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Nearly 2,000 members of 40 houses of worship in Northern Virginia are expected at a public meeting tomorrow in Dumfries to launch an interfaith organization that will seek commitments from public officials to do more to help the poor in the area. The organization, Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement, or VOICE, is asking local, state and federal officials to increase funding for affordable housing and health care and to ease the backlog of U.S. citizen applications in Northern Virginia. With a collective membership of 120,000 people, the congregations making up VOICE could prove to be a potent political force in Northern Virginia. Until now, interfaith efforts there have not been as influential or as diverse as in Maryland or the District.

Most U.S. mayors and city officials say poverty is a growing problem, with many families unable to get by, according to a survey released on Monday. Some 90 percent of city officials in the National League of Cities survey of mayors and leaders of towns of 30,000 people or more say that during the last decade poverty rates have either increased or stayed the same in their towns. About a third of those participating consider poverty "a severe or serious problem" in their cities. "More than four decades after the United States government declared 'war' on poverty, the 'official' 2008 poverty rate is 12.3 percent, not even 2 percent less than the 1967 figure of 14.2 per cent," the report said.

For Citymeals-on-Wheels, a nonprofit group that delivers food to homebound New Yorkers, the Wall Street crisis already means 100,000 fewer meals will be delivered to people who need them. After Citymeals-on-Wheels cut back its program, some elderly people began receiving one meal a day instead of two. "You know the next day you got a meal coming, so you don't have to worry, then all of a sudden it's not there," said Dorothy Skinner, 82, a retired special-education aide who lives alone in Manhattan. "It really hits you." Across New York, nonprofit organizations are anxiously tracking the demise of longtime donors such as Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, American International Group and Bear Stearns, as Wall Street's problems begin to trickle down to the city's poorest residents.

Since 2001, the government has spent almost $50 billion for national biodefense at sites such as Fort Detrick and other specialty laboratories and universities, and this amount is likely to increase further with ambitious plans to build high-containment laboratories across the country. However, there is a largely unaddressed biological threat that does exist in America today - especially in places where poverty is concentrated, such as Baltimore. It is a hidden underbelly of poverty-related diseases that are ordinarily thought of as health problems in less-developed countries. The mainly Hispanic and African-American populations living in inner cities and rural areas are suffering from high rates of these ailments, known as the "neglected infections of poverty."

If huge steps can be taken to save the most developed economies from crisis, why can't more be done for poorer countries, asks a Vatican spokesman. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, posed this question as he analyzed the urgent needs of the global economy on the last episode of the weekly Vatican Television program "Octava Dies." "The economic commitments that were suddenly taken on to salvage the American financial system, and by connection the international financial system, are of impressive dimensions," he said. Father Lombardi noted that the effort to save the most developed economies from crisis is much greater than all international economic aid effort combined.

Terrorism, climate change, and stretched food supplies may have grabbed more international headlines, but a more hopeful - even if less heralded - global trend is the considerable drop in the number of people living in extreme poverty. Almost half a billion fewer people live in extreme poverty today than in 1990. And from Asia to Latin America and parts of Africa, key development indicators from infant mortality and primary education enrollment to disease reduction are registering considerable progress. That's the good news that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will tout when he assembles world leaders here Thursday for a midway review of the Millennium Development Goals for cutting extreme poverty in half by 2015. Since the world adopted the eight broad goals in 2000, some measure of progress has been made.

It took the worst natural and man-made disaster in American history -- Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches that inundated New Orleans with water in 2005 -- to expose previously hidden levels of poverty in the richest country in the world, a Catholic bishop said Sept. 25. But having 37 million Americans living below the poverty line is unacceptable and represents a clear imperative for change, he said. Citing the Rev. James Forbes, the retired rector of Riverside Church in New York City, Bishop Sullivan said "Lady Katrina" was "a prophetess who revealed to us the two Americas, the haves and the have-nots, the white America and the America of color."

Pope Benedict XVI urged international leaders to tackle global poverty "with courage" when they meet at the United Nations to verify implementation of the Millennium Development Goals. Despite the current global financial crisis, the poor must not be forgotten, he told pilgrims Sept. 21 at his residence in Castel Gandolfo outside Rome. He also sent greetings to Caribbean nations and coastal states in the U.S. battered by recent hurricanes. The pope spoke four days before world leaders joined the U.N. General Assembly to check progress on the anti-poverty program adopted eight years ago. The pope said he recognized that honoring the millennium goals' commitments will require "sacrifice at this difficult economic moment in the world." But he said they would bring structural relief to poorer countries and thus favor the peace and well-being of the entire planet.

From Seattle to Athens, Ga., homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation. Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they've experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless. The group says the problem has worsened since the report's release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening. The phenomenon of encampments has caught advocacy groups somewhat by surprise, largely because of how quickly they have sprung up.

So far, however, New Orleans' fate has been largely absent from the campaign conversation. Its few appearances have been more rhetorical than substantive - a way for the Democrats to attack the GOP's record rather than to propose what to do about a city that remains in crisis. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick referred to it briefly: "The same folks who call themselves 'compassionate conservatives' are the same folks who abandoned all those people, not only after Katrina, but before the storm. The American people have had enough." Bill Clinton used Katrina to assail the Bush Administration for cronyism. Yet amid a riveting, potentially historic presidential race, New Orleans has become a three-year-old footnote.

Just three years ago ago, at the G-8 summit of industrialized nations, it looked like the world of foreign aid was about to change. As the 2005 conference ended, British Prime Minister Tony Blair ascended the steps of a resort in the quaint Scottish village of Gleneagles and announced that rich nations would double their aid to Africa by 2010, giving some $50 billion annually. "It is progress - real and achievable progress," he concluded. Around the rich world, it seemed, millions of people had finally begun to pay attention to global poverty. Today, however, those hopes have all but evaporated. A collision of factors, from politics to shifting global wealth, has unraveled the consensus among rich countries and allowed poorer nations to ignore their calls for reform. Western nations have failed to deliver the money promised at Gleneagles, casting doubt on the entire experiment - and leaving development veterans deeply pessimistic about the future.

On what was supposed to be their first day of school this week, about 1,000 Chicago Public School students got a different sort of education. Rather than go to classes, they boarded buses with parents, church leaders, and activists to try to enroll in a wealthy suburban district - a symbolic protest against school funding inequities that are among the most glaring in the US. Chicago's mayor, school superintendent, and other officials condemned the boycott, saying skipping school sends the wrong message. But organizers say it's a desperate situation that calls for drastic action - and that the issue grabbed front-page headlines for the first time in years, due largely to the theatrics of the boycott.

American’s new poverty rate is "unacceptable," Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA, said August 27. "It is unacceptable that in a nation that is as prosperous as ours that 37.3 million people, including 13.3 million children, continue to live in poverty. At 12.5 percent, the poverty rate indicates that reducing poverty is not a priority for this nation," he said in a press released issued by the nonprofit organization. For Catholic Charities USA, and our 1,700 local member agencies who serve nearly 8 million in need a year, the poverty rate is not just another economic statistic. This unacceptable figure represents the millions of families we see each and every day who are struggling just to make ends meet.

According to U.S. Census data released in July, New Orleans is at 70 percent of its pre-storm population. The archdiocese says the Catholic population has shrunk 20 percent. Thus, the archdiocese is shifting its focus from the central city to the growing suburbs. New Orleans and neighboring St. Bernard Parish will have fewer churches. If an elementary or high school hasn't opened since Katrina it won't reopen. Some churches will be used as missions, hosting a single Mass a week; others will be sold. In many regards the reorganization is no different from those undergone in dioceses throughout the country. But for many parishioners, rolling up the carpets and carting off the stained glass feels like the archdiocese is ceding the future of the city, accepting that some neighborhoods are gone for good. To them the archdiocese's plan feels like yet another major institution abandoning the city in its time of need.

Three years have passed since Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast. The people of New Orleans felt abandoned by their country then. And while they are optimistic about their future, they feel forgotten now. In a survey of Orleans Parish released by the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation this month, 65 percent of respondents said they thought "most Americans have forgotten about the challenges facing New Orleans." Sixty percent said no when asked, "Do you think the rebuilding of New Orleans is a priority for Congress and the president?" No surprise: The pace of recovery has been slow. Battles between Baton Rouge and Washington over red tape and funding have contributed to this. That doesn't mean progress isn't being made. It is. But the need for leadership and focus from Washington remains.

Over the past four centuries, the Jesuits have built a formidable global education enterprise. The storied, 19,000-plus-strong Society of Jesus, as the organization is formally known, is today the world's biggest Roman Catholic male religious order. It is also one of the world's largest private-school operators, with 2.9 million students, mostly in developing countries. Indeed, in January, at one of the first masses following his election, the Jesuit leader, Father Adolfo Nicolas, a Spanish priest who has spent most of his life in Asia, underscored the group's main focus on helping "the poor, the marginalized and the excluded." Though he didn't say it then, to achieve that goal, the Jesuits are accelerating the effort to educate the rich in developing countries about their poor.

Three years after Hurricane Katrina wrecked parts of New Orleans, all that separates the biggest successes and failures in the city's revival is a short drive. Mardi Gras tourists flocked back to the French Quarter in February, bringing much needed dollars. But while the tourist hot spots look like the storm never hit, lower-income areas like New Orleans East and Holy Cross, a neighborhood of the flooded-out Lower 9th Ward, are struggling to get people to return. Just 300,000 people live in New Orleans, down from 500,000 before Katrina.

The pace of recovery is slowing in New Orleans as the city approaches the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina late this month. The next president and Congress will need to expedite assistance before the city's mood turns from guarded optimism back to despair. With a melange of federal, state, city and private recovery efforts under way, it is difficult to grasp what is really happening in the stricken city. Fortunately, two reports on New Orleans's condition have just been issued by authoritative outside organizations.

The percentage of working poor in large metropolitan areas soared by 40 percent during the first half of the decade, reversing gains from the 1990s in the fight against poverty, according to a report released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution. The study covered 1999 through 2005 and examined 58 metro areas, finding that 34 reported increased rates of "concentrated working poverty," a measurement of low-income workers and families living in high-poverty neighborhoods. Twenty-four areas registered declining rates.