<DOC>
[107th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:77709.wais]
EFFECTIVE FAITH-BASED TREATMENT PROGRAMS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
DRUG POLICY AND HUMAN RESOURCES
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 23, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-48
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
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77-709 WASHINGTON : 2002
_____________________________________________________________________________
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah ------ ------
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
JOHN L. MICA, Florida, BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
BOB BARR, Georgia DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida JIM TURNER, Texas
DOUG OSE, California THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia ------ ------
DAVE WELDON, Florida
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Chris Donesa, Staff Director
Sharon Pinkerton, Counsel
Conn Carroll, Clerk
Denise Wilson, Minority Professional Staff Member
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 23, 2001..................................... 1
Statement of:
Castellani, John, executive director, Teen Challenge
International; Ron Frederick, graduate, Teen Challenge
International; Pastor Roosevelt Sanders, Mission Baptist
Church, Indianapolis, IN; Sara Trollinger, president and
founder, House of Hope, Orlando, FL; and Reverend Horace
Smith, Group Ministries Baltimore, Inc., Baltimore, MD..... 10
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Castellani, John, executive director, Teen Challenge
International, prepared statement of....................... 12
Sanders, Pastor Roosevelt, Mission Baptist Church,
Indianapolis, IN, prepared statement of.................... 17
Smith, Reverend Horace, Group Ministries Baltimore, Inc.,
Baltimore, MD, prepared statement of....................... 35
Souder, Hon. Mark E., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Indiana, prepared statement of.................... 3
Trollinger, Sara, president and founder, House of Hope,
Orlando, FL, prepared statement of......................... 23
EFFECTIVE FAITH-BASED TREATMENT PROGRAMS
----------
WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 2001
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and
Human Resources,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:13 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mark E. Souder
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Souder, Cummings, Mr. Davis of
Illinois, Carson, Mica, Weldon, and Gilman.
Staff present: Chris Donesa, staff director; Conn Carroll,
clerk; Tony Haywood, minority counsel; Denise Wilson, minority
professional staff member; Lorran Garrison, minority staff
assistant; and Peter Anthony, intern.
Mr. Souder. The subcommittee will come to order.
We're going to do our opening statements, and then we'll
introduce each of the witnesses.
Good morning, and thank you all for coming.
Today's hearing combines two issues that are critical to
the subcommittee's mission for the 107th Congress: ensuring
Government support for effective programs to reduce the demand
for illegal drugs, and facilitating the inclusion of faith-
based providers in the delivery of social services.
Two weeks ago, President Bush remarked that family schools,
communities, and faith-based organizations shape the character
of young people. They teach children right from wrong, respect
for law, respect for others, and respect for themselves. I
agree. And, as I have stated many times in the past, we cannot
tackle the problems of drug abuse and the concurrent social
problems crime costs our country without an approach that
simultaneously addresses prevention, education, treatment,
enforcement, interdiction, and eradication.
Prevention and treatment programs rightly occupy a
substantial portion of our Federal drug control budget, almost
twice as much as interdiction and international programs. Even
so, our Nation must continue to increase our focus on
education, prevention, and building effective community
coalitions to prevent drug abuse.
The Federal budget for treatment, alone, has grown 35
percent to more than $3 billion since 1996, and prevention and
education funds have grown 52 percent. While we have
dramatically increased spending, many questions relating to
effectiveness of programs and results remain.
The subcommittee this year will undertake a comprehensive
effort to address these issues, and we support President Bush's
efforts to do the same for existing programs in the executive
branch.
One area which has shown promise is faith-based treatment
programs such as those run by Freddie Garcia in Texas, where I
visited several times, and the witnesses who are before us
today. The faith community has achieved results in some ways
which other programs have not, and our goal today is to hear
from them about their approach and what works and why it works.
The President has identified these programs as a priority
and has asked Professor Dejulio to compile a complete inventory
of existing faith-based partnerships for the purpose of
strengthening these efforts by early June. We look forward to
the findings of that inventory.
We have many issues to examine today, and I look forward to
hearing from our witnesses about their experiences with faith-
based programs. We need to know how the unique element of faith
impacts the structure and success of these programs. We need to
know how spirituality works to build self-esteem and self-
confidence in those who are in psychological and psychological
need and doubt.
Substance abuse imposes staggering costs on individuals,
families, businesses, and schools. We in Congress need to
support and encourage programs that work, and we are here today
to do that by learning directly from providers who work with
these issues every day.
From Teen Challenge International we have Executive
Director John Castellani and Ron Frederick, a program graduate;
from the Mission Baptist Church in Indianapolis we have Pastor
Roosevelt Sanders; from the House of Hope in Orlando joining us
is Sara Trollinger, its president and founder; and from Group
Ministries Baltimore, president and CEO Reverend Horace Smith
will testify.
Thank you all for coming and for your commitment to your
communities and neighbors. We look forward to your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Mark E. Souder follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7709.001
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7709.002
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7709.003
Mr. Souder. I now recognize the ranking member, Mr.
Cummings, for an opening statement.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Today the subcommittee begins its second oversight hearing
into faith-based initiatives. The focus of our hearing today is
the effectiveness of faith-based drug treatment programs. I
want to begin by commending Chairman Souder for scheduling
hearings on faith-based initiatives. This is a very serious
issue, and I am pleased that the subcommittee will be devoting
significant time to it.
I agree with many that there is a pressing need for
congressional examination of this issue, and I want to thank
the chairman for beginning the oversight process.
Today we are addressing the issue of whether faith-based
drug treatment programs are more effective than Federal
programs, and whether faith-based drug treatment programs are
less costly than Federal programs.
We do not yet know how effective faith-based organizations
are, in general, and in particular we do not know how effective
faith-based drug treatments are. And, in spite of the fact that
faith-based charitable choice provisions have been in Federal
law since 1996, we have no information on how these programs
work.
With regard to faith-based drug treatment programs, the
General Accounting Office, in a 1998 report entitled, ``Drug
Abuse: Studies Show Treatment, its Effect, but Benefits May Be
Overstated,'' revealed that faith-based strategies have yet to
be rigorously examined by the research community.
Last year the National Institutes of Health and the
National Institute on Drug Abuse, in response to an inquiry
from the National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse
Counselors wrote, ``Although there are a number of studies
emerging that faith or religiosity may serve as a protective
factor against initial drug use, there is not enough research
in the treatment portfolio for NIDA to make any valid
conclusive statements about the role that faith plays in drug
addiction treatment. How can we respond to claims that faith
cures drug abuse in the absence of any real documentation and
research?''
That was just the question I posed to GAO and why last
month I wrote to the agency asking that they study the role and
effectiveness of faith-based organizations in providing
federally funded social services.
If Congress and the President are going to expand the role
of faith-based organizations in fulfilling Federal mandates via
charitable choice, we must have a basis for assessing how these
organizations have performed.
Mr. Chairman, I am well aware of the devastation caused by
drugs and alcohol abuse and addiction, and I am well aware of
the drug treatment services and counseling offered by churches
and other religious organizations. As the son of two ministers,
I recognize the role that faith and spirituality can play in
helping to treat a person suffering from drug addiction;
however, make no mistake about it, drug addiction is an
illness, and as an illness it requires medical and
psychological attention.
Treating drug/alcohol addition and abuse is not about
saving souls; it is about treating a disease. It is not about
using Federal funds to proselytize; it is about providing
trained and licensed addiction counselors, professionals, to
assess an individual's needs and the methods of treatment. It
is not about relaxing State licensing and certification
standards for substance abuse counselors; it is about ensuring
that our poorest and least-served receive the best treatment
available as they struggle to overcome a devastating disease.
In their time of need they deserve and we must demand
accountability in the provision of drug treatment services.
Drug addiction treatment demands quality resources and
effective treatment. It should not be used as a testing ground
for unproven methods or unlicensed professionals. We must never
lose sight of the fact that Federal funding of drug treatment
services is a public service, one available to every person
everywhere. As a result, public health services must never be
placed in the position of competing for Federal funds.
In treating drug addiction, integrity, accountability, and
responsibility must be part of any treatment package. To that
end, I would like to submit for the record a letter sent to
Members of Congress last month by the Association of Addiction
Professionals addressing charitable choice.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, I would like to recognize Reverend
Horace Smith, who has dedicated his life to uplifting the lives
of those who have fallen because of drug addiction. He is a
member of my church, the New Summits Baptist Church in
Baltimore, and he is one who has consistently been on the
battleground trying to address this issue, and doing it very
effectively as the president and CEO of Group Ministries
Baltimore. He is from my congressional District, and I am
pleased that he is with us today.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for being with us. It
is very important that we have your testimony. As I've often
said, we are the ones that have to create the laws so that the
people can best be served, but, in the words of Martin Luther
King, Sr., we cannot lead where we do not go, and we cannot
teach what we do not know. And so we are very, very pleased to
have you and we know that you will contribute tremendously to
our efforts to come up with the best solutions to the problems
that we are attempting to address.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
I now yield to Congressman Davis, a distinguished member of
the committee.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
have just a brief comment in terms of taking the opportunity to
thank you for holding this hearing.
I also want to welcome all of those who have come to
testify. I think the subject that we are dealing with is
probably one of the most important ones that we will discuss
during this Congress, because what we're really trying to do is
rationalize an approach to finding solutions to some of the
major problems that exist in American society, and, while I
have some reservations about some things--as a matter of fact,
the philosopher Schopenhauer probably represents my thinking
about most things, and he said he doubted a little bit of
everything. The only thing that he didn't doubt was the fact
that he doubted.
I think there are some holes and gaps in everything that we
attempt to do and everything that we approach, but I also like
the definition of faith that I've come to accept, and that is
that it is, indeed, the substance of things hoped for and
evidence of those things yet to come. And so there are some
things that we end up just kind of feeling, just kind of
knowing, just kind of seeing.
I'm certainly interested in finding out the experiences of
the witnesses. I have no doubt in my mind about some
effectiveness of faith-based initiatives and programs. As a
matter of fact, I've seen them at work. I've been around faith
all of my life. Everything that I've seen people accomplish
basically has been as a result of a tremendous amount of faith,
and oftentimes those things seemed impossible but they did it
anyway. They made it happen.
I grew up in rural America where people built large
churches, and I often wondered how they could do it with the
low money that they had, but generally they would bring it
together, mix it up, hold on to it, and keep building.
I look forward to the testimony and thank you again, Mr.
Chairman, for holding this hearing.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
We have been joined by Congresswoman Julia Carson, a fellow
Hoosier, long-term legislator from Indianapolis who now
represents the city of Indianapolis, and she'd like to give a
special welcome to a constituent of hers.
Ms. Carson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman Souder, and
certainly to the ranking member, the Honorable Elijah Cummings
and the Hon. Danny Davis from Chicago, and all of those who are
gathered together in one place in one accord, and certainly
that is to understand this whole effort in terms of faith-based
and drug addiction.
We know that the majority of our prisoners across the
country are in prison because of drug addiction, drug activity,
and it is reminiscent of the teachings of Christ that said,
``When I was in prison, did you come?``
It is my pleasure, with a great deal of humility--and I'm
so happy that the chairman allowed me to come and sit up here
with the big boys this morning. I'm not on this committee. But
when you have a distinguished gentleman from my District, I
want to get in the middle of it.
The Honorable Minister Doctor Roosevelt Sanders is a pastor
of the Mount Vernon Missionary Baptist Church, which I'm very
proud to say is located in my congressional District out in
Indianapolis, IN, and he is a young man whose father preceded
him as pastor of that church. His father was one of Dr. Leon
Sullivan's proteges and created the opportunities and the
centers and just did a great work. He emulated the life of
Christ, where he was letting his light so shine by his good
works so that hopefully they are now emulated in Heaven where
his father has preceded him to.
Review Sanders was called to pastor the Mount Vernon
Missionary Baptist Church after his father departed on for
greater things, and that was to sit around the throne. But
Reverend Sanders has been engaged in community work a long
time. He is not confining his message to a Sunday morning
sermon. He is working in the vineyard, and he has been dealing
in a very effective way with those who find themselves addicted
to drugs, and he has successfully, in a very positive way, even
before I heard of faith-based support from the Government,
Reverend Sanders has been working in the vineyard in a very
positive way, assisting people who find themselves confronted
with the devil some oftentimes call ``drugs.''
It is my esteemed pleasure to be able to be here for a
moment with him this morning to welcome him to the Nation's
Capital and know that the Nation's Capital will never be the
same once Dr. Sanders has left his very important message here
before this committee.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman.
Let me close by saying that I had the privilege of visiting
Representative Cummings District and the Johns Hopkins Hospital
before I heard of faith-based, and they have a system there,
treatment on demand, which works its way in a very positive
way, and I just wanted to add those accolades to Congressman
Cummings for allowing us to come and see what does work in
terms of drug addiction.
Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your
letting me sit up here with the big boys and welcome Reverend
Sanders and the other panelists that are here.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Did you lure him back or did you
steal him from Chicago?
Ms. Carson. No comment. That would violate Scripture about
stealing.
Mr. Souder. I thank you all for your statements.
Before proceeding further, I would like to take care of a
couple of procedural matters.
First, I would ask unanimous consent that all Members have
5 legislative days to submit written statements, including the
one that earlier came from Congressman Cummings he wanted to
insert, and questions for the hearing record, and that any
answers to written questions provided by the witnesses also be
included in the record.
Without objection, so ordered.
Second, I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits,
documents, and other materials referred to by Members and the
witnesses may be included in the hearing record, and that all
Members be permitted to revise and extend their remarks.
Without objection, it is so ordered.
As an oversight committee, it is our standard practice to
ask all our witnesses to testify under oath, so if the
witnesses will now rise, raise your right hands, I'll
administer the oath.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Souder. Let the record show that the witnesses have all
answered in the affirmative.
I will now recognize the witnesses for their opening
statements, and I would like to thank all of you again for
being here today. We will ask our witnesses to limit their
opening statements to 5 minutes. We'll include any further
remarks you have and any fuller statements in the record, and
then give you additional time after the questioning.
We start today with Mr. Castellani, and you have an opening
statement.
STATEMENTS OF JOHN CASTELLANI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TEEN
CHALLENGE INTERNATIONAL; RON FREDERICK, GRADUATE, TEEN
CHALLENGE INTERNATIONAL; PASTOR ROOSEVELT SANDERS, MISSION
BAPTIST CHURCH, INDIANAPOLIS, IN; SARA TROLLINGER, PRESIDENT
AND FOUNDER, HOUSE OF HOPE, ORLANDO, FL; AND REVEREND HORACE
SMITH, GROUP MINISTRIES BALTIMORE, INC., BALTIMORE, MD
Mr. Castellani. Congressman Souder and committee, thank you
for the privilege of being here to share in the ministry of
teen challenge and its outreach that has taken place for over
40-plus years. I'd just like to read a few statements that I
have written.
Our mission statement is to provide youth, adults, and
families with an effective and comprehensive faith-based
solution to life-controlling drug and alcohol addiction.
Our history goes back to 1958. Teen Challenge International
began fighting addiction in the gang-infested streets of
Brooklyn, NY, and our founder at that time, who is no longer a
part of Teen Challenge, but the founder at that time was David
Wilkerson. Today, Teen Challenge International has 150 centers
throughout the United States and 185 centers in 65 different
countries around the world.
Our scope--because the present drug epidemic affects all
segments of society, Teen Challenge reaches out to people from
all backgrounds, especially the urban poor, women, and ethnic
minorities. In addition to providing acute care, 1-year
residency program--and, by the way, this is basically--Teen
Challenge is, for the most part, a 1-year residency program for
desperate cases. Teen Challenge also offers a wide range of
outpatient and prevention services.
On Sunday morning we are probably in 150-plus churches on
any given Sunday doing a prevention program in a Sunday School
class, the auditorium, or wherever it may be. And then we also
are in many other schools throughout the week.
Such a holistic approach to treating drug addiction,
educational programs for children, this is another program that
we are developing in the inner cities, specifically, and this
is tutorial programs for after-school children and helping them
with their basic needs in these areas.
Another significant service is aimed at particular needs--
leadership and staff and volunteers. Teen Challenge utilizes a
decentralized approach. Every center is autonomous. That
encourages the treatment and rehabilitation centers to tailor
programs to the needs of their local area.
And I want to add here that we have our own accreditation
system that we use within the ministry of Teen Challenge, and
that is an 80-point system. Some of the States--at least one
State--has adopted our 80 points and allowed us to operate
under their State rulings. Right now we have given our 80-point
structure to the Office of ONDCP, who is looking at it and
critiquing it and seeing how we may fit into various areas of
their thinking, as well.
In support of this approach, Teen Challenge International
provides leadership training. We have support systems within
our system where we not only help them with their drug
addiction, but if an individual comes to us and does not have
their GED or a high school diploma, we work feverishly to get
this accomplished.
I'm happy to report that at the one center that I have been
privileged to be the director of for 13 years in Pennsylvania,
if a person comes to us with a fifth-grade reading level,
within 6 to 8 months we can graduate him with his complete GED,
and right now we have better than a 90 percent graduation ratio
of those who have this need, and we are very grateful for this,
because we feel it is not only good to help an individual
better their life and change their lifestyle, but we need to
better prepare them so they can go forth and make a healthy
living in their field of service.
We also have contact with one particular vo-tech college in
the State of Pennsylvania, Stevens Vo-Tech College in Lancaster
County, where many of our graduates go there for a 2-year
education in vo-tech, and I was privileged to be there just a
couple weeks ago and see three of our students graduate.
We have systems of support and we have a definite financial
accountability. We feel this is very important to running any
ministry, program, or whatever it may be. The majority of
operating funds is raised by the Teen Challenge centers from
churches, community organizations, and businesses, and
individual people in their areas. Thousands of volunteers,
largely from local churches, contribute valuable time and
skills, thus making it possible for Teen Challenge centers to
operate with an extremely low overhead, for which we are
grateful because we are a faith-based program from beginning
until this present day, and probably will always be faith-
based. Wherever funds come from, one must have faith to
initiate the work God has called them to.
I want to thank you for that privilege of being here today,
just sharing what we feel is a good program, along with many
other good programs that are across our Nation helping those in
need.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Castellani follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7709.004
Mr. Souder. We may have this in our system, but if you
could give us the most updated list of where the 150 centers
are in the United States, and also the 185 in the 65 countries,
and also the 80-point system.
Mr. Castellani. I can get that to you. Yes.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Castellani. I don't have it with me----
Mr. Souder. That's fine.
Mr. Castellani [continuing]. But I can get it to you.
Mr. Souder. That's fine. We have a number of days so we can
have it in the record, and also for our files.
Mr. Castellani. Thank you.
Mr. Souder. We are now joined by Ron Frederick, a graduate
from Teen Challenge International.
Mr. Frederick. Well, as you can see, I'm not a teenager.
It's a couple of years off, but that's OK.
I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that I'd ever be
sitting here addressing a subcommittee. I'm extremely honored,
Mr. Chairman and Mr. Cummings and Mr. Davis, to be here, and I
am extremely nervous, so bear with me.
I graduated Teen Challenge in September 1991, and since
then my life has really took--well, it just took off. I was
originally from Brooklyn, NY. That's where my addiction was. I
spent most of my life in Brooklyn on drugs, 25 years of it. The
last 5 I spent homeless, living in the streets of Brooklyn. I
would collect cans and bottles and scrap metal to supply myself
with drugs.
And I had been through many other programs, not to name
them, but I had been through many other programs, short-term
programs, some long-term programs, and none of them seemed to
have any effect.
My family were all raised in church. We were all spiritual.
And I knew in my heart where I needed--what I needed to do, but
I didn't want to go that way because I knew I had to give up
too much. I had nothing to give up, but I just didn't want to
go that route.
One day I went to my sister's house, who was my baby
sister, and I was hungry, and I asked if I could get something
to eat, and she said yes, but I'd have to wait across the
street, so I said, ``Sure, why not.`` So I crossed the street,
and a few minutes later she comes out with a plate of food and
she walks out her gate and sits the plate on the curb, and she
turns around and walks inside. This is my baby sister, whom I
love dearly, and here she is so ashamed of me that she didn't
want anyone to even know that she knew me.
When I walked across the street and the memories that
flooded my mind was overwhelming at the time. All I could think
about was how my life used to be.
But I picked up the food and I began to eat it and I cried
and my tears were basically seasoning the food, and when I
finished I looked around at my sister's house, and she was also
sitting in the window crying, looking at me. That is when I
knew that I needed help. That is when I knew that I needed to
go back to my spiritual roots.
So I entered a program called ``Teen Challenge.'' It has
been almost 10 years now. In September it will be 10 years that
I graduated. Since then, I have lost three members of my
family. Well, I didn't lose them. All of them were saved by the
grace of God, so I know where they are, but they died. All of
them were my running mates in drugs. I lost one last year in
October, one in November, and one in December, and it was
really a hard time to deal with, and I asked God many times why
didn't he take me also, but I guess he has work for me to do.
But since graduating Teen Challenge in 1991, in 1993 I met
a wonderful young lady. Her name was John-Ann, and we were
married in 1994. In 1995 we adopted my son. His name is James.
It is amazing to think of that--that I was able to adopt a
son--I mean, me, a homeless bum from Brooklyn, actually
adopting a child. That blew my mind right there.
And since then I have been promoted to industrial
supervisor at Teen Challenge. I run all the industrial shops,
and it is a challenging job. Teen Challenge has sent me to
school. I attend Reading Area Community College, studying for
my associate's degree in business management. I am also taking
a home study course called ``Berean,'' which is theological
studies. I'm taking that, also.
I don't think that I would have been able to accomplish any
of these things if it had not been for the grace of God, and
for the fact that I did return to my spiritual roots where I
belong.
I am extremely prejudiced toward faith-based ministries. I
know that they work. I am a living testimony as to the proof
that they work. Many of my brothers--two of my brothers behind
me, they also went through Teen Challenge. I have two sisters
that also went through Teen Challenge and one nephew. I was the
beginning, and God not only saved me but he saved the rest of
my family that was strung out on drugs through this program,
Teen Challenge.
I thank God for giving me a chance to come here and testify
before you. It is an honor and a privilege. I just thank you
and I appreciate it.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much. You can certainly thank
God for giving you the power to speak from the heart this
morning, because it is people like you who have overcome these
struggles that can motivate and move many of us to understand
the difficulties. I appreciate your taking the time to come and
the courage to speak and the eloquence with which you spoke.
God, again, came to your assistance.
Whatever your background is, you certainly hit our hearts.
Thank you very much.
Pastor Sanders, it is a great honor to have you here. I'm
glad you could make it in.
He battled through all kinds of storms. I don't know
whether the Devil was trying to hold you up or it was just bad
weather, but, anyway, we got you here this morning and we
appreciate and look forward to your testimony.
Reverend Sanders. I thank you, Chairman Souder, and to the
other distinguished members of this subcommittee, as well.
I believe that in every era the church of the living God
has a responsibility to prayerfully contemplate the times in
which we live, carefully scrutinize the neighborhoods where we
are located to identify the pressing needs and perils of the
hour and then develop and implement programs that will address
those critical problems.
As a street man redeemed, when I assumed the pastorate of
the church that my late father pastored for nearly 30 years, it
didn't take long for me to realize that one of the crucial
dilemmas facing the Hallville community was substance abuse. My
understanding of this problem is not theoretical, it's
experiential. I know from personal experience what it is like
to want to be drug-free while others are convinced that you are
not trying hard enough. I know what it is like to wear long-
sleeved shirts in 90-degree weather because you're ashamed of
the tracks on your arms. I know what it is like to work 40
hours and get a paycheck and watch it all go up in smoke in
less than 4 hours. I know what it is like to observe, admire,
and at the same time envy clean and sober people as they move
to and fro in the crossroads of human commerce while you're
wishing that you could be one of them. I know what it is like
to be in desperate need of help and can't get it when you want
it.
Gradually, I began to realize that members of our
congregation were either dependent on drugs or depressed
because some of their family members were. Driven by a sense of
urgency, I developed an alcohol and substance abuse support
group within the church and then God began placing individuals
and institutions in our lives who were willing to help us in
our efforts to assist others. That reinforced my conviction
that when you commit yourself to doing something great for God
as it relates to helping less-fortunate people, he provides the
manpower, the money, and the resources.
In February 1998, after we had been assisted by Fairbanks
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Center, they came in and they
helped us to train people by conducting seminars and workshops.
They trained recovering members in our congregation and others
who wanted to be a part of the solution.
In February 1998 we opened the doors and began the opening
phase of the Mount Vernon Alcohol and Drug Relapse Prevention
Center in a neighborhood building purchased by the church and
rehabilitated with funding that we accessed through former
Mayor Steve Goldsmith's front porch alliance program--a program
that brought together government and faith-based organizations
with a common agenda to help to alleviate some of the suffering
and pain in our community.
We realized that it was senseless to restore and revitalize
buildings without rebuilding the lives of the people who live
in those neighborhoods.
Everyone can't afford to go to a treatment center
comparable to the Betty Ford Clinic. Just as rich, famous,
powerful, and influential people need help with this disease,
the poor and indigent, the obscure and powerless need help,
also.
Necessity and a keen sense of our Christian as well as our
American duty compelled us to get involved. You don't have to
be a nuclear physicist to understand that drugs are an epidemic
in America, and it is becoming more and more contagious.
Drugs are not just my problem. Drugs are not simply this
panel's problem. It is America's problem. And we understand
that many people who achieve sobriety don't have the social and
attitudinal skills to remain drug free. We may not be able to
stop the stem of drugs, the flow of drugs into America, but we
can help people by providing them with the skills necessary to
remain drug free and helping them to realize that it takes
courage to face life and all of its dilemmas with a sober mind.
When I was still using drugs, one morning or one evening I
was awakened from a drug-induced stupor and I heard a program,
a documentary, and it featured a man by the name of Mortimer
Adler. I've come to realize since that we all have the capacity
to commit to memory those things which are pertinent to our
existence. And I heard Mortimer Adler state that in a truly
democratic society the people do for the people what the people
cannot do for themselves.
Chairman Souder and this committee, I want to thank you for
giving me an opportunity to speak on behalf of the scores and
scores of our fellow Americans who are not asking for a
handout, simply a hand up from their Government by the people
and for the people.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much, and for your work.
[The prepared statement of Reverend Sanders follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I'm going to have Congressman Mica introduce
our next witness.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am pleased
and delighted today to introduce to the subcommittee, also to
Members of Congress and guests assembled Sara Trollinger. Sara
Trollinger is the founder and president of the House of Hope.
It is not located in my District, but in the general area that
I've had the honor to serve both in the legislature and now in
Congress.
Some of us may or may not believe in angels, but if there
is such a thing as an angel that has come down to Earth it is
certainly Sara Trollinger who qualifies. She is the founder and
really the inspiration behind House of Hope, which started, I
believe, back in the mid-1980's. And they took in the most
difficult at that time young ladies who had been subject of the
most horrible types of abuse, physical and sexual, and also
victims of drug abuse. That's one of the most incredible
records.
Her work has been recognized by President Reagan, who
visited there when he was President, and also even made a
personal financial contribution toward the program, because he
was so inspired by the work, and many others have recognized
this model that Sara has created, which has been replicated
beyond our local region and now includes not only young women
but young men.
I have often heard the stories of the young people who were
addicted to crack and heroin and subject to, again, horrible
abuse and just left by the wayside in our society, and she
truly has been an angel to pick them up.
I thank you for those comments. I didn't have an opening
statement. I thank you for also holding this hearing today and
thank you for the opportunity to introduce someone very special
to me, Sara Trollinger with the House of Hope from central
Florida.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Ms. Trollinger. Thank you, Congressman Mica.
I am honored and blessed to be here today with all of you
distinguished Congressmen and invited guests.
I taught public school for 30 years in the Orange County
schools, and with a master's degree, working with disturbed
teenagers. I taught behind bars in juvenile detention center,
so I had first-hand information on the limited success of
secular programs.
Teaching troubled teens was like a revolving door. The same
ones would come and go without any lasting help because we
weren't allowed to mention Jesus Christ and teach Christian
principles.
Sixteen years ago, after years of frustration, I founded
House of Hope for hurting teenagers, with five of us praying
and $200. God impressed me that if the heart wasn't changed and
healed and if the parents were not an integral part of the
program, we would not see lasting results of families being
healed and restored.
We are dealing with desperate teens, ages 13 to 18, from
every socioeconomic level who have all been looking for love in
all the wrong places. Many have been in as many as seven
secular programs when they come to us, where they go and dry
out or detox, yet they are left with an empty shell and soon
that void is filled again with drugs and alcohol, violence, and
a multitude of other addictive behaviors, but that's where
House of Hope steps in. We fill that empty shell with love and
education and discipline and trust. We work from the inside out
building character and teaching values. We are a holistic
program that treats the whole person--body, mind, and spirit.
The effectiveness of House of Hope's faith-based drug
treatment program is seen when we evaluate the advantages,
which the big one is the whole family is involved. Our program
is--we accept any race, creed, or color. We are free to teach
principles that are based on the Bible, that build character
and develop their identity so they can fulfill their destiny.
As he said, President Reagan visited us in 1990. He had
read an article about us in 1985 when we first started, and
that's when he sent the first check. Anyway, when he came he
said, ``There needs to be a House of Hope in every major city
across the Nation, because Government programs do not work.''
Most secular treatments last 21 to 90 days, but House of
Hope is a residential program and lasts from 8 months to a
year-and-a-half, depending on the seriousness.
No teenager, no matter how serious a drug problem, has ever
suffered without withdrawals, but through love and counseling
and prayer they go off drugs cold turkey, without exception.
We have a 95 percent success rate of restoring these
teenagers back home to their families. We provide
individualized education at Hope Academy, which is our school
program on campus, and most all the teenagers that come are
scholastically behind because of truancy, and most of them are
dropouts, but our well-equipped and trained teachers are
dedicated to helping the teens succeed, and in a short time
they catch up and even exceed their grade level.
Our counselors, professional and pastoral counselors, teach
them how to make positive choices, how to deal with bad
attitudes, inappropriate behavior, hurts from the past, and
they understand that forgiveness is the big key to their
recovery.
In House of Hope the whole family is involved. Parents are
equipped through one-on-one counseling and a mandatory weekly
parenting class to prepare them for successful restoration.
House of Hope is fulfilling the last verse of the Old
Testament--turning the hearts of the fathers and mothers to the
children and the hearts of the children back to the fathers and
mothers, less there be a curse on our land. House of Hope is
stopping curses. House of Hope Orlando is a national model for
training seminars across the Nation. Twenty-seven programs have
patterned after us.
After graduation, our teens are held accountable through
counseling, after-care programs, and annual reunions. Many of
our past graduates are currently on staff.
Our challenge is to mold our teenagers into solid citizens
and our leaders of tomorrow, so our challenge is to help all
these teens who have suffered these severe problems, who have
been involved in abuse and all kinds of drugs, and even in the
occult. And most of them have even tried to end their life
through suicide.
But we are an integral part of President Bush's army of
compassion, strengthening families and rescuing our Nation's
youth with unmatched success.
The most powerful part of my presentation are the randomly
selected testimonies that are included in your packet that I
don't have time to read those right now, but I want to say that
the streets and institutions don't tuck them in at night, but
we do at House of Hope.
House of Hope is a model. We have the answers. We are
effective. We make a difference. And we cause lasting change.
Thank you so much.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Trollinger follows:]
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Mr. Souder. If you could also provide for the record the 27
areas where you are across the Nation, we'll certainly insert
in the individual testimonies and also just assume that any of
the rest of you who want to insert individual testimonies or
some information about your organization would be appreciated.
Reverend Smith, we are glad to have you be the cleanup
speaker here.
Reverend Smith. First of all, I would like to thank you,
Chairman Souder, for inviting me, and I thank you very much for
an opportunity, and I thank my Congressman, Congressman
Cummings, who sits on about the fourth row on the left each and
every Sunday, and it is certainly powerful to see Congressman
Cummings whenever he comes to church, which is regularly. Thank
you. Amen. And we do have a fine pastor, Dr. Thomas.
Myself, too, I have--for a number of years I was a
substance abuser. I was a heroin addict for over 20 years of my
life. I have been clean now for over 15 years. Been there. Done
that. And it was a life of some bad choices, decisions. It was
a devastating life, and I, too, like the pastor, can remember
watching people and wondering what were they doing, you know,
but now today I know what they're doing. They're taking care of
their families, they are testifying, they are, you know,
they're doing things that people do every day.
I got into this about 30 years ago, sitting in one of the
first therapy communities in the country, which was Daytop
Village, and that's where my recovery started at, so I have
been in this for quite some time.
And about 3 years ago, with my wife, I visited Buffalo, NY,
where we went to visit her family, and I met her first cousin,
and her first cousin had a program that really excited me, and
I've set up therapeutic communities all over the country and
I've done a number of things, you know, in the substance abuse
field, but there was something really special about this
program that I knew that it had to come to Baltimore, and it
was called ``Group Ministries Buffalo,`` and the acronym stands
for God Recognizes Our Ultimate Potential, and it was something
there that I had seen that I had not seen anywhere else. I saw
people really recovering and I saw people with sustaining
recovery, so I knew I had to bring it to Baltimore. So about in
1997 we became incorporated and we became the first national
chapter of Group Ministries Buffalo, so we're Group Ministries
Baltimore.
Some of the components of the program are Group Ministries
has an empowerment program. That's our substance abuse program.
Our substance abuse program is an intensive 18-month--6 months
to 18 month--program, and at this presently we are doing it
outpatient.
The other portion of it is that we have what we call ``harm
reduction,'' and that's our HIV and AIDS prevention, and we did
receive two grants from the CDC where we are doing HIV and AIDS
prevention in the faith-based community, as well as community
associations and businesses.
We also have a teen program which we call ``TAG,'' and it's
a teen awareness program, and there we deal with issues that
are confronting teenagers today, and we do it in discussion
groups as well as field trips.
And then we have what we call the ``prison ministry,'' and
it is a mentoring ministry. Right now we are in the process of
developing a choir, and it's called ``Corrected Life Choir,''
and these are young men who have come out of the institutions
and they've decided that they want to develop a choir.
Probably one of the most--the program that I'm most excited
about is our FEDCO--it's Feed, Educate, and Direct the
Community Oppressed--and that's our pantry. And the pantry
serves as--to supply food for individuals, say, for about 3
days that--in between check day or money spent or what have
you, but what it affords us to do is to really get--it's kind
of like a hook, and once someone is coming in a number of times
then we realize that there are some things going on within this
family.
And what makes Group Ministries different, the Group
Ministries is a community program. It is a program and it is
housed where I grew up at, you know, so everybody knows when
they see me that there can be a change, so it's right in the
community where I grew up. I know everybody there. Everybody
knows me. I know the ins and outs of the community. And that's
what helps us to be effective.
What I most--and I guess I'm going to get to the crux of it
here, and the crux of it here would be the accreditation. Group
Ministries is in the process of being accredited, because I
feel that accreditation is very, very important to prove what
you do, you know, without a shadow of a doubt, but not only in
terms of the faith-based side of it, but I also believe in that
we need to have full accreditation, so we are in the process of
being accredited through the State of Maryland, because I
believe that it works hand in hand. I think that people would
fall through the cracks, you know, if they don't have the
proper assessment, evaluation, and, you know, a plan can be put
in place for them.
My time is up. I probably do better with questions. Thank
you.
Mr. Souder. If you want to finish your statement, you can
go ahead and finish your statement.
Reverend Smith. OK. And I will--our brochure, I'll make
sure that you get that.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, I don't know whether--did you
hear him say if you had anything else you wanted to say you can
continue, because everybody else ran on. We just want to be
fair to you.
Reverend Smith. Well, I'd just like to read this.
What accreditation offers is that it raises the quality of
service of the organization. It proves a standard of providing
effective social services in the area of evaluation and
analyzing, meeting the physical, mental health, and spiritual
needs of the client, and brings a variety of treatment modes to
the program. It opens up in available training in the medical,
mental health, and spiritual models of treatment.
What I'm saying is that it incorporates it all, you know,
because, you know, faith-based, faith has its part, as well as
the behavioral sciences has its part, and within the behavioral
scientist community we can prove that it happens. A lot of
times in the faith-based community and myself, you know, as a
reverend, you know, a lot of times we can't prove it. We see
the evidence of it. But I think that it needs to be a marriage
in terms of being able to treat the whole person, because
there's issues of individuals that walk into our agency that I
realize and know that are far beyond the realm or the scope
that I can address. That's why we have the collaborative, you
know, within--as a component of our program, because it is
needed. There's no way that you can just do the faith-based
thing. You have to have a marriage between what I call
``facts'' and ``truth.'' You know, the truth of it is that I
may be sick, but God is a healer. So there's a marriage there.
But we must have the facts and we must have the hard data also
with the facts.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Reverend Smith follows:]
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Mr. Souder. I appreciate the powerful testimony of each of
you, not only today but in your personal lives, because today
people are just seeing a little kind of reflection off of the
mirror. In actuality, your day-to-day work and the sacrifices
that you've done to reach others and what you've gone through
in your personal lives and your long-time commitment speaks far
more than just the 5-minutes. The 5-minutes is just a little
capstone summary of your work, and we thank you most for your
work and second for coming here today so that we can understand
more about it and try to address a number of the questions.
I have a series of kind of technical questions that I want
to go through probably in a second round, but I have a
fundamental question that a number of you have alluded to, and
you've suggested a number of possibilities, but I'd like to
hear you develop this further.
One of the biggest problems in drug treatment--and anybody
who spends any time at all in the stream and talking with
addicts realizes many of them have already gone through
multiple treatment programs. Reverend Sanders said it wasn't
that he didn't want to change, it's that he hadn't. Ron talked
about with his friends. And I'm certain they certainly at times
wished they could be out of it.
Clearly, people who have gone into treatment and have come
out have continued to have problems, and we often hear data
that suggests that a program was successful, but usually that
is for short term, not a long term. A number of you today are
long term impacts.
What do you think are the key ingredients that ultimately
help a person overcome their addition and change? Some of it is
clearly faith. You've all talked about longer-term programs.
Some of it is a combination of different approaches. Some of it
is job training with it. But could you tell us a little bit
about the mix, and then what you see in regular drug treatment
that doesn't meet what you all met? And maybe each of you can
take that, starting with Reverend Sanders.
Reverend Sanders. Mr. Chairman, personally, I had gone
through a number of treatment facilities without very much
success. I relapsed again and again. And it was not until I
coupled what I had absorbed from those programs with the need
to be God-centered that I was able to overcome my demons. And
it has been my experience, I've watched people through the
years who have relapsed again and again, and I think the record
reflects the fact that many programs for years and years, and I
think many people are beginning to realize that over the last
35 years or so--and I think the whole notion of Government
working with faith-based programs has to do with the fact that
America has spent trillions of dollars over the last 30 or 35
years without much success because we have been neglecting that
spiritual piece, that piece regarding the need for one to be
God-centered.
There is an inner man that must be nurtured and nourished
also. It just can't be ignored.
Reverend Smith. I think I'll start my comment out with a
question, and it is to the panel. If you would get on a plane
tomorrow, would you like to get on the plane with a pilot
that's called to be a pilot or a pilot that's trained to be a
pilot? And I say that to say that to have trained individuals
is crucial, you know. Over the years of my addiction, I was in
and out of hospitals. I was on psych wards. And I went through
a gamut of different types of modalities of treatment. But what
was interesting to me is that through each one of them I was
able to gather something from each one of the situational
experiences that I had went through, but a lot of times what I
would come out of, even with--well, with the psych wards would
be that there was times of depression and that my depression
was addressed. It was at times that I didn't know which way to
go. And that's when the faith piece came into place.
But before I could do that I had to have the proper
evaluations. I had to have that factual piece of it and I'm
trying to--there had to be an intervention of the medical
model, there was an intervention of the mental health piece,
and I found a sustaining in the spiritual aspect of it, but it
was a combination of all that was really as help to sustain my
recovery to this point.
Mr. Souder. Ms. Trollinger.
Ms. Trollinger. At House of Hope we have--everybody that
comes there has been through one and some as seven secular drug
programs before they get there, and actually drugs are not the
problem. That's not the root of the cause. There are deeper
things that are causing them to reach out. They're all looking
for love in all the wrong places. And when they come to House
of Hope, we have a caring staff that are not drafted, they're
mandated to be there. They have a heart for helping hurting
people. Many of them have been through drug programs,
themselves.
But I think it is the love of God that touches their hearts
and the healing starts there, and when they come there they--
many of them say they feel like scum buckets, because we always
greet them with a hug and tell them that they're special, and
later in their testimony they'll say they can't believe that
because they have such a poor self-concept, and so we help them
through time. And it takes time. It's not a quick fix, but
sometimes as much as a 1\1/2\ to 2 years of being there,
walking through their problems with them, that they literally
go off drugs cold turkey, and we don't put them on a medication
to help them get through that. So that's the love of God
through our staff and our program.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Castellani.
Mr. Castellani. It is obvious that we say--if we say that
these people have been in other programs before they get to
ours, that they said that before, so I guess that follows the
train from all the way square one to where we are.
The good thing, I think when we get to where we are the
truth shall set you free, and I think we confront them with the
truth of life, the truth not only of the Gospel but the truth
of life.
Psalm 103, verse three--I use this for my premise. We go
back and forth to whether it's sin or we go back and forth to
whether it's a disease. Psalm 103 says, ``Who forgiveth all
thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases.'' And so
whether it is a sin problem, whether it is a disease problem,
we know that the Gospel works, and we are firm in that area.
We also know that one of the difficulties I believe in a
short-term program or a program that is strictly clinical, that
these individuals need to have a challenge, and one of the
challenges that Teen Challenge offers them, and that is in the
work field. Because we are faith-based, because we have to
support ourself by various forms of funding, one of our forms
of funding is teaching them a work ethic. We have individuals
who have gone through our program who are lawyers, doctors,
school teachers, you name it, and they have all basically said
to us when they leave, ``One of the things that you taught us
here is the value of work.''
And I think this is a critical part. When it comes to
training, licensure, I can understand that. In Pennsylvania we
are a licensed program. We do the psycho-socials, we do all
these individual things, but because we are a free-standing
faith-based program we are still not supported in any way, and
so every year my staff has to go through the same process that
a clinical staff has to go through of getting CACs and all
these various things, and so I'm kind of here saying today
we're almost on the same level playing ground. The difference
is the Jesus factor. And so--and I really am not against a form
of licensing in some way; I just wouldn't want the license to
be the control. I think there are some other facets in this
that we need to take into account.
And again I just thank you for the opportunity to make a
comment.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Frederick.
Mr. Frederick. Speaking on a personal level, as going
through the program and having a problem for the majority of my
life, it was a matter of choice that I made. I made a choice 1
day that I wanted to change.
A person can go through many programs, as I did before I
came to Teen Challenge, and the thing that really changed my
life is that I made a choice that I wanted to change.
And another factor was that I had been through many secular
programs, and their idea was somewhat to change the person just
basically on the outside. I needed an inside job done. That's
where my problem was, on the inside. So I came to Teen
Challenge and they began to allow me to see how wretched my
inside was, as compared to Jesus Christ, and I began to change,
and I wanted to be in the image of Christ. I wanted to do
something good in society. I wanted to be a productive citizen.
I wanted, like the pastor said, to--I saw other people
accomplishing things and doing things. I said, ``I want to do
that, but I have to make a choice to change.''
I know a lot of programs, what they do, they change the
outside of you. It's somewhat like putting a tuxedo on a pig,
and once you let him go he returns right back to the mud. See,
what I needed was the inside to be changed, and I know that
only Christ could do that. Nothing else could--I heard Mr.
Cummings say that drug addiction is an illness. Yes, it is. But
we serve a Great Physician. We don't just serve a physician, we
serve the Great Physician, who can heal all illnesses. And
psychological problems? Yes, he can even heal those. I had many
psychological problems. Most of them were healed or dealt with
because I was confronted with them, I was shown them by my
counselors and other people, and it wasn't because of my
neighborhood that I was on drugs or my family or my friends, it
was a choice that I made. Now I had to make another choice, and
that choice was to change.
Sometimes people that go through programs, they are not
really ready to make that choice, and that's when it says,
well, you get a lot of people that go through it not long term,
but they are not making a choice. They haven't come to that
point where they know they need to make a choice, and that
choice in my instance was Jesus.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
We've also been joined by Congressman Weldon from Florida,
a doctor who I'm sure agrees with most of your statement there,
as well.
Congressman Cummings, questions?
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And to our panel, I want to try to give you a picture of
what the problems are and what the concerns are.
First of all, I don't think there's anyone up here--and you
do not have to convince any of us, I don't think, that faith
and God plays a major role in our lives. I mean, that is--I
mean, some folk don't believe, but I think everybody up here is
on believe.
Some of the issues go to some of the things that Reverend
Smith talked about. The problems that we see is that we've got
tax dollars that are paid by every single citizen of this
country, and a lot of those citizens are concerned that if we
place their tax dollars into churches, they first want to
know--they first want to make sure that there is going to be
accountability, because they say to themselves, ``Well, if I
had a program and I was using tax dollars, I'd probably be
audited, I would be--I want to make sure that there is clear
accountability and responsibility. And I don't think that
there's very many entities--I know Reverend Sanders as a pastor
knows what I'm talking about, and as a lawyer I've represented
many churches, and as the son of a pastor and a reverend I've
said it many times that if there's one thing that can get a
church divided it's money, let me tell you.
And I guess what I'm getting to is that if we have a
situation where money is going--and, again, keep in mind in the
United States we have Muslims, Buddhists. They're all paying
taxes. And we have all kinds of religions in our country.
One of the things that they want is accountability, and
another thing that they want is to make sure--and this is very
crucial--that their tax dollars are not being used by religious
or by faith-based organizations to discriminate on the basis of
religion, on the basis of race, and that those are some of the
real concerns.
It's not the issues--because I don't want us to get
confused that we are all convinced that faith-based
organizations are effective. That's not the issue. And I don't
want us to walk out of this room, any of us or the audience,
thinking that's the problem. Even the people who are adamantly
against these provisions will say they don't have any problem
with faith-based, as long as they are not discriminating with
regard to employment, again, using their tax dollars to
discriminate, and they want to--there's another thing that
they're concerned about, too, and I just want to throw this out
to the panel.
Some of the research has shown that a lot of times when
Federal funds flow into small entities that are not equipped to
handle the money, the next thing you know you've got the FBI
going through your books and indictments flowing. As a lawyer I
can tell you I've seen it. And that's not to scare anybody, but
that's a fact. I don't know how many of you all have ever dealt
with the FBI. It's not a pleasant experience.
So I guess those are the kind of concerns that the other
side brings to this issue. It's not that they are against it.
They want to see it. As a matter of fact, we have provisions
already in the law that allow charitable choice. It just so
happened that President Clinton did not push it because he felt
he had concerns about the Constitutionality of it, of
charitable choice--that is, being able to discriminate in
employment. Say, like, you have a Baptist church, money goes in
the Baptist church, and the only people you hire are Baptists.
If a Catholic comes along and he wants to help with your drug
treatment program, you say, ``Uh-oh, uh-oh, what church do you
go to?'' And he says, ``St. Mary's Catholic Church,'' then he's
out. Those are the things.
And a recent poll was done where 78 percent of Americans
said that they do believe that religious--I mean, that faith-
based organizations do an effective job, and then when it came
down--and they liked that. But when it came down to the
question of, ``If faith-based organizations were able to
discriminate using your tax dollars, how would you feel?'' They
basically said--a vast majority of them said--about the same
percentage said, ``We don't want that. We don't want them
discriminating.''
So any of you may want to comment. Reverend Sanders?
Reverend Sanders. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. I know I've said several things, but you can
comment on any of them.
Reverend Sanders. OK.
Mr. Cummings. Or all.
Reverend Sanders. First of all, one of the things that,
among other things, that the government in Indianapolis under
Steve Goldsmith did, not only did they help us to access
funding, but he had members of his staff who assisted us, gave
us technical assistance, helped us to seek out grant moneys,
and even helped us to understand the importance, which we
already were aware of, of developing and maintaining proper
records and documents and so forth, so we do that. We have a
501(c)(3) and we are in line with all of that.
And also another feature of our program, we don't
discriminate. We are devoted to helping people who are in need
of help. Now, clearly this is Mount Vernon's relapse prevention
program. We decided to tackle it on this at this point because
we didn't want to duplicate some other services that were being
provided. We understand it is such huge problems. There's
prevention, intervention, and relapse prevention.
But we don't discriminate on the basis of belief systems.
Our lives are a testimony, and so what we do, we just encourage
people to realize that you need this spiritual piece. The
spiritual component has got to be addressed. We don't force our
belief system on anyone.
Personally--and I don't mean to offend anyone--as far as
I'm concerned, a man can call his deity Jim Shoe or Oatmeal
Cookie. I'm not hung up on that, just so long as you realize
that it's there.
And this is what we emphasize. We don't discriminate on the
basis of what a man chooses to believe or not to believe. We
know what works for us. And I am thoroughly convinced that a
man with experience is never at the mercy of a man with an
argument.
Reverend Smith. One of the things I recognized even before
this argument came up, I'm an associate minister at New Summits
Baptist Church, and when God gave me this ministry I realized
that I was going to bring it up underneath the church, in that
sense, and I realized that it had to be separate and apart, so
we have a separate 501(C)(3) in terms of, you know, Group
Ministries.
And Group Ministries looks at spirituality not differently,
but I look at it as the relationship between whoever or
whatever that you deem most important in your life. So it's not
something esoterical, way out there. But, you know, when I was
using drugs, my god was the drugs. So what we do is we take
people from dope to hope, see, because I believe when an
individual comes through those doors the ultimate goal is to
get him on the spiritual path, but the thing is to meet this
individual at the level of their needs, because usually when
somebody comes in they are in crisis mode anyway. What they
need at that point is they need good evaluation, they need to
be diagnosed by trained individuals, licensed individuals who
can sit down with them and help to navigate them through to the
point where what I call Group Ministries is a recovery program
that puts people on the spiritual path.
So we use spiritual principles, and the spiritual
principles are--some of them are perseverance, tolerance,
honesty, open-mindedness. And the way that we use them is
that--when I was out there using drugs, if I was standing on
the corner I was broke. And somebody came around the corner and
said, ``Hey, man, you know, a truck is open around the
corner,'' I became very open-minded. I became very willing. I
knew that when I got up in the morning, if I persevered and was
persistent that I would reach my goal.
Well, what we do is use those same principles in recovery;
that we say that let's take the focus off of the dope and let's
put it on the hope.
Now, the same things that you use on a daily basis in order
to survive, let's apply those same principles to a change and a
redirection of life, of your life.
It is very crucial that a program will be accountable,
accountable to the individual coming into your establishment
for help, and I see the mingling as a problem.
You know, I'm in a situation now where, OK, I received
$125,000 from the State about a year-and-a-half ago to do
renovation of our building that we are going into. Part of what
we did was sign a covenant with the State that we would not
have any worship services, nor are we going to turn it into a
Fraternal Order of Police either or fraternity, but I had no
problems with doing that because we are a spiritually based
program.
Now, if someone ends up in church--and hopefully we do want
to get them on that spiritual path, but that's not the input.
The input is to meet the individual at the level of their
needs, to address those issues that got them there in the first
place, and that's where I see it as being.
Ms. Trollinger. At House of Hope we are a 501(C)(3)
organization and we--I don't discriminate with race, color,
creed, or denominations, but we started with $200 and five of
us praying, and our budget today is $90,000 a month, and we
never know where the money is coming from, but God is always
faithful.
One time somebody send us a check for $1 million, somebody
I didn't even know, but the word gets out of a program that's
doing the right thing and has results.
We were audited. We have a CPA that is on staff with us. We
were audited by the IRS, and they said that they had never seen
books as clean as ours, so our books are open. We don't have
anything to hide. We know that we have a great success rate
because we are doing what God has called us to do, and that's
family restoration.
Mr. Castellani. Great comments. You look forward to a day
like this when you can have an open dialog, and you think about
all these things for months and weeks.
And as I think of this today, I wrote down just a few
notes. I think there--I'm not opposed to any kind of a
credentialling or licensure, per se, as long as it is not a
control.
We looked at the medical field, and there's different forms
of doctors. There was a day when Blue Cross would not pay for
chiropractors, but now they do, and things like this, so I
think there's different forms of healing that can come to a
person, whatever his problems may be, whether it's in the drug
field or whatever it is. I just wouldn't want it to be a
dictatorial type.
And when it comes to finances, in our 150 Teen Challenge
centers across the United States, all of them have to have an
audit by a CPA firm yearly. It is part of our accreditation
that we have instituted among ourselves.
Now, if it is an institution less than $100,000 income, it
is not a CPA but it is another form. I can't tell you the form
that it is, but it is another form. So any of our institutions
with $100,000 income or more have to have a CPA firm do a
certification on their auditing.
I just feel that there are so many ways that this can be
done. And I understand that when our President opened this up
to faith-based, yes, it could be any religion, whatever the
religion may be, and I have to accept that. I also accept the
fact that he has given me an opportunity to come to the table,
and so I--and I end with this. I think Elijah had this
problem--not problem, but he was confronted with the same
challenge 1 day, when he says, ``Bring all the water you want
and see what happens,'' and then he says, ``OK, you pray the
way you want, rather, and see what happens,'' and they prayed
all they could and nothing happened. He said, ``Now soak it
with water,'' and he prayed and it happened.
And so I think we need to look at the outcomes. If the
outcome is there and it is working, whether we use a certified
mechanic or whether we use a good mechanic in our neighborhood,
if it works I think we ought to be grateful that our car runs.
I just thank you.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your
indulgence, and I just wanted to say to you--at first I thought
you were talking about me. My name is Elijah. [Laughter.]
Mr. Souder. Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Cummings raises really the core of the issue that we
face, and that's the separation of church and State, and I want
to ask each of you how do you think that we can mix public
money with your private faith-based activity and not make you
subject to all the red tape, the possible intrusion of the
Government. Do you think that's possible? I'll start with Sara.
Ms. Trollinger. I think charitable choice, that people can
choose to give more and the deductions would be greater for
them. I also think that Government money can be put into things
like drug treatment doctors, where a person can choose to go to
a program that is working. We can use it for job training,
vocational training, scholarships. Our parents actually give 11
percent of what it costs us to operate, so we have an 89
percent shortfall, but Government may be matching funds in some
areas, places where we don't have to--where we can keep the
church and State separated without, you know, teaching the
Jesus Christ is Lord of all, but, you know, we'll still do that
in the basic foundation areas.
Mr. Mica. Maybe some others could respond. Do you think it
is possible? And if anyone has any other unique approaches they
might submit to the subcommittee.
Reverend Sanders. I know it is possible, and I think if
more people would pay closer attention to the model that former
Mayor Steve Goldsmith established, as I indicated earlier
members of his staff helped us to cut through a lot of the
bureaucratic jargon and so forth and they assisted us with our
grant applications and they just made the process easier, and
they never interfered with what we were doing. I think they
respected the fact that we were already committed to doing what
we do and we're going to maintain that commitment with or
without the help of outside agencies. But they played a great
part in assisting us, but they never interfered with anything
we were doing. It was a hands-off approach, government working
in partnership with faith-based groups.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
One other thing that I might like to establish for the
record is that, in previous testimony before this subcommittee,
most of the public or secular-based treatment programs have had
a dismal success ratio, sometimes as low as 25, 30 percent, and
I believe--and that's part of what I'd like to have you all
make part of the record, sharing with us your success rate.
Maybe you could give us some range of success with your faith-
based programs, again, that we can use as a comparison in the
future.
Sir, let's just go down the line, if you want to give us
guesstimates or ranges for the record, we'd appreciate it.
Reverend Sanders. For the record, we opened our center in
1998. We have been instrumental in getting more than 150 people
in residential programs, and through our weekly--we network
with other agencies that provide different services, and
through our weekly support group meetings and 12-step program
meetings, some of our meetings have outgrown our facility,
which is located one block from the church, so we open up the
church, and on an average we help to keep more than 100 people
sober a week through our 12-step programs and our support group
meetings.
Mr. Mica. Is that about two-thirds, two out of three, as
far as success rate? I mean, what we're trying to do is get
some handle on--I mean, if you have the same ratio of failure
that the public programs are, there isn't a whole lot of
incentive for us to----
Reverend Sanders. Well, I haven't----
Mr. Mica [continuing]. Put money into a program if it is
not successful.
Reverend Sanders. Well, our program is successful, because
if we don't help but one individual we've been successful. I
haven't compared our program with other secular programs to see
who is doing a better----
Mr. Mica. Well, of those who come in or are a part of your
program, what percentage do you think you are helping?
Reverend Sanders. I would say three out of five.
Mr. Mica. Three out of five?
Reverend Sanders. Yes.
Mr. Mica. And, sir?
Reverend Smith. May I respond to the first question you
asked about the separation of the moneys?
Mr. Mica. Right.
Reverend Smith. And as far as the church, because we are
not a church, we are a spiritually based organization, so we
aren't proselytizing people in terms of, you know, you have to
be Baptist, you have to be, I mean, what have you.
I am blessed that my wife is an accountant, so I don't have
the separation problems in the accounting problem with that,
because I think there is a danger in the mingling. You know,
I'm also temporarily in a situation where we have received some
dollars from the CDC, and at this point, since there is nothing
really enacted, there is mingling. There's mingling in the
sense that supporting of the church, itself, is a church
sometimes, it's an outreach sometimes, you know, but the lights
are on all the time. And what I'm saying, there is a danger of
a mingling unless it is a--my suggestion would be a separate
501(C)(3), first of all. Second, I have to always go back to
the accreditation, because with accreditation you can prove
rather than have to guesstimate of who was serviced, that you
have the proof, because it is documented.
And, you know, we seem to be--the faith-based organizations
have survived a lot of things, and I hear my, ``Well, I don't
know whether they would be able to function under all the
pressure, all the--'' you know. The faith-based community has
survived a lot of other things heavier than this coming down,
so it would be an opportunity also for the faith-based
community to step up to the plate and become accountable or
more accountable in addressing this issue.
Those would be my comments.
Mr. Mica. What about your success rate?
Reverend Smith. At this point, we are doing more education
right now at this point.
Mr. Mica. Than treatment?
Reverend Sanders. No. We are in the process of being
certified, you know, to do treatment, because I'm a firm
believer in that I think it has to be a meshing of the two, the
traditional treatment, the traditional accountability, as well
as the spiritual aspect of it.
I have been doing this about 30 years, and I've found that
in most spiritual programs or programs or even programs that
develop in church, they usually already address individuals who
have already been through a certain amount of modalities or
have been through some things, and they are sustaining, but,
like the coming in the door, I have seen problems with that.
Mr. Mica. Ms. Trollinger.
Ms. Trollinger. At House of Hope we have had over 700 who
have gone through our program. We have hundreds have been
through outpatient that are not in the residential facility.
And we have a 1 percent recidivism rate, and we have a 95
percent success rate, and that 5 percent that--where we did not
succeed are those who have not reached their bottom. They have
been incorrigible, so disruptive, fought staff, that we had to
send them back to detention center, so we've had a great
success. And we document our success. We have an after-care
program after they graduate that they have to attend. We have
counseling that they continue with, and we keep up with them
through telephone calls. And we have every August, first
Saturday in August, we have a reunion and all the old boys and
girls come back.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
Mr. Castellani. I'm for the accountability factor. The
accountability factor, though--I can have great records, but I
still do no cure. And so I don't think the records, itself,
verify what I do as a person or as a group.
Teen Challenge has had various studies done on it through
the years, and I really hate to say the figures, because the
figures are quite high. And you look at it, you want to be
honest with yourself. You know, all of our figures have been
based on graduates, not those who dropped out prematurely, and
I don't know of any organization, whether it be secular or
Christian, who can verify actually what they've done, what they
did.
The New York Times interviewed me recently and I made the
error of saying, yes, we have dropouts, and they said, ``What's
the percentage,'' so you use a guesstimate. And they used those
figures in a negative way. And I don't mind being put in a
negative light as long as my competition is in negative light,
but when I'm made negative because it is a one-sided issue, it
troubles me.
So we've had some great--and the first study we had done,
by the way, was done by--the money was provided by HEW.
Catherine Hess was a professor from the Columbia University in
New York City, and she was running a methadone program, and
Teen Challenge in those days--that's almost 20-some years ago
now--Teen Challenge in those days was saying they had a 70
percent cure rate, so she got a grant, did the study, and when
she got done with the study--now, it wasn't the dropouts along
the way. It was the graduates. And the study at that time was
86 percent of the graduates that were still clean, and that's
where the statement came. She said, ``The difference between
Teen Challenge in 1977 and the secular programs was the Jesus
factor.''
We just had a study done by a young fellow who was doing
his doctorate thesis in Northwest University in Chicago, and I
understand this is a student, so he did a study and he said
that the study was about the same. The one good thing that he
brought up, with his small study, small as it was, 90 percent
were full-time employed, and we really feel that that's a big
factor, as well.
So I think there is more than percentages who drop out and
more percentages of who are cured. What are these people doing
after?
I welcome either challenge. I welcome the challenge because
the truth shall set you free, and I like truth.
Thank you.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. We've also been joined by our distinguished
leader in the anti-drug effort, Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just say I really appreciate this discussion.
I think Representative Cummings has raised some of the
issues in terms of what people who are opposed to or people who
have reservations or people who are trying to think through the
initiative. From the answers that you are giving, I mean, you
really operate pretty much like any other 501(C)(3) regular
tax-exempt, not-for-profit organization. I mean, I didn't see
any difference from what I know many organizations to be.
Let me make sure. Does each one of you receive some kind of
public support--that is, public dollars, any public dollars
that comes from an amalgamation of individuals, resources that
the city controls, State controls, or any public entity
controls?
Ms. Trollinger. No, we don't.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. You don't?
Ms. Trollinger. No, we don't.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. And Teen Challenge does not?
Mr. Castellani. No, but some of our centers do get food
stamps because the student qualifies for it, not the center.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. OK. So that doesn't go to the
center; that just goes to the individual student. But both of
you receive some public--you've gotten money from CDC.
Mr. Castellani. Right.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. And you've gotten money from the
city of Indianapolis. That's public. So you both receive some
public dollars.
Reverend Sanders. We have. We have received some, but
that's several years ago.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. OK. But you're not receiving----
Reverend Sanders. At this time, no.
Mr. Davis of Illinois [continuing]. Anything at this time.
Reverend Sanders. No.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. The recommendation--see, I guess the
difficulty that I'm trying to get to is that your
recommendations are a little different than what the initiative
currently calls for. I'm saying you are all in favor of serious
accountability, but does that mean that you'd like to see in
the initiative some indication of that--I mean, that there
ought to be some indication of accountability in the
President's initiative? That's what I'm asking.
Reverend Sanders. Yes.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. All right. You also, in terms of
some people are fearful that standards would be lowered, and,
of course, from listening to you, Reverend Smith, I mean, you
are suggesting that there be standards in terms of individuals
having some level of training, professionalism, or whatever. Is
that----
Reverend Sanders. Yes, sir.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. And I wanted to ask you, Reverend
Sanders, in terms of your own background, what kind of
professional or preparation do you have for running the
programs that you run?
Reverend Sanders. Well, I don't--I went--I attended college
for 2 years in Chicago, but the professional who directs our
program is Dr. Rosie Hatcheet. When I referred to the Fairbanks
Treatment Center, she is the one that has her credentials. What
I've learned to do is to surround myself with professional
people and allow them to do those things.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Is that an M.D., Ph.D. or what?
Reverend Sanders. Yes, she's a Ph.D.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. So she is a Ph.D., and so none of
the activity that you all are engaged in other than some focus
on the presence of a supreme entity is any different than any
of the other programs. And, of course, it is amusing to hear
you say that you surround yourself, because when you were
testifying I observed that you were reading, you were giving
the information that I had read, and I sat there smiling to
myself saying that this gentleman is delivering his testimony
verbatim as I had read it without looking at the paper, so you
don't need any more training. I mean, you are an expert----
Reverend Sanders. Without question.
Mr. Davis of Illinois [continuing]. At what you do. So
there are people who suggest, you know, that fly by-night
individuals, you know, that somebody who just kind of gets the
feel is going to come and start to do this, and that's going to
lower standards, people are going to discriminate. And I've
heard each one of you suggest that, even though you are Baptist
or even though you're White or even though you're whatever, if
I came and applied for a job at your program and told you that
I was Catholic, but if you thought I was a good drug counselor
I might get hired. I mean, is that----
[Panel members respond in the affirmative.]
Mr. Davis of Illinois. And so that wouldn't have a bearing.
If I came and said, ``Well, I'm Black, and you are not,''
you're not going to say, ``I can't hire you.``
You see, all of the problems that people raise, you don't
represent any of that. But let me ask this one question. And I
don't have any problem with the--because, see, I'd hate to have
a surgeon, for example, who didn't have any faith, and, of
course, I'd hate to have a surgeon who didn't have nothing but
faith. [Laughter.]
I mean, I wouldn't want either one. And so this business of
mixing without proselytizing, you know, without pushing to the
extreme or suggesting that people have got to be this or have
got to be that, do you really believe that people who would
start to provide services under the initiative would feel a
need to do that? I mean----
Reverend Smith. I think I'd like to go first this time,
instead of going last.
I think in my statement one of the things that I said, that
it would be a marriage between the behavioral scientist, the
behavioralist, as well as--and when I say that, I'm talking
about traditional certification--I mean those individuals who
are trained to recognize, you know, schizophrenia, depression,
and to be able to recommend and diagnose and also to create a
treatment plan to assist those individuals. So in a marriage,
you know, as well as having the spiritual component there, a
lot of times I've found people that, you know, I've talked
about Jesus, but you know what, they really wasn't getting it.
They were--as hard as they wanted to at that time, they really
wasn't getting it because there were some other things that
were going on with these individuals. I mean, there were some
biological things. And I know Christ can hook it up, but there
were some things that were going on that needed some other
attention that was far beyond my expertise. There were some
areas that I knew without a shadow of doubt--and we've all
professed to be faith-based--all the hands in the world would
not have made the connection, and yet I believe that God can do
that, but I also believe that he also puts other entities in to
help. You know, if I get hit by a car and I'm laying there
bleeding, please call my pastor, but call 9-1-1 first.
So I believe that it needs to be a marriage, you know, so
in that maybe some things will be relaxed. Maybe some things in
a marriage--a higher standard will be made. But I believe that
it needs to be a coming together and I believe that it can be
successful if there is a coming together.
And there's going to be in-fighting. There's going to be
different opinions. Maybe one modality might try to take, but
what have you. But in a marriage--and those of us who are
married, we know that sometimes it is give and take, but it is
for the betterment of the marriage, and in this case we're
looking at the betterment of the serving of the individual who
is coming in who is already in crisis seeking help.
Ms. Trollinger. I think that the faith-based ministries our
outreaches will be an asset to the Government, and in my packet
I listed 14 or 15 different areas that we represent a trust
with all levels of society that is not experienced within the
Government, and on and on, and I won't take the time to read
them now, but I believe that we are going to prove to be a
great asset.
Right now we are operating at House of Hope and we don't
really need the Government because we are trusting God and he
always takes care of all of our needs, but we'd like to be an
asset at the same time.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you. I have no further
questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. I'd like to quickly clarify, because I think it
is a little confusing, two of the questions.
Would the House of Hope hire someone as a drug counselor
who wasn't a Christian?
Ms. Trollinger. No.
Mr. Souder. Even if that meant taking no Government funds?
Ms. Trollinger. Exactly. We would not compromise.
Mr. Souder. Would Teen Challenge take Government funds if
it meant you had to hire a counselor who wasn't a Christian?
Mr. Castellani. No.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
Mr. Gilman.
Mr. Gilman. By that, by ``Christian,'' as long as you have
the faith it doesn't matter what church credential you have.
Mr. Souder. And you wouldn't discriminate on race, you
wouldn't discriminate on age----
Ms. Trollinger. That's right.
Mr. Souder [continuing]. You wouldn't discriminate. But
because your mission is Christian----
Ms. Trollinger. That's right.
Mr. Souder. Would that be true of you, too, Pastor Sanders?
This isn't who you cover, because by law if you took any
Government funds you'd have to cover anybody and currently
cover anybody. This is a question of on your staff would you
take someone who wasn't a Christian?
Reverend Sanders. I think our preference would be someone
who believes in a Supreme Being, you know, as I stated earlier.
We have to respect the fact that people have had different
religious and cultural experiences, and I just--you know,
that's my approach to it. I just believe that we need, you
know, to believe.
Mr. Souder. And I understood Reverend Smith to say you
would hire?
Reverend Smith. We would. As a matter of fact, our clinical
director, consulting clinical director is a Muslim. He
practices the Islamic faith. Because what I've found in
religion, if there is--there is three things that runs through
all religions, and, you know, it is the relationship between
God, the love of community, and the love of self, and those are
the principles that we abide by because the bottom line is we
are there to help and to assist those who are in need.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, if I could, if I said
I was Jewish, does that mean you wouldn't hire me?
Ms. Trollinger. If you didn't believe in Jesus Christ as
your personal savior, we would not, because that is the success
of our program.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Or if I was Muslim?
Ms. Trollinger. Exactly. Same way.
Mr. Davis of Illinois. All right. And----
Mr. Castellani. Yes, we wouldn't--we would not hire to be a
counselor, for sure, because our whole premise is the Gospel,
and the Scripture says, ``A house divided against itself will
fall,'' and ``Be not unequally yolked together.'' I have no
problem with a Muslim doing his own thing in his own way. I
have absolutely no problem, and I think he could be at this
table and he could have the same benefits that I could, but I
don't think we have to mix the two. That's my opinion.
Mr. Souder. It's pretty clear in where we are headed in the
law that if a person has no choice, you can't have a program
that would only be Christian. If a person has choices, you
could have a Muslim program, a Jewish program, a Christian
program, a secular program, or whatever. If you don't have a
choice with the money, you can't do this.
It is also clear that you can't use any Government funds if
you get it, regardless of whether it is President Bush's
proposal or others, you can't use any of that money for
proselytizing.
Ms. Trollinger. Right.
Mr. Souder. It would have to be for a computer, it would
have to be for overhead.
Ms. Trollinger. Right.
Mr. Souder. And you would have to keep clear of the money.
But we do have a difficulty with this question of non-
discrimination, that we are going to work with and we are
trying to work through, because it needs to be inclusive, and
our country has a lot of diversity. At the same time, different
programs have different strengths, and a Muslim program is not
going to want to hire Christians in some cases. Now, if it is a
blended program, like several of you, then you may, and that's
what we're wrestling with.
I need to go to Mr. Gilman, and then we can get back for
some further questions.
Mr. Gilman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I think you
have raised a very important point, my colleagues raised a very
important point about discrimination in taking on some of your
patients, clients.
We recognize the importance and vital role that our faith-
based organizations are playing, and we commend all of you, but
when it comes to having a discriminatory practice, I think you
are going to be limited in the kind of Federal funding that you
will receive.
We who are fighting the drug war recognize how important it
is to give attention to both reduction of demand and reduction
of supply, and that we have to do it simultaneously and try to
provide adequate resources, but if, as a faith-based
organization, if you are going to be solely administering to
those of your own faith and being discriminatory in other
clients, I think you are going to have a problem about getting
any Federal funding. But we want to----
Ms. Trollinger. I want to say something about that.
Mr. Gilman. In just a moment. I want to commend you,
though, for the work you are doing, and whatever we can do to
find a good solution to those who have become addicted to
illicit narcotics is certainly important. I have been fighting
this battle for more close to 30 years now, and we have found
no silver bullets out there that takes care of those who are in
need of treatment and rehabilitation and to deny themselves any
further usage of getting more further involved in addiction.
Now, you raised your hand, Ms. Trollinger?
Ms. Trollinger. Yes. The clients that we serve and the
families, we do not turn anyone away because of their
affiliation with--most of them don't believe in anything. They
come to us. And we've taken Jewish people, we've taken Muslims,
every type group, and we do not push our religion, our
particular belief on them. We walk it out in our everyday life.
It is caught and not taught.
Mr. Gilman. I think, though, in response you said you
wouldn't take an employee----
Ms. Trollinger. Hire someone.
Mr. Gilman [continuing]. In your organization.
Ms. Trollinger. Exactly. An employee who is the example.
Mr. Gilman. Pardon.
Ms. Trollinger. Who is--we would not take an employee as a
role model to be a part of our staff. No. But we will--all of
our clientele, they are from everything under the sun. They're
not--most of them are not Christian.
Mr. Gilman. Mr. Castellani, I think you raised your hand.
Mr. Castellani. When it comes to taking anyone in the
program, we lay out what our program is, and whatever their
background of faith or no faith, they're welcome. We accept
whosoever will. In fact, when they complete our program, we do
not say they need to go to a specific church, but we say,
``Please go to church.``
Ms. Trollinger. Of your choice.
Mr. Castellani. Whatever that church is. And we have had
many Jewish individuals go through Teen Challenge, and when
they complete our program some of them return to their Jewish
synagogue, some of them say they're ``completed Jew'' now in
various forums like this, and we've had individuals that were
Muslims that have come in the program, and we just say to them,
``Look, as long as you don't disrupt the program--this is who
we are, this is what we believe--you can be here.'' And that's
the agreement when he comes in. He knows that coming in. And if
he decides halfway through, ``Look, I can't put up with this
stuff,'' then fine, he can dismiss himself and we'll help him
find another program. That's the way we work.
Mr. Gilman. What is the average of your success rate,
including any recidivist? And do you followup so that you have
an accurate----
Ms. Trollinger. Yes, I--are you speaking to me?
Mr. Gilman. Yes, please.
Ms. Trollinger. Yes. I just quoted a few moments ago that
our success rate is 95 percent, restoring our teenagers--they
are between the ages of 12 and 18--back home to their parents
with--the parents have to be part of the program, also.
Mr. Gilman. But what about the followup after they get back
to them?
Ms. Trollinger. All right. The followup, they continue
counseling after they leave, they continue after-care programs
after that. We keep up with them by telephone calls and----
Mr. Gilman. Is there any recidivism?
Ms. Trollinger. It's 1 percent.
Mr. Gilman. And how far do you follow your clients? Out to
what----
Ms. Trollinger. We continue to follow them, because we-
every August 1st every one is contacted, and we talk with them
personally and they come back to a reunion with us.
Mr. Gilman. Would our other panelists comment on your
success rate?
Reverend Smith. As I stated, right now we are----
Mr. Gilman. Could you put the microphone a little closer,
please?
Reverend Smith. As I commented earlier, from Group
Ministries Baltimore, right now we are doing it more
educational forums at this point, but I will provide the
committee with statistics from Group Ministries Buffalo, which
would have those.
Mr. Gilman. What do you estimate to be your success rate?
Reverend Smith. I would estimate, of what we have done in
the last year, I would say it's somewhere around 55 percent.
Mr. Gilman. That seems like----
Reverend Smith. And in terms of followup, we do follow
individuals, you know, everywhere.
Mr. Gilman. Yes.
Reverend Smith. If they go into another modality, if we see
them on the streets, or what have you, we followup.
Mr. Gilman. That sounds like a pretty accurate estimate.
Mr. Castellani, what's your success rate?
Mr. Castellani. We've had three studies of those who have
graduated the program, and so far the three studies have been
between 70 and 85 percent of those who have not gone back to
drugs. And the last study was done--I'm guessing--3 or 4 years
ago, and this was 3 years after graduation. And the other part
of that study I mentioned earlier was 90 percent are full-time
employed.
Mr. Gilman. To what extent do you do your followup? How
many years after they graduate from your program?
Mr. Castellani. Well, to be candid, it is very difficult to
followup on graduates because many of our graduates--many of
our students come to us from living under a bridge, under a
cardboard box or something, and so when they leave, thank
goodness, many of them do go back to their families, but
because they've been out of the work circulation for a while,
not only the time they were in the program but long prior, they
make two or three moves within a year or more before they
settle in and get a decent-paying job.
And we do our best. We do have an alumni. We do our best to
keep up with it, but it is like all of us, when we get our mail
we separate it and some goes into file 13 and some we keep, and
so I wish I could say we have 100 percent of our students who
report on a regular basis, but I can't say that, but there is
accountability, though. When you go across our churches--and
I'm talking churches everywhere. I go into churches, all kinds
of churches every Sunday. I'll go into a Methodist church and
they'll come up to me--whatever the church name may be, they're
out there.
I wish I could say, yes, that we can make them be
accountable, but we haven't been able to do that.
Mr. Gilman. Ms. Trollinger, how do you account for the fact
that the average seems to be 50 to 60, maybe 70 percent, and
you have a 95 percent success rate? How do you account for
that, and how----
Ms. Trollinger. I count----
Mr. Gilman. How many years after graduation do you
followup?
Ms. Trollinger. We continue after graduation.
These men who have just been sharing work with, most of
them, with over 18. We work between 12 and 18-year-olds, and
they are brought there by their parents or by a guardian, and
when the guardian has to sign a paper that they will come to
parenting classes, or the parent, they have to come to
counseling every week--our whole thrust is getting the family
reconciled. Parents don't know how to be good parents. Their
parents didn't know how to train them. But we teach them and
the buck stops at House of Hope. And we continue checking on
the parents after they leave the program.
So we have--our program is unique because we catch the
young people in time before they've gotten out on the street
and gotten in jails and so forth, gotten in several marriages,
and it's a lot tougher after they get there. And that's why the
emphasis now is on--the No. 1 problem across America is the
teenager and the family, and that's what we're working on. It's
a lot more accountability and easier to measure the statistics.
Mr. Gilman. I was asking--Mr. Sanders, I was asking what
the average success rate was. Could you tell us what your
success rate is in treatment?
Reverend Sanders. I can--we have the documentation. I can
get it back to the committee.
Mr. Gilman. Just if you could estimate it.
Reverend Sanders. My estimate would be about three out of
five.
Mr. Gilman. Three out of five?
Reverend Sanders. Right.
Mr. Gilman. And how far--how many years after graduation do
you do your followup?
Reverend Sanders. At least 3 or 4 years, but we have only
been in--and that's as far as we can go.
Mr. Gilman. Right.
Reverend Sanders. We started this in the church prior to
opening our center in 1998. We actually started in about 1996
or 1997. We began with an in-house support group, and then with
Fairbanks providing workshops and seminars and training for
recovering addicts and others who wanted to assist us in
becoming a part of this great ministry.
Mr. Gilman. One last question, Mr. Chairman. Do any of your
programs include alcoholics?
Ms. Trollinger. Yes.
Reverend Sanders. Alcohol is the No. 1 drug because it is
legal.
[All witnesses respond in the affirmative.]
Mr. Gilman. You're all shaking your head that you all
include alcoholism?
[All witnesses respond in the affirmative.]
Mr. Gilman. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
I know a few of us have some additional questions, and I
want to make a couple of comments.
Accountability, as you can tell, is of major interest to
Congress in trying to figure out how to do this, and, much like
if I can make an editorial comment on the education bill we're
talking through, the stupidity of national testing is
illustrated in the difficulty of accountability here because
anybody who goes into any high-risk area, as we just heard,
knows there is an incredible mobility, and in the education
test we're going to hold a school accountable when in the next
year 70 percent of those kids may not be at that school, and
therefore that school is going to be punished when the kids may
not be there.
Part of our problem here is that in accountability this is
a difficult problem when people are moving around, and yet, at
the same time, if we are going to ask for taxpayer money we are
trying to figure out how to get this, and we are going to need
to look, and any of you who have some suggestions that you want
to reflect on and get back to us in a week or so of how we can
improve accountability and what kind of auditing we can do that
doesn't put undue paperwork pressure, which leads to my second
comment.
I have a concern, as do many others in this, that the
people who are most effective in the street aren't the pencil-
pushers, and the people who are the Beltway Bandits who know
how to do the forms are not necessarily the people who are most
effective in the street, and that's our dilemma here, which is:
how do we get money to people who are effective, and at the
same time have the accountability that the taxpayers want and
not turn all of you into a bunch of bureaucrats, which is what
part of our problem was in the first place? And we are
wrestling with that question. Any suggestions you have on that
matter would be helpful.
Another problem that we are clearly dealing with is how to
deal with the problem of choice in America and the fact that
some orthodox Jews want to only go to an orthodox Jewish place,
some Muslims only want to go to a Muslim place. Some Christians
only want to go to a Christian place. And most Americans want
to go to a place that includes everybody. But should we say
that unless it includes everybody you can't be eligible for a
program? That's one of our dilemmas here--not in who can come
in the door, but whether a different ministry can, in fact,
because of its Christian nature, have an impact, because of a
Muslim nature have an impact because the Muslim on the street
have a tremendous code of discipline that they demand in the
program, much like a fundamentalist Christian would. Other
faiths have different approaches. And should they be allowed to
co-exist, or do we all have to do it one way, the Government
way? That's one of the dilemmas we are battling here, and it is
going to be the big stumbling block that may mean that the
charitable choice program does not go ahead. It is our biggest
stumbling block in Congress to try to address this question,
because it's very awkward to say, ``Yes, I wouldn't hire
somebody who doesn't share my faith,`` yet, if it is a faith-
based program and you change your faith it is difficult.
Now, if you define yourself as ``we're inclusive,`` and you
have a different approach, which leads me to one last thing--
and if you want to comment on it--well, let me mention one
other thing I want you to followup with, and we'll put this in
writing, too. One other thing I want to say is: what technical
assistance could you use if you had more resources? And maybe
we can answer that here. But I also want you to reflect on this
question, and that is: we've heard a lot about the licensing
question, and fundamentally I share a lot of that and I believe
we have to work this through, but I can't--I have no other
answer to this question. I agree with you if it is a surgeon
and it is something that is purely physical, I want to know
that they have faith and the training. But if it is
psychological, it's a little bit different ball game, and even
in some medical it matters.
I had a Native American, the head of the Utes when I was a
staffer, who told me that he believes some Government funds
should be used for Medicine Men, and I didn't necessarily agree
with that, and he said, ``You know, one-third of your people
who enter the hospital come out sicker than they go in.''
That's in the New England Journal of Medicine. And he said
that, ``In the Indian nations we believe that a lot of medicine
is psychological, not just physical, and who are you to tell us
how to do it?''
Tough questions. The more hard science there is, the more
clearly you want the double training. But the fact is that I've
been in Freddie Garcia's program in San Antonio, and these men
are street former addicts who have not had formal training.
They don't pretend to be a drug treatment program and they
wouldn't be eligible under our programs. That's partly why they
are not here today. But I have personally met 250 former crack,
heroin, marijuana, and alcohol addicts who have changed, and
they've changed because of counselors who didn't have a
license.
Now, like I say, they won't be eligible under this program
because we are going to have more criteria and all they do is
Bible study.
And, furthermore, I've personally talk to at least 50 of
those after having been up at Johns Hopkins crack cocaine
center, where they told me you could not go cold turkey, with
people who went cold turkey and are still clean 15 years later.
We should never deny that the power of faith can do it,
but, as Freddie would say--and I'm sure any program that
doesn't have the same licensing as a Federal program would
say--``It's not for everybody,'' and many people need a lot
more, and somehow we've got to figure out how to have the
diagnosis if it is a Federal program that isn't just faith, and
at the same time don't rule out that many people, through the
power of faith, whether it is the Native Americans or whether
it is Christians today, that faith can overcome a lot of other
kinds of healings, and that's a huge dilemma for us to work
through.
Do any one of you want to comment?
Reverend Sanders. A couple of things I'd like to respond
to.
First of all, I'd like to say I think it would be an insult
to faith-based groups if we didn't agree with what Reverend
Smith has said again and again--that we should be held to the
same high standard of accountability as any other organization
receiving assistance from the Government.
And regarding discriminating on the basis of belief
systems, my view is I know enough about Islam to know that the
word means one who is in submission to God, and the word Allah
means all-in-all, so anyone who sees--there's only one true,
living God. If a man embraces that one God as his all-in-all,
and if a man is living his life in submission to the will of
his Creator, he is my brother. So I don't have a problem with
that because I think the word ``faith'' is universal, you know,
so I just don't have a problem with the belief system that an
individual embraces, as long as it has to do with that one
true, living God.
Mr. Souder. Anybody else have any comments?
Reverend Smith. Yes. One of the things that Group
Ministries did was that we received one of our first grants
from the Centers for Disease Control, and we went to the AIDS
Administration and we said, ``We want your evaluators to come
in and to help us to set up an evaluation piece,'' because one
of the things I do realize is that if you don't help to set up
the parameters, then somebody else will. And now they use us as
a model, and they talk about Group Ministries came to us.
And so what I'm saying is that that has to be. It goes back
to what I said before. It's a marriage. It is not going to be
happy all the time. It's not going to be sad all the time. But
it's something that needs to be worked through because it has
to take place, you know, because the accountability has to be
there. You know what I mean? The certification to understand
how people function with different illnesses. You know what I
mean? I was a heroin addict, and there was a lot of other
things going on with me besides the drugs. And, you know, drugs
wasn't my problem, but there was a lot of other things that
were going on that, had not they been addressed--and what I'm
proposing is that, the marriage.
So, in terms of technical assistance, is that there be
moneys supplied to be able to start to test those, to start to,
you know, do some test programs, to--monies so that it can be--
that programs like Group Ministries or other programs who are
willing to step up to the plate like we are and saying, ``I'm
not afraid of you coming in,'' because one of the things is
inviting people in has helped us to be, one, a stronger
program, and, two, if faith-based gets all of this just not
have to do the accreditation or whatever, what about the
program across the street who has to go through all of those
types of--you know what I mean--restraints? You know, it's
certainly not going to give them any incentives to really prove
themselves.
And I believe that we are strong enough to be able to
battle through whatever--I'll call them ``logistics,'' for lack
of a better word, but to be able to battle through whatever the
problems would be in that marriage because it has to come
together. If we are going to treat folks in a holistic way, it
has to come together, the marriage between behavioralists and
the faith, it has to be a marriage.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Castellani.
Mr. Castellani. We're licensed in Pennsylvania, so that's
not a real big issue. The real big issue is in our licensing,
because we are faith-based, we can't get financed. And that's
not an issue, either, because we are not in it for the money.
Really, I don't know if we really should be supported by
Government or anything 100 percent. I really--I think that if
you take faith out of who we are and what we do, when it comes
down to fundraising I think you may spoil us, ruin us. I'm
just, you know, I'm just being objective here.
I think there needs to be a help. I think we need to come
alongside, just like we need to come alongside Government.
And really my feeling is that a person should be fed,
clothed, sheltered, and medicated, whatever his medical needs
are, and if those items are taken care of, how we implement
everything we do I don't think is as big an issue, as long as
we are doing it right and providing help for this man.
So I think the man, lady, boy, girl, I think their needs
need to be taken care of, and whether we--we've discussed this
much, and I really feel that we want to be there, we want to
help, and we're going to do what we have been doing for the
next 40 years, God willing, as long as people continue to
believe in us and support us.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Thank you.
I still remain--while I believe licensing is an important
function, the fact is I'm more concerned about outcomes than
the license, and that we have not seen evidence that the two
are correlated, and that's one. But we don't have convincing
evidence that they aren't, and that's one of the reasons we
need to know how to monitor.
And I would argue different people need different things,
and what we ought to be doing is measuring outcomes, not
process, and that too often Government is process oriented
rather than measuring what actually is working at the
grassroots.
I need to go to Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I was very--it's very interesting, your comments. I agree
with you. And this--you basically summarized why it is that I
think this whole faith-based initiative is in trouble. And I
want the witnesses, you know, to--I want, first of all, for you
to understand that we really do appreciate what you are saying
and we appreciate your candor. As a matter of fact, out of all
the hearings that I have been involved in, this has been
probably one of the best hearings that, as far as the witnesses
are concerned, to bring out the problems that we face, and it
is really you all just telling what you know, and I appreciate
that.
Let me just give you some very brief comments so that you
can understand the significance of the problems.
In Baltimore we had a lot of problems in our public housing
projects, and we, the city of Baltimore, hired an agency which
was connected with the Muslims, Lewis Farakhan, Minister
Farakhan, when using Government funds to basically guard these
public housing projects without any weapons. They were the most
effective group that has ever guarded the public housing
projects. They were well-respected, and, as a matter of fact,
people loved them, but they were just well-respected and they
got the job done.
And I'm here to tell you that there were segments of the
Baltimore community that, although they cut down drugs,
murders, everything, there were segments of the Baltimore
community that said, because they were associated with the
Muslims and Lewis Farakhan, they had to go. They didn't want
their Federal moneys going into that organization in any kind
of way.
And in my District we have a substantial number of Jewish
people. They were offended. In my District--by the way, I also
have a substantial number of Buddhists, which is a little--I
don't know how much you all know about the Buddhist faith, but
it is a little different than what we--than what you all
believe in.
And Pastor Sanders, you know, I know what you mean when you
say, you know, the Higher Power, but not everybody feels that
way, and that's the problem that we run into. We've got people
who are saying that, ``I don't want to pay into a system that
will discriminate against my daughter if she goes to one of
your organizations, you know.'' I'm Jewish, and if my daughter,
who is a good young lady who has gone to college, who has done
well, and she is interested and maybe you're the only
organization in town and this is what she wants to do, and she
goes to you and says--first thing she says is, ``I am Janice
Shapiro and I want to be hired,`` they don't want--they hate
the idea that their tax dollars--see, that's the key--could be
used in a way to make it so that her daughter can't be hired.
That's the problem.
And I think that most Americans would probably feel the
same way. And so we face this situation where, while we are the
great melting pot and that is so wonderful, it also helps to
create the dilemma that we find ourselves in with regard to
faith-based organizations.
One of the things that concerns me, too, is that--and we
need to keep this in mind--and going to some of the things that
you said, Reverend Smith, you know, one of the things that
we've noticed in the Congress and we spend a lot of our time
dealing with is people who try to find their way around the
system. You know, I mean, we look at fraud, Medicare fraud.
It's horrible. I forgot the millions upon millions of dollars,
billions, in Medicare fraud. People have found a way to get
around.
And so one of the reasons why I guess accountability is so
significant is because the American public wants two things
with regard to their tax dollars, and I think you will find
that the comments that I'm making, the next sentence I say, I
think you will find agreement with every--with 435 Members of
the Congress and 100 Members of the Senate. It's the one thing
we do agree on, and that is that the American's tax dollars
must be spent effectively and efficiently. Those two things
you'll get no problem. We all agree.
So it is not--and it is not a question--and I mean this--it
is not a question of whether faith-based works. That's not the
question. But I'll tell you another thing that is happening. We
have spent a lot of time in this committee, not this year but
in past terms, dealing with the question of whether we should
have standards and how do we measure effectiveness. You know
why? Because we are worried about a lot of people who set up
shop--not you all--who set up shop to get the money but don't
deliver the service.
And what happens is that's a disservice not only to every
single taxpayer of this country, but guess who else it is a
disservice to--it's a disservice to the person who comes in
there for treatment and doesn't get it, and in a way it would
probably have been better off if he had never even gone to try
because he comes out--because I know a lot of these people--
they come out feeling angry that they took the time. And you
all know the theory that you've got to catch somebody when they
are most ready to be treated. So they go and they say, ``OK,
maybe someone like you. I'm ready to be treated. I'm tired of
this life. I'm ready to get in here and do it,'' and they go
in, and then there is a sham, and so when they come out they're
angry. And the fact is that not only are they angry, but they
are less apt, I think, to go back. So we have not helped the
problem.
And so I take this moment simply to summarize all that so
that you understand. You know, I don't want you to feel in any
way--say well, you know, when the Congressmen and Congresswoman
said something, it sounds like, well, maybe they disagree with
me, or whatever. It's not about that. All we're trying to do is
get to the best policy. You know, whatever the truth is, that's
what we want, so that we can move from here to say, ``OK, we
see--'' you mentioned it, Pastor Sanders, about, you know, if
you're going to have a faith-based thing, and you talked about
the front porch initiative, you talked about--you helped me to
answer one of my questions. Well, maybe there is a way that you
can have some kind of technical assistance to help to make sure
that things are done right. That's a big concern of mine. I
don't want my pastor going to jail. I don't want him indicted.
I don't. He's got about 7,000 parishioners. I mean, that would
be a shame, you know, your pastor sitting in jail over
something that maybe he just didn't know.
So all I'm saying to you is that these are--you have helped
us tremendously, and I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for
your kindness in letting me go a little bit over, but I really
do want you to understand that you have helped to bring out the
situation that we face, and nobody--and there's nobody up here
that is going to knock you for saying that, well, if they
don't--if they're not about faith, we're not going to hire
them. We're not knocking it, but what we are concerned about is
that if our tax dollars are being used to promote the
discrimination, that's a problem. That's a major, major
problem.
And so I hope that I have put it in--I mean, if you all
want to comment briefly on what I've said I'd appreciate it,
but if you don't, that's fine.
Ms. Trollinger. I'd like to make a comment. The tax dollars
going for discrimination, but if you look at the results and
you measure all the results that you will be able to get in,
you'll see that it is when Jesus Christ is lifted up, he's the
one that has the power that changes things, and that's why we
have a 95 percent success rate.
Mr. Cummings. And I agree with that, but just one quick
comment, Mr. Chairman. One of the things that I guess that I
have always been concerned about is when we make policy based
upon emergency. In other words, when we change policy to
address a situation, and then after the situation is gone, is
passed by, you still have the policy in place.
In other words, I think that a lot of times when we look at
the crime situation we have a tendency, because we want to get
rid of crime so fast, we have a tendency to make laws that may
just be on the edge of unconstitutionality so that we can get
to the problem. But what happens when all of that is over?
I guess what I'm saying is we have something called the
Constitution of the United States of America, and that
Constitution, this Congress has constantly tried to breathe
life into that document and make sure that it is sustained, it
has been sustained over many, many, many, many years, and I
guess that's what we always have to fall back on.
Our problem is, if you want to call it that, is every 2
years we put our hand up and say we're going to uphold this
thing called the Constitution of the United States. People can
disagree on what it means, but it is our duty to uphold it. No
matter what the good may be, you know, we still have to--no
matter what the end, how great the end may be, there's still a
certain means test that we have to go through to get there,
whether we like it or not.
Mr. Castellani. I'd just like to say I agree with you, and
I respect your position and all the position of the Government,
I mean, because I'm a first-generation this country. My father
was an immigrant and went to third grade. He told me to get an
education, and I wish I had gotten more, I wish I took his
advice more, and I really appreciate and respect what's going
on.
My problem--it's not a problem. The question is: are we
only going to support secular humanism, or can we support
secular humanism and can we support the faith-based under the
same umbrella? That's my question. And I don't know how--I
don't know the answer.
Thank you.
Mr. Souder. Mr. Davis, do you have any further comments or
questions?
Mr. Davis of Illinois. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I think one of the things that we have to do is try and
reach an accord, and I think that's what this whole process is
really about, and that's what democracy also, I believe, is
about.
See, I happen to believe that my rights end where the next
person's rights begin, and that all of those rights ought to be
protected, and so I want to thank each one of you for coming
and for giving your testimony, and I was very pleased to hear
what you have to say, but I must confess that I was even more
pleased, Mr. Chairman, to hear what you had to say in terms of
the concern in relationship to choice, because I really want to
be able ultimately to support this initiative, because I think
that there are things that can happen that won't happen any
other way. I mean, I've spent most of my life dealing with
poverty, depravation, and disadvantagement first-hand, and I've
never been any place yet where there was enough effort put
forth to find solutions and deal with the problems as they
existed.
I think, for example, in many instances faith-based
activities have the ability to generate a level of
participation in terms of the numbers of people who are willing
to come and volunteer or voluntarily give of themselves, who
won't do it through any other initiative but will do it through
a spiritually based or church-based or religious-based
activity.
I hope that we can get to the point where individuals can
all see each other contributing in one way, shape, form, or
fashion, so that maybe legislation could be shaped that it
does, in fact, provide the accountability vehicles; that it
does, in fact, prevent the opportunity to discriminate; that it
does, in fact, provide the opportunity to draw people more
closely together in their thinking; and that it does provide
the opportunity to make use of something that people can feel
but always can't necessarily touch, can't always necessarily
grab.
I agree with the licensing in terms of I don't want to see
a person who took psychology 101 get to thinking that they can
now operate like a psychiatrist just because they have got
faith. But also, as a trained behavior scientist, I think that
when you can add another dimension to what it is that you are
observing, what it is you are trying to see, and what it is
that you are trying to convey, that there is another level of
connectedness that you might be able to reach with individuals.
I also take the position that there is nothing more
threatening to this country than the use of habit-forming
drugs, that there is nothing. There are some communities where
the level of participation is so high until it is unbelievable,
crack and blow, you know, a rock and a mock. I mean, it is
debilitating in many instances to the whole community, the
whole neighborhood.
And so, Mr. Chairman, if we can shape this in such a way
that it can provide the guarantees and safeguards so that a
person of Jewish descent doesn't have to worry about there
being any instances where he or she may be denied some
opportunities because they are Jewish, or a person who is
Buddhist can know that, just because I am Buddhist, that
doesn't mean that I can't be effective in doing something that
I want to do, know how to do, and want to help do, and want to
help make it happen.
The separation of church and State is uppermost in the
minds of some people, but I also notice that when we look at
the currency that it says, ``In God we trust.'' And I don't
know how you can separate too much of that in terms of what
this country in many ways was really founded upon, and that's
the notion of religious freedom.
I think if we can find a way to get some resources to
people and not do anything to desecrate, diminish, or deny
those freedoms, I'm certainly in favor of looking for it.
And so I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing. I thank
the witnesses for coming to share with us. And I really do hope
in the end that we can find a way to enact legislation that
will accomplish some of the goals, but also provide the
necessary safeguards.
So I thank you and yield back the balance of any time.
Mr. Souder. Thank you. And I want to thank you all for
coming. You've heard a lot of our dilemmas. We are facing a
changing America. I represent northeast Indiana, the part of
Indiana that nobody in Indianapolis thinks really exists
because they're the big guys in the State, but even in a small
school district of Vangola we have 22 languages now, and it is
a small town in Indiana that they have one teacher now who
speaks Farsi to try to deal with the Middle Eastern immigrants.
In Fort Wayne we have become the center of dissident Burmese in
the world--gone from 200 to 400 to 1,200 in a period of less
than 36 months. All of a sudden, when we're looking at faith-
based organizations it is a different mix in even a place like
Fort Wayne, IN, which is a very isolationist historically
community. And we have to be very careful to figure out, as we
deal with these Constitutional questions, how to do this.
America is a very religious Nation. We attract people who
have those values of different types. We were originally and
still are rooted in Judeo-Christian teachings, but we are
having much more diversity than we used to, and we have to
figure out how our Constitution is going to accommodate this
without undermining it. At the same time, for those of us who
believe, as I do, that sin is a driving problem, and that, as
we heard Mr. Frederick say, it is the inside, not just the
outside, can we, without using Government dollars to
proselytize, figure out a way that, you know, that the shelter,
as you talked about, the roof isn't spiritual, the food that
somebody eats is usually not spiritual, and in trying to figure
out how those basic needs can be covered, and yet protect the
religious diversity and the choices is our challenge.
In addition, Mr. Cummings pointed out another of our
challenges, and that is--which President Bush had in his
proposal but which is not in the current proposal in front of
us in Congress--is how to provide the skills necessary so that
you don't get entangled in this process and we don't take the
people off the street who are trying to do it.
And the one other thing that is a danger of getting lost in
this that I made one reference to--and your testimony all was
very clear--and that was you don't just treat drug and alcohol
addiction, that it is an enabler. It makes every problem worse.
People who are hurting turn to it. But ultimately you have to
figure out how to address their soul, but then also figure out
how they are going to feed themselves, how are they not going
to fall back into the very same problem that they had, and that
somebody needs to stand beside them. All of your programs had a
stand-beside-them component, not just a, ``This is 6 months,
the insurance is out, goodbye.'' And we have to figure out how
to address that, as well.
With that, I thank Congressman Cummings and Congressman
Davis, who are both very reflective and articulate people, and
you could probably invite either of them to preach at your
church any time. [Laughter.]
With that, we stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned,
to reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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