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77–709 PDF 2002

EFFECTIVE FAITH–BASED TREATMENT PROGRAMS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,

DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 23, 2001

Serial No. 107–48

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

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

——— ———

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN L. MICA, Florida,

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

DAVE WELDON, Florida

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

——— ———

EX OFFICIO

DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

CHRIS DONESA, Staff Director

SHARON PINKERTON, Counsel

CONN CARROLL, Clerk

DENISE WILSON, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on May 23, 2001 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Castellani, John, executive director, Teen Challenge International; Ron

Frederick, graduate, Teen Challenge International; Pastor Roosevelt

Sanders, Mission Baptist Church, Indianapolis, IN; Sara Trollinger,

president and founder, House of Hope, Orlando, FL; and Reverend

Horace Smith, Group Ministries Baltimore, Inc., Baltimore, MD ............ 10

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

Castellani, John, executive director, Teen Challenge International, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 12

Sanders, Pastor Roosevelt, Mission Baptist Church, Indianapolis, IN, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 17

Smith, Reverend Horace, Group Ministries Baltimore, Inc., Baltimore,

MD, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 35

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

of Indiana, prepared statement of ............................................................... 3

Trollinger, Sara, president and founder, House of Hope, Orlando, FL,

prepared statement of ................................................................................... 23

(1)

EFFECTIVE FAITH–BASED TREATMENT

PROGRAMS

WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 2001

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE, DRUG POLICY AND

HUMAN RESOURCES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:13 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Souder, Cummings, Mr. Davis of Illinois, Carson, Mica, Weldon, and Gilman.

Staff present: Chris Donesa, staff director; Conn Carroll, clerk;

Tony Haywood, minority counsel; Denise Wilson, minority professional staff member; Lorran Garrison, minority staff assistant; and

Peter Anthony, intern.

Mr. SOUDER. The subcommittee will come to order.

We’re going to do our opening statements, and then we’ll introduce each of the witnesses.

Good morning, and thank you all for coming.

Today’s hearing combines two issues that are critical to the subcommittee’s mission for the 107th Congress: ensuring Government

support for effective programs to reduce the demand for illegal

drugs, and facilitating the inclusion of faith-based providers in the

delivery of social services.

Two weeks ago, President Bush remarked that family schools,

communities, and faith-based organizations shape the character of

young people. They teach children right from wrong, respect for

law, respect for others, and respect for themselves. I agree. And,

as I have stated many times in the past, we cannot tackle the problems of drug abuse and the concurrent social problems crime costs

our country without an approach that simultaneously addresses

prevention, education, treatment, enforcement, interdiction, and

eradication.

Prevention and treatment programs rightly occupy a substantial

portion of our Federal drug control budget, almost twice as much

as interdiction and international programs. Even so, our Nation

must continue to increase our focus on education, prevention, and

building effective community coalitions to prevent drug abuse.

The Federal budget for treatment, alone, has grown 35 percent

to more than $3 billion since 1996, and prevention and education

funds have grown 52 percent. While we have dramatically inVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Apr 18, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77709.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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creased spending, many questions relating to effectiveness of programs and results remain.

The subcommittee this year will undertake a comprehensive effort to address these issues, and we support President Bush’s efforts to do the same for existing programs in the executive branch.

One area which has shown promise is faith-based treatment programs such as those run by Freddie Garcia in Texas, where I visited several times, and the witnesses who are before us today. The

faith community has achieved results in some ways which other

programs have not, and our goal today is to hear from them about

their approach and what works and why it works.

The President has identified these programs as a priority and

has asked Professor Dejulio to compile a complete inventory of existing faith-based partnerships for the purpose of strengthening

these efforts by early June. We look forward to the findings of that

inventory.

We have many issues to examine today, and I look forward to

hearing from our witnesses about their experiences with faithbased programs. We need to know how the unique element of faith

impacts the structure and success of these programs. We need to

know how spirituality works to build self-esteem and self-confidence in those who are in psychological and psychological need

and doubt.

Substance abuse imposes staggering costs on individuals, families, businesses, and schools. We in Congress need to support and

encourage programs that work, and we are here today to do that

by learning directly from providers who work with these issues

every day.

From Teen Challenge International we have Executive Director

John Castellani and Ron Frederick, a program graduate; from the

Mission Baptist Church in Indianapolis we have Pastor Roosevelt

Sanders; from the House of Hope in Orlando joining us is Sara

Trollinger, its president and founder; and from Group Ministries

Baltimore, president and CEO Reverend Horace Smith will testify.

Thank you all for coming and for your commitment to your communities and neighbors. We look forward to your testimony.

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

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4

5

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Mr. SOUDER. I now recognize the ranking member, Mr.

Cummings, for an opening statement.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Today the subcommittee begins its second oversight hearing into

faith-based initiatives. The focus of our hearing today is the effectiveness of faith-based drug treatment programs. I want to begin

by commending Chairman Souder for scheduling hearings on faithbased initiatives. This is a very serious issue, and I am pleased

that the subcommittee will be devoting significant time to it.

I agree with many that there is a pressing need for congressional

examination of this issue, and I want to thank the chairman for beginning the oversight process.

Today we are addressing the issue of whether faith-based drug

treatment programs are more effective than Federal programs, and

whether faith-based drug treatment programs are less costly than

Federal programs.

We do not yet know how effective faith-based organizations are,

in general, and in particular we do not know how effective faithbased drug treatments are. And, in spite of the fact that faithbased charitable choice provisions have been in Federal law since

1996, we have no information on how these programs work.

With regard to faith-based drug treatment programs, the General

Accounting Office, in a 1998 report entitled, ‘‘Drug Abuse: Studies

Show Treatment, its Effect, but Benefits May Be Overstated,’’ revealed that faith-based strategies have yet to be rigorously examined by the research community.

Last year the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in response to an inquiry from the National

Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors wrote, ‘‘Although there are a number of studies emerging that faith or religiosity may serve as a protective factor against initial drug use,

there is not enough research in the treatment portfolio for NIDA

to make any valid conclusive statements about the role that faith

plays in drug addiction treatment. How can we respond to claims

that faith cures drug abuse in the absence of any real documentation and research?’’

That was just the question I posed to GAO and why last month

I wrote to the agency asking that they study the role and effectiveness of faith-based organizations in providing federally funded social services.

If Congress and the President are going to expand the role of

faith-based organizations in fulfilling Federal mandates via charitable choice, we must have a basis for assessing how these organizations have performed.

Mr. Chairman, I am well aware of the devastation caused by

drugs and alcohol abuse and addiction, and I am well aware of the

drug treatment services and counseling offered by churches and

other religious organizations. As the son of two ministers, I recognize the role that faith and spirituality can play in helping to treat

a person suffering from drug addiction; however, make no mistake

about it, drug addiction is an illness, and as an illness it requires

medical and psychological attention.

Treating drug/alcohol addition and abuse is not about saving

souls; it is about treating a disease. It is not about using Federal

7

funds to proselytize; it is about providing trained and licensed addiction counselors, professionals, to assess an individual’s needs

and the methods of treatment. It is not about relaxing State licensing and certification standards for substance abuse counselors; it is

about ensuring that our poorest and least-served receive the best

treatment available as they struggle to overcome a devastating disease. In their time of need they deserve and we must demand accountability in the provision of drug treatment services.

Drug addiction treatment demands quality resources and effective treatment. It should not be used as a testing ground for

unproven methods or unlicensed professionals. We must never lose

sight of the fact that Federal funding of drug treatment services is

a public service, one available to every person everywhere. As a result, public health services must never be placed in the position of

competing for Federal funds.

In treating drug addiction, integrity, accountability, and responsibility must be part of any treatment package. To that end, I

would like to submit for the record a letter sent to Members of

Congress last month by the Association of Addiction Professionals

addressing charitable choice.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to recognize Reverend Horace Smith, who has dedicated his life to uplifting the lives of those

who have fallen because of drug addiction. He is a member of my

church, the New Summits Baptist Church in Baltimore, and he is

one who has consistently been on the battleground trying to address this issue, and doing it very effectively as the president and

CEO of Group Ministries Baltimore. He is from my congressional

District, and I am pleased that he is with us today.

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being with us. It is very

important that we have your testimony. As I’ve often said, we are

the ones that have to create the laws so that the people can best

be served, but, in the words of Martin Luther King, Sr., we cannot

lead where we do not go, and we cannot teach what we do not

know. And so we are very, very pleased to have you and we know

that you will contribute tremendously to our efforts to come up

with the best solutions to the problems that we are attempting to

address.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

I now yield to Congressman Davis, a distinguished member of

the committee.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I

have just a brief comment in terms of taking the opportunity to

thank you for holding this hearing.

I also want to welcome all of those who have come to testify. I

think the subject that we are dealing with is probably one of the

most important ones that we will discuss during this Congress, because what we’re really trying to do is rationalize an approach to

finding solutions to some of the major problems that exist in American society, and, while I have some reservations about some

things—as a matter of fact, the philosopher Schopenhauer probably

represents my thinking about most things, and he said he doubted

a little bit of everything. The only thing that he didn’t doubt was

the fact that he doubted.

8

I think there are some holes and gaps in everything that we attempt to do and everything that we approach, but I also like the

definition of faith that I’ve come to accept, and that is that it is,

indeed, the substance of things hoped for and evidence of those

things yet to come. And so there are some things that we end up

just kind of feeling, just kind of knowing, just kind of seeing.

I’m certainly interested in finding out the experiences of the witnesses. I have no doubt in my mind about some effectiveness of

faith-based initiatives and programs. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen

them at work. I’ve been around faith all of my life. Everything that

I’ve seen people accomplish basically has been as a result of a tremendous amount of faith, and oftentimes those things seemed impossible but they did it anyway. They made it happen.

I grew up in rural America where people built large churches,

and I often wondered how they could do it with the low money that

they had, but generally they would bring it together, mix it up,

hold on to it, and keep building.

I look forward to the testimony and thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

We have been joined by Congresswoman Julia Carson, a fellow

Hoosier, long-term legislator from Indianapolis who now represents

the city of Indianapolis, and she’d like to give a special welcome to

a constituent of hers.

Ms. CARSON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman Souder, and

certainly to the ranking member, the Honorable Elijah Cummings

and the Hon. Danny Davis from Chicago, and all of those who are

gathered together in one place in one accord, and certainly that is

to understand this whole effort in terms of faith-based and drug

addiction.

We know that the majority of our prisoners across the country

are in prison because of drug addiction, drug activity, and it is

reminiscent of the teachings of Christ that said, ‘‘When I was in

prison, did you come?‘‘

It is my pleasure, with a great deal of humility—and I’m so

happy that the chairman allowed me to come and sit up here with

the big boys this morning. I’m not on this committee. But when you

have a distinguished gentleman from my District, I want to get in

the middle of it.

The Honorable Minister Doctor Roosevelt Sanders is a pastor of

the Mount Vernon Missionary Baptist Church, which I’m very

proud to say is located in my congressional District out in Indianapolis, IN, and he is a young man whose father preceded him as

pastor of that church. His father was one of Dr. Leon Sullivan’s

proteges and created the opportunities and the centers and just did

a great work. He emulated the life of Christ, where he was letting

his light so shine by his good works so that hopefully they are now

emulated in Heaven where his father has preceded him to.

Review Sanders was called to pastor the Mount Vernon Missionary Baptist Church after his father departed on for greater things,

and that was to sit around the throne. But Reverend Sanders has

been engaged in community work a long time. He is not confining

his message to a Sunday morning sermon. He is working in the

vineyard, and he has been dealing in a very effective way with

9

those who find themselves addicted to drugs, and he has successfully, in a very positive way, even before I heard of faith-based support from the Government, Reverend Sanders has been working in

the vineyard in a very positive way, assisting people who find

themselves confronted with the devil some oftentimes call ‘‘drugs.’’ It is my esteemed pleasure to be able to be here for a moment

with him this morning to welcome him to the Nation’s Capital and

know that the Nation’s Capital will never be the same once Dr.

Sanders has left his very important message here before this committee.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.

Let me close by saying that I had the privilege of visiting Representative Cummings District and the Johns Hopkins Hospital before I heard of faith-based, and they have a system there, treatment on demand, which works its way in a very positive way, and

I just wanted to add those accolades to Congressman Cummings for

allowing us to come and see what does work in terms of drug addiction.

Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your letting me sit up here with the big boys and welcome Reverend Sanders and the other panelists that are here.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Did you lure him back or did you steal

him from Chicago?

Ms. CARSON. No comment. That would violate Scripture about

stealing.

Mr. SOUDER. I thank you all for your statements.

Before proceeding further, I would like to take care of a couple

of procedural matters.

First, I would ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5

legislative days to submit written statements, including the one

that earlier came from Congressman Cummings he wanted to insert, 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, so ordered.

Second, I 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.

As an oversight committee, it is our standard practice to ask all

our witnesses to testify under oath, so if the witnesses will now

rise, raise your right hands, I’ll administer the oath.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SOUDER. Let the record show that the witnesses have all answered in the affirmative.

I will now recognize the witnesses for their opening statements,

and I would like to thank all of you again for being here today. We

will ask our witnesses to limit their opening statements to 5 minutes. We’ll include any further remarks you have and any fuller

statements in the record, and then give you additional time after

the questioning.

We start today with Mr. Castellani, and you have an opening

statement.

10

STATEMENTS OF JOHN CASTELLANI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

TEEN CHALLENGE INTERNATIONAL; RON FREDERICK,

GRADUATE, TEEN CHALLENGE INTERNATIONAL; PASTOR

ROOSEVELT SANDERS, MISSION BAPTIST CHURCH, INDIANAPOLIS, IN; SARA TROLLINGER, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER,

HOUSE OF HOPE, ORLANDO, FL; AND REVEREND HORACE

SMITH, GROUP MINISTRIES BALTIMORE, INC., BALTIMORE,

MD

Mr. CASTELLANI. Congressman Souder and committee, thank you

for the privilege of being here to share in the ministry of teen challenge and its outreach that has taken place for over 40-plus years.

I’d just like to read a few statements that I have written.

Our mission statement is to provide youth, adults, and families

with an effective and comprehensive faith-based solution to lifecontrolling drug and alcohol addiction.

Our history goes back to 1958. Teen Challenge International

began fighting addiction in the gang-infested streets of Brooklyn,

NY, and our founder at that time, who is no longer a part of Teen

Challenge, but the founder at that time was David Wilkerson.

Today, Teen Challenge International has 150 centers throughout

the United States and 185 centers in 65 different countries around

the world.

Our scope—because the present drug epidemic affects all segments of society, Teen Challenge reaches out to people from all

backgrounds, especially the urban poor, women, and ethnic minorities. In addition to providing acute care, 1-year residency program—and, by the way, this is basically—Teen Challenge is, for

the most part, a 1-year residency program for desperate cases.

Teen Challenge also offers a wide range of outpatient and prevention services.

On Sunday morning we are probably in 150-plus churches on any

given Sunday doing a prevention program in a Sunday School

class, the auditorium, or wherever it may be. And then we also are

in many other schools throughout the week.

Such a holistic approach to treating drug addiction, educational

programs for children, this is another program that we are developing in the inner cities, specifically, and this is tutorial programs for

after-school children and helping them with their basic needs in

these areas.

Another significant service is aimed at particular needs—leadership and staff and volunteers. Teen Challenge utilizes a decentralized approach. Every center is autonomous. That encourages the

treatment and rehabilitation centers to tailor programs to the

needs of their local area.

And I want to add here that we have our own accreditation system that we use within the ministry of Teen Challenge, and that

is an 80-point system. Some of the States—at least one State—has

adopted our 80 points and allowed us to operate under their State

rulings. Right now we have given our 80-point structure to the Office of ONDCP, who is looking at it and critiquing it and seeing

how we may fit into various areas of their thinking, as well.

In support of this approach, Teen Challenge International provides leadership training. We have support systems within our system where we not only help them with their drug addiction, but

11

if an individual comes to us and does not have their GED or a high

school diploma, we work feverishly to get this accomplished.

I’m happy to report that at the one center that I have been privileged to be the director of for 13 years in Pennsylvania, if a person

comes to us with a fifth-grade reading level, within 6 to 8 months

we can graduate him with his complete GED, and right now we

have better than a 90 percent graduation ratio of those who have

this need, and we are very grateful for this, because we feel it is

not only good to help an individual better their life and change

their lifestyle, but we need to better prepare them so they can go

forth and make a healthy living in their field of service.

We also have contact with one particular vo-tech college in the

State of Pennsylvania, Stevens Vo-Tech College in Lancaster County, where many of our graduates go there for a 2-year education

in vo-tech, and I was privileged to be there just a couple weeks ago

and see three of our students graduate.

We have systems of support and we have a definite financial accountability. We feel this is very important to running any ministry, program, or whatever it may be. The majority of operating

funds is raised by the Teen Challenge centers from churches, community organizations, and businesses, and individual people in

their areas. Thousands of volunteers, largely from local churches,

contribute valuable time and skills, thus making it possible for

Teen Challenge centers to operate with an extremely low overhead,

for which we are grateful because we are a faith-based program

from beginning until this present day, and probably will always be

faith-based. Wherever funds come from, one must have faith to initiate the work God has called them to.

I want to thank you for that privilege of being here today, just

sharing what we feel is a good program, along with many other

good programs that are across our Nation helping those in need.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Castellani follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. We may have this in our system, but if you could

give us the most updated list of where the 150 centers are in the

United States, and also the 185 in the 65 countries, and also the

80-point system.

Mr. CASTELLANI. I can get that to you. Yes.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Mr. CASTELLANI. I don’t have it with me—— Mr. SOUDER. That’s fine.

Mr. CASTELLANI [continuing]. But I can get it to you.

Mr. SOUDER. That’s fine. We have a number of days so we can

have it in the record, and also for our files.

Mr. CASTELLANI. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. We are now joined by Ron Frederick, a graduate

from Teen Challenge International.

Mr. FREDERICK. Well, as you can see, I’m not a teenager. It’s a

couple of years off, but that’s OK.

I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that I’d ever be sitting

here addressing a subcommittee. I’m extremely honored, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Cummings and Mr. Davis, to be here, and I am extremely nervous, so bear with me.

I graduated Teen Challenge in September 1991, and since then

my life has really took—well, it just took off. I was originally from

Brooklyn, NY. That’s where my addiction was. I spent most of my

life in Brooklyn on drugs, 25 years of it. The last 5 I spent homeless, living in the streets of Brooklyn. I would collect cans and bottles and scrap metal to supply myself with drugs.

And I had been through many other programs, not to name

them, but I had been through many other programs, short-term

programs, some long-term programs, and none of them seemed to

have any effect.

My family were all raised in church. We were all spiritual. And

I knew in my heart where I needed—what I needed to do, but I

didn’t want to go that way because I knew I had to give up too

much. I had nothing to give up, but I just didn’t want to go that

route.

One day I went to my sister’s house, who was my baby sister,

and I was hungry, and I asked if I could get something to eat, and

she said yes, but I’d have to wait across the street, so I said, ‘‘Sure,

why not.‘‘ So I crossed the street, and a few minutes later she

comes out with a plate of food and she walks out her gate and sits

the plate on the curb, and she turns around and walks inside. This

is my baby sister, whom I love dearly, and here she is so ashamed

of me that she didn’t want anyone to even know that she knew me.

When I walked across the street and the memories that flooded

my mind was overwhelming at the time. All I could think about

was how my life used to be.

But I picked up the food and I began to eat it and I cried and

my tears were basically seasoning the food, and when I finished I

looked around at my sister’s house, and she was also sitting in the

window crying, looking at me. That is when I knew that I needed

help. That is when I knew that I needed to go back to my spiritual

roots.

So I entered a program called ‘‘Teen Challenge.’’ It has been almost 10 years now. In September it will be 10 years that I gradVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Apr 18, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77709.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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uated. Since then, I have lost three members of my family. Well,

I didn’t lose them. All of them were saved by the grace of God, so

I know where they are, but they died. All of them were my running

mates in drugs. I lost one last year in October, one in November,

and one in December, and it was really a hard time to deal with,

and I asked God many times why didn’t he take me also, but I

guess he has work for me to do.

But since graduating Teen Challenge in 1991, in 1993 I met a

wonderful young lady. Her name was John-Ann, and we were married in 1994. In 1995 we adopted my son. His name is James. It

is amazing to think of that—that I was able to adopt a son—I

mean, me, a homeless bum from Brooklyn, actually adopting a

child. That blew my mind right there.

And since then I have been promoted to industrial supervisor at

Teen Challenge. I run all the industrial shops, and it is a challenging job. Teen Challenge has sent me to school. I attend Reading

Area Community College, studying for my associate’s degree in

business management. I am also taking a home study course called

‘‘Berean,’’ which is theological studies. I’m taking that, also.

I don’t think that I would have been able to accomplish any of

these things if it had not been for the grace of God, and for the fact

that I did return to my spiritual roots where I belong.

I am extremely prejudiced toward faith-based ministries. I know

that they work. I am a living testimony as to the proof that they

work. Many of my brothers—two of my brothers behind me, they

also went through Teen Challenge. I have two sisters that also

went through Teen Challenge and one nephew. I was the beginning, and God not only saved me but he saved the rest of my family that was strung out on drugs through this program, Teen Challenge.

I thank God for giving me a chance to come here and testify before you. It is an honor and a privilege. I just thank you and I appreciate it.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much. You can certainly thank God

for giving you the power to speak from the heart this morning, because it is people like you who have overcome these struggles that

can motivate and move many of us to understand the difficulties.

I appreciate your taking the time to come and the courage to speak

and the eloquence with which you spoke. God, again, came to your

assistance.

Whatever your background is, you certainly hit our hearts.

Thank you very much.

Pastor Sanders, it is a great honor to have you here. I’m glad you

could make it in.

He battled through all kinds of storms. I don’t know whether the

Devil was trying to hold you up or it was just bad weather, but,

anyway, we got you here this morning and we appreciate and look

forward to your testimony.

Reverend SANDERS. I thank you, Chairman Souder, and to the

other distinguished members of this subcommittee, as well.

I believe that in every era the church of the living God has a responsibility to prayerfully contemplate the times in which we live,

carefully scrutinize the neighborhoods where we are located to

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identify the pressing needs and perils of the hour and then develop

and implement programs that will address those critical problems.

As a street man redeemed, when I assumed the pastorate of the

church that my late father pastored for nearly 30 years, it didn’t

take long for me to realize that one of the crucial dilemmas facing

the Hallville community was substance abuse. My understanding of

this problem is not theoretical, it’s experiential. I know from personal experience what it is like to want to be drug-free while others

are convinced that you are not trying hard enough. I know what

it is like to wear long-sleeved shirts in 90-degree weather because

you’re ashamed of the tracks on your arms. I know what it is like

to work 40 hours and get a paycheck and watch it all go up in

smoke in less than 4 hours. I know what it is like to observe, admire, and at the same time envy clean and sober people as they

move to and fro in the crossroads of human commerce while you’re

wishing that you could be one of them. I know what it is like to

be in desperate need of help and can’t get it when you want it.

Gradually, I began to realize that members of our congregation

were either dependent on drugs or depressed because some of their

family members were. Driven by a sense of urgency, I developed an

alcohol and substance abuse support group within the church and

then God began placing individuals and institutions in our lives

who were willing to help us in our efforts to assist others. That reinforced my conviction that when you commit yourself to doing

something great for God as it relates to helping less-fortunate people, he provides the manpower, the money, and the resources.

In February 1998, after we had been assisted by Fairbanks Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Center, they came in and they

helped us to train people by conducting seminars and workshops.

They trained recovering members in our congregation and others

who wanted to be a part of the solution.

In February 1998 we opened the doors and began the opening

phase of the Mount Vernon Alcohol and Drug Relapse Prevention

Center in a neighborhood building purchased by the church and rehabilitated with funding that we accessed through former Mayor

Steve Goldsmith’s front porch alliance program—a program that

brought together government and faith-based organizations with a

common agenda to help to alleviate some of the suffering and pain

in our community.

We realized that it was senseless to restore and revitalize buildings without rebuilding the lives of the people who live in those

neighborhoods.

Everyone can’t afford to go to a treatment center comparable to

the Betty Ford Clinic. Just as rich, famous, powerful, and influential people need help with this disease, the poor and indigent, the

obscure and powerless need help, also.

Necessity and a keen sense of our Christian as well as our American duty compelled us to get involved. You don’t have to be a nuclear physicist to understand that drugs are an epidemic in America, and it is becoming more and more contagious.

Drugs are not just my problem. Drugs are not simply this panel’s

problem. It is America’s problem. And we understand that many

people who achieve sobriety don’t have the social and attitudinal

skills to remain drug free. We may not be able to stop the stem

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of drugs, the flow of drugs into America, but we can help people

by providing them with the skills necessary to remain drug free

and helping them to realize that it takes courage to face life and

all of its dilemmas with a sober mind.

When I was still using drugs, one morning or one evening I was

awakened from a drug-induced stupor and I heard a program, a

documentary, and it featured a man by the name of Mortimer

Adler. I’ve come to realize since that we all have the capacity to

commit to memory those things which are pertinent to our existence. And I heard Mortimer Adler state that in a truly democratic

society the people do for the people what the people cannot do for

themselves.

Chairman Souder and this committee, I want to thank you for

giving me an opportunity to speak on behalf of the scores and

scores of our fellow Americans who are not asking for a handout,

simply a hand up from their Government by the people and for the

people.

Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much, and for your work.

[The prepared statement of Reverend Sanders follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. I’m going to have Congressman Mica introduce our

next witness.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am pleased

and delighted today to introduce to the subcommittee, also to Members of Congress and guests assembled Sara Trollinger. Sara

Trollinger is the founder and president of the House of Hope. It is

not located in my District, but in the general area that I’ve had the

honor to serve both in the legislature and now in Congress.

Some of us may or may not believe in angels, but if there is such

a thing as an angel that has come down to Earth it is certainly

Sara Trollinger who qualifies. She is the founder and really the inspiration behind House of Hope, which started, I believe, back in

the mid-1980’s. And they took in the most difficult at that time

young ladies who had been subject of the most horrible types of

abuse, physical and sexual, and also victims of drug abuse. That’s

one of the most incredible records.

Her work has been recognized by President Reagan, who visited

there when he was President, and also even made a personal financial contribution toward the program, because he was so inspired

by the work, and many others have recognized this model that

Sara has created, which has been replicated beyond our local region and now includes not only young women but young men.

I have often heard the stories of the young people who were addicted to crack and heroin and subject to, again, horrible abuse and

just left by the wayside in our society, and she truly has been an

angel to pick them up.

I thank you for those comments. I didn’t have an opening statement. I thank you for also holding this hearing today and thank

you for the opportunity to introduce someone very special to me,

Sara Trollinger with the House of Hope from central Florida.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

Ms. TROLLINGER. Thank you, Congressman Mica.

I am honored and blessed to be here today with all of you distinguished Congressmen and invited guests.

I taught public school for 30 years in the Orange County schools,

and with a master’s degree, working with disturbed teenagers. I

taught behind bars in juvenile detention center, so I had first-hand

information on the limited success of secular programs.

Teaching troubled teens was like a revolving door. The same

ones would come and go without any lasting help because we

weren’t allowed to mention Jesus Christ and teach Christian principles.

Sixteen years ago, after years of frustration, I founded House of

Hope for hurting teenagers, with five of us praying and $200. God

impressed me that if the heart wasn’t changed and healed and if

the parents were not an integral part of the program, we would not

see lasting results of families being healed and restored.

We are dealing with desperate teens, ages 13 to 18, from every

socioeconomic level who have all been looking for love in all the

wrong places. Many have been in as many as seven secular programs when they come to us, where they go and dry out or detox,

yet they are left with an empty shell and soon that void is filled

again with drugs and alcohol, violence, and a multitude of other

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addictive behaviors, but that’s where House of Hope steps in. We

fill that empty shell with love and education and discipline and

trust. We work from the inside out building character and teaching

values. We are a holistic program that treats the whole person—

body, mind, and spirit.

The effectiveness of House of Hope’s faith-based drug treatment

program is seen when we evaluate the advantages, which the big

one is the whole family is involved. Our program is—we accept any

race, creed, or color. We are free to teach principles that are based

on the Bible, that build character and develop their identity so they

can fulfill their destiny.

As he said, President Reagan visited us in 1990. He had read an

article about us in 1985 when we first started, and that’s when he

sent the first check. Anyway, when he came he said, ‘‘There needs

to be a House of Hope in every major city across the Nation, because Government programs do not work.’’

Most secular treatments last 21 to 90 days, but House of Hope

is a residential program and lasts from 8 months to a year-and-ahalf, depending on the seriousness.

No teenager, no matter how serious a drug problem, has ever

suffered without withdrawals, but through love and counseling and

prayer they go off drugs cold turkey, without exception.

We have a 95 percent success rate of restoring these teenagers

back home to their families. We provide individualized education at

Hope Academy, which is our school program on campus, and most

all the teenagers that come are scholastically behind because of

truancy, and most of them are dropouts, but our well-equipped and

trained teachers are dedicated to helping the teens succeed, and in

a short time they catch up and even exceed their grade level.

Our counselors, professional and pastoral counselors, teach them

how to make positive choices, how to deal with bad attitudes, inappropriate behavior, hurts from the past, and they understand that

forgiveness is the big key to their recovery.

In House of Hope the whole family is involved. Parents are

equipped through one-on-one counseling and a mandatory weekly

parenting class to prepare them for successful restoration.

House of Hope is fulfilling the last verse of the Old Testament—

turning the hearts of the fathers and mothers to the children and

the hearts of the children back to the fathers and mothers, less

there be a curse on our land. House of Hope is stopping curses.

House of Hope Orlando is a national model for training seminars

across the Nation. Twenty-seven programs have patterned after us.

After graduation, our teens are held accountable through counseling, after-care programs, and annual reunions. Many of our past

graduates are currently on staff.

Our challenge is to mold our teenagers into solid citizens and our

leaders of tomorrow, so our challenge is to help all these teens who

have suffered these severe problems, who have been involved in

abuse and all kinds of drugs, and even in the occult. And most of

them have even tried to end their life through suicide.

But we are an integral part of President Bush’s army of compassion, strengthening families and rescuing our Nation’s youth with

unmatched success.

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The most powerful part of my presentation are the randomly selected testimonies that are included in your packet that I don’t

have time to read those right now, but I want to say that the

streets and institutions don’t tuck them in at night, but we do at

House of Hope.

House of Hope is a model. We have the answers. We are effective. We make a difference. And we cause lasting change.

Thank you so much.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Trollinger follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. If you could also provide for the record the 27 areas

where you are across the Nation, we’ll certainly insert in the individual testimonies and also just assume that any of the rest of you

who want to insert individual testimonies or some information

about your organization would be appreciated.

Reverend Smith, we are glad to have you be the cleanup speaker

here.

Reverend SMITH. First of all, I would like to thank you, Chairman Souder, for inviting me, and I thank you very much for an opportunity, and I thank my Congressman, Congressman Cummings,

who sits on about the fourth row on the left each and every Sunday, and it is certainly powerful to see Congressman Cummings

whenever he comes to church, which is regularly. Thank you.

Amen. And we do have a fine pastor, Dr. Thomas.

Myself, too, I have—for a number of years I was a substance

abuser. I was a heroin addict for over 20 years of my life. I have

been clean now for over 15 years. Been there. Done that. And it

was a life of some bad choices, decisions. It was a devastating life,

and I, too, like the pastor, can remember watching people and wondering what were they doing, you know, but now today I know

what they’re doing. They’re taking care of their families, they are

testifying, they are, you know, they’re doing things that people do

every day.

I got into this about 30 years ago, sitting in one of the first therapy communities in the country, which was Daytop Village, and

that’s where my recovery started at, so I have been in this for quite

some time.

And about 3 years ago, with my wife, I visited Buffalo, NY,

where we went to visit her family, and I met her first cousin, and

her first cousin had a program that really excited me, and I’ve set

up therapeutic communities all over the country and I’ve done a

number of things, you know, in the substance abuse field, but there

was something really special about this program that I knew that

it had to come to Baltimore, and it was called ‘‘Group Ministries

Buffalo,‘‘ and the acronym stands for God Recognizes Our Ultimate

Potential, and it was something there that I had seen that I had

not seen anywhere else. I saw people really recovering and I saw

people with sustaining recovery, so I knew I had to bring it to Baltimore. So about in 1997 we became incorporated and we became

the first national chapter of Group Ministries Buffalo, so we’re

Group Ministries Baltimore.

Some of the components of the program are Group Ministries has

an empowerment program. That’s our substance abuse program.

Our substance abuse program is an intensive 18-month—6 months

to 18 month—program, and at this presently we are doing it outpatient.

The other portion of it is that we have what we call ‘‘harm reduction,’’ and that’s our HIV and AIDS prevention, and we did receive

two grants from the CDC where we are doing HIV and AIDS prevention in the faith-based community, as well as community associations and businesses.

We also have a teen program which we call ‘‘TAG,’’ and it’s a

teen awareness program, and there we deal with issues that are

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confronting teenagers today, and we do it in discussion groups as

well as field trips.

And then we have what we call the ‘‘prison ministry,’’ and it is

a mentoring ministry. Right now we are in the process of developing a choir, and it’s called ‘‘Corrected Life Choir,’’ and these are

young men who have come out of the institutions and they’ve decided that they want to develop a choir.

Probably one of the most—the program that I’m most excited

about is our FEDCO—it’s Feed, Educate, and Direct the Community Oppressed—and that’s our pantry. And the pantry serves as— to supply food for individuals, say, for about 3 days that—in between check day or money spent or what have you, but what it affords us to do is to really get—it’s kind of like a hook, and once

someone is coming in a number of times then we realize that there

are some things going on within this family.

And what makes Group Ministries different, the Group Ministries is a community program. It is a program and it is housed

where I grew up at, you know, so everybody knows when they see

me that there can be a change, so it’s right in the community

where I grew up. I know everybody there. Everybody knows me. I

know the ins and outs of the community. And that’s what helps us

to be effective.

What I most—and I guess I’m going to get to the crux of it here,

and the crux of it here would be the accreditation. Group Ministries is in the process of being accredited, because I feel that accreditation is very, very important to prove what you do, you know,

without a shadow of a doubt, but not only in terms of the faithbased side of it, but I also believe in that we need to have full accreditation, so we are in the process of being accredited through the

State of Maryland, because I believe that it works hand in hand.

I think that people would fall through the cracks, you know, if they

don’t have the proper assessment, evaluation, and, you know, a

plan can be put in place for them.

My time is up. I probably do better with questions. Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. If you want to finish your statement, you can go

ahead and finish your statement.

Reverend SMITH. OK. And I will—our brochure, I’ll make sure

that you get that.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Chairman, I don’t know whether—did you

hear him say if you had anything else you wanted to say you can

continue, because everybody else ran on. We just want to be fair

to you.

Reverend SMITH. Well, I’d just like to read this.

What accreditation offers is that it raises the quality of service

of the organization. It proves a standard of providing effective social services in the area of evaluation and analyzing, meeting the

physical, mental health, and spiritual needs of the client, and

brings a variety of treatment modes to the program. It opens up

in available training in the medical, mental health, and spiritual

models of treatment.

What I’m saying is that it incorporates it all, you know, because,

you know, faith-based, faith has its part, as well as the behavioral

sciences has its part, and within the behavioral scientist community we can prove that it happens. A lot of times in the faith-based

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community and myself, you know, as a reverend, you know, a lot

of times we can’t prove it. We see the evidence of it. But I think

that it needs to be a marriage in terms of being able to treat the

whole person, because there’s issues of individuals that walk into

our agency that I realize and know that are far beyond the realm

or the scope that I can address. That’s why we have the collaborative, you know, within—as a component of our program, because

it is needed. There’s no way that you can just do the faith-based

thing. You have to have a marriage between what I call ‘‘facts’’ and ‘‘truth.’’ You know, the truth of it is that I may be sick, but God

is a healer. So there’s a marriage there. But we must have the

facts and we must have the hard data also with the facts.

Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Reverend Smith follows:]

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Mr. SOUDER. I appreciate the powerful testimony of each of you,

not only today but in your personal lives, because today people are

just seeing a little kind of reflection off of the mirror. In actuality,

your day-to-day work and the sacrifices that you’ve done to reach

others and what you’ve gone through in your personal lives and

your long-time commitment speaks far more than just the 5-minutes. The 5-minutes is just a little capstone summary of your work,

and we thank you most for your work and second for coming here

today so that we can understand more about it and try to address

a number of the questions.

I have a series of kind of technical questions that I want to go

through probably in a second round, but I have a fundamental

question that a number of you have alluded to, and you’ve suggested a number of possibilities, but I’d like to hear you develop

this further.

One of the biggest problems in drug treatment—and anybody

who spends any time at all in the stream and talking with addicts

realizes many of them have already gone through multiple treatment programs. Reverend Sanders said it wasn’t that he didn’t

want to change, it’s that he hadn’t. Ron talked about with his

friends. And I’m certain they certainly at times wished they could

be out of it.

Clearly, people who have gone into treatment and have come out

have continued to have problems, and we often hear data that suggests that a program was successful, but usually that is for short

term, not a long term. A number of you today are long term impacts.

What do you think are the key ingredients that ultimately help

a person overcome their addition and change? Some of it is clearly

faith. You’ve all talked about longer-term programs. Some of it is

a combination of different approaches. Some of it is job training

with it. But could you tell us a little bit about the mix, and then

what you see in regular drug treatment that doesn’t meet what you

all met? And maybe each of you can take that, starting with Reverend Sanders.

Reverend SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, personally, I had gone

through a number of treatment facilities without very much success. I relapsed again and again. And it was not until I coupled

what I had absorbed from those programs with the need to be Godcentered that I was able to overcome my demons. And it has been

my experience, I’ve watched people through the years who have relapsed again and again, and I think the record reflects the fact that

many programs for years and years, and I think many people are

beginning to realize that over the last 35 years or so—and I think

the whole notion of Government working with faith-based programs has to do with the fact that America has spent trillions of

dollars over the last 30 or 35 years without much success because

we have been neglecting that spiritual piece, that piece regarding

the need for one to be God-centered.

There is an inner man that must be nurtured and nourished

also. It just can’t be ignored.

Reverend SMITH. I think I’ll start my comment out with a question, and it is to the panel. If you would get on a plane tomorrow,

would you like to get on the plane with a pilot that’s called to be

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a pilot or a pilot that’s trained to be a pilot? And I say that to say

that to have trained individuals is crucial, you know. Over the

years of my addiction, I was in and out of hospitals. I was on psych

wards. And I went through a gamut of different types of modalities

of treatment. But what was interesting to me is that through each

one of them I was able to gather something from each one of the

situational experiences that I had went through, but a lot of times

what I would come out of, even with—well, with the psych wards

would be that there was times of depression and that my depression was addressed. It was at times that I didn’t know which way

to go. And that’s when the faith piece came into place.

But before I could do that I had to have the proper evaluations.

I had to have that factual piece of it and I’m trying to—there had

to be an intervention of the medical model, there was an intervention of the mental health piece, and I found a sustaining in the

spiritual aspect of it, but it was a combination of all that was really

as help to sustain my recovery to this point.

Mr. SOUDER. Ms. Trollinger.

Ms. TROLLINGER. At House of Hope we have—everybody that

comes there has been through one and some as seven secular drug

programs before they get there, and actually drugs are not the

problem. That’s not the root of the cause. There are deeper things

that are causing them to reach out. They’re all looking for love in

all the wrong places. And when they come to House of Hope, we

have a caring staff that are not drafted, they’re mandated to be

there. They have a heart for helping hurting people. Many of them

have been through drug programs, themselves.

But I think it is the love of God that touches their hearts and

the healing starts there, and when they come there they—many of

them say they feel like scum buckets, because we always greet

them with a hug and tell them that they’re special, and later in

their testimony they’ll say they can’t believe that because they

have such a poor self-concept, and so we help them through time.

And it takes time. It’s not a quick fix, but sometimes as much as

a 11⁄2 to 2 years of being there, walking through their problems

with them, that they literally go off drugs cold turkey, and we don’t

put them on a medication to help them get through that. So that’s

the love of God through our staff and our program.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Castellani.

Mr. CASTELLANI. It is obvious that we say—if we say that these

people have been in other programs before they get to ours, that

they said that before, so I guess that follows the train from all the

way square one to where we are.

The good thing, I think when we get to where we are the truth

shall set you free, and I think we confront them with the truth of

life, the truth not only of the Gospel but the truth of life.

Psalm 103, verse three—I use this for my premise. We go back

and forth to whether it’s sin or we go back and forth to whether

it’s a disease. Psalm 103 says, ‘‘Who forgiveth all thine iniquities,

who healeth all thy diseases.’’ And so whether it is a sin problem,

whether it is a disease problem, we know that the Gospel works,

and we are firm in that area.

We also know that one of the difficulties I believe in a short-term

program or a program that is strictly clinical, that these individVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Apr 18, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77709.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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uals need to have a challenge, and one of the challenges that Teen

Challenge offers them, and that is in the work field. Because we

are faith-based, because we have to support ourself by various

forms of funding, one of our forms of funding is teaching them a

work ethic. We have individuals who have gone through our program who are lawyers, doctors, school teachers, you name it, and

they have all basically said to us when they leave, ‘‘One of the

things that you taught us here is the value of work.’’ And I think this is a critical part. When it comes to training, licensure, I can understand that. In Pennsylvania we are a licensed

program. We do the psycho-socials, we do all these individual

things, but because we are a free-standing faith-based program we

are still not supported in any way, and so every year my staff has

to go through the same process that a clinical staff has to go

through of getting CACs and all these various things, and so I’m

kind of here saying today we’re almost on the same level playing

ground. The difference is the Jesus factor. And so—and I really am

not against a form of licensing in some way; I just wouldn’t want

the license to be the control. I think there are some other facets

in this that we need to take into account.

And again I just thank you for the opportunity to make a comment.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Frederick.

Mr. FREDERICK. Speaking on a personal level, as going through

the program and having a problem for the majority of my life, it

was a matter of choice that I made. I made a choice 1 day that I

wanted to change.

A person can go through many programs, as I did before I came

to Teen Challenge, and the thing that really changed my life is

that I made a choice that I wanted to change.

And another factor was that I had been through many secular

programs, and their idea was somewhat to change the person just

basically on the outside. I needed an inside job done. That’s where

my problem was, on the inside. So I came to Teen Challenge and

they began to allow me to see how wretched my inside was, as compared to Jesus Christ, and I began to change, and I wanted to be

in the image of Christ. I wanted to do something good in society.

I wanted to be a productive citizen. I wanted, like the pastor said,

to—I saw other people accomplishing things and doing things. I

said, ‘‘I want to do that, but I have to make a choice to change.’’

I know a lot of programs, what they do, they change the outside

of you. It’s somewhat like putting a tuxedo on a pig, and once you

let him go he returns right back to the mud. See, what I needed

was the inside to be changed, and I know that only Christ could

do that. Nothing else could—I heard Mr. Cummings say that drug

addiction is an illness. Yes, it is. But we serve a Great Physician.

We don’t just serve a physician, we serve the Great Physician, who

can heal all illnesses. And psychological problems? Yes, he can

even heal those. I had many psychological problems. Most of them

were healed or dealt with because I was confronted with them, I

was shown them by my counselors and other people, and it wasn’t

because of my neighborhood that I was on drugs or my family or

my friends, it was a choice that I made. Now I had to make another choice, and that choice was to change.

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Sometimes people that go through programs, they are not really

ready to make that choice, and that’s when it says, well, you get

a lot of people that go through it not long term, but they are not

making a choice. They haven’t come to that point where they know

they need to make a choice, and that choice in my instance was

Jesus.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

We’ve also been joined by Congressman Weldon from Florida, a

doctor who I’m sure agrees with most of your statement there, as

well.

Congressman Cummings, questions?

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

And to our panel, I want to try to give you a picture of what the

problems are and what the concerns are.

First of all, I don’t think there’s anyone up here—and you do not

have to convince any of us, I don’t think, that faith and God plays

a major role in our lives. I mean, that is—I mean, some folk don’t

believe, but I think everybody up here is on believe.

Some of the issues go to some of the things that Reverend Smith

talked about. The problems that we see is that we’ve got tax dollars

that are paid by every single citizen of this country, and a lot of

those citizens are concerned that if we place their tax dollars into

churches, they first want to know—they first want to make sure

that there is going to be accountability, because they say to themselves, ‘‘Well, if I had a program and I was using tax dollars, I’d

probably be audited, I would be—I want to make sure that there

is clear accountability and responsibility. And I don’t think that

there’s very many entities—I know Reverend Sanders as a pastor

knows what I’m talking about, and as a lawyer I’ve represented

many churches, and as the son of a pastor and a reverend I’ve said

it many times that if there’s one thing that can get a church divided it’s money, let me tell you.

And I guess what I’m getting to is that if we have a situation

where money is going—and, again, keep in mind in the United

States we have Muslims, Buddhists. They’re all paying taxes. And

we have all kinds of religions in our country.

One of the things that they want is accountability, and another

thing that they want is to make sure—and this is very crucial—

that their tax dollars are not being used by religious or by faithbased organizations to discriminate on the basis of religion, on the

basis of race, and that those are some of the real concerns.

It’s not the issues—because I don’t want us to get confused that

we are all convinced that faith-based organizations are effective.

That’s not the issue. And I don’t want us to walk out of this room,

any of us or the audience, thinking that’s the problem. Even the

people who are adamantly against these provisions will say they

don’t have any problem with faith-based, as long as they are not

discriminating with regard to employment, again, using their tax

dollars to discriminate, and they want to—there’s another thing

that they’re concerned about, too, and I just want to throw this out

to the panel.

Some of the research has shown that a lot of times when Federal

funds flow into small entities that are not equipped to handle the

money, the next thing you know you’ve got the FBI going through

42

your books and indictments flowing. As a lawyer I can tell you I’ve

seen it. And that’s not to scare anybody, but that’s a fact. I don’t

know how many of you all have ever dealt with the FBI. It’s not

a pleasant experience.

So I guess those are the kind of concerns that the other side

brings to this issue. It’s not that they are against it. They want to

see it. As a matter of fact, we have provisions already in the law

that allow charitable choice. It just so happened that President

Clinton did not push it because he felt he had concerns about the

Constitutionality of it, of charitable choice—that is, being able to

discriminate in employment. Say, like, you have a Baptist church,

money goes in the Baptist church, and the only people you hire are

Baptists. If a Catholic comes along and he wants to help with your

drug treatment program, you say, ‘‘Uh-oh, uh-oh, what church do

you go to?’’ And he says, ‘‘St. Mary’s Catholic Church,’’ then he’s

out. Those are the things.

And a recent poll was done where 78 percent of Americans said

that they do believe that religious—I mean, that faith-based organizations do an effective job, and then when it came down—and

they liked that. But when it came down to the question of, ‘‘If faithbased organizations were able to discriminate using your tax dollars, how would you feel?’’ They basically said—a vast majority of

them said—about the same percentage said, ‘‘We don’t want that.

We don’t want them discriminating.’’ So any of you may want to comment. Reverend Sanders?

Reverend SANDERS. Yes.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I know I’ve said several things, but you can comment on any of them.

Reverend SANDERS. OK.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Or all.

Reverend SANDERS. First of all, one of the things that, among

other things, that the government in Indianapolis under Steve

Goldsmith did, not only did they help us to access funding, but he

had members of his staff who assisted us, gave us technical assistance, helped us to seek out grant moneys, and even helped us to

understand the importance, which we already were aware of, of developing and maintaining proper records and documents and so

forth, so we do that. We have a 501(c)(3) and we are in line with

all of that.

And also another feature of our program, we don’t discriminate.

We are devoted to helping people who are in need of help. Now,

clearly this is Mount Vernon’s relapse prevention program. We decided to tackle it on this at this point because we didn’t want to

duplicate some other services that were being provided. We understand it is such huge problems. There’s prevention, intervention,

and relapse prevention.

But we don’t discriminate on the basis of belief systems. Our

lives are a testimony, and so what we do, we just encourage people

to realize that you need this spiritual piece. The spiritual component has got to be addressed. We don’t force our belief system on

anyone.

Personally—and I don’t mean to offend anyone—as far as I’m

concerned, a man can call his deity Jim Shoe or Oatmeal Cookie.

I’m not hung up on that, just so long as you realize that it’s there.

43

And this is what we emphasize. We don’t discriminate on the

basis of what a man chooses to believe or not to believe. We know

what works for us. And I am thoroughly convinced that a man with

experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.

Reverend SMITH. One of the things I recognized even before this

argument came up, I’m an associate minister at New Summits

Baptist Church, and when God gave me this ministry I realized

that I was going to bring it up underneath the church, in that

sense, and I realized that it had to be separate and apart, so we

have a separate 501(C)(3) in terms of, you know, Group Ministries.

And Group Ministries looks at spirituality not differently, but I

look at it as the relationship between whoever or whatever that

you deem most important in your life. So it’s not something

esoterical, way out there. But, you know, when I was using drugs,

my god was the drugs. So what we do is we take people from dope

to hope, see, because I believe when an individual comes through

those doors the ultimate goal is to get him on the spiritual path,

but the thing is to meet this individual at the level of their needs,

because usually when somebody comes in they are in crisis mode

anyway. What they need at that point is they need good evaluation,

they need to be diagnosed by trained individuals, licensed individuals who can sit down with them and help to navigate them

through to the point where what I call Group Ministries is a recovery program that puts people on the spiritual path.

So we use spiritual principles, and the spiritual principles are—

some of them are perseverance, tolerance, honesty, open-mindedness. And the way that we use them is that—when I was out there

using drugs, if I was standing on the corner I was broke. And

somebody came around the corner and said, ‘‘Hey, man, you know,

a truck is open around the corner,’’ I became very open-minded. I

became very willing. I knew that when I got up in the morning,

if I persevered and was persistent that I would reach my goal.

Well, what we do is use those same principles in recovery; that

we say that let’s take the focus off of the dope and let’s put it on

the hope.

Now, the same things that you use on a daily basis in order to

survive, let’s apply those same principles to a change and a redirection of life, of your life.

It is very crucial that a program will be accountable, accountable

to the individual coming into your establishment for help, and I see

the mingling as a problem.

You know, I’m in a situation now where, OK, I received $125,000

from the State about a year-and-a-half ago to do renovation of our

building that we are going into. Part of what we did was sign a

covenant with the State that we would not have any worship services, nor are we going to turn it into a Fraternal Order of Police

either or fraternity, but I had no problems with doing that because

we are a spiritually based program.

Now, if someone ends up in church—and hopefully we do want

to get them on that spiritual path, but that’s not the input. The

input is to meet the individual at the level of their needs, to address those issues that got them there in the first place, and that’s

where I see it as being.

44

Ms. TROLLINGER. At House of Hope we are a 501(C)(3) organization and we—I don’t discriminate with race, color, creed, or denominations, but we started with $200 and five of us praying, and

our budget today is $90,000 a month, and we never know where

the money is coming from, but God is always faithful. One time somebody send us a check for $1 million, somebody I

didn’t even know, but the word gets out of a program that’s doing

the right thing and has results.

We were audited. We have a CPA that is on staff with us. We

were audited by the IRS, and they said that they had never seen

books as clean as ours, so our books are open. We don’t have anything to hide. We know that we have a great success rate because

we are doing what God has called us to do, and that’s family restoration.

Mr. CASTELLANI. Great comments. You look forward to a day like

this when you can have an open dialog, and you think about all

these things for months and weeks.

And as I think of this today, I wrote down just a few notes. I

think there—I’m not opposed to any kind of a credentialling or licensure, per se, as long as it is not a control.

We looked at the medical field, and there’s different forms of doctors. There was a day when Blue Cross would not pay for chiropractors, but now they do, and things like this, so I think there’s

different forms of healing that can come to a person, whatever his

problems may be, whether it’s in the drug field or whatever it is.

I just wouldn’t want it to be a dictatorial type.

And when it comes to finances, in our 150 Teen Challenge centers across the United States, all of them have to have an audit

by a CPA firm yearly. It is part of our accreditation that we have

instituted among ourselves. Now, if it is an institution less than $100,000 income, it is not

a CPA but it is another form. I can’t tell you the form that it is, but it is another form. So any of our institutions with $100,000 income or more have to have a CPA firm do a certification on their

auditing.

I just feel that there are so many ways that this can be done.

And I understand that when our President opened this up to faithbased, yes, it could be any religion, whatever the religion may be,

and I have to accept that. I also accept the fact that he has given

me an opportunity to come to the table, and so I—and I end with

this. I think Elijah had this problem—not problem, but he was confronted with the same challenge 1 day, when he says, ‘‘Bring all

the water you want and see what happens,’’ and then he says, ‘‘OK,

you pray the way you want, rather, and see what happens,’’ and

they prayed all they could and nothing happened. He said, ‘‘Now

soak it with water,’’ and he prayed and it happened.

And so I think we need to look at the outcomes. If the outcome

is there and it is working, whether we use a certified mechanic or

whether we use a good mechanic in our neighborhood, if it works

I think we ought to be grateful that our car runs.

I just thank you.

Mr. CUMMINGS. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your indulgence, and I just wanted to say to you—at first I thought you

were talking about me. My name is Elijah. [Laughter.]

45

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Mica.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Cummings raises really the core of the issue that we face,

and that’s the separation of church and State, and I want to ask

each of you how do you think that we can mix public money with

your private faith-based activity and not make you subject to all

the red tape, the possible intrusion of the Government. Do you

think that’s possible? I’ll start with Sara.

Ms. TROLLINGER. I think charitable choice, that people can

choose to give more and the deductions would be greater for them.

I also think that Government money can be put into things like

drug treatment doctors, where a person can choose to go to a program that is working. We can use it for job training, vocational

training, scholarships. Our parents actually give 11 percent of what

it costs us to operate, so we have an 89 percent shortfall, but Government may be matching funds in some areas, places where we

don’t have to—where we can keep the church and State separated

without, you know, teaching the Jesus Christ is Lord of all, but,

you know, we’ll still do that in the basic foundation areas.

Mr. MICA. Maybe some others could respond. Do you think it is

possible? And if anyone has any other unique approaches they

might submit to the subcommittee.

Reverend SANDERS. I know it is possible, and I think if more people would pay closer attention to the model that former Mayor

Steve Goldsmith established, as I indicated earlier members of his

staff helped us to cut through a lot of the bureaucratic jargon and

so forth and they assisted us with our grant applications and they

just made the process easier, and they never interfered with what

we were doing. I think they respected the fact that we were already

committed to doing what we do and we’re going to maintain that

commitment with or without the help of outside agencies. But they

played a great part in assisting us, but they never interfered with

anything we were doing. It was a hands-off approach, government

working in partnership with faith-based groups.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

One other thing that I might like to establish for the record is

that, in previous testimony before this subcommittee, most of the

public or secular-based treatment programs have had a dismal success ratio, sometimes as low as 25, 30 percent, and I believe—and

that’s part of what I’d like to have you all make part of the record,

sharing with us your success rate. Maybe you could give us some

range of success with your faith-based programs, again, that we

can use as a comparison in the future.

Sir, let’s just go down the line, if you want to give us guesstimates or ranges for the record, we’d appreciate it.

Reverend SANDERS. For the record, we opened our center in

1998. We have been instrumental in getting more than 150 people

in residential programs, and through our weekly—we network with

other agencies that provide different services, and through our

weekly support group meetings and 12-step program meetings,

some of our meetings have outgrown our facility, which is located

one block from the church, so we open up the church, and on an

average we help to keep more than 100 people sober a week

through our 12-step programs and our support group meetings.

46

Mr. MICA. Is that about two-thirds, two out of three, as far as

success rate? I mean, what we’re trying to do is get some handle

on—I mean, if you have the same ratio of failure that the public

programs are, there isn’t a whole lot of incentive for us to—— Reverend SANDERS. Well, I haven’t—— Mr. MICA [continuing]. Put money into a program if it is not successful.

Reverend SANDERS. Well, our program is successful, because if

we don’t help but one individual we’ve been successful. I haven’t

compared our program with other secular programs to see who is

doing a better—— Mr. MICA. Well, of those who come in or are a part of your program, what percentage do you think you are helping?

Reverend SANDERS. I would say three out of five.

Mr. MICA. Three out of five?

Reverend SANDERS. Yes.

Mr. MICA. And, sir?

Reverend SMITH. May I respond to the first question you asked

about the separation of the moneys?

Mr. MICA. Right.

Reverend SMITH. And as far as the church, because we are not

a church, we are a spiritually based organization, so we aren’t proselytizing people in terms of, you know, you have to be Baptist, you

have to be, I mean, what have you.

I am blessed that my wife is an accountant, so I don’t have the

separation problems in the accounting problem with that, because

I think there is a danger in the mingling. You know, I’m also temporarily in a situation where we have received some dollars from

the CDC, and at this point, since there is nothing really enacted,

there is mingling. There’s mingling in the sense that supporting of

the church, itself, is a church sometimes, it’s an outreach sometimes, you know, but the lights are on all the time. And what I’m

saying, there is a danger of a mingling unless it is a—my suggestion would be a separate 501(C)(3), first of all. Second, I have to

always go back to the accreditation, because with accreditation you

can prove rather than have to guesstimate of who was serviced,

that you have the proof, because it is documented.

And, you know, we seem to be—the faith-based organizations

have survived a lot of things, and I hear my, ‘‘Well, I don’t know

whether they would be able to function under all the pressure, all

the—’’ you know. The faith-based community has survived a lot of

other things heavier than this coming down, so it would be an opportunity also for the faith-based community to step up to the plate

and become accountable or more accountable in addressing this

issue.

Those would be my comments.

Mr. MICA. What about your success rate?

Reverend SMITH. At this point, we are doing more education

right now at this point.

Mr. MICA. Than treatment?

Reverend SANDERS. No. We are in the process of being certified,

you know, to do treatment, because I’m a firm believer in that I

think it has to be a meshing of the two, the traditional treatment,

the traditional accountability, as well as the spiritual aspect of it.

47

I have been doing this about 30 years, and I’ve found that in

most spiritual programs or programs or even programs that develop in church, they usually already address individuals who have

already been through a certain amount of modalities or have been

through some things, and they are sustaining, but, like the coming

in the door, I have seen problems with that.

Mr. MICA. Ms. Trollinger.

Ms. TROLLINGER. At House of Hope we have had over 700 who

have gone through our program. We have hundreds have been

through outpatient that are not in the residential facility. And we

have a 1 percent recidivism rate, and we have a 95 percent success

rate, and that 5 percent that—where we did not succeed are those

who have not reached their bottom. They have been incorrigible, so

disruptive, fought staff, that we had to send them back to detention

center, so we’ve had a great success. And we document our success.

We have an after-care program after they graduate that they have

to attend. We have counseling that they continue with, and we

keep up with them through telephone calls. And we have every August, first Saturday in August, we have a reunion and all the old

boys and girls come back.

Mr. MICA. Thank you.

Mr. CASTELLANI. I’m for the accountability factor. The accountability factor, though—I can have great records, but I still do no

cure. And so I don’t think the records, itself, verify what I do as

a person or as a group.

Teen Challenge has had various studies done on it through the

years, and I really hate to say the figures, because the figures are

quite high. And you look at it, you want to be honest with yourself.

You know, all of our figures have been based on graduates, not

those who dropped out prematurely, and I don’t know of any organization, whether it be secular or Christian, who can verify actually what they’ve done, what they did.

The New York Times interviewed me recently and I made the

error of saying, yes, we have dropouts, and they said, ‘‘What’s the

percentage,’’ so you use a guesstimate. And they used those figures

in a negative way. And I don’t mind being put in a negative light

as long as my competition is in negative light, but when I’m made

negative because it is a one-sided issue, it troubles me.

So we’ve had some great—and the first study we had done, by

the way, was done by—the money was provided by HEW. Catherine Hess was a professor from the Columbia University in New

York City, and she was running a methadone program, and Teen

Challenge in those days—that’s almost 20-some years ago now—

Teen Challenge in those days was saying they had a 70 percent

cure rate, so she got a grant, did the study, and when she got done

with the study—now, it wasn’t the dropouts along the way. It was

the graduates. And the study at that time was 86 percent of the

graduates that were still clean, and that’s where the statement

came. She said, ‘‘The difference between Teen Challenge in 1977

and the secular programs was the Jesus factor.’’

We just had a study done by a young fellow who was doing his

doctorate thesis in Northwest University in Chicago, and I understand this is a student, so he did a study and he said that the

study was about the same. The one good thing that he brought up,

48

with his small study, small as it was, 90 percent were full-time employed, and we really feel that that’s a big factor, as well.

So I think there is more than percentages who drop out and

more percentages of who are cured. What are these people doing

after?

I welcome either challenge. I welcome the challenge because the

truth shall set you free, and I like truth.

Thank you.

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. We’ve also been joined by our distinguished leader

in the anti-drug effort, Mr. Gilman.

Mr. Davis.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Let me just say I really appreciate this discussion.

I think Representative Cummings has raised some of the issues

in terms of what people who are opposed to or people who have reservations or people who are trying to think through the initiative.

From the answers that you are giving, I mean, you really operate

pretty much like any other 501(C)(3) regular tax-exempt, not-forprofit organization. I mean, I didn’t see any difference from what

I know many organizations to be.

Let me make sure. Does each one of you receive some kind of

public support—that is, public dollars, any public dollars that

comes from an amalgamation of individuals, resources that the city

controls, State controls, or any public entity controls?

Ms. TROLLINGER. No, we don’t.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. You don’t?

Ms. TROLLINGER. No, we don’t.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. And Teen Challenge does not?

Mr. CASTELLANI. No, but some of our centers do get food stamps

because the student qualifies for it, not the center.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. OK. So that doesn’t go to the center; that

just goes to the individual student. But both of you receive some

public—you’ve gotten money from CDC.

Mr. CASTELLANI. Right.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. And you’ve gotten money from the city

of Indianapolis. That’s public. So you both receive some public dollars.

Reverend SANDERS. We have. We have received some, but that’s

several years ago.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. OK. But you’re not receiving——

Reverend SANDERS. At this time, no.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS [continuing]. Anything at this time.

Reverend SANDERS. No.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. The recommendation—see, I guess the

difficulty that I’m trying to get to is that your recommendations are

a little different than what the initiative currently calls for. I’m

saying you are all in favor of serious accountability, but does that

mean that you’d like to see in the initiative some indication of

that—I mean, that there ought to be some indication of accountability in the President’s initiative? That’s what I’m asking.

Reverend SANDERS. Yes.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. All right. You also, in terms of some people are fearful that standards would be lowered, and, of course,

49

from listening to you, Reverend Smith, I mean, you are suggesting

that there be standards in terms of individuals having some level

of training, professionalism, or whatever. Is that—— Reverend SANDERS. Yes, sir.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. And I wanted to ask you, Reverend Sanders, in terms of your own background, what kind of professional or

preparation do you have for running the programs that you run?

Reverend SANDERS. Well, I don’t—I went—I attended college for

2 years in Chicago, but the professional who directs our program

is Dr. Rosie Hatcheet. When I referred to the Fairbanks Treatment

Center, she is the one that has her credentials. What I’ve learned

to do is to surround myself with professional people and allow them

to do those things.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Is that an M.D., Ph.D. or what?

Reverend SANDERS. Yes, she’s a Ph.D.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. So she is a Ph.D., and so none of the activity that you all are engaged in other than some focus on the

presence of a supreme entity is any different than any of the other

programs. And, of course, it is amusing to hear you say that you

surround yourself, because when you were testifying I observed

that you were reading, you were giving the information that I had

read, and I sat there smiling to myself saying that this gentleman

is delivering his testimony verbatim as I had read it without looking at the paper, so you don’t need any more training. I mean, you

are an expert—— Reverend SANDERS. Without question.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS [continuing]. At what you do. So there are

people who suggest, you know, that fly by-night individuals, you

know, that somebody who just kind of gets the feel is going to come

and start to do this, and that’s going to lower standards, people are

going to discriminate. And I’ve heard each one of you suggest that,

even though you are Baptist or even though you’re White or even

though you’re whatever, if I came and applied for a job at your program and told you that I was Catholic, but if you thought I was

a good drug counselor I might get hired. I mean, is that——

[Panel members respond in the affirmative.]

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. And so that wouldn’t have a bearing. If

I came and said, ‘‘Well, I’m Black, and you are not,’’ you’re not

going to say, ‘‘I can’t hire you.‘‘ You see, all of the problems that people raise, you don’t represent

any of that. But let me ask this one question. And I don’t have any

problem with the—because, see, I’d hate to have a surgeon, for example, who didn’t have any faith, and, of course, I’d hate to have

a surgeon who didn’t have nothing but faith. [Laughter.]

I mean, I wouldn’t want either one. And so this business of mixing without proselytizing, you know, without pushing to the extreme or suggesting that people have got to be this or have got to

be that, do you really believe that people who would start to provide services under the initiative would feel a need to do that? I

mean——

Reverend SMITH. I think I’d like to go first this time, instead of

going last.

I think in my statement one of the things that I said, that it

would be a marriage between the behavioral scientist, the

50

behavioralist, as well as—and when I say that, I’m talking about

traditional certification—I mean those individuals who are trained

to recognize, you know, schizophrenia, depression, and to be able

to recommend and diagnose and also to create a treatment plan to

assist those individuals. So in a marriage, you know, as well as

having the spiritual component there, a lot of times I’ve found people that, you know, I’ve talked about Jesus, but you know what,

they really wasn’t getting it. They were—as hard as they wanted

to at that time, they really wasn’t getting it because there were

some other things that were going on with these individuals. I

mean, there were some biological things. And I know Christ can

hook it up, but there were some things that were going on that

needed some other attention that was far beyond my expertise.

There were some areas that I knew without a shadow of doubt— and we’ve all professed to be faith-based—all the hands in the

world would not have made the connection, and yet I believe that

God can do that, but I also believe that he also puts other entities

in to help. You know, if I get hit by a car and I’m laying there

bleeding, please call my pastor, but call 9–1–1 first.

So I believe that it needs to be a marriage, you know, so in that

maybe some things will be relaxed. Maybe some things in a marriage—a higher standard will be made. But I believe that it needs

to be a coming together and I believe that it can be successful if

there is a coming together.

And there’s going to be in-fighting. There’s going to be different

opinions. Maybe one modality might try to take, but what have

you. But in a marriage—and those of us who are married, we know

that sometimes it is give and take, but it is for the betterment of

the marriage, and in this case we’re looking at the betterment of

the serving of the individual who is coming in who is already in

crisis seeking help.

Ms. TROLLINGER. I think that the faith-based ministries our outreaches will be an asset to the Government, and in my packet I

listed 14 or 15 different areas that we represent a trust with all

levels of society that is not experienced within the Government,

and on and on, and I won’t take the time to read them now, but

I believe that we are going to prove to be a great asset.

Right now we are operating at House of Hope and we don’t really

need the Government because we are trusting God and he always

takes care of all of our needs, but we’d like to be an asset at the

same time.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you. I have no further questions,

Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. I’d like to quickly clarify, because I think it is a little confusing, two of the questions.

Would the House of Hope hire someone as a drug counselor who

wasn’t a Christian?

Ms. TROLLINGER. No.

Mr. SOUDER. Even if that meant taking no Government funds?

Ms. TROLLINGER. Exactly. We would not compromise.

Mr. SOUDER. Would Teen Challenge take Government funds if it

meant you had to hire a counselor who wasn’t a Christian?

Mr. CASTELLANI. No.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

51

Mr. Gilman.

Mr. GILMAN. By that, by ‘‘Christian,’’ as long as you have the

faith it doesn’t matter what church credential you have.

Mr. SOUDER. And you wouldn’t discriminate on race, you

wouldn’t discriminate on age—— Ms. TROLLINGER. That’s right.

Mr. SOUDER [continuing]. You wouldn’t discriminate. But because

your mission is Christian—— Ms. TROLLINGER. That’s right.

Mr. SOUDER. Would that be true of you, too, Pastor Sanders?

This isn’t who you cover, because by law if you took any Government funds you’d have to cover anybody and currently cover anybody. This is a question of on your staff would you take someone

who wasn’t a Christian?

Reverend SANDERS. I think our preference would be someone who

believes in a Supreme Being, you know, as I stated earlier. We

have to respect the fact that people have had different religious

and cultural experiences, and I just—you know, that’s my approach

to it. I just believe that we need, you know, to believe.

Mr. SOUDER. And I understood Reverend Smith to say you would

hire?

Reverend SMITH. We would. As a matter of fact, our clinical director, consulting clinical director is a Muslim. He practices the Islamic faith. Because what I’ve found in religion, if there is—there

is three things that runs through all religions, and, you know, it

is the relationship between God, the love of community, and the

love of self, and those are the principles that we abide by because

the bottom line is we are there to help and to assist those who are

in need.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Mr. Chairman, if I could, if I said I was

Jewish, does that mean you wouldn’t hire me?

Ms. TROLLINGER. If you didn’t believe in Jesus Christ as your

personal savior, we would not, because that is the success of our

program.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Or if I was Muslim?

Ms. TROLLINGER. Exactly. Same way.

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. All right. And—— Mr. CASTELLANI. Yes, we wouldn’t—we would not hire to be a

counselor, for sure, because our whole premise is the Gospel, and

the Scripture says, ‘‘A house divided against itself will fall,’’ and ‘‘Be not unequally yolked together.’’ I have no problem with a Muslim doing his own thing in his own way. I have absolutely no problem, and I think he could be at this table and he could have the

same benefits that I could, but I don’t think we have to mix the

two. That’s my opinion.

Mr. SOUDER. It’s pretty clear in where we are headed in the law

that if a person has no choice, you can’t have a program that would

only be Christian. If a person has choices, you could have a Muslim

program, a Jewish program, a Christian program, a secular program, or whatever. If you don’t have a choice with the money, you

can’t do this.

It is also clear that you can’t use any Government funds if you

get it, regardless of whether it is President Bush’s proposal or others, you can’t use any of that money for proselytizing.

52

Ms. TROLLINGER. Right.

Mr. SOUDER. It would have to be for a computer, it would have

to be for overhead.

Ms. TROLLINGER. Right.

Mr. SOUDER. And you would have to keep clear of the money.

But we do have a difficulty with this question of non-discrimination, that we are going to work with and we are trying to work

through, because it needs to be inclusive, and our country has a lot

of diversity. At the same time, different programs have different

strengths, and a Muslim program is not going to want to hire

Christians in some cases. Now, if it is a blended program, like several of you, then you may, and that’s what we’re wrestling with.

I need to go to Mr. Gilman, and then we can get back for some

further questions.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I think you

have raised a very important point, my colleagues raised a very important point about discrimination in taking on some of your patients, clients.

We recognize the importance and vital role that our faith-based

organizations are playing, and we commend all of you, but when

it comes to having a discriminatory practice, I think you are going

to be limited in the kind of Federal funding that you will receive.

We who are fighting the drug war recognize how important it is

to give attention to both reduction of demand and reduction of supply, and that we have to do it simultaneously and try to provide

adequate resources, but if, as a faith-based organization, if you are

going to be solely administering to those of your own faith and

being discriminatory in other clients, I think you are going to have

a problem about getting any Federal funding. But we want to——

Ms. TROLLINGER. I want to say something about that.

Mr. GILMAN. In just a moment. I want to commend you, though,

for the work you are doing, and whatever we can do to find a good

solution to those who have become addicted to illicit narcotics is

certainly important. I have been fighting this battle for more close

to 30 years now, and we have found no silver bullets out there that

takes care of those who are in need of treatment and rehabilitation

and to deny themselves any further usage of getting more further

involved in addiction.

Now, you raised your hand, Ms. Trollinger?

Ms. TROLLINGER. Yes. The clients that we serve and the families,

we do not turn anyone away because of their affiliation with—most

of them don’t believe in anything. They come to us. And we’ve

taken Jewish people, we’ve taken Muslims, every type group, and

we do not push our religion, our particular belief on them. We walk

it out in our everyday life. It is caught and not taught.

Mr. GILMAN. I think, though, in response you said you wouldn’t

take an employee——

Ms. TROLLINGER. Hire someone.

Mr. GILMAN [continuing]. In your organization.

Ms. TROLLINGER. Exactly. An employee who is the example.

Mr. GILMAN. Pardon.

Ms. TROLLINGER. Who is—we would not take an employee as a

role model to be a part of our staff. No. But we will—all of our cliVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Apr 18, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77709.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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entele, they are from everything under the sun. They’re not—most

of them are not Christian.

Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Castellani, I think you raised your hand.

Mr. CASTELLANI. When it comes to taking anyone in the program, we lay out what our program is, and whatever their background of faith or no faith, they’re welcome. We accept whosoever

will. In fact, when they complete our program, we do not say they

need to go to a specific church, but we say, ‘‘Please go to church.‘‘ Ms. TROLLINGER. Of your choice.

Mr. CASTELLANI. Whatever that church is. And we have had

many Jewish individuals go through Teen Challenge, and when

they complete our program some of them return to their Jewish

synagogue, some of them say they’re ‘‘completed Jew’’ now in various forums like this, and we’ve had individuals that were Muslims

that have come in the program, and we just say to them, ‘‘Look,

as long as you don’t disrupt the program—this is who we are, this

is what we believe—you can be here.’’ And that’s the agreement

when he comes in. He knows that coming in. And if he decides

halfway through, ‘‘Look, I can’t put up with this stuff,’’ then fine,

he can dismiss himself and we’ll help him find another program.

That’s the way we work.

Mr. GILMAN. What is the average of your success rate, including

any recidivist? And do you followup so that you have an

accurate—— Ms. TROLLINGER. Yes, I—are you speaking to me?

Mr. GILMAN. Yes, please.

Ms. TROLLINGER. Yes. I just quoted a few moments ago that our

success rate is 95 percent, restoring our teenagers—they are between the ages of 12 and 18—back home to their parents with— the parents have to be part of the program, also.

Mr. GILMAN. But what about the followup after they get back to

them?

Ms. TROLLINGER. All right. The followup, they continue counseling after they leave, they continue after-care programs after that.

We keep up with them by telephone calls and——

Mr. GILMAN. Is there any recidivism?

Ms. TROLLINGER. It’s 1 percent.

Mr. GILMAN. And how far do you follow your clients? Out to

what—— Ms. TROLLINGER. We continue to follow them, because we-every

August 1st every one is contacted, and we talk with them personally and they come back to a reunion with us.

Mr. GILMAN. Would our other panelists comment on your success

rate?

Reverend SMITH. As I stated, right now we are——

Mr. GILMAN. Could you put the microphone a little closer, please?

Reverend SMITH. As I commented earlier, from Group Ministries

Baltimore, right now we are doing it more educational forums at

this point, but I will provide the committee with statistics from

Group Ministries Buffalo, which would have those.

Mr. GILMAN. What do you estimate to be your success rate?

Reverend SMITH. I would estimate, of what we have done in the

last year, I would say it’s somewhere around 55 percent.

Mr. GILMAN. That seems like——

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Reverend SMITH. And in terms of followup, we do follow individuals, you know, everywhere.

Mr. GILMAN. Yes.

Reverend SMITH. If they go into another modality, if we see them

on the streets, or what have you, we followup.

Mr. GILMAN. That sounds like a pretty accurate estimate.

Mr. Castellani, what’s your success rate?

Mr. CASTELLANI. We’ve had three studies of those who have

graduated the program, and so far the three studies have been between 70 and 85 percent of those who have not gone back to drugs.

And the last study was done—I’m guessing—3 or 4 years ago, and

this was 3 years after graduation. And the other part of that study

I mentioned earlier was 90 percent are full-time employed.

Mr. GILMAN. To what extent do you do your followup? How many

years after they graduate from your program?

Mr. CASTELLANI. Well, to be candid, it is very difficult to followup

on graduates because many of our graduates—many of our students come to us from living under a bridge, under a cardboard box

or something, and so when they leave, thank goodness, many of

them do go back to their families, but because they’ve been out of

the work circulation for a while, not only the time they were in the

program but long prior, they make two or three moves within a

year or more before they settle in and get a decent-paying job.

And we do our best. We do have an alumni. We do our best to

keep up with it, but it is like all of us, when we get our mail we

separate it and some goes into file 13 and some we keep, and so

I wish I could say we have 100 percent of our students who report

on a regular basis, but I can’t say that, but there is accountability,

though. When you go across our churches—and I’m talking churches everywhere. I go into churches, all kinds of churches every Sunday. I’ll go into a Methodist church and they’ll come up to me— whatever the church name may be, they’re out there.

I wish I could say, yes, that we can make them be accountable,

but we haven’t been able to do that.

Mr. GILMAN. Ms. Trollinger, how do you account for the fact that

the average seems to be 50 to 60, maybe 70 percent, and you have

a 95 percent success rate? How do you account for that, and

how——

Ms. TROLLINGER. I count—— Mr. GILMAN. How many years after graduation do you followup?

Ms. TROLLINGER. We continue after graduation.

These men who have just been sharing work with, most of them,

with over 18. We work between 12 and 18-year-olds, and they are

brought there by their parents or by a guardian, and when the

guardian has to sign a paper that they will come to parenting

classes, or the parent, they have to come to counseling every

week—our whole thrust is getting the family reconciled. Parents

don’t know how to be good parents. Their parents didn’t know how

to train them. But we teach them and the buck stops at House of

Hope. And we continue checking on the parents after they leave

the program.

So we have—our program is unique because we catch the young

people in time before they’ve gotten out on the street and gotten

in jails and so forth, gotten in several marriages, and it’s a lot

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tougher after they get there. And that’s why the emphasis now is

on—the No. 1 problem across America is the teenager and the family, and that’s what we’re working on. It’s a lot more accountability

and easier to measure the statistics.

Mr. GILMAN. I was asking—Mr. Sanders, I was asking what the

average success rate was. Could you tell us what your success rate

is in treatment?

Reverend SANDERS. I can—we have the documentation. I can get

it back to the committee.

Mr. GILMAN. Just if you could estimate it.

Reverend SANDERS. My estimate would be about three out of five.

Mr. GILMAN. Three out of five?

Reverend SANDERS. Right.

Mr. GILMAN. And how far—how many years after graduation do

you do your followup?

Reverend SANDERS. At least 3 or 4 years, but we have only been

in—and that’s as far as we can go.

Mr. GILMAN. Right.

Reverend SANDERS. We started this in the church prior to opening our center in 1998. We actually started in about 1996 or 1997.

We began with an in-house support group, and then with Fairbanks providing workshops and seminars and training for recovering addicts and others who wanted to assist us in becoming a part

of this great ministry.

Mr. GILMAN. One last question, Mr. Chairman. Do any of your

programs include alcoholics?

Ms. TROLLINGER. Yes.

Reverend SANDERS. Alcohol is the No. 1 drug because it is legal.

[All witnesses respond in the affirmative.]

Mr. GILMAN. You’re all shaking your head that you all include

alcoholism?

[All witnesses respond in the affirmative.]

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

I know a few of us have some additional questions, and I want

to make a couple of comments.

Accountability, as you can tell, is of major interest to Congress

in trying to figure out how to do this, and, much like if I can make

an editorial comment on the education bill we’re talking through,

the stupidity of national testing is illustrated in the difficulty of accountability here because anybody who goes into any high-risk

area, as we just heard, knows there is an incredible mobility, and

in the education test we’re going to hold a school accountable when

in the next year 70 percent of those kids may not be at that school,

and therefore that school is going to be punished when the kids

may not be there.

Part of our problem here is that in accountability this is a difficult problem when people are moving around, and yet, at the

same time, if we are going to ask for taxpayer money we are trying

to figure out how to get this, and we are going to need to look, and

any of you who have some suggestions that you want to reflect on

and get back to us in a week or so of how we can improve accountVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Apr 18, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77709.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ability and what kind of auditing we can do that doesn’t put undue

paperwork pressure, which leads to my second comment.

I have a concern, as do many others in this, that the people who

are most effective in the street aren’t the pencil-pushers, and the

people who are the Beltway Bandits who know how to do the forms

are not necessarily the people who are most effective in the street,

and that’s our dilemma here, which is: how do we get money to

people who are effective, and at the same time have the accountability that the taxpayers want and not turn all of you into a bunch

of bureaucrats, which is what part of our problem was in the first

place? And we are wrestling with that question. Any suggestions

you have on that matter would be helpful.

Another problem that we are clearly dealing with is how to deal

with the problem of choice in America and the fact that some orthodox Jews want to only go to an orthodox Jewish place, some

Muslims only want to go to a Muslim place. Some Christians only

want to go to a Christian place. And most Americans want to go

to a place that includes everybody. But should we say that unless

it includes everybody you can’t be eligible for a program? That’s

one of our dilemmas here—not in who can come in the door, but

whether a different ministry can, in fact, because of its Christian

nature, have an impact, because of a Muslim nature have an impact because the Muslim on the street have a tremendous code of

discipline that they demand in the program, much like a fundamentalist Christian would. Other faiths have different approaches. And should they be allowed to co-exist, or do we all have

to do it one way, the Government way? That’s one of the dilemmas

we are battling here, and it is going to be the big stumbling block

that may mean that the charitable choice program does not go

ahead. It is our biggest stumbling block in Congress to try to address this question, because it’s very awkward to say, ‘‘Yes, I

wouldn’t hire somebody who doesn’t share my faith,‘‘ yet, if it is a

faith-based program and you change your faith it is difficult.

Now, if you define yourself as ‘‘we’re inclusive,‘‘ and you have a

different approach, which leads me to one last thing—and if you

want to comment on it—well, let me mention one other thing I

want you to followup with, and we’ll put this in writing, too. One

other thing I want to say is: what technical assistance could you

use if you had more resources? And maybe we can answer that

here. But I also want you to reflect on this question, and that is:

we’ve heard a lot about the licensing question, and fundamentally

I share a lot of that and I believe we have to work this through,

but I can’t—I have no other answer to this question. I agree with

you if it is a surgeon and it is something that is purely physical,

I want to know that they have faith and the training. But if it is

psychological, it’s a little bit different ball game, and even in some

medical it matters.

I had a Native American, the head of the Utes when I was a

staffer, who told me that he believes some Government funds

should be used for Medicine Men, and I didn’t necessarily agree

with that, and he said, ‘‘You know, one-third of your people who

enter the hospital come out sicker than they go in.’’ That’s in the

New England Journal of Medicine. And he said that, ‘‘In the Indian

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nations we believe that a lot of medicine is psychological, not just

physical, and who are you to tell us how to do it?’’ Tough questions. The more hard science there is, the more clearly you want the double training. But the fact is that I’ve been in

Freddie Garcia’s program in San Antonio, and these men are street

former addicts who have not had formal training. They don’t pretend to be a drug treatment program and they wouldn’t be eligible

under our programs. That’s partly why they are not here today.

But I have personally met 250 former crack, heroin, marijuana,

and alcohol addicts who have changed, and they’ve changed because of counselors who didn’t have a license.

Now, like I say, they won’t be eligible under this program because we are going to have more criteria and all they do is Bible

study.

And, furthermore, I’ve personally talk to at least 50 of those after

having been up at Johns Hopkins crack cocaine center, where they

told me you could not go cold turkey, with people who went cold

turkey and are still clean 15 years later.

We should never deny that the power of faith can do it, but, as

Freddie would say—and I’m sure any program that doesn’t have

the same licensing as a Federal program would say—‘‘It’s not for

everybody,’’ and many people need a lot more, and somehow we’ve

got to figure out how to have the diagnosis if it is a Federal program that isn’t just faith, and at the same time don’t rule out that

many people, through the power of faith, whether it is the Native

Americans or whether it is Christians today, that faith can overcome a lot of other kinds of healings, and that’s a huge dilemma

for us to work through.

Do any one of you want to comment?

Reverend SANDERS. A couple of things I’d like to respond to.

First of all, I’d like to say I think it would be an insult to faithbased groups if we didn’t agree with what Reverend Smith has said

again and again—that we should be held to the same high standard of accountability as any other organization receiving assistance

from the Government.

And regarding discriminating on the basis of belief systems, my

view is I know enough about Islam to know that the word means

one who is in submission to God, and the word Allah means allin-all, so anyone who sees—there’s only one true, living God. If a

man embraces that one God as his all-in-all, and if a man is living

his life in submission to the will of his Creator, he is my brother.

So I don’t have a problem with that because I think the word

‘‘faith’’ is universal, you know, so I just don’t have a problem with

the belief system that an individual embraces, as long as it has to

do with that one true, living God.

Mr. SOUDER. Anybody else have any comments?

Reverend SMITH. Yes. One of the things that Group Ministries

did was that we received one of our first grants from the Centers

for Disease Control, and we went to the AIDS Administration and

we said, ‘‘We want your evaluators to come in and to help us to

set up an evaluation piece,’’ because one of the things I do realize

is that if you don’t help to set up the parameters, then somebody

else will. And now they use us as a model, and they talk about

Group Ministries came to us.

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And so what I’m saying is that that has to be. It goes back to

what I said before. It’s a marriage. It is not going to be happy all

the time. It’s not going to be sad all the time. But it’s something

that needs to be worked through because it has to take place, you

know, because the accountability has to be there. You know what

I mean? The certification to understand how people function with

different illnesses. You know what I mean? I was a heroin addict,

and there was a lot of other things going on with me besides the

drugs. And, you know, drugs wasn’t my problem, but there was a

lot of other things that were going on that, had not they been addressed—and what I’m proposing is that, the marriage.

So, in terms of technical assistance, is that there be moneys supplied to be able to start to test those, to start to, you know, do some

test programs, to—monies so that it can be—that programs like

Group Ministries or other programs who are willing to step up to

the plate like we are and saying, ‘‘I’m not afraid of you coming in,’’

because one of the things is inviting people in has helped us to be,

one, a stronger program, and, two, if faith-based gets all of this just

not have to do the accreditation or whatever, what about the program across the street who has to go through all of those types of—

you know what I mean—restraints? You know, it’s certainly not

going to give them any incentives to really prove themselves.

And I believe that we are strong enough to be able to battle

through whatever—I’ll call them ‘‘logistics,’’ for lack of a better

word, but to be able to battle through whatever the problems would

be in that marriage because it has to come together. If we are

going to treat folks in a holistic way, it has to come together, the

marriage between behavioralists and the faith, it has to be a marriage.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Castellani.

Mr. CASTELLANI. We’re licensed in Pennsylvania, so that’s not a

real big issue. The real big issue is in our licensing, because we are

faith-based, we can’t get financed. And that’s not an issue, either,

because we are not in it for the money.

Really, I don’t know if we really should be supported by Government or anything 100 percent. I really—I think that if you take

faith out of who we are and what we do, when it comes down to

fundraising I think you may spoil us, ruin us. I’m just, you know,

I’m just being objective here.

I think there needs to be a help. I think we need to come alongside, just like we need to come alongside Government.

And really my feeling is that a person should be fed, clothed,

sheltered, and medicated, whatever his medical needs are, and if

those items are taken care of, how we implement everything we do

I don’t think is as big an issue, as long as we are doing it right

and providing help for this man.

So I think the man, lady, boy, girl, I think their needs need to

be taken care of, and whether we—we’ve discussed this much, and

I really feel that we want to be there, we want to help, and we’re

going to do what we have been doing for the next 40 years, God

willing, as long as people continue to believe in us and support us.

Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you.

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I still remain—while I believe licensing is an important function,

the fact is I’m more concerned about outcomes than the license,

and that we have not seen evidence that the two are correlated,

and that’s one. But we don’t have convincing evidence that they

aren’t, and that’s one of the reasons we need to know how to monitor.

And I would argue different people need different things, and

what we ought to be doing is measuring outcomes, not process, and

that too often Government is process oriented rather than measuring what actually is working at the grassroots.

I need to go to Mr. Cummings.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I was very—it’s very interesting, your comments. I agree with

you. And this—you basically summarized why it is that I think this

whole faith-based initiative is in trouble. And I want the witnesses,

you know, to—I want, first of all, for you to understand that we

really do appreciate what you are saying and we appreciate your

candor. As a matter of fact, out of all the hearings that I have been

involved in, this has been probably one of the best hearings that,

as far as the witnesses are concerned, to bring out the problems

that we face, and it is really you all just telling what you know,

and I appreciate that.

Let me just give you some very brief comments so that you can

understand the significance of the problems.

In Baltimore we had a lot of problems in our public housing

projects, and we, the city of Baltimore, hired an agency which was

connected with the Muslims, Lewis Farakhan, Minister Farakhan,

when using Government funds to basically guard these public

housing projects without any weapons. They were the most effective group that has ever guarded the public housing projects. They

were well-respected, and, as a matter of fact, people loved them,

but they were just well-respected and they got the job done.

And I’m here to tell you that there were segments of the Baltimore community that, although they cut down drugs, murders, everything, there were segments of the Baltimore community that

said, because they were associated with the Muslims and Lewis

Farakhan, they had to go. They didn’t want their Federal moneys

going into that organization in any kind of way.

And in my District we have a substantial number of Jewish people. They were offended. In my District—by the way, I also have

a substantial number of Buddhists, which is a little—I don’t know

how much you all know about the Buddhist faith, but it is a little

different than what we—than what you all believe in.

And Pastor Sanders, you know, I know what you mean when you

say, you know, the Higher Power, but not everybody feels that way,

and that’s the problem that we run into. We’ve got people who are

saying that, ‘‘I don’t want to pay into a system that will discriminate against my daughter if she goes to one of your organizations,

you know.’’ I’m Jewish, and if my daughter, who is a good young

lady who has gone to college, who has done well, and she is interested and maybe you’re the only organization in town and this is

what she wants to do, and she goes to you and says—first thing

she says is, ‘‘I am Janice Shapiro and I want to be hired,‘‘ they

don’t want—they hate the idea that their tax dollars—see, that’s

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the key—could be used in a way to make it so that her daughter

can’t be hired. That’s the problem.

And I think that most Americans would probably feel the same

way. And so we face this situation where, while we are the great

melting pot and that is so wonderful, it also helps to create the dilemma that we find ourselves in with regard to faith-based organizations.

One of the things that concerns me, too, is that—and we need to

keep this in mind—and going to some of the things that you said,

Reverend Smith, you know, one of the things that we’ve noticed in

the Congress and we spend a lot of our time dealing with is people

who try to find their way around the system. You know, I mean,

we look at fraud, Medicare fraud. It’s horrible. I forgot the millions

upon millions of dollars, billions, in Medicare fraud. People have

found a way to get around.

And so one of the reasons why I guess accountability is so significant is because the American public wants two things with regard

to their tax dollars, and I think you will find that the comments

that I’m making, the next sentence I say, I think you will find

agreement with every—with 435 Members of the Congress and 100

Members of the Senate. It’s the one thing we do agree on, and that

is that the American’s tax dollars must be spent effectively and efficiently. Those two things you’ll get no problem. We all agree.

So it is not—and it is not a question—and I mean this—it is not

a question of whether faith-based works. That’s not the question.

But I’ll tell you another thing that is happening. We have spent a

lot of time in this committee, not this year but in past terms, dealing with the question of whether we should have standards and

how do we measure effectiveness. You know why? Because we are

worried about a lot of people who set up shop—not you all—who

set up shop to get the money but don’t deliver the service.

And what happens is that’s a disservice not only to every single

taxpayer of this country, but guess who else it is a disservice to— it’s a disservice to the person who comes in there for treatment and

doesn’t get it, and in a way it would probably have been better off

if he had never even gone to try because he comes out—because I

know a lot of these people—they come out feeling angry that they

took the time. And you all know the theory that you’ve got to catch

somebody when they are most ready to be treated. So they go and

they say, ‘‘OK, maybe someone like you. I’m ready to be treated.

I’m tired of this life. I’m ready to get in here and do it,’’ and they

go in, and then there is a sham, and so when they come out they’re

angry. And the fact is that not only are they angry, but they are

less apt, I think, to go back. So we have not helped the problem.

And so I take this moment simply to summarize all that so that

you understand. You know, I don’t want you to feel in any way—

say well, you know, when the Congressmen and Congresswoman

said something, it sounds like, well, maybe they disagree with me,

or whatever. It’s not about that. All we’re trying to do is get to the

best policy. You know, whatever the truth is, that’s what we want,

so that we can move from here to say, ‘‘OK, we see—’’ you mentioned it, Pastor Sanders, about, you know, if you’re going to have

a faith-based thing, and you talked about the front porch initiative,

you talked about—you helped me to answer one of my questions.

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Well, maybe there is a way that you can have some kind of technical assistance to help to make sure that things are done right.

That’s a big concern of mine. I don’t want my pastor going to jail.

I don’t want him indicted. I don’t. He’s got about 7,000 parishioners. I mean, that would be a shame, you know, your pastor sitting

in jail over something that maybe he just didn’t know.

So all I’m saying to you is that these are—you have helped us

tremendously, and I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your

kindness in letting me go a little bit over, but I really do want you

to understand that you have helped to bring out the situation that

we face, and nobody—and there’s nobody up here that is going to

knock you for saying that, well, if they don’t—if they’re not about

faith, we’re not going to hire them. We’re not knocking it, but what

we are concerned about is that if our tax dollars are being used to

promote the discrimination, that’s a problem. That’s a major, major

problem.

And so I hope that I have put it in—I mean, if you all want to

comment briefly on what I’ve said I’d appreciate it, but if you don’t,

that’s fine.

Ms. TROLLINGER. I’d like to make a comment. The tax dollars

going for discrimination, but if you look at the results and you

measure all the results that you will be able to get in, you’ll see

that it is when Jesus Christ is lifted up, he’s the one that has the

power that changes things, and that’s why we have a 95 percent

success rate.

Mr. CUMMINGS. And I agree with that, but just one quick comment, Mr. Chairman. One of the things that I guess that I have

always been concerned about is when we make policy based upon

emergency. In other words, when we change policy to address a situation, and then after the situation is gone, is passed by, you still

have the policy in place.

In other words, I think that a lot of times when we look at the

crime situation we have a tendency, because we want to get rid of

crime so fast, we have a tendency to make laws that may just be

on the edge of unconstitutionality so that we can get to the problem. But what happens when all of that is over?

I guess what I’m saying is we have something called the Constitution of the United States of America, and that Constitution,

this Congress has constantly tried to breathe life into that document and make sure that it is sustained, it has been sustained over

many, many, many, many years, and I guess that’s what we always

have to fall back on.

Our problem is, if you want to call it that, is every 2 years we

put our hand up and say we’re going to uphold this thing called

the Constitution of the United States. People can disagree on what

it means, but it is our duty to uphold it. No matter what the good

may be, you know, we still have to—no matter what the end, how

great the end may be, there’s still a certain means test that we

have to go through to get there, whether we like it or not.

Mr. CASTELLANI. I’d just like to say I agree with you, and I respect your position and all the position of the Government, I mean,

because I’m a first-generation this country. My father was an immigrant and went to third grade. He told me to get an education,

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and I wish I had gotten more, I wish I took his advice more, and

I really appreciate and respect what’s going on.

My problem—it’s not a problem. The question is: are we only

going to support secular humanism, or can we support secular humanism and can we support the faith-based under the same umbrella? That’s my question. And I don’t know how—I don’t know

the answer.

Thank you.

Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Davis, do you have any further comments or

questions?

Mr. DAVIS OF ILLINOIS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I think one of the things that we have to do is try and reach an

accord, and I think that’s what this whole process is really about,

and that’s what democracy also, I believe, is about.

See, I happen to believe that my rights end where the next person’s rights begin, and that all of those rights ought to be protected, and so I want to thank each one of you for coming and for

giving your testimony, and I was very pleased to hear what you

have to say, but I must confess that I was even more pleased, Mr.

Chairman, to hear what you had to say in terms of the concern in

relationship to choice, because I really want to be able ultimately

to support this initiative, because I think that there are things that

can happen that won’t happen any other way. I mean, I’ve spent

most of my life dealing with poverty, depravation, and

disadvantagement first-hand, and I’ve never been any place yet

where there was enough effort put forth to find solutions and deal

with the problems as they existed.

I think, for example, in many instances faith-based activities

have the ability to generate a level of participation in terms of the

numbers of people who are willing to come and volunteer or voluntarily give of themselves, who won’t do it through any other initiative but will do it through a spiritually based or church-based or

religious-based activity.

I hope that we can get to the point where individuals can all see

each other contributing in one way, shape, form, or fashion, so that

maybe legislation could be shaped that it does, in fact, provide the

accountability vehicles; that it does, in fact, prevent the opportunity to discriminate; that it does, in fact, provide the opportunity

to draw people more closely together in their thinking; and that it

does provide the opportunity to make use of something that people

can feel but always can’t necessarily touch, can’t always necessarily

grab.

I agree with the licensing in terms of I don’t want to see a person

who took psychology 101 get to thinking that they can now operate

like a psychiatrist just because they have got faith. But also, as a

trained behavior scientist, I think that when you can add another

dimension to what it is that you are observing, what it is you are

trying to see, and what it is that you are trying to convey, that

there is another level of connectedness that you might be able to

reach with individuals.

I also take the position that there is nothing more threatening

to this country than the use of habit-forming drugs, that there is

nothing. There are some communities where the level of participation is so high until it is unbelievable, crack and blow, you know,

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a rock and a mock. I mean, it is debilitating in many instances to

the whole community, the whole neighborhood.

And so, Mr. Chairman, if we can shape this in such a way that

it can provide the guarantees and safeguards so that a person of

Jewish descent doesn’t have to worry about there being any instances where he or she may be denied some opportunities because

they are Jewish, or a person who is Buddhist can know that, just

because I am Buddhist, that doesn’t mean that I can’t be effective

in doing something that I want to do, know how to do, and want

to help do, and want to help make it happen.

The separation of church and State is uppermost in the minds

of some people, but I also notice that when we look at the currency

that it says, ‘‘In God we trust.’’ And I don’t know how you can separate too much of that in terms of what this country in many ways

was really founded upon, and that’s the notion of religious freedom.

I think if we can find a way to get some resources to people and

not do anything to desecrate, diminish, or deny those freedoms, I’m

certainly in favor of looking for it.

And so I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing. I thank the

witnesses for coming to share with us. And I really do hope in the

end that we can find a way to enact legislation that will accomplish

some of the goals, but also provide the necessary safeguards.

So I thank you and yield back the balance of any time.

Mr. SOUDER. Thank you. And I want to thank you all for coming.

You’ve heard a lot of our dilemmas. We are facing a changing

America. I represent northeast Indiana, the part of Indiana that

nobody in Indianapolis thinks really exists because they’re the big

guys in the State, but even in a small school district of Vangola we

have 22 languages now, and it is a small town in Indiana that they

have one teacher now who speaks Farsi to try to deal with the Middle Eastern immigrants. In Fort Wayne we have become the center

of dissident Burmese in the world—gone from 200 to 400 to 1,200

in a period of less than 36 months. All of a sudden, when we’re

looking at faith-based organizations it is a different mix in even a

place like Fort Wayne, IN, which is a very isolationist historically

community. And we have to be very careful to figure out, as we

deal with these Constitutional questions, how to do this.

America is a very religious Nation. We attract people who have

those values of different types. We were originally and still are

rooted in Judeo-Christian teachings, but we are having much more

diversity than we used to, and we have to figure out how our Constitution is going to accommodate this without undermining it. At

the same time, for those of us who believe, as I do, that sin is a

driving problem, and that, as we heard Mr. Frederick say, it is the

inside, not just the outside, can we, without using Government dollars to proselytize, figure out a way that, you know, that the shelter, as you talked about, the roof isn’t spiritual, the food that somebody eats is usually not spiritual, and in trying to figure out how

those basic needs can be covered, and yet protect the religious diversity and the choices is our challenge.

In addition, Mr. Cummings pointed out another of our challenges, and that is—which President Bush had in his proposal but

which is not in the current proposal in front of us in Congress—

is how to provide the skills necessary so that you don’t get entanVerDate 11-MAY-2000 10:27 Apr 18, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\77709.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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gled in this process and we don’t take the people off the street who

are trying to do it.

And the one other thing that is a danger of getting lost in this

that I made one reference to—and your testimony all was very

clear—and that was you don’t just treat drug and alcohol addiction,

that it is an enabler. It makes every problem worse. People who

are hurting turn to it. But ultimately you have to figure out how

to address their soul, but then also figure out how they are going

to feed themselves, how are they not going to fall back into the

very same problem that they had, and that somebody needs to

stand beside them. All of your programs had a stand-beside-them

component, not just a, ‘‘This is 6 months, the insurance is out,

goodbye.’’ And we have to figure out how to address that, as well.

With that, I thank Congressman Cummings and Congressman

Davis, who are both very reflective and articulate people, and you

could probably invite either of them to preach at your church any

time. [Laughter.]

With that, we stand adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to

reconvene at the call of the Chair.]

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