Some want the poor punished for lack of success

National Catholic Reporter, Jan 12, 1996

Catholic Worker houses are outside the safety net of government services that assist the poor. And yet, what a stark observation point from which to study the likely impact on society of continuing government cutbacks.

Take the example of the, Houston Catholic Worker house, Casa Juan Diego.

All support for the house is by voluntary contribution. But those on the political and religious right who contend that government services can be replaced by religious groups and charities either don't understand the problem or don't intend to help the poor once services have been cut.

No government money is going to welfare for Casa Juan Diego's core poor population - undocumented immigrants. No government funds assist de houses and apartments for battered women and their children. Nor does the house take government food, though it does buy food.

It cannot provide health care, apart from the weekly women's clinics and the dental clinic, which are staffed by volunteers. The house relies on Harris County Hospital for serious health care, and Harris County Hospital relies on Casa Juan Diego to take patients it must discharge and cannot place.

If funds are withdrawn from Harris County and other county hospitals around the country, as is happening in Los Angeles County, there goes health care. Period. Religious organizations and charities are ill-equipped to meet that shortfall.

Undocumented children still can go to school. If those funds are withdrawn or the law changes, then in Houston, at least, they'll try to squeeze the immigrants' children into the parochial schools.

The documented guests at Casa Juan Diego can move into public housing. If public housing or funds disappear - Houston's projects, like all projects, are terrible places to live - homelessness soars. Religions and charities on the, right are not talking about providing housing for the poor.

For sure, if Clinton's programs are chopped, Casa Juan Diego will lose the two recently arrived AmeriCorps volunteers who teach English as a second language. But that is almost peripheral compared to such basic needs as health care and housing.

The political right is engaging in little more than semantic games regarding the poor. The cutbacks are deliberate and punitive. Poverty is a crime in America.

Those who aren't poor, and who would cut back essential services to the poor, want the poor punished for not being successful like them. That's what the government cutbacks truly are about.