It should prod our conscience when a local nonprofit organization that serves the poor is busier — and more needed — today than when it was established 25 years ago. This should tell us something is wrong.

The Schuhmann Social Service Center, an outreach ministry of St. Martin of Tours Church in Louisville, served more homeless and needy people last year — more than 23,000 — than at anytime in its 25-year history. And the numbers being served with clothing, food and household items have continued to rise every year.

For example, in 2000 the center at 930 E. Gray St. helped about 15,000 people in its service area of central and eastern Louisville. Five years later, the figure jumped to 20,500.

The Schuhmann center, which marked its 25th anniversary Jan. 28, is just one organization seeing a constant increase in emergency assistance. A similar story can be told by the Sister Visitor Center in the city’s West End. And Steve Bogus, executive director of Archdiocese of Louisville Catholic Charities, said recently that the charities office here is helping more than 30,000 people in the archdiocese.

Bogus made his comments in January when Catholic Charities USA issued a report on poverty in America. This report put in a national perspective what local organizations such as the Schuhmann Center and Sister Visitor Center know so well: poverty remains a serious and growing concern in this country.

The Catholic Charities USA report put it quite bluntly: “Poverty in the United States is a moral and social wound in the soul of our country. It is an ongoing disaster that threatens the health and well-being of our nation.”

The report said:

• 37 million people — about 12.6 percent of the U.S. population — lives below the federal poverty level, which in 2006 was $20,000 for a family of four.
• Between 2000 and 2004, the number of people living in poverty increased by 5.3 million.
• Poverty rates did not decline even though the economy as a whole was in a recovery.
• 25 million people in the United States sought help from food banks in 2006 — an increase of 18 percent since 1997.
• Most of the poor are workers. Nearly two out of three families with incomes below the poverty line include one or more workers.
• While most poor Americans are white, the percentage of people of color living in poverty is higher. The poverty rate for non-Hispanic whites is 8 percent; for African Americans, 24.1 percent; for Hispanics, 21.8 percent; for Native Americans, 23.3 percent.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the U.S. bishops’ anti-poverty program, reported in January “a bitter fact that 13 million of our nation’s poor are children.” The Catholic campaign has been waging a media campaign to raise awareness of the extent and impact of poverty in America.

To address poverty, Catholic Charities USA proposed that a national goal be set to reduce poverty by half by 2020. To accomplish this, the “Poverty in America” report calls for a number of initiatives in the areas of health care, housing, hunger/nutrition and family economic security to be taken by government and public-private partnerships.

Faith-based groups and nonprofit organizations have roles to play, but they “do not have the resources to replace those functions which are the legitimate responsibility of government and the private sector,” the Catholic Charities USA report said.

The goal to cut poverty in half by 2020 might seem to be ambitious. But in reality, this goal is achievable — provided it is made a national priority and there is a willingness and a commitment to carry it out.

“We have the resources, experience and knowledge to virtually eliminate poverty, especially long-term poverty, but we do not yet have the political will,” the Catholic Charities report said. “We know that this goal will require major social change, but we also know that it is possible in a nation as wealthy as ours.”

This same point was emphasized by the U.S. Catholic bishops in a 2002 pastoral message. They said: “We must come together with a common conviction that we can no longer tolerate the moral scandal of poverty in our land. We can debate how best to (do this), but we must be united in our determination to do so.”