“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” (Luke 4:18, from the NRSV)
The Economic Justice Group of the Council of Churches has recently voted to join the Affordable Housing Network in its local campaign to enact the ‘National Affordable Housing Trust Fund’ to establish a dedicated funding source for the production, preservation and rehabilitation of 1.5 million affordable homes over a period of 10 years. At least 75% of the funds will be for households that are extremely low income, earning less than 30% of an areas median income. The House of Representatives passed this legislation last October. It was introduced into the Senate as S. 2523 in December. The need is great. Nationwide there are only 6,187,000 homes renting at prices affordable to the 9,022,000 extremely low income renter households – a shortage of 2,835,000 homes. Not a single Congressional district has enough rental housing affordable to extremely low income families.
The problem is not just the lack of housing; it is also the lack of action by the US Senate on the Affordable Housing bill. This bill has been sitting in the Senate waiting to be made a priority. It needs advocates. It needs vocal supporters. As Christians, we are called to be these voices, these advocates.
Rev. Bea Chun, pastor of Christ the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in San Jose, recently wrote about this problem and what we can do to help. We've included Bea's excellent letter for you - just go to "read more" below or to download a copy [http://www.councilofchurches-scc.org/filemgmt/index.php?id=54; click here]. She has some great ideas - like sending a Mother's Day card to Senators to urge them to support families by working for this bill.
Letter from Rev. Bea Chun:
April 3, 2008
Dear friends:
I am writing you a letter of concern today. I know it is long, put I hope you will take the time to read it.
My concern was born during Lent, when our congregation organized a "faith-in-action-reality tour" where we visited a number of soup kitchens and shelters in Santa Clara County.
One of the places we visited was the 2nd Harvest Food bank here in San Jose. Out of all of our visits this one had the greatest impact on me. It is a big modern warehouse with state of the art equipment. Inside this warehouse are tons and tons of food that have been donated for various reasons. Some of them are cans that are slightly dented, but otherwise in good condition. Others are cans with misprinted labels. And there are thousands of such items, pallet after pallet, aisle after aisle, from the floor to the ceiling. Forklifts are operating throughout the building to manage the huge volume of food.
And that is exactly what unsettled me so much - the sheer volume of the operation. And to think that they are only reaching 50% of the hungry people in Santa Clara county!
That image of a warehouse full of food for the needy became my central Lenten image. It has stayed with me ever since. And it has disturbed me ever since.
It made me ask a lot of questions: why is hunger such a widespread problem in Santa Clara County? Why are so many families on such a large scale struggling? Why are families working two and three jobs and still cannot make it? Why are there so many senior citizens who would starve without assistance from the food bank?
I am still asking questions, but I am also discovering some pieces of the puzzle. One of them is the great shortage of affordable housing. Families struggle to pay rent, and at the end of the month there is no money left to buy food.
So then I began to ask questions about affordable housing, and one person who had lots of answers and insights for me was Sandy Perry from the Christian Homeless Alliance Ministry. He is a very humble person, but he is incredibly bright and knowledgeable. He pointed out to me several crucial facts:
. The Federal Government has not built any government housing for 25 years.
(There are a number of reasons for that, and I can't go into that here.)
. At the same time, a strong economy has caused rents to up and up and up. We know that; we've seen this happening before our eyes.
. The Federal minimum wage has remained at the same level for many, many years.
. The result is that a fulltime worker earns only one third of the amount that is needed to afford to pay fair market rent.
No wonder families are struggling to make ends meet!
But there is good news: Right now there is a bill before the senate called the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act. In Sandy's opinion this bill is by far the single most important thing going on today that will make a difference for the very low income families that I have become so concerned about.
The Federal Affordable Housing Trust Fund would make 1.5 Million affordable homes available over the next ten years, and 75% of those would be reserved for extremely low income families.
The Federal Affordable Housing Trust Fund will be fully funded by moneys that have been identified as available for that purpose, so there is no need for raising taxes.
The Bill has bi-partisan support, and it has been endorsed by more than 5000 national groups and agencies. The House of Representatives passed this legislation in October. It was introduced in the Senate as S. 2523 in December, and now it is basically sitting there.
This is a great bill, it would do so much good; it is a non-controversial bill, fully funded, a bill with bi-partisan support, so there is no reason why such a bill shouldn't get passed.
The problem is not opposition or controversy - it is indifference. The bill will benefit the poorest of the poor, but the poorest of the poor don't have a big voice in Washington. Nobody speaks up for this bill, nobody promotes it, newspapers are not reporting on it, and consequently hardly anybody has heard of it.
And so it ends up on the backburner, it is not a priority for many senators, in the midst of all the other voices that demand their attention. Wall Street, for example, very much has their attention right now.
But we can be a voice - a voice for the poor. We can contact our legislators and say: don't forget about this bill. And the time to do so in NOW.
We should not let this opportunity pass. We should talk to the senators right now and urge them to pass the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act. And it is important that we get their attention before the summer recess. Because when everyone comes back in the fall the presidential election will be on everybody's mind even more than now.
And if the bill does not get passed in this congress, then the process will have to start all over again with a new congress, and the last four years of work that went into this work will have to be repeated.
But there are things we can do. For example, Mother's Day is coming up. We could all each send a Mother's Day card to Senator Boxer who is a co-sponsor of the bill; we can simply say, thank you for being a co-sponsor of S2523, the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act. Please make the passing of the bill a priority.
We can also send a Mother's Day card to Senator Feinstein who is not yet a sponsor of the bill. I don't think she is opposed, it is simply not on her radar with everything else that is going on. We can send her a card that says: Make every day Mother's Day! Please co-sponsor S2523, The National Affordable Housing Trust Fund Act.
And if we want to go even further, it so happens that all three presidential hopefuls are also Senators. And they have campaign offices, which are going pay close attention the public right now. We can also urge them to make the Housing Trust Fund Act a priority.
So, there are things we can do. I hope you give this matter your attention and your prayers. And if you have any ideas how to promote the passing of this bill, please let me know.
For more information on the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, please [http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4ADBF_enUS223US223&q=National+Affordable+Housing+Trust+Fund+Act; click here].
For more some Lutheran Background on the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and a very good overview, please [http://www.elca.org/advocacy/issues/housing/trustfund.html#How%20did%20it%20; click here].
Thank you,
Bea Chun,
Pastor
Christ the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
1550 Meridian Ave
San Jose, CA 95125
408.266.8022
NOTE: If you would like to get involved with the Economic Justice Working Group of the Council, contact Diana Gibson at diana@councilofchurches-scc.org.