Faith in Action: Prison Policy Reform Now!

Faith in Action:  PRISON POLICY REFORM NOW!

This is it!!  Come Sunday, February 9, at 12:15pm, to hear directly from area leaders about prison-related policy reform efforts now underway in Massachusetts.  This is an essential social justice issue, and UU churches across the Commonwealth are involved!

Who will be coming this week to help us understand this issue?

• EPOCA (Ex-Prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement)

EPOCA’s mission:  Working together to create resources and opportunities for those who have paid their debt to society. 

• North First Parish Social Action Committee on Prison Reform: find out why other UU churches are involved and what they are doing to help.

Other up-coming opportunities to get involved with this effort:

• Saturday, February 8, 10:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. First Parish Unitarian Universalist of Arlington

Taking Action to End Mass Incarceration:  An Organizing Workshop

630 Massachusetts Avenue, Arlington, MA  (Arlington Center)

This workshop will help you build practical skills for bringing your congregation and community into the Jobs Not Jails Campaign and the broader movement against mass incarceration.  Jobs Not Jails is a statewide coalition that intends to stop the proposed spending of $2 billion of taxpayer money to build new prison cells and redirect those funds to our communities.  We are collecting signatures on petitions and planning a rally on the Boston Common on April 26.  The suggested donation for lunch will be $10, but don’t stay away if that is a difficulty.  Parking is across Massachusetts Avenue in municipal lots.  This event is sponsored by UU Mass Action and the Mass Incarceration Working Group of First Parish Arlington.

 Please pre-register by emailing end-mass-incarceration@firstparish.info. 

•  Contact Kate O’Dell to ride-share. (508 792 9661 or odellkk@gmail.com

AND:

• April 26, 2014 State House Rally:  JOBS NOT JAILS

Jobs NOT Jails is the newest EPOCA campaign. If current criminal justice policies are not changed dramatically, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will spend $2 billion to build 10,000 new prison units by 2020. Our state has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world - on par with French Guiana and Belarus. There are so few resources, and so many barriers to successful re-entry, that most prisoners released from DYS, county jails, and prison are incarcerated again within 3 years – at a recidivism rate over 60%.  In addition to destroying lives, families, and neighborhoods, prison expansion is crowding out funding for every state service that serves to lift people up. EPOCA is working to effect policy to transition tax dollars to community building, by providing jobs and training as a concrete alternative to poverty, hopelessness and crime.

EPOCA and its allies are building a grassroots groundswell against more prison spending and for reforms that will make such spending unnecessary.   Actions for change include: (1) freezing prison construction, (2) passing wide-ranging criminal justice reforms, (3) re-directing savings into a jobs program targeting low-income, high-crime neighborhoods.  The rally in April is an opportunity to present a Jobs Not Jails petition of 50,000 signatures. 

Interfaith Hospitality Network News

Volunteers and money needed (again)!

We have our second week of 2014 at IHN on February 16-23 (the next scheduled one is in October).  So I am again making an appeal for help with this family shelter on June St.  I hate to ask again for financial support for the week, but it is needed with the shift from our congregation providing food and all supplies for the week to providing a cash donation for the families to do their own shopping, planning, cooking and cleaning.  I am also looking for volunteers for the dinner hours ( 5:30 to 7:30) and for the overnights, 7:30 pm to 8:30 am.  The sign up sheet is on the bulletin board about IHN on the wall in the dining room near the handicapped bathroom.  If you could sign up and let me know what you would like to do, that would help me plan.

Thanks to so many of you for helping last month at IHN.  I thought it went very smoothly!  A particular thanks and welcome to Suzanne Doiron-Schivaone and to Jennifer Daly, who came for the first time as dinner hosts.  Pat Curtis gets kudos for coming at 5 and staying over two nights!  Jean McInerney did a longer dinner shift to accommodate Kris Johnson's schedule for the overnight; thank you!  Walter Cunningham, Elizabeth Mullaney and Kris rounded out our overnights. 

There were a number of generous donations from the congregation which allowed us to give sufficient money for food and supplies.  Pat Arbuckle and Madeline Silva kindly bought diapers for the many bottoms at the program that needed them.

We are scheduled for another week coming in February:  2/16-2/23/14, which is the school vacation week.  Please consider helping by volunteering or by donating.  There are 8 adults and 10 children in the program; the director figures it takes about $250 a week to provide food and supplies for the families.  I know I just tapped many of you for donations...thank you for your kindness.  I hope, if you are able to, that you will consider helping out again.

Liz Gustavson
gustavsonliz@hotmail.com

Interfaith Hospitality Network of Greater Worcester

from the home front

February 3, 2014

Working hard for your money…

IHN is sheltering 6 families, 8 adults and 10 children. Of the 6 families, 4 are steadily employed. One adult is studying for their GED. Most of the children spend the day in school or daycare. And in the evenings time is spent looking for housing. The challenge is there remains a lack of affordable housing. With an on average 2-bedroom rental in Worcester County being $966/month, even with added assistance such as food stamps, it is extremely difficult, even for employed families, to find adequate housing.

·        As of January 9, 2014, there were approximately 4,200 families with children and pregnant women in Massachusetts’ Emergency Assistance (EA) shelter programs. 2,096 of these families with children are being sheltered in motels. This number does not count those families who are doubled up, living in unsafe conditions, or sleeping in their cars-- or many of the 5,400 families who will time out of the state's HomeBASE rental assistance program during fiscal year 2014.*

·        The poverty threshold in Massachusetts is $23,021 for a family of four.*

·        There are an estimated 738,514 people in Massachusetts living in households that fall below the poverty threshold**.

·        The federal initiative to increase the minimum wage from $8/hour to $10.10/hour would yield $21,008 gross annual income for a 40 hour/week employee.

  * Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development

** U.S. Census Bureau’s September 2012 American Community Survey report

Area students lend a helping hand

This semester, students from 3 area colleges/universities will be assisting IHN. A community leadership class from Worcester State University will provide hosting support two days a week. Assumption College will be assisting IHN with network communication support. And WPI students will be doing special projects… painting, minor repairs, spring cleaning, etc.  Thanks for the support!

A fiscally responsible network

Q2 of the IHN fiscal year ended in the black by $2,800. Please keep up your donations and congregation’s pledge support. IHN’s Fall Thanksgiving Appeal netted over $7,500 in donations. Thank you!

ihnworcester@verizon.net I www.ihnworcester.org

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