[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 87 (Friday, July 1, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                             ``JUST DO IT''

 Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, there is a popular advertisement 
slogan that says, ``Just Do It.'' Most often this phrase is not one 
that comes to mind when we think of Federal employees. We have been led 
to believe that they are stale naysayers. Well, Mr. President, that is 
not always the case. As evidenced by a recent Wall Street Journal 
article, there are innovative Federal employees who care about their 
jobs and the people they are supposed to serve. They go the extra step.
  The article describes how Roger A. Story, a Department of Veterans 
Affairs benefits counselor in New York City convinced Chase Manhattan 
Corp. to open checking accounts for several thousand homeless veterans. 
This was, by no means, an easy task. The beneficial results are: they 
won't have to go to check-cashing shops and pay a fee to cash their 
benefits checks; they are encouraged to save their money; they are not 
as susceptible to losing their money on the street; and, more important 
than interest, they earn some self-esteem. One measure of the success 
of this effort is that Chase Manhattan now holds over $2 million in 
deposits from these accounts.
  There are no Federal manuals that told Mr. Story to go to Chase 
Manhattan. There are no regulations that told Mr. Story to come up with 
this way to help homeless veterans. He used the often overlooked manual 
of common sense.
  Roger A. Story is not the only Federal employee to ``Just Do It.'' 
There are many of them around the country, who manage, in spite of 
Washington's red tape and ingrained bureaucracy, to make real 
differences in the lives of our citizens. You do not hear much about 
them and, unlike Mr. Story, they seldom make the news. They are 
imaginative, caring, and dedicated. They are today's heroes.
  Mr. President, if there are no objections, I would like to submit the 
newspaper article to be included in the Record.
  The article follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, June 23, 1994]

       Bank Helps Homeless Veterans by Letting Them Open Accounts

                          (By G. Bruce Knecht)

       Floyd Teasley Jr. knows what it means not to have a bank 
     account.
       For years, the 60-year-old veteran of the Korean War took 
     his government pension check to a check-cashing shop that 
     took a percentage of his money as a fee. Worse, since he was 
     homeless until a year ago, he had no place to deposit his 
     money except in his pocket. ``It was bad,'' he says. 
     ``Usually I blew the money on drink, and it would be gone.''
       But Mr. Teasley's life is now on the upswing, and part of 
     the reason is the bank account he opened two years ago. The 
     account costs him $5 a month, but now his pension checks 
     arrive electronically and without deductions. Better still, 
     Mr. Teasley says the account enabled him to rent a one-
     bedroom apartment on June 1, 1993. He remembers the date with 
     beaming pride.
       While the problems of the homeless cannot be washed away 
     with bank accounts, Mr. Teasley's experience suggests that 
     banking services can help. The fact is that Mr. Teasley 
     didn't have to be homeless. With a combination of his pension 
     and federal rent subsidies, he can readily afford to pay the 
     $230 rent on the one-bedroom apartment he found just off the 
     Grand Concourse in New York City's borough of the Bronx. But 
     Mr. Teasley says he couldn't have done it without a bank. ``I 
     could never be sure that I'd have enough money to pay the 
     rent,'' he says.
       Mr. Teasley opened his account after John A. Story, an 
     unusually dedicated benefits counselor with the New York 
     office of the Department of Veteran Affairs, persuaded Chase 
     Manhattan Corp. to offer accounts to several thousand 
     homeless vets who live in New York. Convinced that access to 
     the banking system could help at least some of them, Mr. 
     Story had approached several banks. Except for Chase, they 
     all said no.
       Banks have never offered accounts to people who lack proper 
     identification or even home addresses, resulting in a vexing 
     Catch-22 problem for the homeless. ``If we're going to ask 
     people to function like members of society before you give 
     them a bank account, we're fooling ourselves,'' says John M. 
     Imperiale, a community-investment officer with Chase. 
     ``Having a normal life without a bank account is virtually 
     impossible.''
       Indeed. People who are deprived of banking services suffer 
     in ways that people who take banks for granted can hardly 
     imagine. Check cashers are the first problem. They take at 
     least 1% cut of the checks they cash, and that includes those 
     issued by presumably credit-worthy government agencies. And 
     carrying cash is hardly the best form of cash management, 
     frequently leading to irresponsible spending and robberies.
       The problems are magnified when poor people receive lump-
     sum payments from insurers or government agencies. Mr. Story 
     says a vet named Phillip Witherspoon lost $21,000 in cash the 
     same day he received a check from the VA. Another vet died of 
     a drug overdose the same day he cashed a $7,000 government 
     check.
       Since the first accounts at Chase were established in April 
     1992, Mr. Story says that 350 vets have opened accounts and 
     that their balances now exceed $2 million. The surprising 
     large amount is mostly the result of the lump-sum payments 
     that some vets receive for injuries; several vets have more 
     than $10,000 in their accounts.
       Juan R. Martinez, a 43-year-old who earned three Purple 
     Hearts during the time he operated an M-79 grenade launcher 
     in Vietnam, had never been inside a bank before he opened an 
     account at Chase's branch on Manhattan's Seventh Avenue and 
     24th Street several months ago. Working off and on as baker 
     and driver, Mr. Martinez's life has had a number of ups and 
     downs since he left the service in 1969. In 1990, he was 
     imprisoned for transporting three pounds of cocaine. Now on 
     parole, he is staying with friends while he hopes to find a 
     room in a single-room-occupancy hotel, the low-rent 
     residences familiarly called SROs.
       ``When I got my money in Vietnam, I just spent it. When I 
     got out, I did the same thing,'' Mr. Martinez says. ``And 
     when I had no money . . . Well, you know how your mind works 
     when you have no money. That's how I got in jail.''
       Mr. Martinez opened his account with $100; and thanks to 
     the monthly $253 disability payments he receives from the VA, 
     his balance has climbed to more than $600. Along the way, he 
     says he has developed a new sense of responsibility. ``I am 
     careful about money now,'' he says. ``It's great to know that 
     I can just go to the bank and get some money if I need it.''
       Joe Green Jr., who won a Bronze Star for his service as a 
     combat medic in Vietnam, says his automated-teller-machine 
     card makes him feel better about himself. ``It makes me feel 
     like I'm getting back into the mainstream of society,'' he 
     says. Mr. Green, now 46, lives in an SRO on 119th Street and 
     Madison Avenue. Saving a portion of his biweekly public-
     assistance checks, he hopes that he will eventually be able 
     to rent an apartment.
       Chase, which charges its standard fees to homeless vets, 
     recently began granting them credit cards. Credit lines will 
     be limited to the amount of money card holders have in their 
     bank accounts.
       While borrowing money at the card's 17.9% rate instead of 
     using money in their accounts that earns just 2% does not 
     make financial sense, it will allow them to take another step 
     into the world of finance. ``We are trying to give people a 
     chance to re-establish, or in many cases establish, credit 
     ratings,'' Mr. Story says.

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