Antipoverty activists often assert that poverty is a moral issue. If so, then the federal budget is as much an ethical as an economic document. This month, a coalition of faith-based, social justice groups and secular antipoverty organizations will convene the Mobilization to End Poverty, a three-day education and advocacy rally, to proclaim that view.
Scheduled for April 26th to 29th at the Washington Convention Center, the mobilization is expected to bring between 1,500 and 2,000 antipoverty activists to the District. The purpose of the event, hosted by Sojourners, a D.C.-based progressive Christian ministry, and cosponsored by a half-dozen other religious and international aid organizations, is to call on President Barack Obama and Congress to establish a national plan to sharply reduce U.S. poverty levels over the next 10 years. Participants will also be pressing national political leaders to promote U.S. leadership in global efforts to end extreme poverty.
Kristen Erbelding, associate city director at the Center for Student Missions in D.C., said that she and several colleagues will be participating. “We want to create greater awareness about these issues,” Erbelding said. “We hope to make a statement that, as Christians, we’re serious about poverty issues and about holding [politicians] accountable.”
Adam Taylor, Sojourners’ senior policy director noted that, so far, “efforts to get poverty on the political agenda have had mixed success.” However, he did note that Obama, during the Democratic primary, made a public commitment to support the goal of reducing U.S. poverty by half within 10 years.
Now, in the post-election period, Taylor said,” we have to get candidates who were elected to follow up on their commitments, and to demonstrate to them that there is an active constituency willing to act. It is a priority, not just a time-to-time thing.”
The Mobilization organizers have planned a variety of workshops, training sessions, and Capitol Hill lobbying activities beginning on Sunday, April 26. That afternoon and evening will be devoted to volunteer training and a worship service at Shiloh Baptist Church.
The main events begin on Monday the 27 with a series of plenary sessions at the Washington Convention Center. The president has been invited to make an address on poverty at the 10:30 a.m. session.
Other plenary speakers include economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, director of The Earth Institute, special advisor to the UN Millennium Project, U.S. Representative and civil rights activist John Lewis, and Sojourners’ cofounder and political author, the Rev. Jim Wallis.
Tuesday the 28th will be devoted to preparing for and lobbying Capitol Hill on several specific issues.
Short-term, the Mobilization’s sponsors and partners want the president to direct the Office of Management and Budget to revise the way the government measures poverty and to create an up-to-date and accurate baseline of the number of Americans living in poverty.
Currently the measure is based solely on a multiple of family food needs, and misses the effects of the escalating costs of health care, transportation and housing. It also fails to include the positive impact of various federal tax credits and cash assistance programs.
Another of the event’s short-term goals is to voice support for those parts of the federal budget that are aimed at promoting employment, preventing homelessness, and providing greater assistance with health care, housing foreclosures, and subsidy programs to those most in need.
With a modern poverty baseline in place, Mobilization organizers note, it will be easier to identify useful antipoverty policies and to measure the success of existing or new ones. And that will support the organizers’ longer term goal, the creation of a national plan to:
- Reduce poverty by 50 % between 2010 and 2019, including expanded and improved health care, housing, education and food and nutrition programs.
- Help implement the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, including eradicating extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health care, and combating HIV/AIDS.
Also on Tuesday, Taylor explained, participants will be attending a pray-in at a park near the Senate and a reception/rally at the courtyard of the Rayburn House Office Building with congressional leaders on poverty issues. Individual participant groups will visit their members’ congressional offices to express support for a revised poverty baseline and the 10-year national plan.
On Wednesday morning, April 29, there will be a series of workshops that address the relationship between poverty and the economy, health care, immigration, women, peace, race, and international development. The afternoon will be devoted to sessions on organizing and advocating for social justice issues when the participants return home.
Details, and the latest news on the Mobilization can be found at www.sojo.net.
