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Nuns on the Bus Bring Message to Youngstown
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Dorothy Day House on Belmont Avenue north of downtown provides meals for 110 to 115 men, women and children daily. That’s far more than the 20 to 30 intended when it opened in November 2009, says Sister Ann McManamon, who coordinates activities there and serves as president of its oversight board.
“It’s a challenge to prepare enough food for that large a group,” she acknowledged.
The Dorothy Day House, which aims to address the needs of the homeless, unemployed and underemployed, served as the backdrop Wednesday for the local stop of the "Nuns on the Bus" tour. The tour, which began June 17 in Des Moines and concludes July 2 in Washington, D.C. is an effort led by Sister Simone Campbell to raise public awareness of the deep federal budget cuts proposed by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-1 Wis.
“The House-passed Ryan budget is wrong for America, it’s wrong for Ohio, it’s wrong for Youngstown, it’s wrong for each one of us,” Campbell, executive director of Network, a national Catholic social justice lobby, told the crowd of more than 150 who showed up at the event, which was sponsored by the Catholic Sisters of the Humility of Mary and the Ursuline Sisters. She is a member of the Sisters of Social Service.
The Ryan budget “shifts money to the top,” an approach she said has been done repeatedly and doesn’t generate jobs. “Free-market principles tell us you shift money to where there’s pent-up demand. There’s not pent-up demand at the top. There’s pent-up demand at the bottom,” she said.
“The sound bites and the shouting heads have been trying to convince us that there is no other way forward than decimating the social safety net in our country, and they’re wrong,” Campbell said.
The alternative to the Ryan plan, crafted by members of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities, is a 55-page document Campbell referred to as the “Faithful Budget.” Its message boils down to five words, she said -- “reasonable revenue for responsible programs.”
The nation’s founding fathers “and dare I add founding mothers” understood that perfection wasn’t possible in this world and so in the U.S. Constitution resolved to form “a more perfect union,” she said.
Campbell also railed against what she characterized as the “lie” of “rugged individualism” that has led to America’s success.
“What we’re about is being the people of the Constitution. It doesn’t say, ‘I a U.S. citizen.’ What does it say? It says, ‘We the people.’ You cannot do anything on your own,” she continued, pointing to the Dorothy Day House as an example. “You see the fingerprints of people who contribute, all of the people who participate and all of the recipients of that because it creates a big circle where we know we are interrelated. We are connected.”
Sister Patricia McNicholas, executive director of Beatitude House, which houses some 200 women and children, said many of the clients her organization works with are dependent on safety-net programs such as food stamps and medical cards until they are able to improve their financial situation. Even in the current budget scenario, the women Beatitude works with who are able to find employment and move into permanent housing may lack health care. “So that whole issue of how federal policy impacts the poor is very important to me and to our community,” she said.
Among those attending the event was Margaret Haushalter of Boardman, who turned out for what she described as “the most important issue in our country.”
“The idea that we will abandon the poor is almost beyond my belief and the idea that we would do this in the name of Jesus is beyond my belief,” Haushalter remarked. “If anyone is a Christian they should follow what Jesus said to do and Jesus would be here today.
With unemployment at its current levels “the last thing we need to do is cut the life support for a lot of the poor families,” added Barb Allen of Warren.
“I’ve been there before but I’ve worked my way out of it. You never know when it’s going to happen to you,” she said.
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.