Trina Zelle is a Presbyterian minister serving on the border of Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico.  She received Witherspoon's Andrew Murray Award in 1999, and is currently serving as Secretary/Communicator of the group.

9/2/00

Charitable choice. I'm not sure I understand it and I'm involved in it myself.

Although it comes from the same philosophical mindset, it's not identical to what's called "parental choice" and the school vouchers program. None of the research material I've come across suggests that taxpayers get to check off where their tax money goes -- like you do with United Way.

The choice referred to is the choice of government agencies to contract with religious entities to deliver services rather than being limited to secular non-profits.

Like most things I can see at least two sides to it. When I worked at Catholic Charities in Hawaii we had contracts with the state department of human services. In my humble opinion our social workers did as good a job (if not better) than the state ones. The main difference was in pay and benefits. State employees got paid more than we did and had more benefits. Catholic Charities was not answerable to the state as far as how we were paid or otherwise treated. And, the state didn't have to hire as many of its own workers.

There was never any problem with proselytizing clients. It was forbidden and half the social workers were Buddhist anyway. In that particular case, everyone was a winner but the underpaid Catholic Charities workers and the invisible-because-they-were-never-hired state workers.

Currently, my church is involved with community development in the HUD Empowerment Zone project. More or less it's working. Presbyterians aren't known for strong arm conversion tactics so that's not the issue. The most negative thing I have witnessed is the way government regulation drives our program development. Churches have the luxury of developing nuanced and site specific ministries. My experience with government agencies is that they paint in broad strokes. And whoever brings the most money to the table gets to make the rules. So it's more likely than not that your program will metamorphose into one size fits all rather than the vision that brought you to the table in the first place.

What that has meant for us so far is that we're limited in who we're allowed to serve. Folks on this side of the street but not that side. I don't think that's a good place for us to be putting ourselves in. Keeping people out just isn't what we're called to do. My church is addressing it by looking for additional funding to cover the people across the street, but in the meantime, we can't serve them -- even though we're all in the same neighborhood. Of course this isn't the first time in human history that arbitrary boundaries have separated family and friends.

It's also important to remember that "non-profit" does not automatically mean ethical or moral, only that shareholders don't get paid dividends. Non-profits have been known to use the poor and vulnerable as bargaining chips to enrich their own programs : see all these poor people -- fund me and I'll serve them. And in a year or two the funding is gone, the vulnerable are still vulnerable and yet another program has been created pretty much to justify someone's salary. I'm also concerned that we'll dismiss ministries that are difficult to get started and maintain in favor of more easily funded programs that don't put such a strain on our resources.

In fact, reading over what I just wrote I've nearly talked myself out of further participation with our current project. There are a lot of obstacles. And yet so far I've seen a poor community come together and start sensing its own potential. I've seen people develop latent leadership capabilities. I've found myself collaborating with folks I didn't even know existed a few months ago. Good and decent folks who are overworked and underpaid and still give 110%. Government employees. Maybe as long as we realize it all comes down to real human beings, things will work out.

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