Compelling witness
This new initiative, housed at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, seems like the kind of witness the Catholic Church should be highlighting. Via Catholic News Service:
BELMONT, N.C. (CNS) — Belmont Abbey College broke ground June 20 on a campus pregnancy and aftercare maternity home called Room at the Inn.
The project’s organizers say the center is the first college-based maternity center in the nation.
The 10,000-square-foot maternity home will be located on four acres donated by the Benedictine monks at Belmont Abbey. The facility is adjacent to Belmont Abbey monastery and the campus of Belmont Abbey College.
Room at the Inn, an initiative of a nonprofit maternity and aftercare center of the same name based in Charlotte, will have two residential wings, one for maternity and one for aftercare, and will be able to house up to 15 mothers, 15 infants and eight toddlers for free for up to two years. Each mother will have a private bedroom and bathroom and share the kitchen, dining room and laundry room with other residents. Administrative and counseling offices and quarters for residential managers also will be on site.
Staff and volunteers at Room at the Inn in Charlotte have long dreamed of a place where college-age pregnant women could find shelter for themselves and their children while finishing their studies.
Participants don’t have to be Catholic or Christian or students at Belmont Abbey College to be accepted. They are required to be in school, adhere to a curfew, submit goal sheets and take classes in life skills, parenting, cooking, meal planning, financial planning and nondenominational Bible study, among others. In exchange, they receive free room and board and counseling and supplies they need for their babies, such as car seats, clothes and furniture.
Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life put it well, I think, when he said the center should be a model for the rest of the country. “Every Catholic campus, every parish, every Catholic school, needs to be the place of first resort. When a young woman or a man feels that a new baby in their life is throwing everything out of control, they need to see that the church is the anchor, the place they can go to find help for themselves and their child.”
But I think one of the most important points was left for the walkaway line:
William Thierfelder, president of Belmont Abbey College, said he hoped the home would help students understand what it means to put their faith into action.
“The students who live on this campus will get to see the reality, get to see that there are options,” he said.
They will also get to see that the church puts its time, talent and treasure where its mouth is, and the impact on those who see such programs can be as important as what such ministries do for the women and children who live at the Inn.
Such ministries are where the squabbling Church can come together.
While I am dismayed by the number of young women who keep their babies rather than give them up for adoption, I realize my opinion is swimming against a pretty strong trend. The home for young women and children seems to me like a very practical and helpful idea.
I teach at a college where a very high number of older female students who are single mothers. Despite talent and ability, many don’t make it through their programs b/c they put the kids first (as they should), and assignments and attendance fall by the way. Many are getting little to no help from family or their children’s fathers.
Getting an education that will help these women pull down salaries sufficient for providing for themselves and purchasing good day care for their kids strikes me as essential. Moreover, living with other women in the same boat would be extremely helpful.
Now.
What are we going to do to help young single fathers man up and participate in the care and support of their children? How do we help the mothers’ and their families welcome the participation of the fathers so the dads don’t get discouraged?
“What are we going to do to help young single fathers man up and participate in the care and support of their children?” (Jean Raber)
We can begin by doing what Jean Raber has done–by telling these guys in so many words to “man up,” and by continuing to confront them and our entire society with the same truth.
I am not quite sure why those in the pro-life movement, who tend to be very conservative politically, wouldn’t see something like this as a form of “welfare,” which “fosters a culture of dependency” and gives women who were doing what they shouldn’t have been the reward of a free ride. If you want free room and board for your last two years of college, just get pregnant.
If the government were to offer a program such as this, how many pro-lifers would support it?
David N., our conservative friends can weigh in here, but my guess is that they’d go for it because a) it’s faith-based so probably places some restrictions on the girls who live in the shelter, which would foster a “culture of dependency” less than a public program with no moral strings attached, and b) it’s privately funded. My guess is that conservatives would also see the benefits of educating these girls so they can support themselves rather than becoming lifelong feeders at the public trough.
As a liberal, I think these types of private programs are fine and dandy, and I also support whatever will help these girls get educated, not only to keep them off the dole, but to keep the kids out of poverty.
Stephen, many of my women friends have daughters who got pregnant. They provided wonderful help to their daughters and grandchildren, but they were very resentful of the babies’ fathers and did their best to shut these boys out of their lives–and, subsequently, the babies’ lives. They set up a protective ring around the mother and child, and made the relationship with the father quite adversarial.
I understand their feelings, but, honestly, if we want these boys to wake up and die right, we have to nurture their feelings not just as payers of child support but as real fathers.
My parish church ran a program like this, although it wasn’t quite as large. The capacity of the house was smaller (4 acres where I live would probably value somewhere in the 10s of millions of dollars). You have to start somewhere, there is no doubt, but what we encountered is simply that even with support and the best of intentions, it’s difficult to maintain anything approximating a reasonable living situation with only one income, and often a rather low one at that. The maximum term of a stay was extended over and over again because of the lack of affordable housing and daycare alternatives. This is in a different part of the country so it might have a better chance (we required enrollment in school or vocational training as well as parenting classes, so it was a very similar approach). I would concur with Jean about adoption, except that I would be even more hard headed and state that what is really needed are programs that prevent pregnancy in the first place. Many of these girls will never give up a baby and I would feel very hard pressed to coerce them to do so.
If the government tried to do this, they would certainly turn it into a huge, inefficient, chaotic mess which benefited primarily government employees, provided only minimal and erratic support to the women and children, and established perverse mechanisms which would induce them to remain indefinitely. (In order to keep providing support for the government employees.)
But I agree it is an excellent program, and replication highly desirable. An advantage small religious colleges have is that many are situated in relatively low cost areas. Whatever the circumstances of the family, it cannot be doubted that every healthy twenty-year-old who gives birth to and raises any healthy child is providing an enormous benefit to society.
Adoption seems like an eminently reasonable solution for middle-aged people reading a blog over morning coffee. But it is much more difficult for a woman who has just given birth to a child she has been carrying for nine months. Rationality can only occasionally overcome instinct. Anybody who has ever stood at the edge of a bridge with a bungee cord tied to his back and argued rationally to himself that it is perfectly safe to jump knows this. For most women, giving up a child must be infinitely harder than bungee jumping.
Felapton, would it be too much to ask that you give the benefit of the doubt that Jean and I might have a very good idea of how hard it would be to give up a child for adoption? Indeed, we are both mothers, after all.
What I would add is that even these programs offer mostly in-kind support and usually rely on government benefits (food stamps, Medicaid, WIC). There is virtually no way that a private program could duplicate Medicaid, in particular, or provide the kind of cash assistance necessary to meet the needs of an infant (without, for instance, getting stuff like free diapers from a manufacturer). In other words, key as they are, these programs are almost never self-contained.
I don’t know whether this organization has any connection with the other Room at the Inn in the Carolinas, but as you can see here, they’ve gone far out of their way to collect local sponsors.
http://roominn.org/donate/donors.asp
Not everyone is happily rushing to the government trough.
Like Barbara, I support whatever gets these girls not pregnant in the first place–abstinence is always desirable–and coercing women to give up babies went out with forced sterilization and lobotomies.
But the Church says all children are entitled to an intact, two-parent family–one of the reasons it eschews gay adoption, after all, something I’m sure our conservative friends agree with–and I think that’s something pregnant girls need to think about, handled sensitively and with love and real concern.
Gee, even some middle aged women who’ve been through giving up a child themselves might be useful here!
And as I speculated, among all those partners and donors a significant number of government agencies:
Beaufort County School District
City of Greensboro Dept. of Housing & Community Development
Guilford County Child Development
Guilford County Dept. of Health
Guilford County Dept. of Social Services
NC Dept. of Health and Human Services
NC Emergency Shelter Grant Program
NC Housing Coalition- Carolina Homeless Information Network
NC State Extension Cooperative
NCSU/NC A & T State University Cooperative Extension
UNCG/NC A & T State University Joint Social Work Program
Forsyth County Child Development
Guilford County Child Development
Guilford County Dept. of Health
Randolph County Child Development
Rockingham County Child Development
South Carolina Dept. of Social Services
There are hundreds of “other” private organizations listed in addition to those that are listed first as (most likely), the most significant (which includes most of the state based organizations). I tried to look through the website to see what I could about the number of people served, but that isn’t really set forth. There are 7 primary programs, serving perhaps, at most 500-1000 clients and children (in the aggregate). Look at the long list of donors and ask yourself what kind of commitment it would take to replicate that effort for everyone who needs the same kind of assistance.
I think it is terrific when Catholic institutions dedicate their underutilized property to helping people in need. Here in the Bronx, the Ursuline Sisters just opened a very ambitious residence for low-income seniors (Serviam Residence). Fordham University has had another senior residence for years on a corner of their property (Rose Hill Apartments). I just bought a share in a CSA farm owned by the Sisters of Charity (Sisters Hill Farm); part of the harvest goes to soup kitchens and other programs in the area. I’m sure there are lots of similar projects in my community that I don’t even know about.
We need to celebrate and call attention to all of these wonderful projects more often.
“If the government tried to do this, they would certainly turn it into a huge, inefficient, chaotic mess which benefited primarily government employees, provided only minimal and erratic support to the women and children, and established perverse mechanisms which would induce them to remain indefinitely. (In order to keep providing support for the government employees.)”
This is (a bit) off topic, but I can’t let this go by without comment. The above is simply not true. It’s a right wing meme. Some government operations are efficient, some are not. The same is true of the private sector. (The American health care system is an example of a wildly inefficient private operation).
But you also have your meme wrong. If you are going to use it, you have to remember that the reason that private enterprise is supposed to be more efficient is that it is fueled by the profit motive. The idea is that more efficiency equals more profits. The service under discussion isn’t, as far as I can see, a profit making operation.
Irene, I recently picked up a copy of Catholic Extension from the reading rack after Mass. Lots of great programs listed in there. I think the best programs arise from real needs in a community that concerned people help with. There is a residential hospice in a nearby community run by a woman affiliated with the Congregational Church. They have received donations from other religious institutions, private donations, and some government money. They are ready to open another residence soon.
Unagidon, of course we’ve heard that “government is good at creating only inefficient bureaucracies” again and again using anecdotes from Great Society programs that have been dropped.
Don’t let Felapton wind you up with his/her blanket statements designed to create more heat than light.
@U, “efficiency if profit motive” does not mean “efficiency only if profit motive.”
@Barbara, I did not mean to imply that you do not appreciate the difficulty of surrendering a child for adoption. I only meant that in any large number of women who give birth out of wedlock, it is unreasonable to expect that more than a small fraction will ever voluntarily choose adoption. You are exactly right that any attempt to compel them to do so would be undesirable, even inhumane.
“. . . I would be even more hard headed and state that what is really needed are programs that prevent pregnancy in the first place.”
Barbara the Fearless is at it again– saying something that needs saying but which is so unpopular that others would not dare to say it.
We all know that this means changing the mores, but teaching girls to just say No doesn’t work very well. Jean is also right — the guys have to be part of this too. So, how?
On a broader tack, there are lots of wonderful ministry programs and good stoties like these are part of the living Church you and I experience.
A special HT to Irene for mentioning the Ursulines in the Bronx who soldier on wondrfully despite a lot of graying.
The recent copy of Fordham alumni mag told of a mentoring program for poor young girls in the Bronx that struck me as quite good.
But…
There’s a flip side to this.
Today’s NYT has the besutiful and deeply sad story of the closing of St. Matin of Tours school in the Bronx.
Of course, recently, we’ve seen lots of press on the closing of Rice HS in Harlem and talk of deep pressures for Cardinal Hayes HS and the Jesuit school at St. Aloysius in Harlem.
Today’s article cites the Archdiocese”s education spokesman saying (IMO like a true beaurocrat) “We’ll have to have a governace reorganizationa and business plan…”
At the close of the June events of CTSA, CAA, and UUSCCB, the gulf in the church was seen to be growing.
It’s not just liberals/consevatives, buta divide between the trenches whereboth righ tand left seek to live the Gospel priorities of service and the policy makers whose priority seems to be curial pleasing as they move to the smaller and poorer (now admittedly even coming though a world of megaparishes) Church.
How this dissonance will effect the Church going forward, if that’s the right word, is to my mind, a truly big question.
Subsidiarity lives!
Hey Bob- What’s I forgot to mention in my earlier comment is that these Bronx projects,just like the Belmont Abbey residence, are all on the campuses of Catholic schools. The Ursuline senior residence is on the grounds of the Academy of Mt Saint Ursula, the pick up for my CSA is at the College of Mt St Vincent and the Rose Hill Apts are at Fordham University. I think there is something especially valuable about all of these projects which, as David highlighted in his post, show young Catholics l our faith in action in really wonderful ways.
Insight related to the points Jean and Barbara make can be found by listening to veteran workers from a pro-life crisis pregnancy center (mothers themselves). While strictly respectful of confidentiality, they can describe the complex, fluctuating variety of thoughts, feelings, convictions, and uncertainties often found simultaneously in an individual faced with an unplanned pregnancy and inadequate family/societal support. It is a whole-life problem, which is why the Belmont Abbey effort appears so impressive to me and promising.
Avoiding repeat clients is an important part of crisis pregnancy center support. Abstinence is obviously irrelevant at the time (except as it arises in explaining to a few where babies come from). More important, it has limited persuasive value for the future for one who already has an established sexual life, resumable within months. Catholic prohibitions on contraception exclude many options. The proper approach consistent with Church teachings is perfectly clear. How this may be viewed for clients who are non-Catholic is likely to become an issue in time as abortion counseling has recently come to be in Maryland and New York.
Rational cost-benefit analysis is important to the organization though of little influence on individual clients. If it worked, they wouldn’t be there. Profit is not a motive, but avoiding loss is essential to service survival. Therefore, skillful exploitation of the array of local, state, commercial, and charitable individuals and organizations in the area is essential and is done. Here is where an associated source of management wisdom and support may be important. If every parish is to be the place of first resort (Fr. Pavone), significant backup help may be needed. Does the co-location that Irene B. mentions imply support or is it purely symbolic?
One observation I was offered was that adoption often seems more acceptable (not desirable) to relatively mature pregnant women than to younger ones. Significance, if any, TBD.
“@U, “efficiency if profit motive” does not mean “efficiency only if profit motive.””
Then there is no intrinsic reason why government enterprises can’t be as efficient as private sector enterprises.
I see no intrinsic reason either. But it remains a fact that government enterprises are usually less efficient than private ones, for reasons that are not completely understood.
I think the reason is obvious: Motivation. Government enterprises do it because they have to, private enterprises do it because they want to.
“One observation I was offered was that adoption often seems more acceptable (not desirable) to relatively mature pregnant women than to younger ones. Significance, if any, TBD.”
Jack, that was my sense, too, based on my casual connection with a center near here. Younger, less well educated women are the ones who are less likely to adopt out their children. There might be a variety of reasons for that.
I wonder if you can speak to this question: Some prospective adoptive parents will pick up the cost of prenatal care as well as hospitalization and post-natal care for the birth mothers. Does this in any way affect women’s decisions about whether to adopt or keep their babies?
I’m sorry the conversation has turned into a conversation about the merits of faith-based vs. government assistance for women in need. Even bad Catholics like me can celebrate the motivation of those in the Church who provide these programs as well as the spiritual dimension they undoubtedly offer.
OTOH, the fact remains that these programs cannot pick up the tab for everything. The staff at the center in my area are very good at helping women quickly plug into a variety of programs–WIC, Medicare–without which many would not get good prenatal care or well-baby attention.
Jean R. -
After consulting with the 15-year PC expert in the next room, who has seen the above:
If a pregnancy center client shows inclination toward adoption, the local center makes arrangements to connect her with a local adoption agency (e.g., Catholic Charities, private) and does a face-to-face handover. Legal and background-checking requirements call for special staff and expertise. Apparently many complexities can arise then, including the ones you mention.
Medical expenses are covered by personal insurance for a small fraction, who pick their own doctor. Others are connected up with the county or city health department, which provides or arranges for care, insurance coverage, food stamps, etc. if necessary. If undocumented immigrants were ever to show up, they would present special problems in terms of eligibility for services. Your words on “helping women quickly plug in”, women otherwise without help through their pregnancies, are a very good descriptor of what those noble folk do with extraordinary care and dedication.
Jean (6/26 6:35):
Governments can’t pick up the tab for everything, either, unless the goal is to create permanent dependency.
Jean (6/26 6:35):
Identity, community: I am a mother; this is my child.
Felapton: ““efficiency if profit motive” does not mean “efficiency only if profit motive.””
Unagidon: “Then there is no intrinsic reason why government enterprises can’t be as efficient as private sector enterprises.”
Felapton: “I see no intrinsic reason either. But it remains a fact that government enterprises are usually less efficient than private ones, for reasons that are not completely understood.”
Mark Proska: “I think the reason is obvious: Motivation. Government enterprises do it because they have to, private enterprises do it because they want to.?”
Jim P weighs in: In my opinion, politics is a great distorter of efficiency. This distortion can happen in many ways, for example:
* The head of an agency might be chosen for political reasons (he was a major campaign donor; or he is politically acceptable to both parties in the legislative branch that must approve his appointment) rather than because he is the most competent candidate; and other senior positions in the agency may also be political appointments. Being a political appointment doesn’t guarantee inefficiency, but arguably it increases the risk of inefficiency.
* The funding of government agencies is usually dependent on a political process, i.e. a budget bill. This means that the agency’s funding may be grossly inconsistent with its mission – it may be underfunded, in which case it can’t do, or do adequately, what it is supposed to do; or in some cases it might even be overfunded (cf Pentagon weapons programs) which leads to unnecessary and even frivolous expenditures.
* I am told by career government workers that rules and regulations surrounding employee promotions, terminations and the like are disincentives to efficiency. Seniority is prized over ability; and disciplining and terminating employees can be very difficult. I admit I’m not sure that this is properly a *political* factor, but (I’m told) it is a contributor to government inefficiency.
Sorry, I forgot to add: I expect that someone could point out that politics doesn’t only happen in government; some of the factors I pointed out as being politically distorted – management appointees and budgeting – are subject to corporate-politics distortion in the private sector as well. In case anyone was thinking of pointing that out – I agree. So perhaps it is the scope or intensity of politics in the government world that makes it less efficient than politics in the corporate world.
Or perhaps, in a competitive marketplace, there is a sort of cancelling-out-of-political-inefficiency at work. One of my mentor’s longstanding mottoes is, ‘never underestimate the incompetence of our competitors’. Suppose supplier A and supplier B both make three different products – widgets, doodads and gewgaws – that compete with one another. A’s political incompetence may cause it to produce suboptimal widgets and doodads, but very good gewgaws. In B’s case, political incompetence causes it to go to market with superior widgets but substandard doodads and gewgaws. As a consumer, I will buy B’s widgets and A’s gewgaws, and continue to pine for someone to get the doodad right – creating an entrepreneurial opportunity for some new market entrant C.
Jim, et al.: Whatever inefficiency results from government “distortions” is usually found in the non-profit sector as well, which also lacks a profit motive. And, indeed, the provision of social services such as those described here, are profitable only when a for-profit provider receives funding from a government or non-profit source. And then, the requirement for auditing and evaluation to make sure money is being spent appropriately on top of whatever the for-profit is doing more or less adds up to the same kinds of inefficiencies in delivery.
You don’t make money from providing social services. You are dealing with a class of people who will always be net recipients and not net payers of money. This effort is typical of most social services and government programs, which are provided through a mix of public employees and private organizations.
“Governments can’t pick up the tab for everything, either, unless the goal is to create permanent dependency.”
Indeed, and this is a very old argument that has been raging since the Great Society–do you “reward” the unwed mother by providing health care and subsidies, or “punish” her children by withholding them. That’s the way the argument was framed in the “olden days,” and I think many of us liberals have come to realize that too much welfare is a bad thing. Certainly seems to me that voluntary, faith-based programs like this hit a balance.
States have some say in how these benefits are allotted. I believe in New Hampshire or Vermont the state offered a “Cadillac” program to unwed mothers for the first baby–medical care, subsidized housing, intensive career and parenting mentoring, day care, and an allotment for school. But the state made it clear it would not pay for a second unplanned pregnancy. It seemed to be quite successful, though it was entirely state-run.
I don’t want to go all it-takes-a-village here, but I certainly DO feel that I have an interest in every baby that is born, and that it is in all our interests to give them the best chance at a healthy, productive life.
“Identity, community: I am a mother; this is my child.”
Not exactly sure what the point is here. My sense is that older women MIGHT be more apt to give up their babies for adoption because they are more mature and have a better sense of whether they can successfully raise a child. Perhaps they can put their own feelings aside to do what they feel is best for the baby–provide a two-parent family. Perhaps they don’t want to encumber themselves or don’t feel called to be a parent. Perhaps they were rape victimes. Perhaps they don’t want a long-term relationship with the child’s father (because a mature person would understand that the baby’s father will be part of her life for at least the next 18 years, with or without benefit of marriage).
I’m not advocating that women be coerced or otherwise pressured to give up their babies for adoption, and I think I’ve made that clear. I think having some information that might help women decide what’s best for themselves and their children would be good.
OK, enough. I’m speechifying.
Back in the Jurassic period, I was working in administration at a Catholic hospital when I was tasked with being the hospital’s representative on the archdiocesan health care committee.
When the cardinal met with us I urged him to adopt just the kind of ministry now being implemented by Belmont Abbey centered in the Catholic health care facilities of the archdiocese. In response, I was treated to a lecture on church politics, priorities, pastoral practice and finances.
This kind of health care ministry like the one at Belmont Abbey to pregnant, we have to assume mostly single and poor, women is critical if the church is ever to get beyond just saying “NO” to birth control and all abortions.
All Catholic families, especially affluent ones with just one or two children, need also to be brought into the adoption discussion in a very aggressive way if we are really going to offer viable outcomes to single pregnant women.
The key to solving this problem is recognition of the paramount issue: the long term (over years, even decades) of care needed to raise and educate healthy children.
How I wish that bishops were more focused with their energies on this kind of problem rather than hiring phalanxes of lawyers and pubic relations firms to fend off allegations of sexual abuse by priests!
Of course, the most effective anti-abortion program out there, bar none, is the PREVENTION of unwanted pregnancies.
Let’s us Catholics park our theological and political ideology outside the debate and adopt effective strategies which help women at risk, and are consistent with our traditions to stand with the poor and alienated among us.
As my sainted sixth-grade teacher, Sister Mary Adelaide, always reminded us: Mary was an unwed pregnant mother.
Jean (6/27 11:52 pm) :
That seems ill advised. Punish the child to force the mother’s compliance. Can’t imagine any church program doing that. One more reason to keep government out of parent and child welfare as much as possible: government programs are always written and enforced by politicians and bureaucrats – no moral underpinning – the only motives for action are monetary and organizational – keep the welfare population down and follow the laws to the letter.
Ann O. – “We all know that this means changing the mores, but teaching girls to just say No doesn’t work very well. Jean is also right — the guys have to be part of this too. So, how?”
Say what you want about Humanae Vitae, but Paul VI presciently prognosticated some of the social dynamics that the widespread of availability of contraception would foment. Chief among them was the decreasing sense of consequence any male would feel over sexual acts–put simply, it’s no longer his responsibility what happens after intercourse.
This development has been exacerbated by forty years of abortion rights activists insisting that the central consideration of the legality of abortion is the right to individual privacy. Pregnancy was re-cast as (solely) an individual woman’s experience, and men were tossed to the sideline. In his book, Bearing Right, WashPost/Slate columnist Will Saletan amply documents the strategy sessions held in NOW/NARAL offices in the 80s when the movement feared that the Moral Majority might rescind Roe, and what resulted was a brilliant political strategy (focus exclusively on individual rights… after all, Americans love nothing so much as the concept of individual rights) with an unintended social consequence… men were cut out of the equation.
Among the greatest instances of political/cultural cognitive dissonances existing in America today is the fact that fathers are expected to pay child support but possess no rights with respect to the decision to terminate a pregnancy. To be clear: I’m not suggesting that men bear equal responsibility for pregnancy (not by a long shot), but so long as the following dynamics perdure: 1) a detachment of the sexual act from relationship/commitment; 2) a detachment of the sexual act from physiological consequences; and 3) a steadfast insistence that decisions re: pregnancy are solely the custody of an individual woman, it will be exceedingly difficult to tell young adult males to, “Man up.”
“Jim, et al.: Whatever inefficiency results from government “distortions” is usually found in the non-profit sector as well, which also lacks a profit motive.”
My own view is that it is political, rather than government, distortions that make government agencies less efficient and effective than not-for-profits. I do agree with you that many/most not-for-profits rely on government funding, as this Belmont Abbey initiative seems to. I suspect the instance under discussion illustrates that not-for-profits do many of these things better than the government would if it did it directly. I argue that one reason for this is that the not-for-profit recipients of government grants are one degree further separated from the political sausage-making than a government agency would be.
Mark Proska is probably right in pointing to another reason: private non-profits are motivated by a sense of mission that seems harder to instill among government workers, at least the non-military.
It may be that non-profits are held to higher standards, too – by themselves, by granters, and by independent ratings agencies. (Not certain this is the case, just speculating).
In Louisville, we have Family Scholar House that helps single parents pursue college degrees:
http://familyscholarhouse.org/
Next door is the Center for Women and Families: http://www.thecenteronline.org/
Much construction is taking place at the Family Scholar House as it expands downtown.
Impressive layout.
Jim, thanks for that link to Family Scholar House. I took advantage of the handy PayPal donation button at the bottom of the page and did my bit for communitarianism today.
I’m sure the good Catholics here who want government out of the family and child welfare biz will want to hurry on over there to top the sadly small donation this bad Catholic liberal can afford (been awhile since the last pay day).
Let liberal and conservative dollars mingle in a good cause.
Oops, sorry, that’s Joseph’s link.
Jean: it is a false assumption on the part of “the church” and anyone else of more mortal enfleshment that gay adoption does not involve two parents. My parish has quite a few 2-parent same-sex families that have adopted children.
Does the church disallow single-parent adoption if said parent is certifiably and orthodoxly heterosexual?