Last night I was talking to my daughter who's taking a speech class and I was bemoaning that I had to go last and that everybody is going to be ready for lunch and kind of antsy, I hear feel a little movement out there. She's so she said that what I needed to do to capture your attention and she described four or five different ways for speech teacher said to start speeches. She said that one way and what she thought would be appropriate now is to shock shock the audience. So that made sense at 11:30 last night. So what I like to do now is an ounce and I'm changing my topic. Seriously instead of addressing the issue of financial hardship. I want to talk about violence. Why violence? I think it was very well stated by Mahatma Gandhi the poverty is the worst form of violence. Don't worry Marge whenever Holly went I really am going to talk about. Financial hardship, but I want to focus our attention not simply on all of these numbers. But I'm information is presented as it affects people. The financial hardship and the other problems discussed are indeed violence and represent real suffering of our friends and Neighbors. Through hunger now nutrition homelessness unaffordable health care substandard and dangerous housing and even the humiliation that one feels using food stamps at the local grocery store. We need to try to keep thinking of the data in terms of real people. Some of them are in the room right now and how we need to turn this problem these problem statements and do shared action statements making a commitment as a community to adequately provide for all of our citizens. The rhetoric aside. How did we just how did the partnership Define financial hardship? We looked at several different components of that the general lack of funds for basic material needs lack of food for daily nourishment lack of short-term emergency shelter lack of clothing lack of basic Furniture lack of basic utilities the high cost for daily living lack of advocacy and Public Information Services. The first the partnership as you've been hearing collected data and four different ways. The first way was through the household survey. 67% of the households surveyed felt that over the phone felt that financial hardship was a major area of need 16% or 6/6 thousand households had experienced financial hardship in the last year ranking. That is the number to area of need and prevalence. People 7% of those surveyed were currently in need relating to financial hardship over 2,700 households as you look at the non telephone household. I think you're looking at what have traditionally been considered. Look the lowest income households in the community those without phones that this was the perception was the financial hardship was the greatest problem. 93% of those households perceive this as being the greatest problem 64% indicated that they had face this problem during the past year and I think the reason is lowest income group is seeing this far more than any other problem is of major importance stems from the fact that they are the discouraged workers a doctor Anderson talked about they aren't looking for work. They're looking to survive to have a place to sleep to have something to eat to be able to feed their children. a general lack of several specific financial hardship problems that were experiencing can't seem to come up again and again Are those households who have experienced financial hardship? When do the survey the general lack of funds for basic material needs basically food shelter clothing and Healthcare work was seen as the number one problem 57% of those responding indicated. That was a problem. The second area high cost for daily living over 2,000 households are 34% said the things are just too expensive. We're not making it a lot of these people are working their working and low-wage minimum benefit jobs, and it's just very difficult and they're represented across the statistics and all these other problem areas near of financial hardship several reasons for not being helped were presented by people who were by people who are being surveyed if the respondent solve the problem. specific eligibility restrictions a lack of information about services specific reasons for not getting help again eligibility restrictions a lack of information about services agencies did not provide requested help. or no service currently exist and The the more you talk to providers in the community, the more you realize that there are many many people who do the eligibility restrictions are not eligible for existing Income Maintenance programs that are really targeted to alleviate financial hardship as you've already heard that we've been looking at problems at the partnership looked at problems with spite interviewing key informants in the community. 35% of key informants responded that financial hardship is a very important Community problem and ranked at number 4th. I would add that only has only 29% are those responding indicated that the problem is not being addressed and you turn that around which I think we can fairly safely do that. 71% of key informants felt that the problem was being dealt with adequately and I think this is the biggest difference in the data that came up in the survey that key informants who we would assume our decision-makers policymakers people that have some control over resources to address some problems. We're in large part feeling that the problem is being dealt with adequately and of course in the interviews with people who were in need that is clearly not the case. Pure formance saw that Finance financial hardship did result from some of the same basic reasons. In fact exactly the same two were ranked 1 and 2 in this area General lack of funds for basic material needs the high cost for daily living. Set the special groups were primarily the same low-income homeless. I'm and underemployed and the elderly the barriers were generally the same as we're already described lack of resources class of services lack of information and eligibility restrictions. So there was I think a pretty clear understanding from Key informants of what kind of problems what were some of the reasons that those problems existed. Subway, we looked at financial hardship was to again do surveys of service providers and the data that resulted from those surveys for 1987 is presented here. You can see some of the rather large service statistics that are resulting from existing service providers subsistence funds is basically cash grants that came from organizations like Lutheran Social Services through the sharing Fund in the Salvation Army 14600 households received subsistence system small cash grants. Emergency shelter primarily through the women's Coalition Chums emergency shelter women's transitional housing Salvation Army transitional housing somebody. I know I'm missing indicated about 1,500 clients last in 1987 received assistance of food a very Large number of individuals received assistance over 37,000. Of course, there's some duplication in those numbers, but nevertheless it really shows the number served and the most significant area where provider said the clients were waiting for services. So, I think it's a pretty good picture of the number of individual clients and households that are receiving assistance to help alleviate financial hardship at this time. the fourth way the partnership collected data was Information regarding problems with through existing data this chart outlines some data that has been generated from a variety of the census and the Statistical Abstract of the United States. I think I'm going to talk mostly about the per capita personal income. If you look at the Luth the state and National statistics in 1980. You see that the numbers are all within about 2% Duluth is about 2% low lower than national average. The state is about 2% higher. But if you go to the 1987 for Duluth and then 86 in and for the state and National you see the Duluth it at $10,084 is only 69% of the national at 14641 while our state per capita personal income stayed about 2% again above the national statistic just under $15,000. The number show Anna and again Duluth data is a year closer to now a year later. So there's some adjustments for inflation that aren't even factored into that is showing that there is indeed some significant need some we we slipped dramatically in this. Of time compared to where the state and Nation have have gone. I think it's important to look at our own changes in respect to what's happening in the rest of the country. Another area of existing data relates to households receiving various forms of Public Assistance. This this graph shows the percent of households participating in public assistance several major public assistance programs in 1987. as a percentage of the population in all the areas St. Louis sell in St. Louis County has significantly greater percentage of the population participating in these programs for food stamps. One out of every 10 household is receiving food stamps the General assistance data indicates that there are twice as many people in St. Louis County as a percentage of the population that are receiving general assistance and work Readiness benefits then have a state has an average. What does a little been in perspective though? I think it's important to remember. That although there are at least the large number of households are receiving assistance that assistance is still at a very low level poverty level for a family of 3 is 6 is $807 a month or $9,690 a year a family of 3 on afdc and I don't have the exact number is about $550 or sixty six to 70% of poverty level. A general assist person receiving general assistance benefits receives $203 a month. Poverty level for a single person household is $5,770 or $481 a month. So a person receiving general assistance benefits only receives 42% of the poverty level of the poverty level is an indicator by the government under which people who earn less than the poverty level are in extreme financial hardship and you can see that public assistance benefits. Do not even bring a person up to that level of income. It's not on this chart. Minimum wage is underemployed individual part-time individuals fit into the same category. And there they are also facing financial hardship because a few if you earn a minimum wage, you got a year-round full-time basis. That's just under $7,000 a year and for family of 3, that's only 72% of the poverty level. So if you're working full-time trying to support your family, you still are well under the level of being able to financially survive the next chart. Really? I think graphically portrays what dr. Anderson mentioned this morning and it's showing it and giving us only 3 benchmarks to make it a little simpler represent a dietary 1 1984 1987 as you can see the unemployment line Rose dramatically from 7.3% to 10.3% 1984 the peak for unemployment. I think was actually a little earlier in 83 and then drive back down to 6.7% 1987. Over this. Of time over the six-year period of time unemployment has dropped six tenths of 1% a decrease of about 600 individuals being listed as unemployed. at the same time we have a very same trend line. I guess you'd call it for public assistance, but one that hasn't been affected so dramatically by much-publicized improvements in the economy public assistance case load described here or 8300 in 1981. Went up to a high of 11736 and 1984. And I've only come back down to 10510 so between 1981 and 1987 caseloads for these Income Maintenance programs of increased by 25% Over 2,100 households are now receiving these benefits. It didn't in 1981. Business indicator says things are going great guns unemployment is down and yet we have an increasing number of vulnerable people who need significant amount of public support to be able to survive. thinking conclusion that in a lot of people's minds poverty has grown to crisis proportions in Duluth. We have we as individuals have responded to the crisis by significantly increasing contributions about time and money to dress the problem. But these activities can only address of fraction of the need and a significant effort effort is still needed to address the problems outlined. It's ironic that I am just data like this and that what's been presented to you all morning that the central question before the legislature is not how we can alleviate poverty. But how we can cut 85 million dollars out of an already meager Health and Human Services budget that was proposed by the governor in Oregon Grant increase property tax relief. I would argue that this is a basic Injustice. That having giving people homes food decent places to live and opportunities for gainful employment are more important to us as a community than property tax relief. I can conclude that the safety net. I can conclude that the safety net is failed for many individual families that there are simply inadequate resources to address the problem and that this is the reason that homelessness is increasing so quickly for children and families and for many individuals. What do we do to address the real problems of financial hardship of an affordable healthcare of inadequate housing and lack of employment opportunities? We need to be able to start talking about possible Community responses. I'm talking to my daughter. She said and way to end your speech she gave me all these ideas. She said a quote was pretty good. And I thought it is in the space provided by the college and kind of in the Benedictine tradition of value-based education and service. I thought of a certainly someone of the Catholic faith that I looked have looked to as an inspiration Dorothy Day the founder of the Catholic Worker movement. She said a whole lot of things some of which I wouldn't say. No, but the one thing that she said, I thought was appropriate to lead us into questions. And the rest of the afternoon was that no one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do. Thank you.