Good-Faith Effort Off to Slow Start

Few religious charities seek public funds under new welfare law

When Congress voted in 1996 to “end welfare as we know it,” the landmark law included a risky and unprecedented proposition:

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that government should pay churches and other religious groups to help lift families out of poverty.

Two and a half years later, the welfare law’s “charitable choice” provision has been slow to deliver on that goal. Congress may have lowered the legal barriers, but bridging the cultural and practical divides that have long separated church from state has proved to be much harder than many anticipated.

Only now are states realizing how much they have to do to reach out to faith-based groups. Religious leaders, too, are just beginning to learn about the new opportunities and feel comfortable with them.

Charitable choice “is still the best-kept secret in social policy,” says Jim Wallis, editor of the Christian magazine Sojourners and head of the Call to Renewal coalition, in Washington. “Not only doesn’t the faith community know about it, by and large, but government officials don’t either.”

Even so, new government dollars have begun to flow to religious groups that help poor people find and keep good jobs. Among them:

* In Fort Worth, Tex., San Miguel Lutheran Church last fall became a first-time recipient of government money, winning a $70,000 contract to expand a year-long educational program that combines training in computers, bookkeeping, and secretarial skills with a high-school equivalency diploma. The money is allowing the church to increase annual enrollment in the program from 16 students to 50.

* In Irvington, N.J., a Muslim organization known as Waris received a $150,000 grant from the state in December to help 150 welfare recipients improve their reading, computer, and job-related skills. The grant is one of 37 awarded in the first round of New Jersey’s Faith-Based Community Development Initiative.

* In Shreveport, La., the state welfare department provided nearly $149,000 last year to Faith and Families to help welfare recipients in eight parishes find and keep jobs. As part of its program, Faith and Families recruits volunteers from more than 70 houses of worship to serve as mentors, providing child care, transportation, tutoring — and encouragement.

Programs such as these, while still in their infancy, are likely to serve as models as states strive to give churches a formal role in helping poor people move off welfare and into jobs. And supporters of faith-based collaborations with government hope such efforts will be duplicated in other areas.

Yet many obstacles — administrative, philosophical, and perhaps even legal — remain.

The goal of the charitable-choice provision was to remove barriers that prevented religious groups from receiving government money. The provision permits recipients of federal dollars to require their employees to be of a particular faith, and it allows those groups to keep religious icons on their walls when providing social services paid for by the government. But it prohibits the use of government dollars for proselytizing or for subsidizing the costs of running worship services.

Sen. John Ashcroft, the Missouri Republican who sponsored the provision, says churches and other religious organizations have often “been told by government officials they must check their religious character at the door before they are eligible to receive government funds to provide social services.”

To try to prevent that from happening with programs not covered by the federal welfare law, Senator Ashcroft has inserted similar language into bills now pending in Congress that cover juvenile-justice and substance-abuse programs. And he plans to push for a bill that would apply charitable-choice language to all government contracts.

Several states are considering their own charitable-choice measures. The Arizona House of Representatives, for example, passed a bill last month that would require state, county, and local government agencies to give equal consideration to faith-based groups when awarding contracts or providing other forms of assistance.

Even as federal and state legislators try to expand the reach of charitable choice, state welfare workers and religious leaders continue to struggle to get the word out about the 1996 change in the law.

A new study by a University of Arizona professor found that only 24 per cent of the 1,236 congregations surveyed were aware of the charitable-choice provision in the welfare law.

But the study — part of a research project paid for by the Lilly Endowment — also suggests a great untapped potential. While only 3 per cent of the congregations received government money for social-service programs, about a third expressed an interest in applying for government aid. “The ‘market’ for charitable-choice implementation in American religion apparently is fairly sizable,” says the study’s director, Mark Chaves, a sociology professor.

However, before that interest can be translated into new government grants or contracts, many roadblocks must be overcome.

Churches that run social-service programs may find it hard to compete with charities that have a long history of obtaining government money. Many church programs are run on a small scale with few staff members, and most do not have employees who can focus exclusively on writing proposals and on keeping up with government grant and contract deadlines.

The process of finding and obtaining government money has become especially challenging in recent years as states have revamped their welfare systems in response to the 1996 federal changes. Many states have created new agencies and programs, and the transitions have not always been smooth.

Another headache for religious groups is getting lists from state agencies that identify which people the charities should serve with the government aid they receive.

In St. Louis, the Near Southside Employment Coalition, a charity set up by several religious groups to provide job training and other services, worked out an agreement with the state that it would serve people on welfare who were already coming to the organization for help. But when the coalition asked the state to approve its list of names, the charity says it received back an alphabetical list from the state of people whose last names started with the letters K or L and who lived in the entire St. Louis metropolitan area.

Many religious groups are uncomfortable with state requirements that they report to the government the names of people who do not comply with regulations, an act that could cost a welfare recipient his or her benefits.

Mark C. Harvey, a social worker at one of the religious groups that make up the Near Southside Employment Coalition, says Missouri requires contractors to identify people who do not show up for job training or other programs after three letters have been sent to them. “Our faith ethic just won’t let us go there,” says Mr. Harvey. So far, the group has been able to skirt the requirement by never sending a third letter.

Some faith-based groups say that even though the charitable-choice law was designed to make it easier for them to accept government aid, they still do not plan to do so because the ban against proselytizing would force them to change their programs.

The Rev. Bubba Dailey, executive director of the Austin Street Shelter, in Dallas, says she would “never say never” when it comes to seeking government money. But she says the paperwork and the restrictions on how religious a program can be still prevent the shelter from turning to the government for financial help.

“We have a Bible study and we pray before each meal,” she says. “If we got government money, we couldn’t do that.”

Julie Segal, legislative counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, believes that religious groups such as the Austin Street Shelter are smart to steer clear of government money. “Even though Senator Ashcroft is running around the country saying, ‘Hey, we can give you the shekels without the shackles,’ I think churches are saying, ‘Nah. We don’t believe you,’” Ms. Segal says.

While interpretations vary on what activities are permitted under charitable choice, Ms. Segal warns that churches and other houses of worship that give a religious cast to their government-financed charity work run the risk of landing in court. Americans United is actively looking for cases that it can use to challenge the charitable-choice provision on the grounds that it violates the U.S. Constitution.

“If we think the environment within which a government-funded service is being provided is so overtly religious that you can’t separate out the religious function from the secular social-service function, then we’re going to sue,” she says.

Ms. Segal recommends that religious groups follow the model that faith-based charities have used to get government money long before charitable choice became law: Set up an affiliated non-profit organization that does not mix religion into its food, housing, education, or other programs for the poor.

Others, however, still argue that religious groups should shun government money altogether. Says Thomas C. Atwood, a vice-president for the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian advocacy group in Washington: “Dependency on government funding — and fear of losing it — can lead to a watering down of the ministries of these organizations.”

Some religious leaders also worry that getting government dollars will make it much harder for churches and other houses of worship to be vocal critics of bad government policies.

To understand some of the problems — and the potential — of forming new church-state collaborations, Texas offers one of the best case studies. Even though its Governor, George W. Bush, has made working with faith-based groups a top priority, the process of getting state dollars into the hands of religious groups has proven much harder than most expected.

Governor Bush, a Republican, took a lead role in implementing charitable choice after it became law by forming a state commission to study the issue and by ordering state welfare agencies to file written reports on what changes they planned in light of the new law.

Those moves were matched by the Texas Legislature. In June 1997, the Legislature passed a series of bills that took the charitable-choice concept several steps beyond the federal law, applying it to prison and other programs and easing some of the administrative requirements for faith-based organizations. Governor Bush hailed the changes, saying, “As long as basic health and safety standards are being met, then faith-based organizations should be given the chance to make a difference.”

Those steps led to a handful of new partnerships, including a state contract with Prison Fellowship Ministries to operate a wing of a prison in Richmond, Tex. But few religious congregations joined the ranks of government contractors or grantees.

“I really don’t know what we expected, but churches didn’t just start swarming to the government,” says Elizabeth Darling Seale, one of six board members who oversee the Texas Department of Human Services. “It’s taken us a while to realize we need to go through our policies and essentially roll out the red carpet to invite faith-based groups.”

Many state agencies have now added an explicit invitation to religious groups in their written requests for grant and contract proposals. Texas officials have been speaking to groups of religious leaders around the state to spread the word. And several Texas agencies have set up programs to help such organizations polish their applications before they submit them.

Some of the state-charity collaborations have not involved money. The Texas Department of Human Services, which has had little welfare money to distribute since the state overhauled its welfare system, has crafted written agreements with religious groups to offer them the time and skills of state employees.

One such agreement involves a social-service group known as PATH (for People Attempting To Help), which is supported by churches in the state. Under the agreement, the charity and the state agency jointly created a fund that needy families can use to pay emergency transportation, education, medical, or day-care expenses. State employees help raise money for the fund from companies and foundations, while PATH administers it.

The Texas Department of Human Services also signed an agreement with Lutheran Social Services of the South, in San Antonio, to run a program known as Coaching for Success.

Starting last fall, newly employed female welfare recipients have been matched with volunteer mentors, called “coaches,” for one year. The coaches, who are drawn primarily from local churches, go through an extensive training program before being paired with a welfare client. Mentors and clients meet once a month at seminars held in churches, and the volunteers call their partners in the program once a week to discuss their progress and any problems.

Hollye Schwartz, one of the first volunteer coaches in the program, says she appreciates that she does not have to hide her own beliefs when talking with her client, Dana Hoops. “Religion doesn’t come up in the conversation very often, but we both have the freedom to be able to talk about it, and Dana knows there’s no pressure from me,” says Ms. Schwartz. “I can feel free to suggest to her, when she’s down in the dumps, something like ‘Do you want to go to church on Christmas, because it might make you feel better?’”

The agreement with the Department of Human Services has helped lead to a $35,000 “performance-based” grant from the Texas Workforce Commission, a new state agency that uses welfare money to help people find jobs. The charity will receive the money only after specific goals are met, such as when a program participant holds a job for six months or receives a 5-per-cent pay raise. The grant has enabled the program to grow from 6 coaches to 50.

The prospect of many more such government grants in the future has led other Texas religious leaders to step up their social-service efforts.

The Rev. Henry L. Masters, Sr., who heads the St. Paul United Methodist Church in Dallas, set up an affiliated charity last year to oversee the church’s food, housing, job-training, and other programs. Such a move, he hopes, will help his group qualify for government grants.

Mr. Masters says he is encouraged by what he sees as a good-faith effort by the state to work with churches on new terms. “If a church has a structured program that includes a Bible reading or some other things, I don’t see the state frowning on that as they once did,” he says. “In fact, it’s almost just the reverse. They seem to realize that having some structure in place, having some discipline, may in fact help people turn their lives around.”

“In the past, the government made it clear that, if we give you funds, you can’t do this, you can’t do that,” adds Mr. Masters. “But now all of those ‘can’t do’s’ are being greatly reduced.”