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Special
Section: Religious Life The quality of mercy
By DOROTHY VIDULICH
The financial crunch affecting many womens religious
congregations is serious. It would be understandable, therefore, if their
memberships hung onto what money they have to provide for their own future.
But, counter to that expectation, many congregations continue to
fund bold new ventures on the frontier of social concerns.
Probably the most significant -- and certainly the most costly --
example is the increasing number of womens communities dedicating money
to housing for the working poor and lower income middle-class people,
especially women and children.
A leader in this movement is the Mercy Housing System, a
not-for-profit organization for the development of affordable housing. Founded
in Omaha, Neb., in 1981, Mercy Housing has developed more than 5,000 housing
units and currently serves more than 10,000 residents. Nine groups of women
religious are involved, five regions of the Sisters of Mercy and four other
communities, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, Calif., Daughters of Charity,
Los Altos, Calif., Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, Bellevue, Wash., and the
Sisters of Bon Secours of Marriotsville, Md.
For a religious community to make a commitment to housing
development requires more than a corporate agreement from the membership. It
means earmarking specific congregation funds. Where does the money come
from?
I put this question to a member of my community, St. Joseph of
Peace Sr. Charlotte Davenport, regional president for Mercy Housing in the
state of Washington, where Intercommunity Housing is committed to building or
buying 50 to 150 new housing units each year. Is the money given as a donation,
a loan, a trust?
All of the above, she said, depending on what the womens
community wants to do. When the Peace Sisters sold land in Bellevue, Wash., she
said, they committed $500,000 to become a Mercy Housing sponsor and a further
$250,000 as a loan to the Mercy Loan Fund.
Headquartered in Denver, Mercy Housing has regional offices in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, North
Carolina, Texas and Washington. Mercy Housings president, Mercy Sr.
Lillian Murphy, said that womens congregations have probably earmarked in
excess of $4 million to low-income housing.
Religious communities do what they can afford to do,
Davenport said. One group with a median age of 70 years had a ministry
fund from the sale of a health care institution. They committed $100,000 from
the fund to Mercy Housing.
Recently she received a $1,000 check from a Carmelite monastery,
contemplative women with few sources of income, who wanted to join with other
sisters in supporting housing for those in need.
This housing is needed, sorely needed, Murphy said.
The gap between units of affordable housing available in this country and
the number of people who need them is 4.7 million, she said.
This may strike some as odd in an economy purportedly as
successful as Americas during the past decade-and-a-half. Measured by
stock market advances, there appears to be economic improvement for many.
Other figures show that for most workers, buying power has
remained stagnant for two decades, even as rent and housing costs have gone up.
For the working poor, and the numbers in poverty, particularly households
headed by a single person -- a group Mercy Housing is especially concerned
about -- the housing situation has worsened, not improved.
Its why, said Murphy, the commitment of the women religious
is so impressive and needed.
Sister of St. Joseph of Peace Dorothy Vidulich writes from
Washington.
National Catholic Reporter, February 19,
1999
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