
          In the Governor's Year of the Child, a Call for Alabama
Arise
          By Scott, Carolynne B.Carolynne B. Scott
          Vol. 11, No. 3, 1989, pp. 7-9
          
          Governor Guy Hunt has proclaimed 1989 to be the Year of the Child
in Alabama. For the poor child whose mother receives Aid to Dependent
Children (ADC), this is hardly cause to celebrate.
          How much can a welfare mother buy with $118 per month for a family
of three--the average size of a family receiving ADC benefits? Add
food stamps and Medicaid to that, and the mother's total benefits rise
to $438 per month. Very likely, the $118 is the only cash that comes
in.
          Medicaid benefits, which help considerably in a health crisis, may
force the mother to remain on the dole, for if she happens to find odd
jobs, and if those jobs push her annual income over $1,428, then she
will not qualify for Medicaid at all.
          Although federal authorization for the ADC program is included in
the Social Security Act, ADC benefit levels are left to the individual
states, and Alabama in this Year of the Child provides the least cash
assistance in the nation.
          The ADC cash and food stamps' value together equal less than half
the federal poverty level for income ($9,044 for a family of three)
. The base payment in Alabama has not increased since 1976, and then
only 0.5 percent. Of some 45,000 individuals on ADC benefits in
Alabama, 31,500 are children. Two-parent families do not qualify
unless one parent is handicapped.
          While still inadequate, ADC benefits are somewhat better in Georgia
where a three-person family can receive $263 per month. In Florida,
the allotment is $264, and in Kentucky, $197. The Southeastern average
is $193. At the national level, the median benefit for a family of
three in 1987 was $359.
          
            Vexations of the Poor
          
          Kay Samples, a middle-aged mother of four (and a single parent for
seventeen years), explained some of the vexations surrounding
assistance for the poor at a hearing in Gadsden recently. The hearing
was mandated by the U.S. Catholic Bishops' Pastoral Letter on the
Economy and was one of five set up by the Peace and Justice Office of
the Birmingham diocese. "I wanted to go to school, to technical
college," Mrs. Samples recalled, "but if I got scholarship
money, I lost my Medicaid. If I worked, I lost Medicaid. A lot of us
that have special children need help to get a job and be able to keep
the children on Medicaid." Mrs. Samples has a chronically ill
daughter.
          Still, Mrs. Samples is grateful for the public housing assistance
she did receive. She recalled that "if you live in a HUD project
and your utilities get cut off, you can't keep the apartment."
          "I drew $118 per month, and when I paid my utilities I didn't
have anything left. I had to pay my gas bill one month and my power
the next."
          In 1986, Mrs. Samples married a retired military man who pulled her
out of poverty, then died of lung cancer within one year. His Social
Security and military benefits now support her and two daughters still
living at home, and she works at the Baptist Mission Association in
Gadsden to help others.
          
            Most Benefits Less Than Two Years
          
          Mrs. Samples received ADC benefits for seven years, but most
families do not stay on the program that long. Nationally, only 25
percent of ADC recipients stay longer than two years.
          For utility assistance, as Mrs. Samples pointed out, the mother
must turn to churches and charities. Alabama Power cuts off some
90,000 customers per year and Alabama Gas some 20,000, according to
Angie Wright, of Greater Birmingham Ministries. GBM has estimated that
50 to 80 percent of its direct assistance budget goes for help with
utilities. Yet many poor families lose their heat and lights, or,
worse yet, sell their food stamps to pay the bills.
          The situation has become even more critical since the latest
federal budget reduced federal aid in the form of the Low Income Home
Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) by 9.6 percent. Children of
low-income families suffer an increasing risk to health and life due
to lack of electricity or gas.
          With the wealthiest fifth of Americans controlling 43.5 percent of
the income and the poorest fifth only 4.6 percent, the situation for
the poor grows steadily worse. As Sister Mary Roy, who operates the
Anniston Interfaith Center of Concern (a welfare agency providing
emergency food, clothing and cash assistance) pointed out at the
Gadsden hearing: "Little by little, the gap between the 

haves and
the have-nots is widening. The backbone of society has been the middle
class, but now, many of them are needing help, too."
          Enter Alabama Arise--a coalition of churches, social services
providers, and legal and political groups as diverse racially,
politically, and ideologically as the American Civil Liberties Union
and the League of Women Voters, Mobile Catholic Social Services and
the Loveman's Village Tenants' Council in Birmingham.
          The concept of a statewide network of advocates for the poor was
spearheaded by Greater Birmingham Ministries and the Auburn-based
Alabama Coalition Against Hunger. "We realized individually that we
did not have the power to make an impact on the legislature," says
Sandra Lawler, church and community organizer for GBM.
          "We introduced the idea and worked hard by telephone and through
letters. Very quickly, we got a number of interested groups. They
decided there would be one representative from each organization and
that we'd come together for an all-day meeting to set priorities."
That was in June of 1988. Now there are fifty-one organizations with a
well-tuned social conscience who pay $100 to $500 to support Alabama
Arise's efforts.
          Alabama Arise has retained Jim Littleton as its legislative
coordinator in Montgomery. A soft-spoken black businessman, Littleton
worked as an aide to former Alabama governor Fob James during his
administration and has lobbied for Alabama A&M University and
"the Electric Cities," towns which have their own
electric companies.
          At a recent meeting of the Direct Services Network, a coalition of
some sixty organizations addressing issues affecting the poor, Angie
Wright of GBM and Lucille White of Partners in Advocacy gave Alabama
Arise's strategy; "Activate the phone tree at night, and we can
have 4,000 calls into the Legislature by the next morning."
          Through these calls, as well as personal visits with legislators
and Littleton's efforts, Alabama Arise hopes to ensure utility service
for the poor fund adequate maternal and health care, raise ADC
benefits, and initiate tax reform.
          "We don't expect to have all this happen in one session,"
says Angie Wright, "but it is realistic to think we will make some
of our goals."
          By mid-April, $4 million, which would provide a 15 to 20 percent
increase in monthly ADC benefits had passed both the Alabama House and
Senate to become a conditional appropriation. "That means that if
the state takes in more than it has budgeted, Governor Hunt will
decide what to do with it," Ms. Wright said. "Last year, he was
in favor of an increase in benefits," she added. "It will be a
priority of Alabama Arise to lobby him this summer."
          
            A Political Power Play
          
          Alabama Arise's other trump--a $0.25 surcharge on residential power
bills and a 0.4 percent charge on businesses--came up as House Bill
761 before the House Ways and Means Committee on April 19. Wright,
Public Service Commissioner Charlie Martin and the Rev. Joe Elmore of
Vestavia Hills Methodist Church testified on behalf of the bill.
          Wright pointed out that the bill would provide between $10-$13
million for assistance, in effect doubling the LIHEAP monies now
available.
          Commissioner Martin added that one of eight Americans lives below
the poverty level. "While the federal government is decreasing
LIHEAP monies, we're increasing the numbers who are cold."
          Representatives of Alabama Power Company, Rural Electric
Cooperative, and the City of Dothan testified against the bill.

          Oscar Walker, Alabama Power's manager of rates and regulatory
matters, pointed out that under LIHEAP only ercent
goes for electricity while 35 percent goes for liquid petroleum gas,
and 30 percent for natural gas. (In other words, electric companies do
not benefit as much as other suppliers from those LIHEAP funds which
the surcharge would swell.)
          He said that only 9 percent of Power Company customers now
participate in Project Share, a voluntary program through which they
contribute a dollar at each billing to help the poor with
utilities. Walker added that it is hard to get large industrial
companies to locate in Alabama, and the 0.4 percent tax might
discourage them further.
          He also objected to the fact that TVA industrial customers along
the Alabama/Tennessee line would not be taxed under this
bill. Commissioner Martin explained that Alabama cannot tax a federal
entity, but that municipal utility customers of TVA would be taxed.
          House committee members asked numerous questions indicating a real
interest in the bill and the distribution of funds through the
Department of Economic and Community Affairs.
          But at the end of the session, Rep. Bill Fuller of LaFayette, one
of four co-sponsors of B 761, introduced a substitute bill that would
make the tax voluntary, reduce it to ten cents for residential
customers and 0.2 percent for businesses.
          Rep. John Buskey, Montgomery, who had introduced the bill, said
this would "do irreparable harm to the program," and moved to
table the substitute. By voice vote, the committee
concurred. Rep. Taylor Harper, Grand Bay, committee chairman, heard it
differently, however. He said the "no's" carried and promptly put the
substitute to a vote. It passed.
          Alabama Arise proponents left the chamber in shock.
          Moments later, lobbyist Littleton was vowing he'd get the original
bill introduced through the Senate. "We"ll keep working," Angie
Wright added.
          If each affiliate organization of Alabama Arise develops a
telephone committee of five to ten persons, who, in turn, contact five
to ten others, 4,000 calls to legislators might indeed be made the
night before the key vote.
          
            Calling for Clout
          
          Will it work? This was the tactic Partners in Advocacy used to
bring about rudimentary changes in perinatal health care for
low-income mothers. "Four years ago, we were in the same place
Alabama Arise is," Lucille White told a DSN meeting recently,
referring to her group's effort to win funding for pre-natal and
delivery care.
          At that time, Alabama had the worst infant mortality rate in the
country. Less than 20 percent of pregnant women without doctors were
poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. Even if they could qualify,
benefits to physicians and hospitals were the lowest in the
nation. Wilcox County had an infant mortality rate of 34.2 deaths per
thousand births, three times the national average and as high as in
many Third World countries.
          "A woman had to show up at the hospital already in delivery to
be admitted," White added. Now, besides its other goals, Alabama
Arise is joining in the Partners' concerns by trying to get the
Medicaid eligibility income ceiling raised and to let older children
up to three be covered also.
          Whatever the long and arduous outcome of future legislative
efforts, the children of Alabama at least have found a voice.
          
            Carolynne Scott teaches fiction writing at the University
of Alabama-Birmingham and writes for Catholic Charities.
          
        