Why Food Stamps Matter: A Profile of Vernell Livingston

By Rev. Michael Livingston, Director, NCC Poverty Initiative

Vernell Livingston thanks God for getting up every morning “with a portion of good health.” She’s had the blessings of marriage and motherhood and she is in good health, though she is a diabetic, as she lives a life of modest contentment as a senior citizen.

Mrs. Livingston participated in the Food Stamp Challenge that launched the Fighting Poverty With Faith Mobilization last fall responding graciously to our invitation to her to guide congressional legislators on Capitol Hill and religious leaders on a shopping trip on the weekly allotment given to SNAP recipients ($31.50). The coincidence of our last names (we are not related) created a bond between us and she welcomed an opportunity to share more of her story.

The second eldest of 12 siblings, Mrs. Livingston has had a life of hard work for very little compensation. She was picking cotton and tobacco in South Carolina alongside her sharecropping father when she was 12 years old. She never went to college, indeed, she wasn’t able to finish high school so that she could help the family make ends meet and assist her mother with the raising of their large clan.

When her father suffered a stroke, her fate was sealed. She did back breaking work as a day laborer picking cotton and was exposed to toxic chemicals picking tobacco until she was eighteen or nineteen years old. The young Vernell moved north to Washington, DC with an aunt and cared for the aunt’s son for a few years before returning to South Carolina where she married a logger and gave birth to a daughter.

In the following years she worked several extremely low-paying jobs and after returning to Washington DC she spent most of her adult years working as a maid in the hotel industry.

Her last eight years working were as a floor manager for a motel chain. Chronic knee pain led to a full disability and eventually to two knee replacement operations on the same knee. She received disability checks until she began receiving Social Security benefits in 1991. In all her working years she never had an employer supplied pension plan and her low wages insured that her Social Security benefits would be meager.

When I asked Mrs. Livingston how much her monthly Social Security checks amounted to, she lowered her head sheepishly, paused, and said, “Reverend Livingston, I get $885 a month.”

I cannot say precisely how she felt, but any and all shame should be the province of a society that has not taken good care of those who have labored long and hard and been denied access to opportunities by familial necessity and the structural inequalities, racial and economic, so prevalent in our society.

Mrs. Livingston, many years a widow now, lives on $885 a month plus what she receives in SNAP benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). Those benefits were cut, without explanation, from about $200 per month at the end of 2011 to $33 a month in January of this year.

Before the cut in SNAP benefits she had an annual income of $13,020; her income in 2012, after the cut, will be just over $11,000. She pays $181 a month in rent in a government subsidized senior housing complex and has a car note. After rent and car expenses, Vernell has about $500 per month for everything else. SNAP is a lifeline. She’s thankful for what she has so far received and worried about the recent cut and the awful possibility that more cuts could be coming.

The NCC’s Poverty Initiative works with other ecumenical and interfaith partners to ensure that programs that are lifelines for vulnerable people like Vernell Livingston. We are working to make certain people like Vernell are not further victimized as a result of the critical budget and tax decisions that will be made in the months to come and especially in the “Lame Duck” session of congress at the end of this year.

Your support for our work, your work really, is essential to the witness of people of faith in the 37 member communions of the National Council of Churches.

I wrote earlier that I was not related to Mrs. Livingston, though we share the same last name. To tell the whole truth, we are related, to each other and to you, through our belonging to the human family. We are all God’s family, make in God’s image, each one of us. I hope you will remember Vernell Livingston in your prayers and in your giving. (Click here to make a contribution to the Poverty Initiative of the NCC.)

Fighting Poverty with Faith is an annual mobilization of faith communities across the United States in common actions against poverty. Co-chaired by the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Catholic Charities, and the National Council of Churches, the mission of Fighting Poverty with Faith is to educate the public and build political will to participate in the goal to cut U.S. poverty in half from 2010-2020.

Click here to sign up for more information and get involved in the Nov. 18-28, 2012 mobilization.

When Heart Turns Rock Solid: The Lives of Three Puerto Rican Brothers On and Off the Streets

Recommended by: Rev. John Mueller, Trinity UMC, Springfield, MA

When Heart Turns Rock Solid: The Lives of Three Puerto Rican Brothers On and Off the Streets, by Timothy Black.

This book is an ethnographic study, and tries to honestly present the stories of the lives of three brothers and their families in Springfield, MA. It is a powerful work.

It was especially interesting to me because it is about life in our church’s city. I have thought about having a book study through the congregation on it, but the language is a little harsh at times. I still may though, because it is an important work.

If you’ve read this book or you want to, comment on our blog to start a discussion, or tweet us @NCCEndPoverty

Former NCC Intern Youngest Delegate to Democratic National Convention

Former NCC Poverty Initiative intern Kevin Bloomfield is a rising sophomore at Ohio State University. He will also be the youngest delegate at the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina.

We were extremely fortunate to have Kevin in our office. No joke, he found the NCC internship opportunity through a mis-clicked link on Wikipedia and thought it looked interesting! Kevin said of the experience, he was “glad for the opportunity to advocate for those in society who have no expensive lobbyists, yet need their voices heard the most.”

Before coming to our office, Kevin worked for offices of state representatives and a Republican congressman. Democrat or Republican, we are proud of Kevin for his continued commitment to public service and civic engagement.

Here’s a short interview with Kevin:

Why is it important to you to be engaged in the election, and what role, in particular, do youth have in the upcoming election?

All elections have consequences. It is important for me to be active in this election because I support the initiatives President Obama has passed through Congress and the policy programs he still hopes to pass in the next four years. Youth should be active in all elections. While I am a Democrat I would love to have youth be active Republicans and Democrats, because only through active political participation will the concerns of young Americans be listened to.

What did you learn while working with the NCC Poverty Initiative that influences the way you look at poverty issues and the way they are playing out in national politics?

I learned that in each statistic lies hundreds, if not thousands, of individual stories. Thinking about SNAP appropriations in dollar terms is very dry and sterile. I learned to think in terms of the untold numbers of real Americans affected by policy decisions and how important it is to assist them in climbing out of poverty.

What is your hope for the NCC and the Faithful Budget interfaith community during this election season?

My hope for the NCC and the Faithful Budget community is for realistic budgetary alternatives to be proposed that tackle America’s fiscal problems while protecting our social safety net and ensuring that the less-fortunate in America are not penalized for the actions of others.

Equal Voice Convening 2012

This July, the National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative staff will get a chance to build community and share ideas with a diverse group of faith, education, human and civil rights, environmental justice, worker justice, and child advocacy leaders from across the United States.

The reason? Together, we desire to sustain a deeper, wider, stronger movement that lifts up the voices of U.S. families so they are heeded in the public arena. 

Too often, in a political system too easily corrupted by big money, a government that is supposed to be “by and for the people” becomes neither. Many of God’s people suffer in an increasingly unequal society where those who Jesus called “the least of these” are the last considered in public policy-making.  What matters most deeply to ordinary people – resources to heal from illness, support for affordable shelter, or access to nourishing food – is cavalierly ignored by too many policymakers.

The purpose of the Equal Voice Network is to change that reality. For many years, the foundation that makes our work possible – The Marguerite Casey Foundation – has listened to the constituents of its grantee organizations in town hall meetings and online forums. Now, we will use the information and our collective resources to create the deep changes our country needs.

In July, we will put our heads together with others to figure out how. Among the groups we will meet are: Progressive Technology Project, Greater Birmingham Ministries, Federation of Child Care Centers of Alabama, Bay Area Equal Voice Caucus, Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, SouthWest Organizing Project, Isaiah Institute, Diné Citizens Against Ruining our Environment, Mississippi Workers Center for Human Rights, Leadership Center for the Common Good, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Arkansas Public Policy Panel, Equal Voice Network – Southern California, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, Labor Community Strategy Center, United Congress of Community and Religious Organizations, Statewide Organizing for Community eMpowerment, Citizens for a Better Greenville, Florida New Majority, Florida Immigrant Coalition, Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, Arizona Center for Empowerment, Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo IndÍgena Oaxaqueño, Georgia Strategic Alliance for New Directions and Unified Policies (STAND-UP), One Voice Louisiana, Equal Voice Network – Rio Grande Valley, Parent Voices, Action Now, Environmental Health Coalition, La Unión del Pueblo Entero, Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE).

We look forward to sharing live updates from the gathering in Los Angeles in July.