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.

Returning to Washington

During this trip to Washington, I didn’t see the White House, the National Mall, any Smithsonians, or even the dome of the Capital. I only once saw the Washington Monument, from on a hill a couple miles away. It was not the tourist visit to Washington, but a visit back to one’s home. It was a visit full of relationships, full of conversations, and full of reminiscing.

A good friend of mine believes that many of our life experiences are shared with people we care about and fade into the past. We find meaning in our lives by pointing to these reminiscable shared experiences, which in turn shape how we act in the present, and how we form and picture our future. These reminiscable shared experiences cause us to experience community in a powerful way as we reflect on who we are as individuals journeying through life, making sense of who we are.

This trip to Washington indulged me in the joys of reminiscable shared experiences. Looking back on our community experience, we laughed at the ridiculous stories that formed us as a community, we smiled on the challenges that pushed us farther than we could imagined, and we thanks God and one another that we are who we are today, because of those experiences. I couldn’t help but think, you are on to something my friend, could I have remembered this beautiful stories and laughed the way I did if it wasn’t with one another? Perhaps not. Perhaps they would have been forgotten, and erased forever. And yet, isn’t it beautiful that together we can return together and remember our experiences together and find joy and comfort in that experience?

Perhaps more beautiful is the fact that we reflect, we grow, we laugh, we cry, and we continue with our lives – we turn back to those times, and we allow them to shape who we are today and who we will be together. And we are thankful for those experiences, because they are woven into our existence, and are imprinted in our worldviews.

While I didn’t see the sites one typically goes to see in Washington, I saw what I believe might just be the more profound sites of the District of Columbia:

Vinoteca – a place of many conversations over glasses of wine, and a place we returned to have another laugh and another glass of wine

Himalyan Heritage – another special place where over Nepalese food, many conversations were had with one special friend – conversations that I still think about, and that still shape me today.

Starbucks on Georgia and Bryant – a place that had many coffee dates, that was frequented on the way to work, and that hold a special place in my heart.

Cleveland Park – a neighborhood where I went canvassing for change, that showed me the power of talking with others about our clients, and taught me a lesson in what it means to see ones heart be changed right in front of you

Azi’s – that small café that many Bread for the City friends spent many times at.

Pittango – a place where many conversations were had, not with coffee or wine, but with some gelato that rivals that of Florence, Italy.

130 Bryant – a home that was more than a home, but was a community

Bread for the City – a place that words cannot describe – a place that truly taught me accompaniment, a place that on the one hand, introduced me to the profound despair that is the result of our unequal society, and on the other hand, the joy that comes with knowing and being in relationship with the poor.

Indeed, these sites were instrumental sites that today are the keys of our reminiscable shared experiences in Washington. We returned to them because they are symbols of who we are – symbols of what Washington means to us, and symbols that fill our hearts with joy and renew our spirits. Yes – you were right my friend – these reminisciable shared experiences truly do have a special power.

The Long Loneliness

“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community” Dorothy Day

This quote, by Dorothy Day, has become a favorite for many Jesuit Volunteers. Jesuit Volunteers point to this quote as representative of the Jesuit Volunteer community experience. Rightly so, in many regards. In Dorothy Day’s book, The Long Loneliness¸ she talks about the formation of Catholic Worker homes for people to come to and experience community. Many Catholic Worker Houses around the country are now places of hospitality, and many foster the same sorts of community among their residents and guests that JVC aims to develop.

I think today’s American society knows this long loneliness Dorothy Day talks about in her book. Americans, I believe, in their state of hyper-individualism, often forget that we are interdependent, and consequently, often fall into a state of hopelessness, powerlessness, despair, and loneliness. I think this is manifested in the hyper materialism, and the complete focus American society has placed on the individual.

But is this Catholic Worker and Jesuit Volunteer concept of community practical, especially in a hyper-individualistic society?

Certainly, there are merits and blessings I have experienced living in community this year. Together, we live and work in the District, trying to work for social justice, live simply, and grow in our different spiritualities. It is a challenge and a blessing bound together in a common experience. We have shared all of our resources, shared our hearts, and our time with one another. We have experienced the challenge that comes with disagreements and disputes, and the joys that come with laughter and fond memories. We have voiced our struggles with our work, with the vast and deep-rooted social and economic injustice we see in our work and in our society. We have come to see each other as a community, as close friends travelling together on this part of our journey.

Our community experience is ending soon, and we will disperse onto our different paths. Though I think Dorothy Day is speaking about community in the context of experiences like JVC, I also think that community extends to a broader understanding than this. Taking from lessons learned from the blessings and challenges of this community experience, I envision living out the tenet of Community in many ways in my own lifestyle.

Dorothy Day says that the void of loneliness can be filled with love and community. I believe this community refers to the connections we make with one another in our lives. These connections are not just friendships of utility, as Aristotle would entitle them (friendships that give us what we need and in turn provide to others what they need), but true “good friendships,” friendships that are motivated out of love for the other, friendships that develop over time, friendships that encompass a mutual trust…

I believe in many ways, I have seen these friendships in the experience of community this year. I point to this type of friendships as the foundation of the Community I envision after JVC. I have seen these friendships develop with friends from high school, friends from Gonzaga, friends from Bread for the City, and friends from my Jesuit Volunteer house. Friendships that include sitting with a glass of wine or cup of coffee and enjoying a long conversation delving into our most inner hearts, desires, pains, and joys… friendships that are not contingent on what we can give one another, but are everlasting and from the heart… friendships that continue to give life, to nurture, and to encourage one another to become more authentic individuals.

Community happens in other ways too – I have experienced a sense of community in my work, in both the relationships with my coworkers and my clients. Working together each day, we have formed community in the way that we relate to one another, the way that we help each other grow, and the way that we strive to make the District a more just place for our clients.

I have experienced community this year in the relationships with other advocates I have met in the city. Working together on projects like the SE Preservation Project, the Fair Budget Coalition, IDA advocacy, and the Save Our Safety Net Campaign, I have shared my own passion with others who have the same vision, in hopes that together, our efforts will be magnified and more powerful. This collaboration has helped me feel as if DC is my community, the place I am settled, the place I feel a strong connection to. It is different than the Community I have experienced with my closest relationships, but it is has complemented the other relationships I have formed this year.

The sum of these relationships result in a feeling of community that creates connections with one another, helps us feel as if we are part of a community, fosters growth, and challenges us to become more authentically human. It is a sense of community made up of a variety of relationships, some reaching more intimately into who we are than others. I believe this community is innately sustainable outside of the Jesuit Volunteer experience or Catholic Worker lifestyle because it calls us to form relationships that cultivate self and communal growth. It is this growth, and this sense of community, that can cure the long loneliness that Dorothy Day speaks of.

Perhaps I won’t live in another JVC-type Community like I have this year, but I will live the value of community as I continue on with my life.

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.

Canvassing to Support the Save Our Safety Net Campaign

I’d consider myself someone who has mastered the art of fundraising – starting in high school with KEY Club, Caitlin and I weren’t afraid to ask anyone we’d ever met for money so that we could further some sort of Adopt-A-Family project or fundraising cause like Relay for Life. Through the different service experiences in both high school and college, I honed my ability to talk with people about why they needed to give money to my cause, whether it was for the East L.A. alternative spring break trip, or the Kennedale Park planting project.

That being said, canvassing is a different challenge. Unlike fundraising (mostly just asking for money), canvassing involves asking someone to commit their values in writing. For us, it involved going into an affluent neighborhood in D.C. to ask residents if they’d support a nominal (less than 1%) increase in income taxes for residents making over $200,000 each year. Hoping that these signatures would sway the votes of the City Council, we went door-to-door, explaining the mission and goals of the Save Our Safety Net Campaign***.



Half of the people we spoke with weren’t interested in the message. Understandably - who honestly wants to see their taxes increase, even if it is a nominal amount? Perhaps more powerful though, was other half of the people we talked with. The people who wrestled with the idea as we stood on their doorstep… the people who thought about our IDA clients and our clients needing job training and child care… about our homeless men, women, and families who depend on D.C.’s safety net during the winter months. Ultimately, whether it was out of an engrained belief in the needs of our poor, or a beautiful transformation when hearing the cries of our poor, these men and women signed the petition urging their council man or woman to raise their own taxes.

I think that during these moments – when I watched fellow D.C. residents wrestling with their own tax burden increasing so that they could guarantee that our city’s poor could afford to merely live – these moments were moments of social change. It wasn’t the social change I see each day at Bread for the City, the change that involves winning a battle at Landlord-Tenant Court or a change that involves a family receiving enough food for the rest of the month. Rather, this social change was a change in attitude, a change in heart. A change towards realizing our common humanity.

It is this change that makes me want to canvas again – so that both the social safety net will ensure our clients will have enough this next year, and so that our wealthier residents will have a transformation of heart.


***For more information about the Save Our Safety Net Campaign and for information on how to get involved, please click here.

Save Our Saftey Net Mayor Fenty!

In the District of Columbia, yesterday marked an important day - the release of Mayor Fenty's Fiscal Year 2011 (FY11) budget. It is a budget that we have been nervous about all year - we have a current shortfall of $500 million dollars... how many cuts will be made to our low income District of Columbia clients? Will the budget be balanced or will it only involve budget cuts? Will our clients bear the largest burden of the budget cuts?

My involvement with the Fair Budget Coalition this year has taught me the importance of advocating to the D.C. Council for a more fair budget. I have watched advocates in both the Fair Budget Coalition*and the Save Our Safety Net Campaign* come together to urge the Council to remember our clients as they form the budget.

I have just spent some time reflecting on the Gospel call to serve one another - Jesus, as an example to us, washes the feet of his disciples and calls us to do the same. Yet, as I turn to Mayor Fenty's budget, I realize our leaders often don't hear this same call. Perhaps they may not share the faith I believe. However, my experience at Bread for the City has taught me that the Gospel call I feel stretches beyond my faith - it is inscribed in the hearts of my coworkers in words that are similar or different. Regadless of faith commitment, I have seen my coworkers as well as many advocates across the city reach into their own hearts to see a common humanity between themselves and the clients we serve. Our difference is that our families have often provided the safety net. But we still have the same needs, the same aspirations, and the same desire to be loved and fulfilled. We still have the same goals of sucess, the same need for adequate shelter and food and clothing.

Perhaps we forget this message when we find ourselves isolated in our neighborhoods... when we view Bread clients as the drug addicts and homeless and people away from us.... when we think of our clients as living in unsafe and scary neighborhoods...

But - it is my belief that the moment we spent more than thirty second driving
through and actually look into the eyes of our clients, engaging them in a real
conversation - it is in this moment that our hearts begin to see a common
humanity.

We are bonded together as one humanity - it is my hope that Mayor Fenty and Council Members will find this common humanity in their hearts just as we have in ours.

** For more information on this year's budget and the importance of advocating for our low income clients, please click on the following links to learn more about the Fair Budget Coalition and the Save Our Safety Net Campaign.