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November 2003 - Vol. 5, No. 9
Special Issue on Government Funding
of Faith-Based Services
The current administration is aggressively inserting its faith-based
initiative into government programs. This issue of the Policy Briefing
will focus exclusively on the nature of the initiative, its potential
impact on services to the poor and recent research on the subject
Public Funding for Religious-Run Services Gaining
Ground on Many Fronts
As part of the Bush administration’s Faith-Based Initiative,
religious groups are being encouraged to access public funds in
a broad range of federal programs, and civil rights protections
against religious discrimination are being affected in many ways.
In his first week in office, President Bush issued an Executive
Order creating the federal Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, and
introduced legislation to fund the initiative. When the legislation
failed to make its way through Congress, he issued a series of Executive
Orders that seek to achieve his goals without congressional approval.
Below is a review of some of the actions taken by and/or supported
by President Bush to implement his faith-based initiative:
- Originally a minor provision in the 1996 welfare reform legislation,
Charitable Choice has become a priority in Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) programming. On September 22, HHS finalized
regulations implementing the Charitable Choice laws for TANF,
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA) and the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG), providing
access for faith-based organizations to nearly $20 billion in
social service grants. The regulations restate the principles
of Charitable Choice and clarify the right of religious groups
to maintain their individual identity through hiring. According
to the Roundtable on Religion and Social Policy, TANF and Welfare-to-Work
are the largest sources of direct funding for faith-based organizations.
Other HHS actions include:
- The Compassion Capital Fund (CCF) was established by HHS in
January 2001 and has a $35 million budget for the current fiscal
year. President Bush’s budget proposal would increase
the program’s allotment to $100 million in fiscal year
2004. CCF is described by HHS as being “designed to help
build the capacity of faith-based and community organizations
to enable them to provide increased services to low-income and
other vulnerable populations,” and to help the organizations
compete for private and federal funds. CCF provides one-time
$50,000 grants for direct services to faith-based and community
organizations, and larger grants to “intermediary”
organizations to make their own sub-awards to organizations
and to provide training and technical assistance. See http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ccf/index.html.
Among the CCF intermediary grantees is Christian Broadcasting
Networks preacher Pat Robertson’s organization Operation
Blessing, which received a $500,000 grant. According to the
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU), Robertson
has launched repeated attacks on Islam, calling the Prophet
Muhammad a killer. In 1991, he stated that Methodists, Presbyterians
and Episcopalians reflect “the spirit of the Antichrist.”
- The HHS Faith-Based and Community Initiative website lists
government funding opportunities for which faith-based organizations
are eligible. A few special programs in which faith-based organizations
may be particularly interested are listed. They include discretionary
programs such as Adoption Opportunities, Assets for Independence
Demonstration, Head Start, Urban and Rural Community Economic
Development, and mandatory (formula) grants such as Child Support
Enforcement, Child Welfare, and TANF grants. See Funding Opportunities
at www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/fbci/.
- The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has designated a Faith-based
and Community Initiatives Coordinator to facilitate work with
faith-based and community organizations. The CDC states that
its goal is to “increase the applicant pool to include
more organizations such as those that are faith-based for CDC’s
funding opportunities and to provide applicants additional time
to plan and prepare their application.”
- The Bureau of Primary Health Care’s (BPHC) Faith Partnership
Initiative is a strategy designed to foster and build partnerships
between its federally funded community health centers and faith-based
(not secular community) organizations in an effort to increase
access to primary and preventive health care. The Bureau states
that it is actively pursuing relationships with new faith institutions,
because “we must continue to stimulate and build partnership
networks with faith-based organizations in order to create healthy
communities in a dramatically changing social and economic environment.”
See http://bphc.hrsa.gov/programs/FaithProgramInfo.htm.
- The Department of Labor (DOL) has announced two regulations
that will increase funding for religious organizations. The Employment
and Training Administration (ETA) Proposed Rule would amend
final regulations to the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA)
to lift a prohibition on all types of WIA funding for the employment
and training of participants by religious organizations. The Employment
Standards Administration (ESA) Final Rule implements an Executive
Order from President Bush that exempts religious organizations
from current nondiscrimination requirements that prohibit government
contractors and subcontractors from discriminating in employment
based on religion. See www.dol.gov/cfbci/.
- The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued
a final rule requiring equal treatment for faith-based organizations
in government grant-making. It also confirms that religious organizations
can consider job applicants' religion when hiring. In addition,
the rule allows HUD funds to be used for the renovation of rooms
in structures that are used for inherently religious activities,
as long as the HUD funds do not exceed the cost of those portions
of the acquisition, construction or rehabilitation that are attributable
to eligible activities.
- In what might be considered a puzzling plan to meet a presidential
challenge to increase minority homeownership by 5.5 million families
by the end of the decade, HUD has created the Reaching the
Dream Initiative, which is designed to remove barriers that
exclude faith-based and community organizations from federal grant
programs. As part of the initiative, HUD has published a brochure
for faith-based and community organizations entitled "5 Steps
to Becoming a HUD-Approved Housing Counseling Agency" to
assist these organizations in seeking to qualify for the grant
program. See http://www.hud.gov/initiatives/fcbi/index.cfm.
- The Department of Education (DoEd) proposed rules would amend
regulations to clarify that faith-based organizations are eligible
to participate in the department’s direct grant programs
administered by states, local governments, higher education institutions,
hospitals and other nonprofit organizations, and to retain their
religious identity, including the display of icons, symbols, and
selection of board members on a religious basis.
- The Department of Justice (DOJ) proposed rules would also clarify
that religious organizations can receive DOJ grants while retaining
their religious identity, displaying icons and symbols and selecting
board members on a religious basis. DOJ would change its asset
forfeiture policy under which the government gives forfeited assets
of $50,000 or less in value to community groups for social services,
to allow religious groups that receive such property to limit
the use of the property to non-religious purposes for a period
of 5 years instead of the current permanent limitation on the
property’s use.
- The Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) rules would
open homeless services to religious organizations, and remove
a prohibition against employing based on religion. Religious organizations
receiving VA funds would no longer be required to certify that
they will exert “no religious influence” on clients.
- An Executive Order issued on December 12, 2002, establishes
Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Department
of Agriculture and the Agency for International Development, directing
them to undertake an audit of existing faith-based and community
efforts in their programs.
- All federal executive departments and agencies have been instructed
by Executive Order to designate an agency employee to serve as
the liaison and to cooperate with the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives.
- In January, President Bush announced a 3-year, $600 million
federal addiction treatment initiative that would enable eligible
individuals to use federal alcohol and drug abuse vouchers to
obtain help at all effective treatment organizations, including
faith-based and community-based organizations. A Whitehouse fact
sheet, Providing Help to Heal Americans Struggling with Addiction,
makes the following statement:
For many Americans seeking treatment, the transforming power
of faith will now be available to heal those suffering from alcohol
and drug abuse. This new program will serve as a model for states
in administering other Department of Health and Human Services
alcohol and drug abuse grant funding permissible under proposed
Charitable Choice regulations.
- The Department of Health and Human Services recently awarded
$7 million in grants to 15 faith-based groups who support abstinence
education. One of the grants, for nearly $500,000, went to A Woman’s
Concern, a group of faith-based health centers with the motto
“Encouraging healthy choices and life-affirming relationships.”
Bush is proposing an increase from $70 to $135 million for abstinence
education in his current budget proposals. The fiscal year 2003
appropriations bill provides new funding directly to abstinence
education programs through individual ‘earmarks’.
Thirty-one programs received $3.15 million this way, including
a $700,000 grant (the largest earmark in the appropriations bill)
to a faith-based abstinence education program, the Silver Ring
Thing. See the Policy Updates at the Sexuality Information and
Education Council of the United States (SIECUS): www.siecus.org/policy/Pupdates.
For more information, see www.whitehouse.gov:
Executive Order: Equal Protection of the Laws for Faith-based
and Community Organizations and Executive Order: Responsibilities
of the Department of Agriculture and the Agency for International
Development with Respect to Faith-based and Community Initiatives.
Among pending legislation that would further the goals of the Faith-Based
Initiatives:
- The House version of the Workforce Investment Act reauthorization
bill (H.R. 1261), supported by President Bush, includes a provision
that allows faith-based organizations to receive WIA federal funds
even if the organization hires its employees based on religious
affiliation. Democrats attempted to restore civil rights protections
to the bill but Republicans barred their amendments from consideration
in a floor vote. The Senate version does not contain this provision.
The administration is also proposing rules to implement these
changes.
- The House passed a Head Start re-authorization bill (H.R. 2210),
supported by President Bush, in June that critics say would remove
current civil rights protections, allowing religious organizations
involved in Head Start to discriminate in hiring based on religious
grounds. A Senate version of the bill has passed out of the Senate
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and does not contain
this provision, leaving the outcome uncertain pending the compromise
language that will be worked out between the Senate and House.
- The House version of the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG)
reauthorization (H.R. 3030) fails to clarify the activities that
would fall under civil rights protection, thereby enabling organizations
funded under the block grant to conduct inherently religious activities
using CSBG funds, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
For more information, see www.aclu.org;
www.ombwatch.org;
www.nea.org, and
www.au.org.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State provides the
following analysis of President Bush’s faith-based initiatives:
- The actions taken by Bush violate the constitutional separation
of church and state, forcing taxpayers to fund religious institutions.
Distinguishing between funding of religious groups and funding
explicitly religious activities is not possible, since subsidizing
any activity frees up funds for other more religious activities.
- Allowing faith-based organizations to discriminate on the basis
of religion when hiring means that organizations would be legally
entitled to take government funding and then refuse to hire individuals
who practice any religion different than their own.
- Religious organizations would be free to use government funding
for services and still proselytize, using private funds, to people
seeking assistance. This could place people in need in the position
of submitting to religious coercion or going without basic needs
such as shelter or food.
- Government funding of religious organizations will change the
nature of their work, forcing them to meet government regulations,
and diminishing the voluntary nature of religious service and
contributions.
- Laws have been in place for years that work well to allow religious
organizations to provide social services and obtain government
funding under strict safeguards that protect the religious liberties
of those receiving assistance.
See www.au.org.
Study Questions Effectiveness of Faith-Based Employment
Services And Ability to Draw Line on Proselytizing
A recently released interim report, Faith-Based Social Service
Provision under Charitable Choice: A Study of Implementation in
Three States, is part of a three-year study being conducted
by the Center for Urban Policy and the Environment at Indiana University
at Purdue. The study looks at social service provision by faith-based
organizations under the Charitable Choice law of the Personal Responsibility
and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996, and
provides timely information given the current push toward religious
funding by President Bush. Implementation of charitable choice provisions
in three states, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Indiana were
evaluated over three years to:
- Document the methods by which states work with faith-based
organizations
- Compare outcomes between faith-based and secular providers
- Analyze contracting and monitoring of faith-based organizations
- Investigate accountability and adherence to First Amendment
boundaries, and
- Study the effects of government contracts on organizations
Among the report’s preliminary findings:
- States do not appear to have the resources to monitor providers
for complying with constitutional safeguards separating church
and state. Many if not most of the “strongly faith-influenced”
(SFI) providers lack the constitutional knowledge and competence
to assure constitutionally appropriate program implementation.
- Sixty-seven percent of respondents to a study survey did not
know that tax dollars cannot pay for religious activities like
prayer and bible study.
- Faith-based and secular providers had the same rates of placement
into jobs, but clients of faith-based providers obtained jobs
with fewer hours per week and were less likely to be offered health
insurance. Clients of faith-based programs were placed into full-time
employment at a rate of 31%, compared to 53% for secular job-training
programs.
- Relatively few new faith-based providers in the states studied
responded to new opportunities for government funding through
the Charitable Choice provisions. In Indiana, significant resources
were committed to actively recruit religious organizations, but
only six new providers began contracting with the state during
the study period.
The study is available at www.urbancenter.iupui.edu/pubpages/char_choice.htm.
Lawsuit Settlement Could Bolster Other Legal Challenges
to Religious Discrimination in Employment
An employment protections lawsuit, recently settled in Georgia,
could serve to discourage discrimination among religious organizations
that receive federal funds and could also diminish the interest
in pursuing government funding among religious organizations that
want to maintain practices of discriminating in hiring.
The case, Bellmore v. United Methodist Children's Home and
Department of Human Resources of Georgia, was filed when the
United Methodist Children’s Home in Decatur, Georgia fired
a counselor despite superior performance reviews when it was learned
that she was lesbian. Also joining the lawsuit was an applicant
whose interview was abruptly ended when it was learned that he was
Jewish. The home received 40% of its budget from the State of Georgia.
Under the settlement, the state agreed that no child welfare agencies
with which it contracts would discriminate in employment based on
religion or gender. The children’s home agreed to conform
to the state policy and is restricted from discouraging staff, volunteers
or clients from their personal views on sexual orientation.
For more information, see www.lambdalegal.org,
where the home’s practices of requiring youth to attend Methodist
services and Sunday school each week, regardless of their faith
or wishes, and of training staff to withhold appropriate supportive
services to gay and lesbian youth, and to send them to psychological
intervention therapy, in line with the Home’s anti-gay religious
beliefs, are described.
Prison Ministries Gaining Ground and Funding
An evangelical program created by Charles Colson’s Prison
Fellowship Ministries (PFM), the Innerchange Freedom Initiative
(IFI) is gaining ground in several states. President Bush has directed
Attorney General John Ashcroft to pursue the establishment of the
program in federal prisons. The program recruits prison inmates
who agree to convert to Christianity and provides them with services
and benefits not available to the general prison population. The
program is funded by a variety of sources that include state government
contracts, phone usage fees charged to the general prison population,
and prison canteen profits. Colson is a former Nixon aide convicted
for his role in Watergate who converted to Evangelical Christianity
while in prison. In an interview with PBS, Mr. Colson stated, “There
is a great danger in the prisons, and I have seen this first-hand,
of radical Islam taking a real hold. People in prisons are very
alienated from society, very angry, most of them. If they can get
a Christian influence, where we’re taught to love the Lord
with all our heart and mind and soul, to love our neighbor as ourself,
I think that’s a great thing.”
Benefits afforded prisoners who participate in the IFI program
include:
- At a time when state-run programs in prison are experiencing
severe cutbacks, IFI services are expanding. IFI “membership”
benefits include GED preparation, substance abuse treatment, vocational
programs and more spacious living arrangements with greater freedom
of movement. For the general population in Kansas, the GED program
was cut in half, substance-abuse treatment was eliminated and
vocational programs are almost non-existent.
- Work release privileges in Kansas are almost exclusively available
to IFI graduates.
- In Kansas, inmates who complete the program are attracted to
the prospect of better chances of positive outcomes with the Parole
Board. The IFI Program Manager says that, “We have a
very positive relationship with the board. Sometimes they just
give our inmates a green light and say, ‘See you at work
release.’
- In Iowa, inmates who participate in IFI have private toilets,
are not locked down at night and have use of computers that are
unavailable to the general prison population.
- IFI members have more frequent and sociable visitation privileges
with their families than does the general prison population.
- IFI members wear a necklace with a “What Would Jesus
Do?” card that identifies them as members and entitles them
to the program’s special privileges.
IFI is attempting to include treatment for sex-offenders among
its services, getting exemptions for offenders from aversion therapy
and other established counseling processes, in order to cure offenders
through prayer and conversion. According to an IFI manager, “We
already offer GED, substance-abuse, and pre-release programs. If
we get sex-offender treatment, we’ll have the whole ball of
wax for the state at a bargain-basement price.”
The first such prison ministry program was started in Texas by
then-Governor George W. Bush. President Bush has supported expanding
the program to include additional states, and has directed the Attorney
General to investigate the possibility of introducing the program
in federal prisons.
In a related development, Wisconsin legislators have backed a proposal
to sell a $5.8 million women’s prison being built in Milwaukee
to a group of three organizations, two of which are churches. The
newly-formed group, the Opportunities Redevelopment Corporation
(ORC), is a for-profit business. Under the plan, the state would
spend about $450,000 more to rent the prison back from the buyers
than if it paid off its construction debt and kept ownership of
the building. In return, ORC would get state contracts to provide
inmate services such as substance abuse counseling, job training
and life skills. State Senator Bob Welch, a Republican supporter
of the proposal, expects the prison would offer voluntary faith-based
services as well. The Associated Press quotes Senator Welch as saying,
“The faith-based industry is still in its infancy. It’s
things like this that will help kick-start it.”
For a report on the IFI program in Kansas, see the November/December
issue of Mother Jones, available only in part on-line at www.motherjones.com.
A report on the Texas-based IFI program is available at www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week640.
A lawsuit challenging the Iowa IFI program has been filed by the
Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AUSCS v.
Warden Terry Mapes, Prison Fellowship Ministries, InnerChange Freedom
Initiative, et. al. U.S. District Court, Southern District of Iowa,
2/12/03)
The Prison Fellowship Ministry website is informative and includes
a link to the IFI website: www.pfm.org.
For a particularly alarming description of one IFI member’s
experience, see the March/April 2003 Newsletter, page 6. The newsletter
portrays the prisoner’s ‘conversion’ from homosexuality,
using explicit language, such as “…the power of
God’s Word has cut away the filthy garments of what was once
a desired homosexual lifestyle,” and “Satan had trapped
[him] in a homosexual lifestyle for more than 15 years.”
An article at http://slate.msn.com
describes a study from University of Pennsylvania’s Center
for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society (at www.sas.upenn.edu/crrucs),
The InnerChange Freedom Initiative: A Preliminary Evaluation
of a Faith-Based Prison Program, that found that inmates who
complete a two-year rehabilitation program immersed in bible study
and Christian worship had a better chance of staying out of jail,
once released, than members of the general prison population. The
study was promoted by IFI and President Bush in a variety of mediums.
In fact, when selection bias was controlled for, IFI members had
very similar but slightly higher rates of rearrests, and higher
rates (24% v. 20%) of reimprisonment than did a control group. This
in spite of the fact that IFI members received many services not
available to the control group.
Texas Experience with Bush Faith-Based Initiatives
Precursor to National Trend
(This report was originally summarized for an earlier Policy Briefing.)
A report from the Texas Freedom Network describes the consequences
of President Bush’s faith-based initiatives on services to
the poor in the state. Texas was subject to a strikingly similar
and aggressive implementation of the Faith-Based Initiative which
then-Governor Bush launched once welfare reform passed in 1996.
As president, Bush has pursued the Texas model on a federal level,
making the experience in Texas pertinent nationally. With both initiatives,
Bush has sought to deregulate faith-based providers and increase
funding available to them. The report points to several consequences
of these actions in Texas:
- Faith-based deregulation was rapid and widespread, with organizations
that had been cited as not complying with state health and safety
regulations becoming representatives on a Bush-appointed task
force that made recommendations regarding the implementation of
the initiative. Teen Challenge, a religious chemical dependency
program, had its director appointed to the task force in spite
of having received an inspection that resulted in a 49-page list
of instances of noncompliance with the state’s health and
safety codes the previous year.
- The legislature established an “Alternative Accreditation”
program that allowed faith-based child-care centers and residential
children’s homes to attain exemption from state licensing
by instead being monitored and “alternatively accredited”
by a non-governmental entity, such as a group of pastors. The
state then approved only one entity for this purpose, the Texas
Association of Christian Child-Care Agencies (TACCCA). TACCCA
proceeded to:
- Accredit the Roloff Homes first, a faith-based home for troubled
teens with a history of child abuse allegations, that had previously
been barred by the U.S. Supreme Court from operating in Texas
without a state license.
- Accredit eight agencies, three of which were run by pastors
who served on the TACCCA board.
- Accredit facilities that had a rate of confirmed abuse and neglect
that was 25 times that of state-licensed facilities.
- Alternative Accreditation sheltered faith-based organizations
from state oversight but left the children in their care unprotected.
In early 2001, the Texas legislature dismantled the program.
- Regulatory changes such as changes to contract and proposal
language, establishment of faith-based liaisons, targeted outreach
efforts and set-asides for faith-based providers resulted in preferential
treatment of faith-based providers in government contracting opportunities.
- Nothing in the language of the initiative provides a safeguard
to prevent faith-based programs from co-mingling taxpayer funds
with church funds or from spending government funds on overtly
religious activities.
- Clients were being court-ordered into unlicensed faith-based
chemical dependency programs without being aware that the provider
was not subject to state health and safety regulations.
The report, The Texas Faith-Based Initiative at Five Years:
Warning Signs as President Bush Expands Texas-Style Program to National
Level, is available from the Texas Freedom Network at www.tfn.org.
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