A Loan of Hope – The Interim Disability Program

It is almost Thanksgiving, a time for reflecting with close family and friends. Our reflections center on what we are thankful for, especially as we look on our many blessings over this past year.

One specific District program that is especially important to me is the Interim Disability Assistance (IDA) Program. IDA provides a small ($270) income each month to residents waiting the long months (even years) between their initial disability application and approval from the Social Security Administration. Clients I worked with applying for disability are unable to work, and thus depend on this program to have their basic necessities met. What is even better about this program is that the Social Security Administration repays the District government when a client receives a favorable decision.

When a special client of mine, Mr. S., was approved for his disability income after seeking legal representation at Bread for the City, he explained to me how crucial IDA had been to his stabilization. Chronically homeless and suffering from a long litany of impairments ranging from HIV to chronic leg pain to severe depression, IDA provided a “loan of hope” to Mr. S. He was proud to say that he was able to repay that loan, allowing someone else to have hope as they waited for their disability decision.

Another story that sticks with me is Anthony Brown, who was interviewed for Beyond Bread this spring when the Council made $6 million in cuts to the program.

Our city has already cut $100 million from the safety net programs that people like Anthony depend on. Rather than more cuts, let’s ask more of those who have suffered the least in the recession. Right now, DC’s top tax rate (8.5%) starts at $40,000 a year. An increase of one percentage point in the rate on the highest-earning 5% (those with income above $200,000) would bring in at least $65 million in new revenue. It’s a small contribution for high-income households, roughly equal to the price of a large coffee each day.

As you reflect on what you’re thankful for, take some time to consider what changes you would make in your budget, to ensure our city can invest in an economic recovery that includes everyone.

If you care about this issue, send an email to Chairman Gray and ask him to take a balanced approach and protect the programs you care about.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving together with our family and friends, I know I’ll be holding Bread for the City, Mr. S. and Anthony Brown, the IDA Program, and the SOS campaign close to my heart. I am thankful for IDA’s impact on the residents of DC, and for the ways Mr. S, Bread, and the SOS campaign had blessed me this year.

Change Happens on the Journey

During our Jesuit Volunteer Corps closing retreat, we talked about the concept of a pilgrimage or journey. In that journey, often, the growth happens throughout the journey, but it is realized after the journey is complete. In a talk given by Sharon of the JVC staff, she mentioned the Wise Men of the Gospel and said,

"The wisemen were changed by their experience of Jesus and took a different route home."

When I look back on this year and the journey of JVC, I am most radically changed in my understanding of what it means to accompany others, to live on solidarity, and to develop kinship.

The idea of accompanying someone suggest a journey is to be had. In fact, all relationships are a journey, full of pockets of what St. Ignatius calls consolation and desolation. On a journey with others, we sense the times when we can tangible feel the presence of God, and others where we have a striking fear or perception that God has been absent.

I began working with clients at Bread during the first days of my experience, and as you know, soon received my own caseload of persons applying for Social Security Disability benefits. Working with clients consistently began to open my eyes to the realities of accompaniment. In the past, I have reflecting on winning Mr. R's SSI case and watching him fill with hope. This man, suffering from a long discouraging litany of impairments, has been finally granted some solace on his journey. I too felt hope, and God's presence in these moments.

Throughout the year, I became much more comfortable with, and well equipped to understand the experiences of the clients we serve at Bread for the City, and the larger systemic and underlying hurdles that cause our clients? life experience. Perhaps these realizations made it easier to understand what it means to accompany others. When individuals would walk into Bread towards the end of the year, I felt myself able to simply accompany them through the complexities of the legal system.

Yet, these same moments on the journey - the same moments of consolation - have hinted at, and often have been smothered by the overwhelming presence of desolation. My clients live an experience muddled by a system of classism, sexism, and especially racism. Theirs (and arguably, our own) lives are tainted by a system that predisposes them to lives of inequality, increased disparity, disadvantages, prejudices, and cyclical poverty. How can I possible see or experience a loving God in the midst of such suffering and desolation?

It is in the moments working on Mr. R's case, when he says he too wants to go to the City Council to advocate on behalf of programs that have fostered growth and self-actualization in him

It is in the moments of goodbye, when Mr. J. tells me to "never quit the books," even if it is hard, and I promise him that I won't quit.

It is in the moments of simply being present during walk-ins, listening, sharing my experience, growing...

It is in these moments and the many more moments this year that I have most closely felt God. And it is precisely because I have seen the true and authentic humanity in people society pretends do not exist.

"The wisemen were changed by their experience of Jesus and took a different route home."

Indeed, I have been radically changed through my experience of accompaniment this year, and in the moments of consolation and desolation. It is because of this year that I know I must always continue to explore what it means to truly accompany others, and to always work to make positive social and structural change.

Questions and Faithfulness

Yesterday, in a meeting at the Department of Human Services, we discussed policy implementation and ideas for making the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP) more effective and efficient. While it was interesting to sit through a meeting with city officials, and other non-profit providers from the city, my mind was racing with a collection of questions about the work we do here at Bread and across the City Government and NGO world:

How can you meet the level of need in the District of Columbia?

There is so much institutional racism that I never saw before this year. How can we help educate others and come up with solutions that begin to tackle this racism?

Is case management the answer? Why do some of us need case management while others do not?

How do we give people incentives to work? Incentives to stop relying on public assistance and move towards self sufficiency? Is self sufficiency only a concept for middle and upper classes?

Are we imposing our own ideas of success on others? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Can we make a program like HPRP actually help people reach their goals and become truly independent?

Does Social Work help? What does that help look like? Is Social Work helping us or is it helping the clients?

Why are so many people “disabled” in the District of Columbia? Are they all disabled? What helps some people work despite their pain and yet makes others want to stop working? How do people with their disabilities?

How do we show our wealthier members of society that these people aren’t just lazy, but that they are dependent because we’ve made them dependent?

How do we add job training and improve our education system so we don’t have so many people without any skills or work history?

How do we help people realize the skills gifts they’ve been given and encourage them to make some impact with those?

How can we meet the level of deep seated need for our poorest members of society?

Questions such as these and more spun through my head as I walked out of the meeting at DHS. Sitting in the meeting, I began to feel thoughts of hopelessness – can we really make an impact when the need is so great?

When I was in college, I realized that there is a state of American Hopelessness that persists in our society. In college, this was viewed towards the lens of middle and upperclass suburban adults who for whatever reason have become hyper-individualistic. And in some ways, I felt elements of hopelessness after I walked out of the meeting with DHS – with a need so great and such limited resources, is it truly possible to make an impact on others, to make some sort of positive social change?

I think this is another hopelessness that is occurring though. It is the hopelessness in many of the clients served by these programs. It is hopelessness that leads these clients to become dependent, to feel as if they cannot improve their lives and thus are trapped in their current situation. They are trapped because of both their hopelessness, and because of the structures of society that keep them trapped and hopeless. It is a cycle that is, for many of our clients, impossible to escape.

I would be a hypocrite, though, if I didn’t remember the words of Fr. Greg Boyle, when he quotes Mother Teresa. I will never forget, when asked how he is able to persevere through so much failure, his response: The key is to not measure in success, but in faithfulness.

Yes, Fr. Greg and Mother Teresa, you are right. It is true that we must measure in how faithful we are to our work, and how faithful we are to God. For this faithfulness will sustain us when we feel as if we are hopeless, as if the need is too great, and as if we are stuck not making any positive social change.

So then, remembering this thought, I take comfort in knowing that I have stayed faithful to my clients and to my work this year. It is my hope that as I continue to work here this next month, and head off to school after, that I will continue to see myself as a faithful servant. For me, as a task-minded, goal-oriented person, interacting with a system looking for quantifiable answers, it is sometimes hard not to get discouraged. But… when I change my perspective and look through the lens of faithfulness, suddenly success isn’t so hard to find.

Ruined and Transformed for Life

Over these past couple of weeks, I have come to see what it means to be “ruined for life,” one of JVC’s official taglines. I doubted this would apply to me when I began my year in JVC. In fact, I felt this had already happened to me in East LA… in my experiences meeting others in Europe… in Zambia… in my conversations with friends over coffee… and in the many other shaping experiences throughout my life. It is true – it did happen in high school, in college, and in those many experiences listed above. I attribute my family, my friends, my teachers, my mentors, my faith, and my experiences to be the guiding forces that have led me here, and have instilled in me this thirst for justice, and a deep hearted compassion for the poor.

Yet, it’s funny how true the statement, “ruined for life” really is. In my most recent encounters, I have found myself surprisingly changed, and cannot helped but reflect on this change. Perhaps a couple examples illustrate this most clearly:

A conversation in Maine about the causes of inequality left me unsatisfied, frustrated, and upset. Perspectives raised focused on the laziness of the poor, while neglecting any sort of criticism of the structural barriers that have oppressed and crushed them. Despite my attempts at advocacy, I found myself unsuccessful in showing structural level problems that leave many Americans beginning their lives without equal opportunity. No longer, though, am I upset because I have merely lost a discussion in which I feel passionate. No – it is no longer about me. It is about my clients. My outrage is not because of my pride, but because I picture my personal clients and point to their own lives as living testaments to society’s condemning of our poor.

Another conversation in Maine, reflecting on the simplicity of rural life (in contrast to the materialistic emphasis of the fast paced urban life) has resurfaced in many thoughts over these past weeks. Yes – it is true that living out in the country provides one with less distractions, more emphasis on the present, and less focus on material possessions and appearance. It is easy to contrast this with urban life. Challenged by this conversation, and entering the material shopping scene of downtown Portland, I found myself facing inner dissonance between the call to a simple lifestyle, and the temptations of life’s beautiful treasures. I continue to reflect on what it means to purchase responsibly, to consider what it means to live simply, and to examine my own true needs.

That same conversation, challenging my views of simplicity, and my desires to live an urban life, also forced me to reflect on my own clients – their life experience, and the lack of choices they face. It is true – I as a privileged member of society can decide what simplicity means to me, and whether I truly find myself in the most rural or urban places. Yet, trapped and segregated to the most destitute of neighborhoods in D.C., my clients mere choices forgo personal growth and are replaced with true questions of need in order to survive.

Institutional racism, a concept that seemed so abstract one year ago, now shines as bright as the North Star. No longer can I view society through a color-blind race-less society in which all races interact with equal opportunity and privilege. No – though I can appreciate the accomplishments we have made for our non-white citizens (especially as we see Barack Obama as our current president), it is impossible for me to ignore the institutional racism that has left my African American clients born into poor families with a lack of positive family structure, trapped in schools that consume the dreams of children and instead fester and perpetuate hopelessness, and continuing into adulthood engulfed with this hopelessness, find no escape from the cycle of poverty. This institutional racism persists and continues to deepen despite our thoughts that we have emerged into a new color-blind society.

And returning to themes of simplicity and social justice, I found myself in Georgetown this weekend indulging myself at JCrew. As I looked around Georgetown, in a way I haven’t felt yet, I experience our American culture in a way I haven’t quite noticed before. I was suddenly aware of the racial divide of Georgetown and the neighborhood of Anacostia. Sure, of course I’ve been to Georgetown, and course I’ve noticed it before. But more present this time, was a sickening feeling of our masking of poverty. Though I enjoyed my time in Georgetown, I felt a deeper awareness of the materialism that consumes us, and the individualistic mindset that forces us to keep our eyes on ourselves, insulated from problems just blocks away from us.

I walked into Bread for the City today, and felt a sense of ruth fill my soul. At home, I felt, seeing the clients who patiently wait until 9:00am on Monday morning. Seeing a familiar face as I meet with Ms. N and continue our journey through the process of the Social Security Administration. Here I feel at home. At home with the people of my neighborhood, and my work.

It is true – there are many who do not continue to take full responsibility for themselves, and I continue to see this in some people. What is greater, though, is the lack of responsibility that has been instilled in them, and the dependence society has fostered through our institutional racism, through our systems of inequity, and our focus on our individual mindset. It’s easier to keep our clients dependent because then we can criticize them. It’s easy to label them as lazy and rotten because then we can justify our own existence. It’s easy to do this because we don’t know the poor as true humans, but rather, as the inhuman lazy statistical poor.

And it is easy to continue to live lives of consumption of self investment only. It’s easy because it’s our culture, and though it initially feels satisfying, it leaves us quenched for more, for more, and for more.

Forever will I look at the world through the eyes of my experiences, but most especially, through my experience at Bread for the City. I continue to grasp what it means to grow closer to God, to find a way to live the words of the Gospel, and the words of Micah. It is true, I am ruined for life. But perhaps, more accurately, I am transformed for life. I continue to pray that I will live for and with my clients, that I will accompany them, and that I will grow closer to God who calls me to this work.

The Value of Simplicity

This year has challenged me to explore what it means to live a simple lifestyle. When paired with the work we are doing in our placements, the value of living in community, and intentionality in our faith, there is a dynamic of both challenge and peace that come with living simply.

I have come to understand hat there are two main virtues in living a simple lifestyle. Perhaps most intuitively is the idea that living simply, in all aspects of the word, leads to more freedom from the realities of a consumerist and materialistic society. So often, our world tells us we need the newest product of everything. The newest product will make us happy. We need the newest style of clothing. Yet the message is false: for as soon as a new more stylish piece of clothing arrives in the fall, we will no longer be happy, but instead will crave what is new. The reality is that most of my clothes are just fine. In fact, I brought less than half of my clothing with me to JVC and I've been more than fine. I apparently don't need the rest, even if I may still want them.

I think there is something to be said about the way simplicity helps us understand who our clients are, and to understand their own life's journey. Each month, I am paid less than the SSI check my clients receive, and unlike them, I'm not receiving additional assistance like food stamps. Instead, most of my check has predetermined endpoints: rent, utilities, food, household items, and transportation. Eighty five dollars remain intact after our house bills are paid.

In some ways, simplicity, at least financially, has been especially challenging. The question becomes, what do I really need and how do I budget to make that happen? Perhaps I don't need another drink at our Legal Clinic Happy Hour, but I would enjoy another. I suppose I don't need Starbucks coffee beans, but Starbucks does taste a lot better than Folgers or ChocFull of Nuts.

The challenge becomes balancing the simplicity choices. The joy I have found is in the simple instances when I indulge into the luxuries I had previous found common. When thrown into the blend of many days of ChocFull of Nuts, suddenly Starbucks seems to taste better, richer, and it becomes much more enjoyable and special. Happy hour is filled with much more happiness and delight.

And, though maybe it's an exaggeration to say, but simplicity - the act of budgeting, of sacrificing, and of delaying our pleasures, gives me a little insight into the lives of our clients. The difference, however, is that I live in a house of other volunteers whose safety nets are tight and comprehensive. Our immediate safety net is in one another, and the contribution we bring to our household expenses each month. Our budget ensures that we will be challenged, yet successful in meeting our basic needs. An SSI check can't ensure that each month.

While I can't say I can understand all of my clients' daily experiences financially, I believe my challenge in simplicity has helped me move one step closer to empathizing with their difficulty and painful financial options they get to choose from each day. While it's clear that in many ways, my life will never be the same as my clients', at least this way I can try and accompany them on their life journeys.

Building a Human Safety Net

Standing at the Wilson building today, chanting phrases like “Save Our Safety Net,” holding a net, and the hands of fellow advocates from across the city, I felt renewed in my commitment to serving my clients each day. I have journeyed this year with clients like Mr. R., Ms. M., and Mr. J. I have sat down with them, listened to their stories, and together, we have gone to their Social Security disability hearings hoping to win them Social Security benefits. Each day at Bread for the City, I meet with walk-ins and take calls from many people across the city calling because they have found themselves in need of an attorney. I have listened to their stories and have seen the effects of both personal choices and structural inequalities.

In the last month, the Wilson building has become quite familiar to me. Together with Eli and Legal Clinic for the Homeless attorney Scott McNeilly, we have gone door to door to Council Members, asking them to reconsider the proposed cuts to IDA, the program our SSI clients need to survive each month. I have helped the Fair Budget Coalition plan a budget briefing on housing, and have attended a previous rally urging City Council members to vote for progressive tax reform so that our social safety net services might be spared in the $500 million of proposed budget cuts this year.

Today felt different than those previous visits to the Wilson building. Today we stood, holding hands and nets, circling the entire building. This literal joining of hands, the literal act of building a human safety net, was a public testament of how important these services are to our clients. It is more than just about progressive tax increases or fighting for what I believe is right. It’s about making sure our clients can simply live.

Standing around the Wilson building, seeing familiar faces of the advocates I’ve met this year, holding hands and passionately chanting, my heart was flooded with emotions of connection, passion, dedication, and increased vigor. I felt a sense of renewal and recommitment. I am here for my clients, and for the ways we are growing together.


For more information about the Save Our Safety Net Campaign or for more pictures of this rally, please click here.

Triduum Reflections

It is now Triduum in the Church. Lent is over and we begin our final journey into Easter. Triduum is my favorite time in the Church calendar each year. For years we have attended Mass each night – Holy Thursday Mass, the Good Friday service, Easter Vigil, and finally, Easter Sunday. I have always loved the way these liturgies are intertwined and sewed together – attending all of them, the picture becomes clear of what these most important days of the year are about.

I attended Holy Thursday Mass last night at my church, St. Patrick’s in downtown Washington. During the Holy Thursday Mass at my church back at home, each year, we would sing the song, We Are Called – my favorite faith song. It echoes the words of Micah, calling us to act with justice, love tenderly, serve one another, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8). It is a Mass about service, about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples – of leading as a servant.

Cardinal McCarrick was the celebrant and I must say I haven’t seen my days in Europe. His homily focused on this message of service and of what it means to serve one another, something that is especially relevant to the life I am living right now. Some of the words stood out to me as they made me reflect on my work at Bread for the City and what it means to truly live this life of service to one another: We should look to serve one another even if their feet aren’t dirty… whatever it takes let us be servers…

In the literal sense, the story of washing the feet is pertinent to the Gospel because the people of Jesus’ time travelled through the Middle Eastern desert from one place to another, without concrete or asphalt pavements, without cars to drive (though I’m hopeful that they had camels which is extremely exciting!). Today, especially in Washington, this story is less literal, but the Gospel value is still true. I believe that when we serve other another, we come closer to Christ, just as he served his disciples in the story.

While the nature of service is often heavy and draining, it is also life giving. As I step back and reflect on my work serving our clients at Bread for the City – helping my Social Security clients prepare for their SSI/SSDI hearings, researching tenant displacement with our housing attorney, and meeting clients who come in each day for assistance, I believe I am also getting my own feet washed. I find that I am deeply fulfilled in the work I am doing at Bread and continue to serve willingly for both my clients and myself.

Cardinal McCarrick closed his homily with the words He shows us how to serve tonight. Tomorrow he will show us how to die. In all, he shows us how to love. When I reflect on the Triduum as a whole, I see that after all, it’s all about Christ’s love for us.

Christ in the Heart of Bread for the City SSI Clients

These past couple weeks have been full of SSI/SSDI work. As soon as Mr. R’s hearing concluded, my mind switched to two cases that are scheduled to for hearing on March 11th. Together with my boss and the clients, I have been doing the same as for Mr. R – finalizing my understanding of the medical records, writing a brief for the judge, submitting all pertinent evidence, explaining the process to my clients, and making sure everything else is ready.

In the process, I have met with my boss, Vytas, to comprehensively make sure I am ready to represent these clients. During our case review on Monday, Vytas made a comment about a movie his daughter and he had watched the previous weekend. One of the characters in the movie was clearly crippled – an image we can conjure in our minds: a man in a walker… an woman limping across the street with large thick glasses… the images are all too familiar here in my neighborhood and at Bread for the City. Yet Vytas explained a twist in the story – it was later revealed that this disabled character was actually an important powerful Greek god, in the disguise of a disabled person. Perhaps initial encounters and judgments don’t offer a full understanding. How differently might others have treated this disabled person if he appeared as a Greek god?

I was struck by this story because of its parallel to what my Catholic faith calls me to see – Christ in the heart of the poor. Reflecting on a commonly discussed passage from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus asks us to turn to the poor, the “least brothers of mine” and to serve them – to give them food and drink, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, and visit the ill and imprisoned (Matthew 25: 33-46).

I have been thinking about this moment with Vytas since Monday and have been drawn back to this passage. While I have been praying for my SSI clients and their hearings, especially as they draw near, I often forget to slow down and reflect on the work I am doing. It has been a couple of days since that meeting, and I continue to return to that meeting with Vytas. Working for a place like Bread for the City provides daily experiences for me to experience Christ – perhaps if I slow down and look more closely into the heart of each client of Bread for the City, Jesus will become more present in the conversations I have each day.

Mr. R's Hearing

These next couple months have become quite full of Social Security work for me. For the past few months, I have been researching medical records and Social Security law for my SSI/SSDI clients. These clients are waiting to find out whether they are approved for disability benefits, some waiting since July 2007. They have applied and have been denied twice due to ambiguity in their applications. Often, Social Security has failed to obtain their medical records; at other times, SSA has not read their application right when in reality, there is sufficient evidence to deem them disabled. One example of this is Mr. Q., whose application was approved in the “Pre-Hearing Review” stage, meaning Mr. Q. and I didn’t have to go to hearing; the judge felt the file had sufficient evidence, despite two previous denials.

My first hearing was this past week for Mr. R. Mr. R. suffers from severe depression, Hepatitis C, HIV, asthma, knee problems, a thumb problem, and diabetes. He came into Bread for the City in September, and since then, we had been working together to get his case ready for hearing. Through many conversations with Mr. R., I found my own heart being touched by his experience. SSI was no longer just a public benefit, but rather, SSI became a real concept, a reality and a need for Mr. R. As we sat in the Legal Clinic, talking about his case, listening to his story helped me realize that this hearing is not just about a “win” for me; rather, it is about Mr. R., and guaranteeing that he will have an income for the rest of his life. The more we sat together, the more I realized how much Mr. R. was depending on a Fully Favorable Decision, prompting me to give more and become more invested in his case.

I am grateful to be able to say I am confident we were able to get him a Fully Favorable Decision. As we wait for the judge’s written decision, I have turned my attention to two other cases whose hearings are in March. I will always remember Mr. R.’s case as my first SSI case, and I am grateful and thankful for the many conversations we had in the Legal Clinic.

Initial Thoughts

There have been many times that I have actually thought about recording my experience this year working at Bread for the City and living as a Jesuit Volunteer. The times when I sit down for a disability interview with one of my Social Security Disability clients... the times when I find myself hearing words of wisdom from my coworkers - shaping the way I look at serving others... the times my community members help shape me into being a better man... the times when I see passion in the eyes of advocates across the city, striving to make some sort of positive social change... the times when I hear the appalling stories of people who call searching for help... the times when my Social Security clients win their hearings and are thus guaranteed an income for the rest of their lives... the times when I feel helpless because I cannot give someone an answer besides "I am sorry to hear your story..."

In many ways that are still not tangible, I am being shaped by these moments. I am shaped by Monday intake, when 30 individuals walk in for legal services at Bread for the City, hoping that perhaps our attorneys will take on their case. I am shaped by the chaos and by the conversations that result when I go out to speak with a client. I am shaped by the expressions of utter joy and pain, and am reminded of my common humanity when I intentionally listen.

Experiences like Monday intakes, and the relationships with my Social Security clients help me enter the lives of the people who come to Bread for the City each day, and who live in my neighborhood. They help take my macro-oriented mind, focusing on policy level issues, and connect a real face and real emotions with the choices of society.

As I am beginning this new calendar year, and prayerfully considering a second year of Jesuit Volunteer Corps, I believe writing about my experience, my reflections, and the insights I am learning might help me develop as a young man. Perhaps through these writings, I can begin to make sense of this experience and discern how best God wants me to make an impact in the world we live in.