Serving America

When is volunteering not volunteering. The answer is when the government is involved, you get paid and their is a beauracy to administer it. This is just another give away program that cost taxpayers money disguised so you look like a jerk if you oppose it.

It should not have anything to do with the day of 9/11. This is a day for people to remember the horrible act that left our country in such pain. It is day for us to look at the pictures, pray, and understand how it happened to us in the first place because it did not have to happen.

re: Obama signs national service legislation

I have written to many folks, including most of those mentioned in today’s volunteer legislation articles, concerning a basic community based solution to both harness the renewed volunteerism and our home-foreclosure problem. Most nonprofits cannot hold assets however, a 509(a)1 can, and if it is also mission driven around housing, which means it can hold both the house asset and the mortgage paper, against houses.

This makes it a quasi-bank; it can hold the house going into foreclosure, “modify” the loan around the current owner’s ability to make monthly payments. The reduced dollar amount on the first mortgage would be held as a “soft” second mortgage, to be repaid through volunteerism (e.g. for every hour worked/volunteered, would reduce the second mortgage by $20).

There is only one organization which I am familiar with, that fits this bill, the Affordable Housing Center (AHC), 509(a)1; it has the potential to be the hub for HUD foreclosures and the vehicle for (a broader) volunteer coordination.
Duplicate postings of my response will be made to other articles, in hopes to begin a larger discussion.

By the way, I submitted AHC to Google’s project 100, the one for great ideas to change the world; perhaps the cyber world can create an online demand to sway voting, via Google inquiry/search.

PS (Some of you smart, network savvy and compassionate people must recognize the potential here and use your skills to promote.)

Yes, correct, a factor of ten...but can you explain why it cost 6k per person a yr to administrate volunteers?
By the way, the $1 billion a yr is BORROWED money..what is the interest on it for the next 10 yrs?

Maybe I misunderstood and that is also the cost of the benefits they will get as a result..or are those 'hidden costs'?

BTW, I'm not against Ameri-Corp, Peace Corp or any 'corp',

I just don't want to see it politicized.

Posted by: James Danley | Apr 21, 2009 3:19:04 PM: How the clear separation of church and state "surrendering ALL of their First Amendment Rights"?

For 8 years we've had ambiguity in how much religion can be used in job training programs. Back in 2003 The Bush administration quietly altered regulations for the nation's leading job training program to allow faith-based organizations to use ''sacred literature,'' such as Bibles, in their federally funded programs.

"Who knows what the future holds"? More clearly defined separation of church and state. The United States is not now and never has been a "Christian Nation".

Yes, Mr. Danley, those are restrictions for the ORGANIZATIONS, not the people working in them. Again, the organizations (including AmeriCorps) cannot lobby, advocate, protest, etc. The people who work for them can do whatever they wish, as long as they aren't representing the organization but only representing themselves.

You can say that the ORGANIZATIONS have have been limited their first amendement rights, but you can't say that of the individuals working for them.

Look at the Foxx Amendment and you'll see much stronger language which barred anyone who worked for or even shared a leased-space with the organizations from advocating or lobbying. That amendment passed the House version, but was prevented from the Senate version, which was the one that was finally passed.

Before the Serve America Act. Standard college-aged workers get a living allowance of $7,945 -- about $160 a week -- of which $4,800 comes from the federal government (this includes any housing stipend). Those members with no health insurance also get a health plan valued at $1,200. So direct compensation is just more than $9,000, but, of that, only $6000 is funded by taxpayers. If they finish a year of service, volunteers get a $4,725 scholarship which can only be applied to education - many of them don't use it.

This is essentially the most you can receive at this time. The Serve America Act intends to supplant the college-aged work force with younger students (14-18), that don't require stipends, health care and receive only $500 in scholarship. There will be a new similar senior program put in place.

JLB: From the House webpage is the link to the Library of Congress>Thomas Home>Bills, Resolutions. For H.R.1388 it has the following links:

6. Serve America Act (Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate) [H.R.1388.ENR]

7. Serve America Act (Engrossed Amendment as Agreed to by Senate) [H.R.1388.EAS]

When linking to #6, Sec. 1310 is still present. However, there is no access to the exact text. #7 contains the following:

"Sec. 1310. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS.

"Subtitle C of title I (42 U.S.C. 12571 et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 132 the following:

"SEC. 132A. PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES AND INELIGIBLE ORGANIZATIONS."

"(7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of proselytization, consistent with section 132."
____________

If the above text was removed from the final version of the Act then I stand corrected. However, I am still trying to confirm that!

The $6000/person as the average is correct. Many of the volunteers are middle school and high school students, who not only don't receive housing or stipends, but also only receive $500 towards college costs. There is also a senior program which has the same cost-saving measures. Furthermore, nearly 36% of AmeriCorps workers eligible for the education award use none or only part of the award.

Example: 24 AmeriCorps volunteers worked with Habitat for Humanity to organized, assisted and supervised 5000 unpaid volunteers in Miami to build 50 houses in less than a year. Of those 24 volunteers, only 15 used their education awards. They others got invaluable construction skills and went on to that sector.

Most of the costs associated with AmeriCorps are not for stipends or awards, it is associated with training, organizing and administrating the program.

"The private sector is broke, folks. People have no money to buy anthing and the entire house of capitalistic cards is crashing down. But people still have to eat, and most would prefer to work. What's your preference here? You don't want government bailing out the private sector. You don't want government programs. You don't want government hiring anyone. You don't want government helping people to volunteer and serve others. Your plan is to just leave folks homeless and starving in the streets. Brilliant."

No, their plan is to do as Limbaugh and Hannity tell them to do. It is Limbaugh and Hannity's plan to leave folks homeless and starving in the streets.

jhw is right. $6,000/volunteer can't possibly be correct. The education credit alone is almost that much, let alone the pay and healthcare.

rhymeandreason- thanks.

Mr. Danley,

Your statements are incorrect. Please check your facts. The Foxx Amendment which was attached to the House version of this bill, was not included in the final passage. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) attached an amendment that would ban all lobbying and advocacy from anyone connected with AmeriCorps (even to the point of sharing a parking space with a facility) for the purpose of killing the bill entirely. It's called a poison pill amendment. It did not make it into the Senate version, and therefore the version that was finally passed. AmeriCorps workers retain their first amendment rights as individuals.

No member of AmeriCorps can lobby or advocate on BEHALF of AmeriCorps. For instance, a volunteer would not be able to appear at a protest rally representing AmeriCorps. However, they can do so representing themselves as an individual citizen. It has been this way since the inception of AmeriCorps in 1993. In fact, there are special rules for all nonprofit agencies regarding the limits that they are permitted to lobby, especially if they receive federal funding.

rhymeandreason:"MayBee asked if this program is open to students of all income levels and the answer is YES."

And actually, they'd love to have higher income, higher education participants. They'll take every Harvard law degree wielding kid willing to work for $1000 a month they can get.

MayBee asked if this program is open to students of all income levels and the answer is YES.

The private sector is broke, folks. People have no money to buy anthing and the entire house of capitalistic cards is crashing down. But people still have to eat, and most would prefer to work. What's your preference here? You don't want government bailing out the private sector. You don't want government programs. You don't want government hiring anyone. You don't want government helping people to volunteer and serve others. Your plan is to just leave folks homeless and starving in the streets. Brilliant.

For those who think this is a government handout or "job", I respectfully ask you to rethink your position. AmeriCorps volunteers sign up for 10-12 months of extremely challenging, grueling and difficult work. Only some of the programs offer housing, and this is usually in the form of dorm rooms. The living stipend will now be increased to $1000/mnth. That is $12,000 a year (currently, they get $4800 a year). The federal poverty level line is $11,000 a year.

Do you think our "all-volunteer military" work for free? Do you think they should have to? Do you believe that people in this country who are building homes, fighting hunger, assisting in disaster relief and a myriad of other things shouldn't be paid even the most basic living stipend?

There are not a lot of people who can afford to volunteer for a year without any monetary assistance at all - could you? Even the average stipend for a college intern is $1200/mnth. Many of the AmeriCorps jobs require bachelor degrees. The work that the AmeriCorps volunteers do is extraordinary, and they pour their hearts and souls into it. To complain about paying a poverty-level living for them is quite shameful.

AmeriCorps is the most efficient work program in the US. The value in terms of services and production that comes out of AmeriCorps programs far out-strips any corporation in the US, and they do it for 2 cents on the dollar. The truth is, AmeriCorps ends up saving taxpayers a tremendous amount of money - in everything from environmental clean up, conservation, tutoring for their children, keeping the health care costs down and preventing crime.

Try building homes for $12,000 a year, and see if you still think it is a government handout.

J House:"$1 Billion / 250,000 'volunteeers'=
$40,000/yr per 'volunteer'"

Speaking of new math:
1,000,000,000 / 250,000 = $4000
YOUR OFF BY A FACTOR OF 10. So how many firemen work for $4000 a year? Actually, you made another error in your blind rush to insult this program. They are tripling TO 250,000, not adding 250,000. That's only about 167,000 new positions. So
1,000,000,000 / 167,000 = $6,000 / yr

That number still looks low, so I'm guessing there is a ramp up in there somewhere too.

You can hate Obama as much as you like, but you don't get to redefine basic mathematics. Wait for Rush to run the numbers and get back to you - his research team is pretty good.

Check your math. $1,000,000,000 divided by 250,000 = $4,000.00 per volunteer, not $40,000.00.

Nobama:"Please ask Obama to send me my Americorp handout too please. "

If you want your "handout," sign up to work fulltime for the following:

"AmeriCorps volunteers earn about $1,000 a month, plus medical benefits, housing assistance and $4,725 in education awards that can be applied to future studies."

Does anybody know offhand if the money is available to students at all income levels?

The bill being named after Ted Kennedy makes me think they don't believe the Ted Kennedy health care bill will pass this year.