Shoring Up Our Community Quilt

Why We Must Rethink the Social Safety Net

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been naming we need to shore up our community quilt. I wanted to spend a few minutes here digging into what I mean by that.

First, everything in our world is a social construct. It is a social construct; people made this and reinforced it, saying that we have to pay for things - housing, utilities, food, water, etc. So, if it’s a social construct - something that was made, then this social construct can be remade. And it is being remade.

Second, people are working to undo parts of our social contract, such as the social safety net. The social safety net was implemented over years and years of work by many groups who determined that we must support our neighbors. And our neighbors must have access to the base tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy. That is, our neighbors, the people around us, should have access to food, shelter, clothing, and education. Eventually, these ideas and programs by groups became interwoven into our government and something some people call “entitlement programs.” This is usually said with derision, but if you lose your job and have access to the unemployment funds you paid into, it’s helpful to be entitled to the money you put into to help out when your access to income is cut off.

This part of the social contract, the social safety net, says that every human in our system deserves the dignity to have shelter, adequate food, and access to education (stimulating the mind). It lays out the idea that we should care for our neighbors.

(I remember my Catholic Sunday schools teaching something similar.)

So, the threat is real. There has been a barrage of cuts, firings, and threats in the last two months. If they haven’t already, the effects on our everyday life will hit soon. So, we cannot count on the social safety net right now. As such, we must reinforce our “community quilt” - the social safety net outside government programs.

I heard it first from Jo Ann Hardesty, a fierce city council person in Portland for a season. She said that budgets are moral documents, and I couldn’t agree more. What does it say about our values when we cut funding to elders, hungry people, and people who need health care? What does it say when we refuse to support any care work and those that do care work are the least paid? What does it say when we prioritize spending on violence through the thin veneer of safety? What does it mean when we prioritize hoarders of wealth, allowing them to hoard more wealth? What does it mean when, in our budgets, we require the least among us to prove how little they have while keeping the bum on the plush held in high regard?

I don’t think it shows favor for the collective “us.” It means we are choosing, by our lack of conversations, by our lack of voting, by our lack of … It means we are choosing to keep the morals of violence and wealth in high regard while keeping everyday people suffering.

I want more for our world than that. Don’t you?

So, we cannot count on our duly elected governments to share in the same morals we might. So, we must build our community quilt. We must work with our neighbors, local nonprofits, local food pantries, local fraternal lodges, and local churches. We must understand the help they are prepared to provide. We must shore up the help they can offer and do a little more. Because not doing anything during a time when things are falling down isn’t an option.

The social safety net should be the responsibility of the government. Part of our social contract is accepting government, the rule of law, and the ideal of a democratic society where one person has one vote/voice. And we will rebuild that moral value in our institutions. We must start close to home with our neighbors, churches, and cities.

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