the question of were you praying, who were you hiring, what were

you doing, because man, the people with AIDS were dying. The

people were homeless on the street. If anybody will help them, get

them the money.

32

When we moved into drug treatment, we moved into the insurance business, huge providers in other areas where all of a sudden

there was competition. When you move into mental health, when

you move into juvenile delinquency, there are whole structures that

deliver a lot of those services, and when faith-based organizations

started to apply in those areas all of a sudden a whole bunch of

different questions came up.

And you represent another interesting thing here, and that is

that there are variations within each, but to over-stereotype, and

I am going to grant first of all, even in our witnesses at our hearings, that this is not pure. The Catholic Church is more willing—

I am an Evangelical out of a Fundamentalist background who also

has a graduate degree from Notre Dame, so I am fairly ecumenical

Evangelical Fundamentalist and have a pretty good understanding,

at least superficial, of a lot of the different denominations. The

Catholic Church generally speaking is more flexible on the hiring

practices and the faith based. That is not uniformly true. In Chicago we had a couple of cases where they were saying that faith

and prayer were a critical component in their organization and

would not apply for government funds. But generally speaking

Catholic and the Lutheran churches split to some degree, even inside the Senate on the organizations, depending on, even into the

Missouri Senate, which kind of faction they are in the Missouri

Senate. In the African American community in particular, it is

much more diverse and ecumenical, although they are—because it

is mostly Evangelical the Muslim question has complicated things

in many urban areas. But they are so much more resource challenged that they are more likely to change whatever is needed to

get the dollars, because they may not have a large denomination

backing them up with systematic parishes like the Missouri Senate

or like the Catholic Church and may not have members in their denomination or contacts with the wealthy business community with

which to develop a private donor base, which is getting to your

point in the Rescue Mission. It kind of depends on who you have

access to, whether your are denominational based, whether your

are in a community, particularly what the whole faith-based initiative is trying to. One of the things that started with that was, African American and Hispanic groups that are in the poor urban

neighborhoods who basically mostly have people, a high percentage

of their congregations are on public assistance. So they do not have

access often to the power brokers in the community. They do not

know how to write the grants. How in the world can we help these

neighborhoods who live in their own zip code get assistance? Then

the collateral which is in my opinion predominantly Evangelical organizations who are very nervous about government, and I am

nervous about the government undermining the mission of the Rescue Mission. I would like to figure out, OK, well what can we do

to assist without tampering with what makes you effective.

Now, I want to come to Reverend Marciano. I wanted to lay that

foundation. Could you, just first because you have raised this interesting question of individual donors. How would you match groups

that do not have traditional access that are somewhat uncomfortable often even in the style approach. I am not saying just Reverend Hemphill’s organization, but that is a good example. She

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may not have immediate access to large donors. How would you do

a training session for that? What would the difference be from say

from your organization? Rescue missions are fairly well known,

their success goes up and down depending on the bottom line effectiveness of the executive director, people like yourself would then

get a good board and get out. We have a very successful one in Fort

Wayne that I support. The executive director, Reverend Humphries

has been there a long time and has really built the relationships

and that is there, but they do vary city by city. But how would you

transfer this then to a group that does not necessarily have any access to the traditional money routes in the city?

Rev. MARCIANO. When I got to Charlotte Rescue Mission there

was no executive assistant, administrative assistant, there was no

nothing. When the copier died we flipped a coin to see who would

repair it, you know, and called the company. So there was none of

that. Things have changed in the 7 years I have been here. I say

all of that to say that I was blessed to mentor with the executive

director of the Denver Rescue Mission. When I started with him

and I said to him, Dell, if you were on the board of directors of the

Charlotte Rescue Mission and you had to evaluate Tony Marciano,

how would you do it? Without missing a heartbeat he said, Tony,

there are three things you are responsible for. He said it is program, administration and development. He said it is a three-legged

stool, and he said the problem is in most missions, and you could

translate it to faith-based organizations, is that the stool is unlevel.

That the program leg is very tall and very strong. The administrative leg is long enough to keep the IRS at bay and the development

leg does not even exist and the stool is crooked and the organization is sliding off of it. He said, Tony, your job is to keep the stool

level regardless of how the organization grows. So as I work with

nonprofits, and kind of the test is I throw this thought out to them,

and I can tell in a moment whether or not the executive director

wants to be in program or wants to really be the head of the organization. I met with one young lady as we talked this through. I

said to her, you really do not want to be the executive director. You

really just want to be with the clients and pray with them and hold

hands with them and she kind of looked at me and her shoulders

kind of went down and said you are right. I said that is not the

job of the executive director, you know, that is the program director. The executive director is responsible for this stool. So as I work

with nonprofits, I can quickly tell where the executive director is

at. Is he or she interested in meeting the needs of the person or

is he or she interested in growing this organization? At a point the

executive director has to step aside and let other people do the program, administration and development as he or she leads the organization.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. We may do some followup on how to do

that because while we disagree in Washington on the charitable

choice provisions, and I authored, I carried four of the ones that

are current law because I believe you should be able to hire who

you need and I believe we need to get the dollars. But I am having

some second thoughts because I am worried the government is

going to change the mission in the process here. But the two most

important parts are things that we are trying to address, and we

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actually have a lot of bipartisan support for. One is the tax credits.

In other words, to give more value to people who give you the

money, which helps your individual donors but does not help you

on the government side.

The second thing is a training component. Whether it would be

groups like the Rescue Mission that might not want government

funds but would be eligible for government funds under many

standards but would still get that kind of basic training, presumably by people from the field not by somebody who has only been

in college and taught it. Not that there is anything wrong with

that, but somebody also who has field experience. And also groups

like those of Reverend Hemphill and Ms. Stowe who may seek government grants but still need the similar guidance of how to do

that mix. And so I think we are moving some in that direction as

we resolve some of the more difficult—I have one more question for

you, because it was alluded to I think both by Ms. Stowe and Reverend Hemphill, and I am sure it is true at the Rescue Mission,

too. In your hiring practices, not criteria for hiring, but you referred to the increasing difficulty of the Sisters to get enough people to staff. Is there anything that we can do that would provide

incentives? In other words, let us say there are restrictions in cash

transfer. Can you think of other things that we might be able to

do that would help in recruiting? We have worked with legal liability questions of suits. Some people are afraid to volunteer because

they are going to get sued and organizations are afraid. I cannot

remember whether I dropped the bill. We have certainly talked

about it. I know we increased at one point mileage reimbursement

for volunteers. Are there other things in the tax code that we might

be able to look for that would be helpful to you on the staffing and

volunteer side that would avoid some of the other kinds of debates

to help you in recruiting?

Rev. MARCIANO. One of the things that we are seeing is that people are mid-career. They have been in corporate America and

maybe they are not fulfilled and they want to jump to the nonprofit

sector but they are looking at taking a 40 percent hit in income.

So how do they deal with that when they have a, let us say a 30-

year mortgage and they are 10 years into it? Those people are excellent. They may have MBAs, they may have a heart for what we

are doing, but how do they go from Bank of America, let us say,

to Charlotte Rescue Mission? And they would bring such wisdom

and experience. So maybe some of the things you can help us do

is let us say with mortgage loans. Maybe they can get half a percent loan or a 1-percent mortgage rate cheaper if they stayed with

the nonprofit organization for 5 years or other things like this.

Maybe there are other financial incentives maybe with auto loans

or other things like this. Maybe tax credits under home mortgages,

you know, for going from Bank of America to Charlotte Rescue Mission as an incentive, because what they bring is all that training

that I spoke about earlier when I first addressed this committee.

They bring that to a nonprofit organization. As nonprofits are getting more and more sophisticated we are moving from mom and

pop operations to well structured organizations. We need people

with MBAs, we need people with HR experience, even as you

talked about some of the staffing issues. Once you get beyond a cerVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:19 Aug 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94006.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tain number of employees you almost have to dedicate an employee

just to deal with all the HR issues. All the FMLA, HPPA regulations that Bank of America has to deal with, Charlotte Rescue Mission has to deal with.

Mr. SOUDER. Reverend Hemphill or Ms. Stowe, do you have any

suggestions? Do you get a slightly different volunteer mix? Would

there be something we could do in the schools? In Americorps, we

have made faith-based organizations, regardless of their practices,

eligible for Americorps. But even there, how do we stimulate more

people to get involved in that? People objected, including me, when

we first started looking at paying volunteers, but we put a criteria

in that those volunteers have to be organizing and recruiting other

volunteers.

Ms. STOWE. Yeah, I so support the Americorps program. I just

do not know what we will do if we do not get—I worry every year.

I start worrying before they even leave. They cut the program this

year. I feel like such a mentor to those folks because they struggle

financially and they have to call the people in Washington that are

over the program about insurance issues and they are such strugglers. But I feel like we give those members so much in experience.

I feel like we have so much to offer. I just so believe in that program. And when they do site visits often times they will come to

House of Mercy because I am their field supervisor and I love the

program, anything I can do to support that program.

But I love his ideas about the tax incentives for our staff. I mean

our, my staff is much more lower paid, they are CNAs, they are

caregivers, we cannot afford nurses anymore. I am the only nurse

left and I am totally administrative. I wear a lot of hats.

Mr. SOUDER. My background is more of a business background.

In fact, when I was in grad school, they have, for example, we have

SCORE, who are retired executives who come back and help small

businesses. Could we set up a similar thing for that to work in volunteer organizations? When I was in grad school, we got class credit for it. Part of our small business class was we had to take an

applicant into the small business, who was applying to the Small

Business Administration, go into their neighborhood, help them

with their grant structure for a small business loan, do a market

plan for them to help, because often they were people who wanted

to get off welfare or start a business of their own, but they did not

have any idea how to, you know, assess. Not that we had all that

much experience either, but we had a little more theoretical experience in how to do a market plan, how to fill out the paperwork and

that kind of stuff. So clearly there are university precedents for

students or university precedents or business precedents, but they

are all toward economic development areas. I am wondering, you

know, whether you have seen anything like that in the social service areas?

Rev. HEMPHILL. One thing that is helping us is we are getting

a lot of input from retired doctors. I do not know a lot of things

about the malpractice, but there is one fear because we are doing

the free clinic now. That is the next arm. They are kind of leery

of being a volunteer, to be a volunteer in a free-clinic setting. You

know, they are afraid of getting sued. So that will be something

that we would like for you to take a look at. I always tell these

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other people behind me, because they are afraid of getting sued,

even the executives. Everybody is afraid of getting sued. If we come

here and volunteer, you know, they say they might be homeless

and the indigent might be indigent but they are not stupid. And

they are definitely afraid of getting sued.

Mr. SOUDER. That is a good, another good idea that we can look

at. This is a huge problem in Detroit. Even in hospitals they have

very few doctors. Indianapolis, IN; Chicago, they have very few doctors that will take young mothers under 17, even for delivery, because they are afraid with the low birth weight something could

happen and they will be sued. There’s kind of an odd relationship

between my hometown and North Carolina, because we have a

major company based there, Medical Protective, or Med Pro, that

is the primary insurer of doctors in North Carolina and they have

lost a lot of money in North Carolina, and like other companies,

have looked at even pulling out because of the lawsuits here on

doctors. So it is not an illegitimate concern that they have this decision of how high do you make the rates. If the rates are too high,

then you have to get high paying clients, not clients who cannot afford to pay it, just to cover your insurance rates. In southern Indiana—to use another anecdotal story, in Evansville, which is the

other end of the State from me, but when I worked for our senator

at that time, a number of years ago before Indiana changed some

of their medical malpractice, in Evansville, IN the difference, this

is some time ago, and I am going to make up the dollars, but it

is roughly like this. The difference in medical malpractice for a doctor in Evansville versus one across the border in Illinois was

$20,000 versus $120,000 a year. Now what happened was, no doctors in southern Illinois would deliver babies and they were all delivered across the State line, and you can imagine what that did

with Medicaid. We have that problem all over the place.

So we have a number of things we need to address. It is very

controversial. You do not want to have people held, butchered and

then not be able to get their money back. But when you are dealing

with faith-based organizations and volunteering in places where

you are dealing with people who are hurting and then they cannot

get medical services, we clearly are going to have to figure out how

to do that.

Is there anything else you would like to add for the record, either

of you?

[No response.]

Mr. SOUDER. Well, I thank you very much for coming, but most

importantly for your work. You are dealing in two areas that can

overwhelm even the most heartfelt soul who wants to help. Thank

you very much.

If the second panel could come forward. Alice Harrison; Ginny

Amendum. Did I get that right? I will get that corrected in a second. And Pat Marcum. I do not believe Cindy Marshall is here.

Ginny Amendum, I butchered your name. I apologize.

Ms. AMENDUM. That is OK, most people do.

Mr. SOUDER. You can remain standing and we will do the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that each of the witnesses responded in the affirmative.

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Thank you for coming out today. As I mentioned, your full testimony will be put in the record. You are welcome to go through it

or to say whatever you want. They go in the permanent record of

the U.S. Congress with your opinions on this subject. I am looking

forward to hearing from each of you. If Alice could start, she is the

executive director of Hope Haven in Charlotte, NC.

STATEMENTS OF ALICE HARRISON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

HOPE HAVE, CHARLOTTE, NC; GINNY AMENDUM, THOMPSON

CHILDREN’S HOME, CHARLOTTE, NC; AND PAT MARCUM,

LOVE INC OF MECKLENBURG COUNTY

Ms. HARRISON. Greetings. I have divided this into three areas.

What faith can build. Hope Haven was created on the faith of two

wonderful women. It was expanded on the faith of our board and

staff. It is successful because of the faith placed in our program by

our residents.

Hope Haven, a foundation of recovery, provides life skills for

chemically dependent adults and families within a supportive residential environment leading to independence. To enter our program a person must have completed a primary treatment program

within the past year, be homeless and be willing to make the commitment to stay in the program for at least 6 months. Hope Haven’s primary community, the Villages of Hope Haven, is located

on the site of a former drug and prostitution infested motel. The

same motel was once a premier showplace for travelers and conventions before falling to disrepair. Located on 13 acres it is a perfect setting for a community and it truly is a community. On this

property we have job training programs, a conference center with

a capacity of 538 people, a stellar child development center that

provides special services to many children with or at risk of developmental and physical disabilities. This is my partner in our child

development center, Jenny Amendum.

We have a wonderful nondenominational chapel and two chaplains, a greenhouse, commercial laundry, certified substance abuse

counselors and the wonderful voices of hope recovery choir. Our

newest addition is the conversion of our 13-bed house near downtown from transitional housing to permanent supportive housing

made possible with a HUD grant.

In March some of our graduates will begin moving into 32 apartments built on land at the back of our property as part of an LLC

with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Housing Partnership. There are a

number of resources that have been added to our North Tryon community since we opened our program. An elementary school across

the street, and in our same block a new library, police substation

and job training center. The drug house across the street was bulldozed down by police and the prostitutes no longer walk our street.

Our program provides residents with an opportunity to use the

tools of recovery taught in primary treatment programs within a

structured, supportive environment. Vocational training programs

are provided in food services preparation; sanitation and delivery;

catering, onsite and offsite to groups of 6 to 500; commercial laundry skills, including sales of services, provision of services, some

machine repair and billing. We have a maintenance program which

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specializes in teaching large building maintenance and a horticulture program that is complete with a working greenhouse.

Weekly our residents attend four AA or NA meetings, have group

counseling two nights and individual counseling. We have single

adults, women with children, men with children, couples and intact

families as residents. We also contract with our local drug court

and the staff at First Programs to provide housing and training as

an alternative to incarceration for those who have committed alcohol and other drug related crimes and have agreed to enter the

drug court treatment programs. This program too has been hailed

as a national model for working with offenders who have not been

able to stay clean in their home environments.

Pitfalls to avoid. The greatest concern my colleagues and I have

had since the announcement of the faith-based initiative has been

the level of expertise that will be allowed. Yes, it is hard to meet

all the regulations required. Our policy and procedures book expanded from 37 pages to over 200 pages, but it is important for

residents in rehabilitation programs to receive educated, competent

care that often requires using tough love. We are dealing with people who have had to survive by any means possible. They also have

multiple problems in addition to their substance abuse, including

abuse, domestic violence, bad credit, criminal records, HIV/AIDS,

loss of child custody, loss of possessions, poor job histories. If staff’s

do not have experience in assessing and working with the problems

they will enable them to stay sick rather than empower them to

become self sufficient.

The second concern is for programs that approach residents from

the perspective of religion versus spirituality without the resident

being given any choice. Alcohol and other drug addictions are diseases that can be treated. Recovery is possible only through total

abstention a day at a time. It is not a sin or moral issue, although

certainly many sins and immoral as well as illegal acts occur during the influence of substances. We have residents of many faiths

as well as those just beginning to find or rediscover their beliefs

in their higher power. A large part of their recovery is based on

finding that power in which they can believe and trust to forgive

their past actions while still providing strength to remain substance free each day.

My last concern is funding. The general mindset of funders is to

fund new programs. However, there are programs that are very effective that can never be self-supporting and need sustained funding to survive. Creating programs to chase operating dollars is

wasteful.

The good news. HUD, Mecklenburg County and United Way are

our major ongoing sources of income for sustained programming. I

really cannot say enough goods things about the role HUD plays

in our community. Without its funding our continuum of care

would truly suffer. It would be possible to replicate our program almost anywhere. If a motel is available through government seizure,

it is even more attainable. Again, the only obstacle is financing of

the facility’s renovations and funding to operate. We are already

seeing other agencies in our area replicating our model and talk

with agency representatives from across the United States about

the steps to make it happen. This too would be a great way for

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churches to provide temporary apartments for those in need of

housing, especially the working poor.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. We will put your full statement in the

record.

Next is Ginny Amendum.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Harrison follows:]

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Ms. AMENDUM. Thank you. I am delighted to be here and hear

all of these interesting perspectives from my colleagues in the local

community.

Thompson Children’s Home has provided continuous care for

children for over 100 years. They began with a very strong connection to the Episcopal Church. Today they maintain a very wholesome affiliation with the Episcopal Church. Coming out of their

history as an orphanage where children needed food, clothing and

shelter, they have come to be a human-service agency that provides

services along a continuum of care—strong medical, psychiatric,

educational treatment services for fragile children and families.

Their programs fall into three distinct areas today, early childhood services. Centers like the one Alice mentioned at Hope Haven.

We have two of them in a very high-risk area in the north part,

the north sector of Charlotte. We have our early childhood services

focused on family education, child care, best practices following research-based studies.

In our treatment services we provide care and healing for children who have been sexually abused, abandoned, neglected and

hurt. They are North Carolina’s throw-away children. We often

hear that. Our community-based services take children that have

undergone intensive treatment and move them forward to live

again in community-based placements, foster care with an eye always on permanency through adoption.

Thompson Children’s Home, I think, has come to the point where

they partner very effectively both with other faith-based initiatives,

and we do have a strong philosophy around that faith-based perspective. Our philosophy is based on four words—healing, teaching,

worship and play. All of those things are provided and offered to

our clients, nothing is required.

We also partner very effectively with certain government agencies. I think that as faith-based initiatives and agencies move forward in today’s society and do serve this incredible function for social service, that we will more and more need to take a look at our

standards of accountability, at how we license ourselves and regulate ourselves and maintain standards so that if we ask for government help and support that we will be able to speak with understanding and clarity about what our best practices are, about what

we do to provide those for our clients and within our communities.

And I think that when we look and struggle between what is the

difference between a faith-based agency and something that maybe

is government controlled or government mandated, it is about relationships. It is about the fact that the faith-based initiatives always

keep their eye on the faces, always have the opportunity really

more than government to remember the faces and the individuals.

And when we all focus on community building and strengthening

our communities, we know that the best resource is our human resource. Even though sometimes government is forced to do that in

more of a wholesale capacity, faith-based initiatives allow us to

keep sight of the individuals and to remember that victory pretty

much is counted on an individual basis.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Amendum follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Pat.

Ms. MARCUM. Thank you for the opportunity to——

Mr. SOUDER. I should say you are with Love INC of Mecklenburg

County.

Ms. MARCUM. Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to present testimony today.

Love In the Name of Christ, or Love INC of Mecklenburg County

has been operating in Charlotte since 1993. The mission of Love

INC is as follows: In the Name of Christ, to link individuals who

have unmet needs to church volunteers willing to meet those needs

in such a way that both will be blessed.

In 2003 about 149 churches and 15 different mainline denominations in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area participated in the Love

INC network by either providing volunteers to do services, providing funding, donating in-kind materials or making referrals. Almost 19,747 volunteer hours were donated during the past 12

months by hundreds of church volunteers providing more than 50

different types of services for close to 5,050 elderly, disabled or poor

individuals in the community.

Here is how Love INC works in a nutshell: Love INC functions

as a clearing house where last year close to 100 social service agencies, police departments, hospitals, clinics and home health agencies referred individuals who had unmet needs that no social service agency existed to fill. In the Love INC office, appropriate Love

INC church volunteers were then mobilized to go out and meet that

need.

About 70 percent of the services provided last year were for the

elderly or the disabled. The rest were primarily for poor families.

I think the statistic has arisen because these are the most vulnerable people in poor economic times, so we see that number increasing. Many of the services were for such things as yard work, painting, house cleaning, transportation to the doctor or pharmacy, assistance with grocery shopping or food delivery, tutoring, clothing

donations, home repairs and much more.

Love INC seeks to leverage scarce resources in our community by

facilitating interdenominational cooperation and collaboration in

the church community. Rather than having many different churches host the same types of ministries Love INC seeks to assist

churches in setting up a needed ministry to the poor and then encourages other churches in the Love INC network to donate resources to that ministry rather than duplicating it.

An example of this is the Love INC Baby Layette Ministry. Love

INC assisted three churches in the Charlotte area in different parts

of the city to host Baby Layette Ministries. Love INC provided

training for the church’s volunteers and once the initial Baby Layettes were made available, Love INC provided referrals of clients

that had been referred to us by the Health Department or Department of Social Services to those churches. And then other churches

and volunteers made donations, and still are doing that, for Baby

Layette items to those three churches, who then distributed them.

During the past 12 months Love INC has also facilitated the construction of more than 87 wheelchair ramps for the disabled in

Charlotte-Mecklenburg. At a conservative estimated retail value of

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about $1,500 each—and that is conservative—these 87 ramps

would cost about $130,500. However, rather than paying professional contractors to do the work, Love INC has volunteer ramp

construction experts who design the ramp according to county safety specifications and who will then train construction teams from

participating churches to build the ramps. Utilizing this free labor

resource and in-kind donations from the churches, as well as

partnering to build some of the ramps with a government program,

the Caregiver Support Program, Love INC has been able to leverage these scarce dollars at a six to one level. In other words, for

every $1 donated for ramps to Love INC, $6 in ramps has resulted.

Another way Love INC has been able to leverage resources is

with our Budgeting Assistance Program for the working poor. In

the pilot study just completed in October of this year, Love INC

and all of the collaborating churches, volunteers and nonprofit

agencies were able to provide over $15,000 worth of materials and

services to the client families for an out-of-pocket cost of $1,400, an

almost 11 to 1 leverage.

Other important Love INC programs are the Adopt an Elder Program where care teams from churches form a second family for a

disabled or elderly individual or couple and the Samaritan Saturdays program, where groups from participating churches go out

and do projects in the community to help the poor. By utilizing a

greatly under-utilized community resource, church volunteers, Love

INC provides about $4 in services and materials to clients for every

$1 in cash donated to the agency.

As the population in our country ages, more and more services

are going to be needed to help individuals remain independent and

in their own homes for as long as possible. Funds are no longer

going to be as available for Medicaid probably as they have been

in the past as payment for nursing homes. Love INC and other

faith-based nonprofits stand ready to help provide some of those

services and help fill in the gaps, and yet when it comes to funding

to help provide those services, we find ourselves falling between the

cracks because we have not had the resources or staff to apply for

and administer these highly complicated Federal grants. We are

very hopeful that the new interest in the services being provided

by faith-based organizations will make some significant changes in

that situation and we are grateful that the attention of government

decisionmakers has been directed toward Love INC and other faithbased organizations like us.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Marcum follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. Once again, thank you for your work, first and foremost, and then for testifying today about that as well.

Let me just say for the record, and you tell me if it is otherwise.

At Hope Haven and Thompson Children’s Home, you are pretty

open in your hiring practices and would hire a Buddist or a Hindu

if they applied. Love INC, they would have to, I mean the original

is In the Name of Christ, would they need to be a Christian to

work at your organization.

Ms. MARCUM. Yes. We do have a statement of faith. We share

that with any applicant. Because our mission statement says in the

name of Christ, we hire only Christians.

Mr. SOUDER. Is it Virgil Goker who——

Ms. MARCUM. Yes, Virgil Goker began the program up in Michigan about 30 years ago.

Mr. SOUDER. One thing you might look at, and I will mention it

to him directly. When we redid Americorps, we put a particular

clause in to say that faith-based organizations were available and

that we reoriented it toward trying to make sure that it can provide for administrative purposes. Because we tried to put a Love

INC in Fort Wayne and eventually it fell apart because the hard

part was trying to take OK, I can do this Tuesday night from 6:30

until 8. Administratively it is difficult. Just like STEP and other

programs where you try to match volunteer services with the other.

So that is what we are trying to direct, because often you can find

the volunteers but managing the volunteers is the huge problem if

you cannot raise the overhead dollars to manage the volunteers.

But the reason I say that is because the person who heads the subcommittee and who drafted the bill and who put those changes in

is Pete Hoekstra, who represents Holland, MI where this program

was founded, and he is very familiar with it. So that was part of

the origins. The organization is part of the origins of the change.

So make sure you talk about that. There are many organizations

that try to do that. We are trying to steer to help, that was one

of our efforts. How can we help? We cannot pay every volunteer in

America, but we can try to help organize those volunteers. That is

one thing we are trying to do with these programs.

Let me revisit a couple of the things from the first panel and

then I am going to open it up to see if you want to have any general things with that. I would like to go a little bit into detail on

a couple of things with Hope Haven, with Ms. Harrison. You said

that your procedures book expanded from 37 to 200 pages. Can you

explain a little bit what that is and what things caused that?

Ms. HARRISON. That is our work as a result of the requirements

from the Department of Health and Human Services for the State

of North Carolina for us to be licensed under the licensure under

which we are, which is Therapeutic Communities for Adults and

New Children.

Mr. SOUDER. We had this really intense debate in San Antonio

over some of the people who were working with treatment over licensing and how many procedures you have to have. Let me ask

you a real challenging question. One of the things I have toyed

around with, I have been persuaded that A, it is not going to pass

and B, it would cost too much cash, but I am still pretty bent on

this. A friend of mine, Bob Woodson, raised years ago about a zip

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code test, that a certain percentage of the grant-giving people

would be required to live in the zip code where they provide the

services. Because one of the things that Gene Rivers in Boston and

others charge is they can tell the people that got the government

grants. They come in and work for a little while and go back to the

suburbs, and then the people who are still in the neighborhood

where most of the problems are occurring, particularly in juvenile

delinquency, gang related things, but often even drug problems

occur after 5 p.m. until 9 a.m. not from 9 to 5 during the day. One

of the challenges is that many of the groups that live in the neighborhood and who are most active could not begin to do a 200-page

document.

Ms. HARRISON. I am sorry. I did not understand you.

Mr. SOUDER. Could not begin to do a 200-page document to meet

all the procedures. Have you seen partnerships with some of the

African American and Hispanic? Whenever you have an emerging

minority community you often have street activists, but who may

not in their churches or their neighborhoods have CPAs, have attorneys, have people with this. If they have the love and the ability

to live in the neighborhood, to be there, have you seen partnerships

with them? How would you suggest we address this?

Ms. HARRISON. Good question. I am very active in our neighborhood of Hope Haven and in the North Tryon Coalition. Although

I do not live there, I spend most of my time there. When we increased the size of our policy and procedures manual to meet the

new qualifications, we spent a lot of money putting into place the

things that needed to be done to meet those requirements and on

buying expertise of experts to help us with that policy and procedures manual. As a result, our board of directors has said that we

can sell our policy and procedures manual to other agencies. So we

do offer that to other agencies. We have agencies that call us all

the time wanting to recreate what we have, and we will sell them

our policy and procedures manual and we will also sell them or

give them a disk so that they can update it as they need to update

it, which gives them the headstart we did not have. That is one

way. Frankly, I cannot say that our program is a bit better because

of the 200 pages of rules than it was with the 37 pages of rules.

So I think that we certainly can look at some of the policies and

procedures, because a lot of the things that we are required to do

to have our licensure, a small agency just cannot do. They do not

have the manpower to be able to do the things that need to be

done.

Mr. SOUDER. I would be very interested to have either a faithbased staffer or a person who is working with the drug treatment

area followup. Because what I would really appreciate is, if you

could go through the 200 pages, we have a HHS detailee who

might be able to work with us as well—detailee meaning he is assigned to our committee for a period of time—to go through the 200

pages. You say which things you think, because you have weighed

in on the side of look, this has to be professional. I am mixed on

this, by the way. I believe it is both a head and a heart issue, and

I believe if you commit your life to Jesus Christ you can in fact go

the most important first step, which is a meaningful desire to

change, and that alone in some people is enough. Others have a

53

chemical dependency that is further along and that is not enough

and they need a supplement. But I have met too many drug addicts

who went cold turkey, when I was told by universities that they

could not, to not believe that faith is not possible to do that. But

you have weighed in on the side look, there should be certification

and processes. So if you can help us kind of sort through the 200

pages and say OK, these things are absolutely in our opinion—I am

not saying I am going to agree with that, but at least that is where

we are right now anyway. That these are absolutely essential,

these are medium essential, these could possibly be waived. Then

the second part of that is, we will take them back to HHS and say

why did you put this in because there may be things you have not

thought of, we have not thought of, variations. The nightmare is,

often it is two cases somewhere that lead to a regulation that everybody has to deal with. It is what my sociology prof used to call

my Aunt Annie, the anecdotal, or in fact, it may be a real case. But

so rare that the paperwork required and the burden required is far

offset because you deprive other people because you are burning up

money filling out the regulations, then you do not have the money

to pay the staff. You do not have the money to rehab somebody.

Instead of getting an 8-week program they are getting a 7-week

program because you are having to spend 10 percent of your cost

filling out the paperwork. There is a tradeoff and a real cost to the

paperwork, too.

At the same time, I want to grant this and put it into the record.

One of the most interesting meetings that we had, this was when

I was a staffer. I was fairly new to Washington. We were not in

the majority in the Congress, but the Republicans, which I am, but

Reagan had taken over the administration. They were, I think in

their second term at that point. But a number of my friends were

in the administration now trying to administer the grants, and all

of a sudden after having spent their whole career railing against

the paperwork they were realizing that if they did not put the paperwork in, and somebody stole some money, they were going to

get sued and yelled at and then some politician was going to stand

up and say graft and corruption. We are going to get rid of the

waste. And this dilemma of how to get accountability, which is a

buzzword, and flexibility, which is a buzzword, how to get reporting

that we need to get rid of corruption and the ability to not over

burden you at the grassroots level is a huge challenge. And any of

the others of you who have worked with a Federal program or have

any kind of suggestions, like we had the Medicaid earlier today

across State lines. It is probably an insolvable problem unless

North Carolina and South Carolina want to reunite. But there are

things that we can tackle.

Right now one of the missions and assignments of our subcommittee is to try to look at those regs. We have jurisdiction over

HHS. They have detailed a person over to us to try to look at some

of this, and so any help you can be on that in particular.

Ms. HARRISON. I would be glad to. I would also like to go on

record to say that I am a firm believer in the programs of AA and

NA and in peer groups for recovery of alcoholism and other drug

addictions.

54

The reason that I have seen the need for additional expertise is

that the people that we have coming into our programs are so

much sicker than they used to be 20 years ago when I got into this

business. There are so many additional programs and other co-occurring diseases that you have to work with, and that is where the

expertise comes in I think more than anywhere else.

Mr. SOUDER. I am going to digress just a minute because I mentioned earlier that drug issues, drug policies, are the primary thing

our committee does, and we are obviously working very much right

now with drug treatment in addition to going to Colombia more

times that I ever had hoped to go in my life. One of the witnesses

from the first panel, I believe it was the Rescue Mission, said that

98 percent had poly drug problems, but the other one that jumped

out was 92 percent, I believe sexual abuse. I know Charlie Curry

who is a friend of mine and comes from my home area who now

heads SAMSA is a big believer and advocate on co-occurring dependencies. I think most of us think of is like a third. The 92 percent just jumped off the page. Do you see physical and sexual

abuse when they are younger or currently as a primary, dominant

thing or is it one of a series of things?

Ms. HARRISON. I would say it is a dominant thing, both mental

and physical abuse. It is just rampant with both our women and

our men.

Mr. SOUDER. The problem is that it is easier to get a defined definition of sexual and physical abuse than it is mental. When you

say mental, are you talking about mental abuse or people who used

to be institutionalized who are now on the street, which is another

problem, a retardation question?

Ms. HARRISON. An example of what I am speaking of would be,

each month we have a community forum and in that community

forum we celebrate every success that our residents have, and we

have residents that move from one level to the next level, which

is not a big deal. You know, they have just completed some things

and they move from one level to the next. I cannot tell you how

many times we have had them get up in front of our group and literally cry and say my parents told me I would never amount to

anything and this proves they are wrong. That is the type of mental abuse we see. We see where our residents shared a bedroom

with six or seven brothers and sisters in one bed. Was there sexual

abuse? Who knows. But there was just so much mental anguish.

We had a resident whose mother set their house on fire with his

father and him in the house. He was the youngest of four children.

She took the other three children out, left him in and he was

burned across his face and every time he looks in the mirror he has

to think that his mother left him in that house to die.

It is amazing to see some of the abuse that we see every day.

And a lot of the abuse does not come out in that first few months.

We see it often come out at about a period of a year. They will start

having bad dreams and not being able to sleep and start crying and

they do not know why. And as we start working with them further,

we realize that there are a lot of things that were pushed back

from the childhood that have come forward. So it has certainly

helped to have a longer program than we had in the past to deal

with those issues, but it has been more challenging for us.

55

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Amendum, I have a couple of questions for you

as well. You mentioned about your different pillars, one of which

was faith, but people were not required to go to different things.

In kind of stating what I believe, what my position is, which is a

little different than most of my colleagues and even a little different than the White House. I do not believe you can accept Federal funds and require a prayer. I believe there are things you can

do. That if you separate the programs—in other words, you might

be able to pay your lighting bill, but you are not going to be able

to get the program funded. I differ with the administration on that,

and I believe eventually there will be a court ruling. I am not sure

I agree with that, or that is the most effective program. I am just

saying I believe that is the way the court will rule. But in your program, say, for example, I accepted one of the faith-based clauses

that is in law, and I cannot remember which one, whether it is in

juvenile delinquency or in welfare reform, that you can have a

prayer that ends at least 5-minutes before the program starts. It

has to be voluntary and you can do it afterwards. But your faith

can be communicated in other ways rather than just being in the

program. Could you explain some of how you would work faith into

your program, even if it not mandated? In other words, do people

actually tap into it? I mean, I know in some of the problems in

drug and alcohol abuse this is very difficult because unless you can

get some regimen they are not necessarily ordered enough; therefore, if the faith based is part of the program it is pretty tough to

separate. Maybe you need to stay out of government funds if you

are going to do that. The church I grew up in, a small church,

started a children’s home as well and reached out to kids. Some of

them have some discipline and some of them do not. You are trying

to order your life. Could you address this question of if it is voluntary and they do not go, how do you work this? How do you keep

the faith as part of the program and not just be like a secular children’s home?

Ms. AMENDUM. Well, I think if you had the opportunity to get

picked up today and transplanted on our treatment campus or the

Villages of Hope Haven, you would see that it is part of the fiber

of what happens there, of who we are. It is something that is very

integrated. Nobody is required to attend church. We have a chapel

on campus that is beautiful and there are weekly chapel services.

They are very ecumenical. As I mentioned before, the agency began

through the Episcopal Church. But any provision of any kind of religious structure, we struggle to make sure that it is very openended, very diverse, very ecumenical. We exist as a Christian agency for all people, for all children. If you looked at my staff for a few

minutes you would recognize that very clearly.

But there is a piece of spiritual development that—and maybe,

you know, this is not the time for us to debate this obviously. But

we are kind of missing the boat when we talk about our human resource if we do not struggle to develop whole people. Our philosophy tends more to be about that, first and foremost we treat children. They come to us with mental health dysfunctions and diagnoses, but we work to develop whole people. We do not simply isolate a dysfunction and treat the dysfunction and say OK, move on,

you are fine now.

56

The faith-based part of our program, you would find it in the development of heroes in the school. It is very involved with our character education, with our focus on Native American practice and

the world around you. It is a spiritual involvement for all parts of

life. Does that answer your question?

Mr. SOUDER. Yes, but it raises another question. Do you believe

that faith is something that is healthy for mental health or do you

believe it is a transforming power that has to do with eternal life

as well?

Ms. AMENDUM. Say that again, please.

Mr. SOUDER. In other words, part of the debate that nobody really likes to talk about because it is difficult and it implies judgments

and so on. I am saying different people have different views, I have

my view. I am trying to sort things out because the word faith is

pretty loosely defined. It is kind of like the word family in America.

If we are not real careful that will include a college dorm. When

you say faith, are you defining faith as kind of a feeling of self esteem, of how you fit in, having a, to use a cliche, a purpose driven

life or are you defining faith as a belief in a power bigger than

yourself that has control over eternity?

Ms. AMENDUM. Now will I go to jail if I state my own opinion

here?

Mr. SOUDER. No, and it does not necessarily represent your organization. I am trying to get——

Ms. AMENDUM. It really does represent my organization. I believe

that faith is a power about a spirit that is bigger, that guides and

directs life and that is within us and around us. And I do not think

that we would never begin to say that the Episcopalians have it

over the Methodists, the Baptists or anybody else. It is not denominational. It is a sense of a spiritual component to life and to the

healing of children and their families. Part of that is a purposedriven life, and I think that the two are, that is a tough question,

because I think the two are very interrelated.

Mr. SOUDER. I have blanked. I had one other question that I

wanted to ask you. I will come back to that.

Ms. Marcum, it was interesting because your organization, and

it is not necessarily true of all Love INC groups, but you clearly

are skewed more toward seniors and the people with physical disabilities and other mental disabilities than you are poverty, which

is good because much social service is that. We have not really focused on that as much in our hearings.

Now, I would like to have it on the record because I know a little

bit about how the organization structure is. Those who would say

that an organization like yours that is matching up volunteer services of churches, particularly Evangelical churches. For example, it

may be like you say, baby cribs, it could be fixing somebody’s windows, helping somebody do their taxes, any variety of things, getting them to the doctor. Those are all types of things your organization would do, correct?

Ms. MARCUM. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. That to put a standard on and say they cannot pray

or witness about Christ, we would not even be able to monitor it.

In other words, if the government said you get no dollars for gas

mileage, how would you even monitor something like that if you

57

are dealing with volunteers who are not working in a site? In other

words, you are not working on a site, you are working in homes

all over the place. You would not even know.

Ms. MARCUM. No, we would not. I will tell you how we function.

We never require a client to convert to Christianity or to pray or

to confess anything in order to receive services. We tell our volunteers and encourage them that they are introducing some people,

especially the unchurched to Christ just by what they do. When

you serve someone there is something happening. You are serving

Christ but you are also letting them meet Christ in you. And in a

lot of the cases that is all that is necessary to really effect a change

in a person’s life and to give them hope. But at the end of the service we always recommend to them to say would you like me to pray

with you? Would you like to have a pastor come and visit you? If

they say no, that is the end of it. It is never pushed. We never hit

anybody over the head with it.

Mr. SOUDER. And you continue to provide services to them even

afterward.

Ms. MARCUM. We continue to provide services and it is never

mentioned again. It has happened in the past that after many services have been provided that person brings it up again themselves.

One of the most interesting things that happened last year was an

elderly African American gentleman that said yes, he would like

someone to pray with him. So the two volunteers prayed with him

and afterwards they looked up and he was crying. He said who are

you people? Why are you doing this for me, somebody you do not

even know? That is the question that we always hope that people

will get to. They see the love that is being given them and they respond to that love. You do not have to beat people over the head

with it. So as far as monitoring it, I think it would be impossible.

I think probably what happens is, a lot of our volunteers are shy

and they may not even offer to pray with people. We encourage

them to offer to pray, but I am sure that probably more than half

do not. They just go out and they do the service.

Mr. SOUDER. If you had a complaint about somebody being overly

aggressive, would you talk to that person?

Ms. MARCUM. Oh, absolutely, yeah. That is one of our policies

and we make sure the volunteers understand that, that they are

never to beat someone over the head with their faith, because that

is not going to change a life anyway. That is going to have the opposite result of what you really hoped for.

Mr. SOUDER. Because Christ did not put conditions on providing

human needs and meeting human needs.

Let me ask another variation of this. Do you believe if you told

these volunteers they could not pray or they could never witness,

or they could not tell how Jesus impacted their life, that they

would continue to volunteer? In other words, I am not saying they

would not to some degree, but is not part of the reason they are

going out is because they believe it is a manifestation of that and

it would just pour out naturally?

Ms. MARCUM. I think we would lose a lot of those volunteers

because——

Mr. SOUDER. In other words, they are not going in because they

are trying to——

58

Ms. MARCUM [continuing]. Being told they cannot share their

faith is——

Mr. SOUDER. Is different than saying you are required to share

it.

Ms. MARCUM. That is right.

Mr. SOUDER. I grew up in a faith that is very separatist. Basically I would be too shy probably to do it for awhile, but if somebody told me I could not, I would probably immediately start doing

it.

Ms. MARCUM. Yeah.

Mr. SOUDER. And what I am wondering is, if your motivation is

that you are trying, if that indeed is your motivation, to reflect

Christ, to be told that you cannot do that is problematic, not that

you even necessarily would.

Ms. MARCUM. Absolutely. I probably would never tell my volunteers not to do that. Whatever was putting that restriction on, we

would pull away from.

Mr. SOUDER. What do you see as the biggest challenges in your

organization? You mentioned organizing.

Ms. MARCUM. As far as volunteers go?

Mr. SOUDER. In general. Is it financial, is it managerial, keeping

volunteers?

Ms. MARCUM. It is probably financial right now. We really depend on God to make sure that we have the funding that we need.

We are very blessed that the majority of our funding comes from

individuals and churches. We are the 100th United Way Agency in

Mecklenburg County. We are very happy about that. We get some

foundation funding and some corporate funding. But trying to keep

the balance right with putting the effective services out there and

being able to show that we are not paying $5,000 for a hammer or

a commode lid is really important to us. I think that effectiveness

is probably the most important thing that faith-based organizations

need to really be concentrating on right now, because if you are a

faith-based organization, not necessarily Christian, but I think especially Christian, we should be not only as good as secular nonprofits, we should be better than secular nonprofits in our effectiveness. So every program that we have has outcomes projected, and

we measure those outcomes and we track them on a regular basis.

So effectiveness and really making an effective change is very important to us. I think that is something that all nonprofits, especially faith-based nonprofits, should be really paying attention to.

Mr. SOUDER. I want to followup with Ms. Amendum again on the

Children’s Home. I thought of the questions I had. One was, are

most of your kids court ordered or voluntarily placed?

Ms. AMENDUM. All of our children are court ordered or referred

through mental health, a mental health entity.

Mr. SOUDER. The more difficult question, and then if either of

the others would like to answer this, too. I have wrestled with this

for a long time in different ways as we have worked through this

issue over the years. Keith Phillips, who founded World Impact, I

asked him and a number of his Missions to Urban Areas whether

they were as successful as he hoped, often which were taking kids

from suburban and rural backgrounds and going into urban areas.

And he said, no, they have not really necessarily reached everyVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:19 Aug 02, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00062 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94006.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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thing that we wanted to reach, but it has been an incredible experience for the people who are going in and volunteering. Christ’s call

to us is that we are supposed to volunteer and we are supposed to

care for the poor. It is not in our hands as to whether people responded and how they worked. I thought that was a good answer.

One time I wound up spending a good chunk of an afternoon

with a man who had a real mess of a life. He was at a homeless

shelter. He had been turning his life around. And finally after a

couple of hours he finally starts to open up after the kind of the

first tier you tell government people and then the second tier you

tell somebody who is casual and then all of a sudden you break

down and start sharing things. It is kind of like whoa. One of the

things he said was he knew he was going to be a failure when on

a Thanksgiving, it was either the day before Thanksgiving or

Thanksgiving, he was playing football in his front yard. He knew

his family did not have much money and one of the charitable organizations brought Thanksgiving dinner over. The other kids said

you are so poor and your family is so worthless, and your mom is

so worthless that you cannot even get your own Thanksgiving dinner. You are dependent on other people to do it for you.

One of the huge challenges we have, we are compelled to go and

help those who are not, yet at the same time that very thing can

undermine their mental image and their security in theirselves. Do

you have things in your program to help, any of the other programs

too, that help like what immediately becomes apparent there is, do

not directly deliver it. Have them get it somewhere else. That

would be the simplest. Other things would be a way to earn part

of that, even if it is minimal earning. A way to have some kind of

sweat equity in the mix of it so it does not look like you are, forget

the argument about breeding dependency. Many of these people are

dependent, they need that. It is not a question of breeding dependency here, that is not what I am going after. What I am going after

is, how do you get a sense of this is not just, particularly when you

have bottom line, white organizations providing this in minority

groups?

Ms. AMENDUM. I would like to answer your question in reference

to early childhood. We receive children through a variety of means,

some through mental health, some through the courts, child protective services and many, many, because of their neighborhood location, word of mouth and just private referrals, and families come

to us.

Now let us talk about that Thanksgiving story. I think we

learned early on when we began working in the arena of early

childhood in a very high-risk area of the city. No. 1, the agency is

not nearly as white as it used to be, which is a good thing, because

we have worked really hard to not only develop diversity but to celebrate diversity.

Second, I think that we struggled with that very question and

recognized that we could only do so much. That in order to break

the cycle that we are always talking about that perpetuates itself

in the urban settings very often, that somebody has to change an

attitude, not just the level of support. And we have developed a

program and it has become a model here in North Carolina across

the State, our early childhood program largely in partnership with

60

the Duke Endowment. We represent only a part of early childhood

development, but the first and foremost advocate and leader of that

process in the family is the adult, the mother, the father, the parents, the grandmother, whoever is responsible for that child. And

instead of developing just an educational program, we are going to

teach you how to be a better parent process for adults and a child

care program during the day, we have developed a very strong

home-school partnership which moves families toward becoming, by

the time their children go to public school; they become their children’s advocate. They know the lingo, they know what to ask for,

they know what their child needs and they celebrate the strength

of those children. What is the one thing that pretty much we all

agree on? You have a cute kid, I have a cute kid. We all like to

have our children acknowledged as being better than everybody

else’s. There is a great deal of potential and promise in every single

child in that setting that we all visualize in our mind in those atrisk neighborhoods. Those children are not less than the children

in suburban America. They are just maybe needing another leg up.

But you start from the concept of that promise and of engaging a

community in recognizing that. We do not do all of the work for our

families. We do not do all of the work for our children. And I can

say—and I think maybe Alice will back me up here—that our families, when they leave those early childhood development programs,

we have developed the children and the families with a different

sense about who they are and what they have to present to the

world. We also have outcomes, we have assessments, we have

measurements and we set out to develop children who are ready

to be school successful. But what happens in the mix is that for the

most part those children are primed to be high flyers. Now the public school has some work to do, too, and I can say that as an old

public school lady. I think it is about how you provide your services. If you go in and say well, I had to cook your turkey because

you are not capable of cooking your turkey, you are so poor and

worthless and whatever. That is a whole different attitude than

saying let us get to know each other. It is about relationship on the

base, grassroots, faith base, whatever you want to call it, level. But

it is about you and me doing something good for your child and you

become the leader in that project.

Mr. SOUDER. I would be really interested if any of you can provide for the record some of the things you do for that accountability

for the family direct involvement and some of the outcomes. This

has been a big issue in Head Start, because in many Head Start

programs around the country, you have this incredible parental involvement, then they hit first grade and it is gone. Now some Head

Start programs wind up becoming overly we are professional and

we know what we are doing and the parents are at the margins.

We have tried to derive that program increasingly, but it has been

one of the better model programs for the involvement. The question

is, how can we spread that up the system? Now partly the challenges of teaching somebody in preschool are a little bit different

than when you get in math and things further up and the parents

get more intimidated. But there is some kind of structural problem

here, too, and in trying to address that.

61

One last question and then I will let you give your final opinions.

It is another question I had. You said something that triggered this

again. How much do you think the difference in your programs is

due to faith and the nature of how you approach it vis-a-vis government and how much do you think it is that your case load is less?

Ms. AMENDUM. My case load is less did you say? Was that the

question?

Mr. SOUDER. In other words, one argument we hear out of the

government is that they have so many and that the private groups

sometimes cherry pick, which is I believe not true, but that is one

of the allegations and/or your case work is a lot less; therefore, it

is not the style of how you approach it, it is that you have more

dollars per person that you can leverage, in other words, $1 to $11.

The way the government would say that is, well we might have the

three but we do not have the ability to get the match; therefore,

you have more resources per thing to match. It may be that, you

know, everybody has this pressure. But probation officers, you have

280 kids, there is no way you are going to get personal time to each

of those kids. So some of that is definitely true in some areas. But

to what degree do you think it is true that when we say faith-based

organizations are more effective, we are really talking about dollars

and case work size as opposed to the nature of the programs?

Ms. AMENDUM. I would hesitate without thinking about it to put

a percentage that you are going to quote me on to it, but I think

it is probably about 50–50. My first comment, I said to you that

the government is forced to look at it differently than we are. We

are able to keep track of the faces. And healing, true healing, we

have to look at the way out vision. What do we want the American

people to know to do and to be like? It is always going to have to

include that personal identity and looking at the faces. And so in

my perfect world, I struggle to find a partnership that blends government funding, maybe a reduction of some bureaucratic requirements with the ability to still work in small institutions, small

groups and remember the faces and build that potential. It does

not happen when you are 1 of 280 with one probation officer, your

chances of making it and recognizing your own potential in becoming a worthwhile productive citizen in your community, your

chances go down pretty dramatically. But I also think on the other

hand that faith-based initiatives or small nonprofits, have had the

freedom, have had a different philosophical passion or perspective

to try new things, to build new things, to have trial and error processes that have led toward the development of stronger, more effective programming.

Ms. MARCUM. Congressman Souder, may I just speak to that?

Mr. SOUDER. Yeah, I could keep asking questions. I will be happy

to let you all finish here with whatever you have.

Ms. MARCUM. I would like to just say one thing about that. I

agree with everything that you said. I think the government has

a different perspective on it. But perhaps that perspective is different because faith-based organizations are very mission oriented.

We set up that mission statement and everything that we do is filtered through that. Our mission is to present Christ to people. Basically to introduce them to Christ or let them see Christ in us

when they have received services, where the person who has 280

62

clients that they have to take care of may not have that type of

mission in mind. Their mission is to get these people taken care of

and get on to the next one. So if there was some way to compromise by increasing the ability of the nonprofits to serve, I think

that is where the funding comes in. We have that mission so

strongly in mind that we will limit the number of people that we

serve based on whether we can fulfill that mission with them or

not. Does that make sense? We are not going to go out there and

just try to reach everybody because we cannot do for everybody

what we are determined that we are going to do. We would love

to be able to do that. We would love to have more resources to be

able to reach out to more people.

Mr. SOUDER. Does anybody have anything else they want to add

for the record?

Ms. HARRISON. One thing that I have seen in that arena is that

there are instances where the government always takes on too

much. And one of the things in my area of being alcohol and other

drugs and mental health and disabilities is that from a State level

there have been a lot of changes coming down to our local level

saying that the local level should not be providing services that

they are also managing. That they can manage services or they can

provide them but they should not be doing both. So they are beginning to farm out more of the services that they have provided at

a much higher cost to the citizens because they are able to pay

more to their workers than our nonprofits do. As a result, we as

nonprofits will be getting a lot more opportunity to respond to

RFPs to provide these services. I think that is a good thing. I think

that in the long run it will save money. But I do believe that sometimes it is just too overwhelming for the government employees to

be able to handle all they have to handle. No one should have 280

people that they are working with at one time if they want to accomplish anything with those people.

Ms. AMENDUM. That is the way out vision. If you are looking to

build community through healed and stronger individuals, we have

to take a look at the numbers and how we go about doing that and

unfortunately on the front end, if you are really going to intensively heal and do it within a relationship basis that is manageable, it is not going to be a very cost effective operation all the

time. I think we have some serious questions to ask ourselves

about how much we are willing to commit to building healthy people in this country.

Ms. MARCUM. And all of this comes back to outcome measurements really, because if you are counting activities, how many people did I see today and how many people did I do this for, then it

is a totally different thing than saying what is the outcome we

want for that person. Just like you are saying, you are not going

to get those effective outcomes by just pushing people through by

the numbers. I think that is probably the major difference between

government entities and faith-based nonprofits, because if you are

an effective nonprofit you are looking at those outcomes and you

want to see those changed lives and you are not really counting

yourself as being effective if nothing is changing.

Ms. HARRISON. We look at outcomes rather than outputs.

Ms. AMENDUM. That is right.

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Ms. MARCUM. We do, too, exactly.

Ms. HARRISON. That is the difference, I think. One other thing,

too, that I would like to address. When Jenny was talking about

the child development center and working with the neighborhoods

and the perception of others. When we moved into the area where

we moved to begin with on North Tryon Street, the neighborhoods

were very leery of bringing a bunch of drug addicts into their

neighborhood as is usually the case. When we began working as a

partnership in building the child development center, we really

wondered if people would bring their children to a child development center that is part of a drug and alcohol rehab center that

is a gated community. What we have found was that by letting the

community become familiar with us, come on to our property, hold

events there, that they have learned what we are all about, and

more than 50 percent of the children in our child development center are from our neighborhoods and not from our programs. I just

think that is phenomenal. I would never have imagined that ratio

would ever occur.

Mr. SOUDER. Well thanks for adding to the discussion process

that we are having.

Earlier in my career I was the Republican staff director on the

Children and Family Committee in the House and worked for Dan

Coates. Years ago we came to the conclusion that we were only

going to be able to do so much through the Federal Government

and we needed to continue to look at how to use faith based. There

is a simple fact of the matter. Nobody likes to hear this, but when

you talk about whether there is the financial willingness to commit

to holistic treatment, the answer is clearly no, there is not. That

it does not matter whether you have a Republican Governor or a

Democratic Governor or Republican State legislature or Democratic

State legislature, a Republican President or a Democratic President, you know what social welfare spending has stayed flat, not

even inflation adjusted. As much as they want to lay on we evil

people got elected in 1994 for cutting spending, in fact, some conservatives are pointing out, we have increased spending more than

they did under the Democrats in some of these areas. In Indiana,

we have had Democratic Governors for 16 years and the probation

load is still increasing, the welfare load has not changed because

the general public does not want to pay the taxes. Now the problem

we have in defending people in the public sector who have to count,

if they start doing holistic on a few, like let us say you are doing

a probation thing, you say OK, we are going to deal with just 50

of these kids and leave the other 230 to run free in the community.

The community would go crazy. So basically you are reduced to

barely monitoring them because you basically do not want them to

terrorize the neighborhood. If you are doing a food distribution program, you cannot say let us try to address this family and we are

going to let the other 200 starve. It does not work that way. So our

accountable, our outcome measurements are by definition different.

We need, by the way, more Christians to get involved in that because it does not mean you cannot put a friendly face in a concern

and I feel your pain with it just because you are in the government.

We have to do this in our office all the time. We handle immigration case work and it builds up and veterans case work and you

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can have a snotty person or you can have a nice person. We need

to work and realize that you can have a mission even in a more

bureaucratic system. But we came to a conclusion a number of

years ago, and one of the Coates staff people is now in a good position to do this in writing these speeches for the President, Mike

Gerson, that you know what, unless we can leverage private sector

money we are in trouble in social services. We need all the different types of groups. We need the groups that are overtly spiritual, whether they are orthodox Jewish or Muslim or Christian.

We need the groups that have that interwoven. We need them

where it is a part around it. We need them where it is even less

direct. We need all of those different groups because we do not

have enough money to address the problem. And if we start picking

and choosing and saying this group is not eligible, this group is eligible, there are going to be certain guidelines with it, but we have

to figure out through the private sector and where the government

can help provide some basic support systems where it does not violate the Constitution of how to do this, because we have already

seen the answer. For 20 years now we have seen flat or declining,

and yet the same people in the society will say all these problems

are increasing. You hear the stories about the use—the big thing

would be bubble gum and meeting in the schools and now you have

to worry about teachers getting raped in a stairwell in many

schools. It is a different challenge, and with that, we have not

made adjustments. The bottom line is, I do not think we are, because the general public is skeptical about the ability of government to do it. We have tried to decentralize it, but when we decentralized it the States and counties were not any more interested in

picking it up than the Federal Government was.

So we have to have organizations like yours where people volunteer, and by definition, if they are smaller they have more empowerment in them. They are more neighborhood based, they can

hold it accountable, they can see how their dollars are being used

with their eyes. And when it comes to us, they all think there is

huge waste and fraud somewhere or it is impersonal. Hopefully we

can continue to advance this. You all gave us very thoughtful comments today, and if you can help us with some of the specifics,

while it is fun to talk about the bigger general questions it comes

down to piece by piece, changing this whole specific. So maybe in

a couple of years we can get your 200 pages down to 150 and that

is progress. All you can do is move the ball just like you do. You

cannot solve every case, you look at them.

We thank you for your time today. We thank you most importantly, and if you can communicate it to the people who work in

your organizations, because without people like that on the streets

who knows where our country would be, where our States would

be and our communities. So we thank you very much. Thank you

all who have been here and the students who were here for the

whole thing.

I will leave the record open for additional comments if you want

to submit those and if we have some additional questions. With

that, the subcommittee stands adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:29 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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