First Posted: 3/23/2015
Thomas J. Lucente Jr.’s column from March (“Earn that Welfare with a Drug Test”) is an insult to poor people everywhere.
According to Lucente, the poor are “looters and moochers” and “stealers” who “enjoy the fruits of someone else’s labor.” It is hard to know where to begin to respond to a column that is riddled with so much lack of respect for those who are poor.
Are there individuals who try to take advantage of the system? Of course there are. But they are not the majority. The effort to reduce abuse in poverty programs is reasonable. One must be very careful, however, that those efforts do not become so draconian that the efforts to stamp out all abuse lead to the abuse of those who truly need help.
Perhaps a central concept in any discussion of poverty programs is a sense of human solidarity. Poverty programs do not steal from the rich (Lucente’s words). They rather work on the principle that those who are well off want to come to the aid of their less fortunate neighbors.
The idea is not simply to feed, clothe and house those in need, but to assist them toward the greater independence that the poor themselves desire above all. The poor are confronted with very basic human needs. Those needs are an abiding challenge to all of us who are aware of them and are in a position to help.
Perhaps what those who are poor need first and foremost is our respectful human presence. That presence will allow those in need to maintain their own personal dignity while at the same time accepting the help they need.
