Feature Article: Dust-bowl days, United States debt crisis
Robert Waldrop - Oklahoma City CW <bwald...@cox.net>

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/161550

This week’s deal to lift the US debt ceiling includes a raft of
austerity measures for a country where some families are already so
poor they must rely on free food supplied by voluntary groups. Here
the founder of a Catholic Worker house describes their work in an area
of stark inequalities

It is the best of times and the worst of times in Oklahoma City. Our
perception of how we are doing depends on where we are in the great
economic scheme of things. If you are in the oil business, you are
riding high. Driven by the strong prices for energy, Oklahoma’s oil
sector is spending money lavishly, most notably on the new 50-floor
skyscraper headquarters of Devon Energy in downtown Oklahoma City. The
city is investing nearly $750 million over the next few years in its
central core.

But this is a tale of two cities. Just a dozen blocks from the glamour
of bio-engineering research institutes, I tried to get a health
department inspector to condemn a rented house which had no heat, no
electricity, no running water, no hot water, and in which the sewer
was clogged. The tenant is a disabled man whose neighbours allow him
to use their bathroom. The inspector called the landlord, but two
months later there was still no hot water and the sewer was still
blocked.

Meanwhile, the Devon Energy tower will generate significant increased
property taxes for Oklahoma City. By agreement with the city, instead
of those funds going to the regular purposes of property taxation,
which include the support of schools, libraries, and the public health
system, all the increased revenue for the next 20 years, amounting to
about $115m, is to be used for projects in the downtown area.

Devon Energy loaned Oklahoma City the entire 20-year property tax
amount in order to fund the “decoration” of downtown with new
streetscapes and amenities. The loan will be paid back – at 5 per cent
interest – with the property taxes paid by the corporation. Besides
that $115m investment, another $25m in city general obligation bonds
is being used for this work. One cent of the city’s sales tax will
fund a tram system limited to the downtown area, a new convention
centre, the creation of rowing amenities on the river and a park. The
total cost is in the neighbourhood of $600m.

The Crosstown Freeway is a $500m project that destroyed one low-income
neighbourhood close to downtown and about one third of a second,
similar neighbourhood; the first was predominantly African American,
the latter mostly Hispanic. That road project is funded by the state
and federal governments. So the actual total of tax funds pouring into
the downtown area, from local, state and federal governments, is at
least $1.25bn.

Outside these wealthy areas, it is not hard to find signs and symptoms
of urban decay and squalor, as the poor get poorer. The Oscar Romero
Catholic Worker community walks in solidarity with the low-income
families of our city. We deliver free food to poor households referred
to us by other agencies or who call our helpline. A typical delivery
will include frozen chicken, tinned and frozen vegetables, milk and
fruit juice and dry foods, such as spaghetti and rice. Last month we
made 355 deliveries to 801 people – 530 adults and 271 children. Half
the adults were elderly or disabled.

These are among the poorest of the poor. Some are struggling through
this summer – the hottest since record-keeping began in the 1880s –
without air conditioning. It is hotter and drier in July 2011 in
Oklahoma City than it was during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s.

In the low-income neighbourhoods austerity is the word of the day. Our
state legislature cut income taxes by a quarter of 1 per cent,
primarily a benefit for the wealthy, and slashed education and social
services to pay for it. For example, they eliminated funding for the
classes supporting the general education diploma programme, which
allowed adults who did not get a high school diploma to earn its
equivalent by passing a standard exam. Classes were typically at night
since the people taking them were mostly the working poor. Curiously,
the legislature found money to fund a variety of tax credits and other
corporate welfare programmes but could not find the relatively small
sum to pay for this important programme for the working poor.

Twenty per cent of the state of Oklahoma’s children live in families
that struggle with hunger. One third of these have members who are
elderly or disabled and nearly half have at least one working member.
More people are enrolled in the primary government food support
programme known as “food stamps” than at any other time in its
history. Eligibility for food stamps depends on total household income
compared to total household expenses, with the size of the family
factored in. Recipients are given a plastic card with which to buy
food in shops that are exempt from sales tax. A single mother with one
child who is homeless (or paying no rent and utility bills) and has no
income would be eligible to receive $367 in food-stamp benefits. In
spite of this programme more than half the adults in food insecure
households report skipping meals or reducing portion sizes so their
children will have enough to eat.

Meanwhile, in Oklahoma City, I’m looking at the list of deliveries
with some dismay, and put a message on our helpline saying that we
have taken all the requests for help that we can deliver this month.
Fortunately, the supply of food seems to be holding up thus far. Our
food comes from the Regional Food Bank, a private charity which does
great work supporting food security programmes throughout the state of
Oklahoma. We nearly always have enough volunteers, but our margin is
not lavish. Since there is a lot of manual labour involved with moving
and sacking tons of food for individual delivery, we rejoice when
carloads of strong young people show up – boy scouts, girl scouts,
students in parish confirmation classes, young adults. Everyone is
welcome but there is a special place in heaven for young people who
help with ministries like this.

The drought is a catastrophe for our farmers and ranchers. The
Oklahoma wheat crop this year was half of what it should have been.
Because of the drought, livestock feed costs are soaring, with
increases upwards of 60 per cent this summer. Livestock owners are
selling off their mother cowherds, which is an economic catastrophe
for the family and the community economy.

In a conventional supermarket supply chain, farmers receive only about
10 per cent of the cost of the food, so with this in mind our Catholic
Worker community helped start the first food co-op in the US that
sells food produced by local farmers. This ensures that the farmer
receives 80 per cent of the food dollar. The co-op works like an
online farmers’ market with each farm having its own brand. Every
month farmers come to a central point with their produce and
volunteers divide up customer orders for our 45 pickup sites.

All this voluntary effort to relieve hardship has been continuing
while politicians in Washington agree to yet more spending cuts that
will hurt the poorest in our society. Things are not so different from
the time when the Catholic Worker movement was founded in 1933 by
Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in the New York slums and the depths of
the Great Depression. The charism of practical solidarity and
peacemaking that they bequeathed remains strong and true. We cannot
know what the future will bring in detail, but we can know that our
path to that future is founded on faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, and to its practical realisation in daily works of justice,
peace and mercy.

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The Oklahoma City Catholic Worker
http://www.justpeace.org/okccwindex.htm