Staff Writer
Lorena Duarte
Laprensa-MN
 

Fighting for Hope: PEPP Works to Improve Lives of the Poor

When describing the aims of his organization, Duke Schempp is very clear,“ [to be] a group that addresses poverty at the root cause level rather than the symptoms of poverty”. Schempp is the Director of the People Escaping Poverty Project.

Youth Group, Welfare Rights Organize, Board member  meet
with Representative Paul Marquart (9B-D) February 2001

Jueves 8 noviembre, 2001 Vol. IX - No. 490
Poverty Project (PEPP), a non-profit organization based in Moorhead, Minnesota that works to empower and strengthen low-income families in the region - including Fargo - and throughout thestate. The organization was born in 1986 when a group of women who were attending college and who also received public assistance organized themselves to fight a 30 percent cut in Minnesota’s AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) program.

Having won that battle, and after receiving a $10,000 grant from the Minnesota Women’s Fund, the women formed a board, published a newsletter and were off and running. Fifteen years later, PEPP finds themselves still fighting for welfare reform, especially since 1996, when the welfare reform plan was signed into law by then President Clinton. AFDC was replaced
by TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), which includes a 5- year lifetime limit on the use of Federal money to help families. States have the option of spending state money for families that reach the federal time limit.

Pushing for extensions on the federal time limits has been a big priority for PEPP, as families are due to be kicked off the program in July of the coming year. Schempp estimates that as many as 5,000 families could be affected throughout the state.
While welfare continues to be a big concern, PEPP aims to deal with a wide range of issues important to low-income populations. Availability to higher education and affordable housing are among the organization’s other main focuses.
Having never taken any government funding, Schempp explains that they “always want to be run by poor people”. To that end, the group offers leadership training, workshops, youth programs and computer training in order to positively affect change in their neighborhoods and aid in building a capable, collaborative network of self-advocates. He notes, “our ultimate, main focus is leadership of low-income people. That they can develop a voice, a strategy and have some power in the community”. That voice is often challenged by what the group considers to be “anti-poor” legislation and public policies. The Republican representative for the area, Kevin Goodno, is a common adversary when it comes to welfare issues; as are members of the police and landlord community who Schempp says engage in biased tenant screening practices.

Immigrants and people of color are very important to the group, especially as the economy weakens and they are among the first to suffer economic impacts. The organization is fighting to give the local Human Rights Commission enforcement authority and has worked hard to become a diverse organization, forming an Anti-Racism committee on their board to assure that the concerns of communities of color were being heard. As winter sets in, Schempp looks at both the short term needs, saying “we need to take care of people through hard times”, but also looks at things in the long run, “I’m a firm believer that if you
get better training, and you can get better skills, you can get a better paying job”. One of his main objectives is to make it easier for people on public assistance to get a four year education, something which he maintains is not feasible under the current system.

Along with a better education, Schempp hopes that those people would then be able to really develop their voices and join in the struggle for economic justice; because, as he sees it, in the last 10 years there has been less and less activism in that arena.
“What’s happening to the leadership of poor people is that other people are doing the advocating. Advocates make great changes but what happens is that advocate’s issues change, and then the people don’t have a voice, because they weren’t involved”, Schempp continued. In this next year, PEPP will work to add 800 new members to the 454 members on their current roster, making it an even more vital and powerful force in the community. In the meantime, the organization will continue its work - with both adults and children - speaking at public forums, giving testimony, organizing lobby campaigns, conducting leadership workshops, and perhaps most importantly, providing hope to the people they aim to serve.
For more information, please contact PEPP at www.pepp.org

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