Bill Berkowitz
October 19, 2005

FEMA Finds Faith in the Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's decision to reimburse faith-based organizations for services rendered in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina signals another triumph for the president's faith-based initiative

During an early-October trip to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Jim Towey, an assistant to President Bush and the director of the White House Office for FEMA finds Faith Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, told a group of more than 120 pastors, pastors' wives, and other leaders of faith-based organizations meeting at First Baptist Church's downtown campus that "if there was a gold medal ... given out for compassion, Baton Rouge would have the best claim." In other recent appearances, Towey has praised the yeoman work faith-based organizations performed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Towey's acknowledgements appear to fit well with a decision by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to use taxpayer money to reimburse faith-based organizations that provided relief services after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. "Religious organizations would be eligible for payments ... if they operated emergency shelters, food distribution centers or medical facilities at the request of state or local governments in the three states that have declared emergencies -- Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama," FEMA officials declared.

"A wide range of costs would be available for reimbursement, including labor costs incurred in excess of normal operations, rent for the facility and delivery of essential needs like food and water," FEMA spokesperson Eugene Kinerney told the Washington Post in an e-mail. "We want to make sure that every group, religious or nonreligious, which opens its doors and opens its arms to shelter evacuees from this storm is able to get compensated for its generosity," Kinerney said.

Even before FEMA made its decision, faith-based groups were lobbying Congress. The American Atheists' FlashLine reported that in congressional hearings that were not well publicized, "Lobbyists and officials from several religious groups testified in front of the Senate Finance Social Security and Family Policy Subcommittee chaired by Rick Santorum (R-PA) to increase indirect government aid to charitable outreaches, but reject provisions of a bill that would strengthen financial accountability. The groups warned that such changes would 'increase administrative burdens.'"

"If the president really wants to put his money where his mouth is on the faith-based initiative, now is the time," declared Rev. Rick Warren the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California and the author of the mega-best-selling book "The Purpose Driven Life." "Long after the Red Cross pulls out and FEMA pulls out, the churches are still going to be there," Warren said.

FEMA's Controversial Decision

Applauded by supporters of President Bush's faith-based initiative, FEMA's reimbursement decision was also criticized by separation of church and state activists.

"I believe it's appropriate for the federal government to assist the faith community because of the scale and scope of the effort and how long it's lasting," Joe Becker, senior vice president for preparedness and response with the Red Cross, told the Washington Post.

The Rev. Flip Benham, director of Operation Save America, an antiabortion group formerly known as Operation Rescue, told the Washington Post that, "Separation of church and state means nothing in a time of disaster; you see immediately what a farce it is."

Along with food and clothing, Benham acknowledged that, "Bibles and tracts go out with everything we put out." Benham also stated that he would not accept money from the federal government: "The people have been so generous to give that for us to ask for reimbursement would be like gouging for gas. That would be a crime against heaven."

In a post-hurricane column entitled "Three Winners and Three Losers in the Katrina and Rita Aftermath," Marvin Olasky, Editor in Chief of World magazine, an evangelical weekly, maintained that religious organizations were one of the clear-cut winners in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Olasky, who according to a bio posted at TownHall.com "is considered the father of compassionate conservatism," has been an advisor to Bush on faith-based matters since the president's days as governor of Texas. While acknowledging that most religious groups would likely not want to avail themselves of the government money because they "are working out of love for God (and also want to avoid political entanglements and preserve their volunteer donor base)," nevertheless, "it's good that religious groups have the same choice that secular groups possess," Olasky maintained.

"FEMA's decision was likely driven by politics," Rob Boston, the assistant director of communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told me from his Washington, DC office. "It seems like a crass effort by the Bush Administration to take advantage of a tragic situation by placating his conservative constituency."

"After FEMA's ineptitude in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it's distressing to see the Bush administration making even more blunders," the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, pointed out. "We've never complained about using a religious organization as a distribution point for food or clothing or anything else," Lynn said. But "direct cash reimbursements would be unprecedented.

"Before you turn over millions of taxpayer dollars to churches, there must be strict accountability and safeguards to protect the civil and religious liberty rights of those who need help," Lynn added.

In light of President Bush's inept response to the catastrophe, the lack of effective pre-hurricane planning by state and local government, and FEMA's failure to provide timely assistance to the victims, the faith-based community mobilized quickly. Thousands of vigorous and enthusiastic volunteers who were affiliated with a broad assortment of religious groups stepped up to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and serve the needy in countless ways.

While acknowledging the "instrumental" role faith-based organizations played in hurricane relief, Jim Towey reiterated the Bush Administration's commitment to guaranteeing that "there is a level playing field so faith-based groups are not discriminated against," in a recent interview with Christianity Today magazine.

Towey added that the administration "want[s] to give the poor a choice in programs ... want[s] to see vouchers expanded to other areas of social services ... and want[s] to work with governors and mayors."

While recognizing that most churches would not receive FEMA money, during his Baton Rouge visit Towey encouraged faith-based groups that were operating a shelter to register with FEMA and to notify agency leaders of any plans to close. In some cases, FEMA might want to contract with churches to stay open or to reopen, Towey pointed out.

'Leveling the Playing field'

In his column, Olasky applauded FEMA for giving faith-based groups "the same choice that secular groups possess." Since President Bush announced his faith-based initiative in January 2001, "leveling the playing field," or removing so-called barriers excluding faith-based groups from competing with secular groups for government grants to provide social services has been a major focus.

Shortly after his first inauguration, Bush introduced his faith-based initiative by issuing two Executive Orders: One established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, while the other instructed the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, Justice, Education and Housing and Urban Development to set up Centers for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives within their agencies. (Eight federal agencies and the US Agency for International Development and the Small Business Administration currently have faith-based offices.)

The latter executive order charged each Center with conducting a comprehensive survey aimed at identifying "all existing barriers to the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in the delivery of social services by the department." Departments were to look at "regulations, rules, orders, procurement, and other internal policies and practices, and outreach activities that either facially discriminate against or otherwise discourage or disadvantage the participation of faith-based and other community organizations in Federal programs."

Results of the audit were published in "Unlevel Playing Field: Barriers to Participation by Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Federal Social Service Programs." The report found "widespread bias against faith- and community-based organizations in Federal social service programs."

"Leveling the playing field" became the Bush Administration's mantra as it claimed that laws needed to change so that faith-based organizations could receive government money but still maintain their religious character. Keeping their "religious character," opponents charged, would open the door to discriminatory hiring practices.

However, "leveling the playing field" was not a new concept. It had previously surfaced in Texas while Bush was Governor. "In the name of 'leveling the playing field' for faith-based programs in Texas ... Bush passed laws relaxing regulations over these [social service] programs, including fully exempting faith-based drug treatment centers and children's homes from state licensing and oversight," Samantha Smoot, the then-Executive Director of the Texas Freedom Network, pointed out in a August 2001 Institute for Public Accuracy press release. Gov. Bush "explicitly directed that office to 'eliminate unnecessary legislative, regulatory and other bureaucratic barriers that impede effective faith-based and other community efforts to solve social problems,'" Smoot said.

The Rev. Jim Dickerson, the founder and pastor of the New Community Church, a highly active, interracial congregation in Washington, DC's inner city, told columnist Neal Pierce that talk of "leveling the playing field" was disingenuous. "Every social program I've been part of these past 40 years had been explicitly 'faith-based' in one form or another and used government money. We've never been discriminated against because of our faith," the Rev. Dickerson said.

In November 2003, Melissa Rogers, a lawyer and scholar on the Constitution and religious liberties, told the Boston Globe that the Bush administration had made "very significant" policy changes. "They set out to make certain changes that were very controversial, and they are doing that," said Rogers, professor of religion and public policy at the Divinity School at Wake Forest University. "It's creating a lot of concern that they have gone too far in leveling the playing field and are undoing some healthy church-state rules that protect both religion and the government and its citizens."

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-founder of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which filed a successful suit against the Bush administration over the president's faith-based initiative -- pointed out that the administration was not "leveling the playing field." Instead, it was "cajoling religious organizations" into coming "to them and telling them how to fill out the forms and giving untried groups money."

Advancing Bush's Faith-Based Initiative

Bush's faith-based project has yet to result in a major legislative initiative, mainly due to objections that government money could go to religious organizations aiming to skirt existing civil rights laws, discriminate in hiring practices, and use taxpayer money for religious proselytization. However, as Jim Towey acknowledged to Christianity Today, the Bush Administration has handed out more than $2 billion dollars to faith-based groups in the last year alone, and more is on the way.

On March 2, Representative Mark Green (R-WI), introduced H.R. 1054, The Tools for Community Initiatives Act, which would make the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and other federal agencies with faith-based centers, "a permanent part of the federal government." Since Bush's faith-based initiative was set up through executive orders, H.R. 1054 provides a safeguard against it being rescinded by a future administration.

According to OMB Watch, the bill would "establish the offices and outlines their responsibilities. It does not include portions of current regulations that address how religious groups handle federal grants. Instead, these issues are included in a non-binding 'Sense of Congress' section, which does not address the issue of hiring on the basis of religion for federally funded jobs." The provisions of H.R. 1054 would exist "until Congress acted to eliminate them."

And recently, the House of Representatives voted 220-196 to provide religious groups with an exemption from civil rights statutes in operating portions of the Head Start program, which has a $7 billion budget.

"Some religious organizations are openly using the hurricane relief efforts to win new converts," Americans United's Barry Lynn said. "If these groups can't separate their evangelism from their relief work, they should not be eligible for public funding. People displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita should not be subjected to unwanted, high-pressure religious coercion as the price of getting help from their own government."

While recognizing that faith-based organizations provided extraordinary service in the aftermath of the hurricanes, Rob Boston also noted that FEMA's reimbursement directive contains no oversight provisions or limitations as to how the money will be used. "In the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, it would be difficult to oppose these types of measures," Boston added.

Boston expects Team Bush to continue pushing its faith-based initiative despite not having passed any comprehensive legislation on the matter: "It's up and running full throttle simply due to executive orders and regulatory changes," said Boston, "and I expect them to continue operating in that manner."

"Is there a fashionable media-driven 'consensus' that, somehow, churches and other faith-based groups were 'first on the ground,' providing an enormous scale of relief to the hurricane victims while federal and secular agencies fumbled and lagged behind? The American Atheists' FlashLine asked.

"The claim is unsubstantiated, of course, and neither Congress nor other watch-dog groups are anywhere near able to do a thorough, objective assessment of the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina (or Hurricane Rita) so close to the actual event," FlashLine argued. During a late-September talk at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Camden, NJ., Jim Towey gushed: "Hurricane Katrina showed us faith-based organizations doing superb work and being way ahead of government."

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA failed miserably under the leadership of the woefully ill-equipped Michael Brown. Now that it has decided to reimburse faith-based organizations for its post-hurricane relief services, one can only hope that some standards and safeguards have been put in place to assure that millions of dollars will not be shoved down a faith-based rabbit hole.