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June
01, 2004
Fact
Sheet: America's Compassion in Action
Today's
Presidential Action
Today,
President Bush addressed the first White House National Conference on Faith-Based
and Community Initiatives, in Washington, D.C. In his remarks, he recognized
faith-based and community organizations for their compassionate efforts
to help Americans most in need. Twelve regional conferences have been held
at locations across the country leading up to this national conference.
The President
signed an Executive Order today creating additional Centers for Faith-Based
and Community Initiatives in three Federal agencies -- the Department of
Commerce, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Small Business Administration.
These three new Centers will have the same responsibilities as the other
seven Centers the President has created -- in the Departments of Education,
Labor (DOL), Justice, Health and Human Services (HHS), Housing and Urban
Development (HUD), and Agriculture, and in the Agency for International
Development (USAID) -- which all assist grassroots organizations in navigating
the Federal funding process.
The President
also highlighted new regulatory reforms that continue to deliver on his
promise to end discrimination against faith-based and community charities
and enable them to compete on a level playing field for Federal social
service funds. The reforms will occur within the Department of Education,
the Department of Veterans Affairs, HUD, and USAID, and will positively
affect social service providers and Native American programs.
Highlights
of the President's Faith-Based and Community Initiative
The
Federal government does not fund religion -- instead, the President's Faith-Based
and Community Initiative enables some of America's most effective social
service providers to compete fairly for Federal funding to make a difference
in the lives of our most vulnerable citizens without diluting the providers'
religious identity. Through food banks, health centers, job training programs,
drug treatment centers, and other efforts, these charities are meeting
immediate and long-term needs.
Expanding
Opportunities -- The
Initiative has successfully tapped into the capacity of faith-based and
community organizations to deliver social service programs. For example,
from FY 2002 to FY 2003, HUD and HHS saw an increase of $144 million in
competitive, non-formula grants to faith-based organizations (to over $1
billion total from those two agencies). During that same period, funds
to first-time, faith-based grant recipients doubled at HUD to $113 million.
Building
Bipartisan Support -- The President's Faith-Based and Community Initiative
has received the support of a bipartisan group of governors, mayors, and
Members of Congress. In the first three years of the Initiative, the President
proposed new programs to harness the resources and experience of faith-based
and community organizations, and Congress responded with funding for each
one of them: Compassion Capital Fund (3 years of funding, totaling $112
million); the Access to Recovery drug treatment initiative ($100 million
in its first year); the Mentoring Children of Prisoners initiative (2 years
of funding, totaling $60 million). In his 2005 Budget, the President has
proposed a four-year, $300 million Prisoner Re-entry Initiative to reduce
recidivism and the societal costs of re-incarceration. The House and Senate
both passed versions of the Charity Aid, Recovery, and Empowerment (CARE)
Act with overwhelming bipartisan margins; the President continues to urge
Congress to take final action on the CARE Act, which would create tax incentives
for individual and corporate charitable giving. Finally, at the State and
local levels, 20 governors (10 Democrats and 10 Republicans) and over 100
mayors now have offices or liaisons for faith-based and community organizations.
Ending
Discrimination Against Faith-Based Organizations -- As a result of
the President's leadership, "equal treatment" principles have been enacted
to end discrimination against faith-based organizations in the Federal
grants process. Discriminatory Federal regulations were reformed, and regulations
protecting the religious integrity of faith-based organizations and the
religious freedom of beneficiaries have been put into place. Other policy
changes have removed barriers to faith-based organizations. For example,
when President Bush took office, programs at FEMA and at the Department
of the Interior excluded certain faith-based applicants, but with the Administration's
changes, the Seattle Hebrew Academy received disaster assistance, and Old
North Church in Boston, Massachusetts, and Tuoro Synagogue in Newport,
Rhode Island, received historic preservation funds under the Save America's
Treasures program.
Compassion
in Action
Faith-based
and community groups assist people in need, transforming lives with their
compassion. Unfortunately, the Federal government has often been a hindrance
to the work of these faith-based and community organizations. As a result
of the President's leadership, significant progress has been made towards
bringing more faith-based and community organizations into the Federal
grants process, and the results are being seen in communities across America,
including:
Long
Beach, California, at Food Finders, Inc. -- This community-based food
bank serves as a conduit, providing over 41,138 daily meals to the hungry
in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. The food bank received a Compassion
Capital Fund sub-award of $40,000 in FY 2003 through Father Joe's Villages,
a faith-based intermediary organization. The funds were used to purchase
a refrigerated truck in order to increase Food Finders' capacity to deliver
more food. In the first 12 months after the purchase of the van, the food
bank expects to be able to deliver an additional two million pounds of
food, which will provide 3 meals a day for more than 3,900 hungry people.
Perth
Amboy, New Jersey, at Jewish Renaissance Medical Center -- In 2002,
this Center became one of the first faith-based Community Health Centers
to receive Federal funds when it was awarded a two-year, $1.7 million grant
from HHS to expand its Center and increase its care for the uninsured and
underserved. This grant is helping the Center quadruple the number of patients
it serves each year, from 5,000 to 20,000.
Charleston,
West Virginia, at Hope Community Development Corporation -- With a
$350,000 grant from DOL, this faith-based organization is expanding its
"Work4WV Career Center Initiative," which provides job training services
to unemployed and underemployed adults in Charleston. As of February 2004,
together with its sub-grantees, Hope has served 404 people, including 69
ex-offenders.
Albuquerque,
New Mexico, at Jewish Family Service -- This faith-based organization
is the lead partner with Catholic Charities of Central New Mexico on the
Stone Soup Collaborative, funded through the Compassion Capital Fund. Jewish
Family Service is receiving more than $150,000 over three years to work
with synagogues across the state to help them recruit, encourage, train,
and organize a strong volunteer base and also develop and expand services
and programs for their surrounding communities.
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