Please Take Action

I’ve been trying a lot of new things lately. Until Wednesday, I never used the forward button on my email and until yesterday, I never called a senator’s office. Yesterday I forwarded an email asking that people sign a petition to save AmeriCorps and today I forwarded an email asking people to contact their senators to keep funding for refugee programs.

I’ve sent many form letters and signed numerous online petitions in the past year or so, but today I also wrote my own personal letter and emailed it to Maine senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

Many things will be cut in the new budget for our country and I agree that we need to spend less money, but I’m not sure all the cuts are from the right places. The two cuts in funding that I asked the senators not to support in my calls and emails are the potential cuts to Migration and Refugee Assistance and the Office of Refugee Resettlement as well as the proposed cut in funding to the Corporation for National and Community Service (which includes AmeriCorps).

Congress proposed that we completely cut the AmeriCorps program and reduce funding for refugee assistance programs by a huge amount. Both programs are extremely important. As much as I hate the idea of cutting funding for either of these programs—I can understand the need to cut some, but all of the funding for AmeriCorps? And half of the funding for refugee programs?

What I am including below is part of an email the director of my program sent to all Catholic Charities of Western New York employees.

“On Saturday, February 19, the House of Representatives recommended massive cuts to various humanitarian assistance programs, including:
45% cut to Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA);
10.4% cut to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR); and,
67% cut to International Disaster Assistance (IDA).

"Since we are already five months into the federal fiscal year those cuts would basically shut down the refugee assistance program within the US and severely reduce refugee processing overseas. There would not be money available to resettle more refugees until October 2011. Since our funding is per capita performance-based, no new arrivals equals no more funding.”

I understand the desire to cut programs that serve non-Americans, but refugees are some of the most vulnerable people in the world who have experienced great violence, oppression, and human rights violations in their home countries, as well as in many of the refugee camps. In addition, refugees bring important diversity to our communities, rent apartments from Americans, work, pay taxes, start businesses, and by cars and homes in the United States. There are also many refugee resettlement and assistance programs similar to the one where I work that would either shut down or have to lay off many employees.

When our director told us of the possibility of these cuts, I felt sick to my stomach, but I’m sure my feeling was nothing compared to many of my coworkers who are themselves former refugees and many of whom are applying to bring their family members to the United States.

Especially in this economy, volunteers fill needed positions in many jobs that directly serve the most vulnerable Americans. Agencies that serve the disadvantaged are already under-funded and under-staffed and often rely on the help of full-time volunteers. Not only would fewer services be provided without AmeriCorps, but more people would need those services because at least some of the volunteers would be unemployed if they were not in full-time volunteer programs. AmeriCorps provides important job experience to More than 85,000 young Americans a year. I know that AmeriCorps is an expensive program, but it is far less expensive than having a regular, paid employee and paying for all the consequences of less services to those most in need.

Again and again programs that help the poor and vulnerable are the programs that are cut by the government because the people don’t have a voice and are forgotten. I disagree with the Catholic Church on many issues, but I strongly believe in the Catholic Social Teachings that tells us we need to have preferential options for the poor. Cutting programs for refugees and AmeriCorps (as well as other service programs) do not follow with this social teaching.

Please sign a petition, send a letter to your senator, or call your senator to help protect funding for refugee programs and AmeriCorps. I believe it is our moral obligation to help those most in need, which includes Americans and non-Americans.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that we have to take action and fight for justice for things that directly affect us and for people who are poor and marginalized. We are all in this world together and, as much as we might want to ignore people who are easily forgotten, there will never be peace and justice if we don’t include everyone.

Solidarity

One of the four pillars of CCSC is simplicity. This year has been the opposite of simple for me.

We don't have internet at our houses, we share a car, and we're asked to be mindful of how we spend our time. This isn't too awfully hard for me, though I do like to spend my free time reading and listening to music—which is a good use of time—but can sometimes serve as a distraction from problems or just from living life in the present moment. The part that is hard is not being able easily look things up on the internet.

What's hard is that my life has been complicated by things such as health insurance, a car that seems to get a lot of flat tires and has a few other problems, my gym closing not long after I finally found one, all the computer issues I've had, and my student loans (which were supposed to go into deferment this year) haunting me.

So far, of the three lenders I have student loans with, only one has granted me forbearance, another is still pending (for three months), and another was denied. I sent an official AmeriCorps letter from the myAmericorps website, but they didn't accept that.

When I called the lender and explained that I'm in AmeriCorps and am living on a very small stipend, the woman said in a condescending tone, “oh, we don't work with AmeriCorps.” She said it as if AmeriCorps is some shady organization that's under investigation for human trafficking and tax evasion.

In the past week, I've gotten two letter and three phone calls from the lender about an unpaid bill (even though it was, in fact, paid). Two of the calls were within ten minutes of each other. My parents have also been getting these letters and phone calls because they're co-signers. I wasn't surprised at how rude everyone on the phone was, but I was surprised at how rude I was back. I'm usually pretty polite, but I certainly wasn't to them. I blame it on the stress and annoyance.

Being harassed by my lender has made me think about people who have late credit card payments and how the credit card companies call them. I feel annoyed and stressed out about these phone calls. I'm also very worried about this loan and the other loan that the forbearance request is still pending.

Another way we use the word simplicity in CCSC is to mean solidarity with the poor and the populations we serve. I certainly feel solidarity with the poor worrying about money all the time and getting annoying/harassing phone calls from the loan company. It's only been happening to me for a week and will hopefully end soon, but I know that for some people it goes on for years. Maybe they become indifferent about it after a while, but then again, maybe not.