Thursday, August 19, 1999
Getting off welfare gets easier
Various services in same office
BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Hamilton County Department of Human Services has taken one of the nation's most thorough approaches to moving welfare recipients off cash assistance.
Human services has set up a one-stop shop in its Central Parkway headquarters that connects welfare recipients to addiction and domestic violence programs, and job training, vocational and mental health services.
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FEWER CASES
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Here are the number of cases receiving cash assistance (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, TANF) in Hamilton County. Since its 1992 peak, the number is down 63 percent.
Sept. 1992 - 22,800
Sept. 1993 - 22,700
Sept. 1994 - 21,900
Sept. 1995 - 19,600
Sept. 1996 - 18,000
Sept. 1997 - 13,800
Sept. 1998 - 9,900
Current - 8,500
Source: Hamilton County Department of Human Services
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The goal of the Community Link program, which started Aug. 2, is to move Hamilton County's remaining 5,200 adult welfare recipients toward self-sufficiency — in most cases, a job — before Ohio's cash benefits begin expiring for some recipients on Oct. 1, 2000.
“There are some variations of (the approach by) Hamilton County but none as comprehensive,” Wayne Sholes, assistant director of the Ohio Department of Human Services, said Wednesday. “What I'm really happy and refreshed to see is the community leadership come together to work for the same goals.
“I can't think of anyone they've forgotten. This is one of the most forward-thinking programs in the country.”
Community agencies have employees in a single Central Parkway office. The groups are Jewish Vocational Services, Great Oaks Institute of Technology and Career Development, Talbert House, Comprehensive Center for Addiction Treatment, Cincinnati Restoration Inc. and Work and Rehabilitation Centers of Greater Cincinnati Inc. (WRC).
“We were losing 50 percent of the people we'd refer from DHS (human services) to community services. They weren't showing up where we were sending them or wouldn't get back here,” said John Young, welfare reform executive with Hamilton County human services. “The idea was to get services in here and be more customer-friendly.”
“In some cases, we couldn't identify the problems,” said Moira Weir, a human services supervisor who works in Community Link. “We were spinning our wheels. We went to the community and said, "We need your help.'”
Ms. Weir thinks Hamilton County is one of only three human services departments nationally that have invited community agencies into their building.
April Mack is Community Link manager and a WRC employee.
“The different services get wrapped around the person when they come in,” said Ms. Mack. “They don't even know the services are coming from several different agencies.”
All clients at Community Link are interviewed to determine their needs. Some might qualify for federal Supplemental Security Income.
Community Link is paid for by federal money given to local governments as an incentive to reduce welfare rolls.
The county expects to have Community Link in place at its other three offices by Oct. 1.
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