CCHD Helps Poor To Help Themselves

By PRISCILLA GREEAR, Staff Writer

Published: November 13, 2003

ATLANTA—For years Moises Casales struggled to pay rent in Athens until he was able to buy a $3,000 mobile home in the Garden Springs mobile home park.

Living there with his wife, two daughters, brother, sister-in-law and niece was much easier for the factory worker to manage on his low income. He had moved to Georgia at 15 to support his parents back in Puebla, Mexico. The park also gave the family a sense of community and was convenient to stores and other services.

So when he got a letter from park owners in June 2001 that the park would be sold to a developer of high rent apartments, he and his family were distraught. While some trailers were movable, his and many others were too old to move and had to be demolished.

“The reason we bought the mobile home is we didn’t make too much money. It’s an old mobile home (so) we couldn’t move it. We don’t have enough money to get an apartment so we felt really, really bad,” he said. “I can’t pay for an apartment because it’s too expensive for us.”

When the 108 families of Garden Springs were forced to evacuate, Casales and other residents joined together to raise money through a coalition of 23 churches as well as community organizations including Catholic Social Services to help families relocate. The effort provided 78 families with $2,500 each.

After unsuccessfully lobbying to put a moratorium on building and development in low-income communities, the group did get the eviction date extended by six months. They then formed the People of Hope Cooperative to try and establish a community-run trailer park, where residents themselves could address park needs.

People of Hope is also raising awareness of the need for public policy changes to address the county shortage of low-income housing (three mobile home parks have closed since Garden Springs), and trained members are speaking publicly on the issues and available resources.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development has helped People of Hope to organize, awarding the cooperative grants of $3,000 in 2001, $25,000 in 2002 and $15,000 in 2003-2004.

People of Hope is just one example of how CCHD grants support projects, not in conflict with church teaching, that address the root causes of poverty and that are run in part by the poor themselves. There will be an annual collection for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development in parishes around the Atlanta Archdiocese on Nov. 23; three-fourths of the money raised will go to the national CCHD office for distribution in national grants, and one-fourth is distributed in local grants and local poverty and justice education.

The anti-poverty initiative of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was begun in 1977. National grants range from $10,000 to $50,000. In 2003 a total of nearly $9 million in national grants was distributed to fund 318 projects, the majority of them interfaith projects. The People of Hope Cooperative was one of the projects receiving a national grant.

“Much of the work we support is to train leaders among the poor and low-income people, leaders in the community who then advocate for changes in laws and policies so that their lives can be better and not just for a day but for a lifetime,” said CCHD executive director Father Robert Vitillo.

In October the CCHD announced the distribution of $121,000 to support 23 projects in North Georgia. This reflects both national and local CCHD grants, which are distributed through Catholic Social Services’ Parish and Community Ministry program directed by Simone Blanchard.

Local grants range from $1,000 to $5,000, and those recipients can later apply for national funding.

Casales, one of two treasurers of POH, moved in 2002 to the Landmark trailer park where he rents space for a $4,000 mobile home he bought. He hopes eventually to move his family to the proposed community-run park.

They have been meeting constantly to raise money through things like yard sales and car washes, he said.

With such community support, POH has partnered with the Athens Land Trust to buy, through the local Human and Economic Development Office, 17 acres on Freeman Drive for the new park, contingent upon approval by the Athens-Clarke County Planning Commission.

The planning commission at a hearing Nov. 6 recommended against changing the zoning to allow for the trailer park. However, it is up to the county commissioners who will vote Dec. 2 with the mayor deciding in the case of a tie. Outreach coordinator Juana Gnecco said POH will plan a series of actions to get the voices of the families heard up until the Dec. 2 vote and eventually will explore other options if forced to, but that “if not this property there’s nowhere to put low-income people to live.”

She feels confident the hearing outcome will be good, as the mayor and commissioners show support and understanding of the need.

“They will take into consideration the planning commission recommendation, which only addresses planning issues, but they will also take into account social and economic issues and the broader picture in which the trailer park for this community not only makes sense but is a much needed alternative. In the whole county there is not a piece of land designated for mobile home park use,” she said. “They want, need and deserve a secure place for the homes they have worked hard to own and for the community they strive to reconstitute.”

The ALT would hold the property deed and right of first refusal, so that it could never be sold for profit by the board and turned into moderate-income housing.

Over 40 families have said they would move into the new park, which is proposed to have a community center, playing field, 40 units and a large wooded area.

“Here in Landmark (mobile home park) I’m not owning the land, I’m renting the land. If we (get) this land we can just administer our park. Nobody can tell us you can’t stay here and we’ve got to move. We would like to keep the people who were living there. We feel they are our family and friends and neighborhood. That’s why we want to live like it used to be in Garden Springs,” said Casales, 24. “The important thing is we are working together and we have people who didn’t live in Garden Springs and they are helping us with this. We’re Hispanic, black and white people.”

Maureen O’Brien, POH land development coordinator, said the new location is near the old site and also is on the bus route and in walking distance from a grocery store, county health center and Athens Family and Children’s Services Department. “These are supports that low-income people need to be healthy, to function in a healthy way on a low income.”

As they apply for grants and loans and raise money to again relocate families, board members are getting trained in management and have been offered classes in topics including computers and credit and housing counseling.

CCHD has played a major role in enabling the People of Hope to organize, said O’Brien. It pays for office space in the Atlanta Land Trust building and last year also paid her salary, she said, adding that St. Joseph Church in Athens and the Athens Catholic Social Services office have also provided significant support.

“I don’t think this would have (come) as far as it has without CCHD as it provided the staff,” she said.

POH board members “have been going to computer classes, credit counseling classes, home-buying classes … the training part of it—you need someone to coordinate all that. That’s what (the grant) did the first year … It’s really been amazing.”

Other area projects supported by CCHD this year include a Somali radio station in Decatur promoting civic involvement; an economic development project involving youth and senior citizens from a low-income neighborhood in planting, harvesting and bottling products from a community garden for sale in restaurants; and a school readiness project in Clarkesville supporting Hispanic youth and their parents.

“We expect reports from the grantee because we want to make sure they’re accomplishing what they say they’re accomplishing. We want to know what their plans were the previous years before we give them more money,” Blanchard said.

She has a diverse support committee, which includes low-income and social justice leaders. Blanchard said the Urban Stations of the Cross, sponsored each year on Good Friday by the CSS Parish and Community Ministry program, is “a great event for empowerment.” Last year they held a conference to educate people on taking the next step after charity to working for systematic change. She’s working on a poverty reflection before Lent.

While in Atlanta, Father Vitillo, who previously served in international Catholic Charities at the Vatican, spoke of the increasing need for support.

“Grants are awarded to local organizations because they are in the best position to assess and resolve local needs. With 47 of the nation’s states reporting budget deficits and cutting programs that provide a safety net to the marginally employed, the need for poverty-related empowerment programs is even greater,” he said.

“In many cases,” he added, “families are poor not because of lack of initiative or effort but because of changing social and economic conditions, or lack of education. CCHD grants help community organizations work toward long-term solutions to affordable housing, access to employment, equal justice, immigrant issues, better schools and community services, all of which are barriers to overcome in the climb out of poverty.”

He referred to the CCHD survey that revealed how Americans “drastically underestimate” poverty in this country, as people becomes increasingly segregated from the poor when gated communities and concrete highway barriers are erected.

The latest U.S. Census Bureau data reports 34.8 million Americans are living below the poverty line, an increase of 1.4 million over the previous year. The national average is 12.4 percent, with the rate for African-Americans three times that of whites.

In 2000 CCHD initiated a national public awareness campaign with a theme “Poverty USA: America’s Forgotten State.” On their Web site one can take a poverty tour where one is confronted with decisions like taking a child to the doctor versus buying food.

“We have a lot of schools that are going online and hooking up students to the Web site,” Father Vitillo said.

Last summer bike-riders rode cross-country on a “Brake the Cycle” tour.

The director also spoke of how the national collection process enables larger dioceses to support smaller ones with fewer resources.

Atlanta has given approximately $2.6 million to national CCHD grants since 1978. The collection is always held near the Thanksgiving holiday.

“We are asking Catholics to be conscious of the fact that many people haven’t benefited from the American dream so much and therefore to share some of the things they’re giving thanks about with those who have less,” Father Vitillo said. “The archdiocese has been very generous to us over the years. We’re certainly grateful for that and see that as a sign of the solidarity people of Atlanta have with low-income people throughout the country.”

And donors can feel satisfied knowing that CCHD supports programs planting seeds of change like the People of Hope, through which Casales and other former Garden Springs residents are advocating for the needs of all low-income residents in Clarke County. Members will speak during the CCHD collection weekend at St. Joseph Church in Athens.

Blanchard is proud of how far these Athens activists have come.

“They did a tremendous job in raising money and community awareness on affordable housing in Athens. They were able to move everybody out (of Garden Springs), but they didn’t stop there,” she said. “Then they began setting up an alternative model that was just more amenable to sustainability of housing for low-income, working-class families. We think they have tremendous leadership.”

For more information call Simone Blanchard at Catholic Social Services in Atlanta at (404) 885-7265 or visit the CCHD national Web site at www.povertyusa.org.