UVIP Update - January 2008

Valley Families: Stressing, Sinking

Susan Rosen

Pastors in our network have been telling us how worried some of their parishioners are this winter.

People are stressed about the economy and the cost of living. Retirees and parishioners with modest incomes are especially anxious about how they are going to get through the heating season. Some are turning the heat way, way down.

To learn more about how Valley residents are faring, in the week of January 14, UVIP’s organizer spoke with area social workers, crisis counselors, homeless shelter staff and fuel assistance managers about the trends they are seeing.

Their replies were alarming. They said that this winter, many Valley residents may lose all life’s essentials–food, heat, shelter. They also said that in comparison with a few years back, whole new groups are at risk for homelessness.

A social worker employed by a private agency in Grafton and Sullivan County reported:

“For the past five years, we’ve been seeing people who were once at the margins of financial sustainability facing deeper and deeper problems. People need more help with home heating fuel every year, because it’s consuming an ever more disproportionate share of their budget.

“More recently, we’ve seen a new phenomenon: people who were on the margins for heat and rent but who had been OK for food–using food pantries and community meals–are now food insecure even with these services.”

A crisis counselor who works in Orange and Windsor Counties said:

“For the first time, I’m seeing senior citizens with major credit card debt. One couple recently came in owing $40,000. They go to credit cards once they use up the equity in their homes. Why? They’re trying to help out their struggling adult children.

“We’re seeing another new trend among our applicants: their costs for heating fuel and auto gas are starting to exceed their monthly rent or mortgage and tax payments. That’s partly because fuel is so high, but it’s also because so many applicants work in construction. Due to the construction downturn, people are commuting out of state to work. Some can’t find work at all.”

A Sullivan County fuel assistance manager said:

“Our typical client is a single elderly woman living on $600-700 a month. Depending on the size of her home, she’ll need $3,000-$5,000 in heating fuel this season. Our average grant is $600.”

Reports like these, along with what we hear from our families and friends, explain why we are trying to bring people of faith together to work on systemic issues that affect our region. We’re doing it because problems like high fuel costs and economic dips are beyond the control of individuals. We’re also doing it because our faith traditions oppose needless suffering and equate the love of neighbor with the love of the Ultimate.

This winter, UVIP volunteers in your congregation will invite you to talk about the community problems you’re seeing–and experiencing. What’s happening? How does it affect you or your family? Your neighbors? What troubles or outrages you most? Do you have a story that illustrates the problem? Which issues should we tackle first through UVIP? Each congregation’s responses will be brought to a May 6 Issues Assembly. There, together, we will choose the two top issue areas needing action.

We hope you will take part in your congregation’s Listening Campaign and that you will attend our Issues Assembly. Your experience, your voice and your participation will make change possible.

That will mean a lot to those of us who are living on the edge.