Sunday, September 05, 1999

Welfare to work: Success in human terms

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BY DAN KLEPAL
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Judith Brown, right, with daughters Attalya, left, and Ayesha, center, and Leonard Martin, is working her way off welfare and preparing to move into a home in College Hill. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        Judith Brown wasn't on welfare when reform was passed in August 1996 — she was living on the streets. Since then, Ms. Brown has kicked a drug addiction, regained custody of her two daughters and received a nursing degree from Queen City Vocational School.

        But Ms. Brown, 28, of College Hill, still needs food stamps and vouchers for child care to get by.

        In many ways, Ms. Brown reflects the changing face of welfare.

        The number of people receiving cash assistance from the government is at a 30-year low.

        In southwest Ohio, about 26,000 were getting cash assistance in July, down from about 43,500 in October 1996. The bulk of them, more than 21,000, live in Hamilton County.

INFOGRAPHIC

Welfare declines

        The trend also can be seen in Northern Kentucky, where about 4,000 are on welfare compared to 7,800 three years ago.

        Nationwide, the welfare rolls have dropped from 14.1 million in January 1993 to 7.3 million last March.

        But the amount of money being spent on welfare hasn't changed much. The money is simply being spent in different ways.

        Ohio, for example, spends $19 million less every month on cash assistance since welfare reform.

        The state uses that money for programs that didn't exist before reform or that have been expanded. They include programs to provide job skills, literacy, counseling, child care, clothing, transportation and other services to poor people.

        Kentucky, and other states, are in the same position.

        “There has been a significant decrease in our monthly cash assistance grants,” said Sharon Perry, assistant to the secretary of Kentucky's Cabinet for Families and Children.

        “The money that's been freed up now goes toward supporting the working poor and providing more intensive services for those still on welfare,” she said.

        Ms. Brown's is an example of the way welfare reform is supposed to work, experts say.

        “I was in recovery and working, and I wanted to go to school,” Ms. Brown said. “I knew I couldn't do everything at once. Work was one of the things I gave up, knowing assistance was there to help me for a year until I finished school.”

        The cash handouts are available for three years in Ohio and five years in Kentucky. After that, the checks stop coming, whether the person has found work or not. Other types of assistance, such as food stamps and Medicaid, are not subject to time limits.

        Although some say reform already has been a success, others argue that the real test won't come until recipients begin getting kicked off of assistance.

        In Ohio, people who have received cash assistance continuously since the beginning of welfare reform will be dropped in October 2000; in Kentucky, the time limits start expiring in October 2001.

        The Urban Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington D.C., is in the middle of a six-year study of welfare reform.

        Researchers there say the ultimate success or failure of the reform program will be measured in human terms, not statistics.

        “What welfare reform did is move most people from poor to working poor,” researcher Sheila Zedlewski said. “What impact that has had on families, we don't know.

        “The other important piece of the puzzle not yet in place, is the time limits. What will happen to those people who have not been able to find a job when their benefits run out? We really have to let this play out before we know for certain.”

        Signed into law by President Clinton on Aug. 22, 1996, welfare reform reversed a half century of social policy that guaranteed cash assistance to the nation's poorest people, including children.

        Instead of an entitlement program, welfare now has limits.

        The federal government sends a finite amount of money to the states each year in the form of block grants. Kentucky and Ohio receive $181 million and $728 million, respectively, from the federal government each year.

        The states hand that money, along with some of their own, to counties. The counties pass it out as cash assistance or to pay for programs to get people off the public dole.

        “Yesterday we passed out cash; today we're talking to them about their future. It's been a major mind shift for everyone involved,”

        said Don Thomas, director of the Hamilton County Department of Human Services (DHS).

        Each county handles that mind shift differently.

        Butler County, for example, has a pilot early-intervention program targeting teen mothers and other young people.

        Clermont County has contracted with the Chamber of Commerce to give welfare recipients training they'll need to enter the work force.

        “We felt the people at the chamber were the experts in the field,” said Tom Albers, director of Human Services for Clermont County. “They know what the employers need and what they expect.”

        Kentucky has taken a regional approach by grouping counties together, then working with nonprofits and other community-based organizations to help people find jobs.

        Gene Beaupre, a political science professor at Xavier University, said reform has done little to reduce the national debt.

        But it's the political perception that the government is halting handouts that has been most important to those who passed reform, he said.

        “It's a slogan people think they understand without getting into the gory details,” Mr. Beaupre said. “So as a political issue, passage of welfare reform ranks high in our history.

        “But whatever real problems are associated with welfare reform are invisible to the general public.”

        Those problems are many.

        One is that all welfare recipients are required to report to DHS offices during working hours.

        Don Budke, personnel director for Casco Products, a manufacturer of hospital mattresses at 3107 Spring Grove Ave., Cincinnati, has hired dozens of welfare recipients.

        “How can you threaten someone with the loss of benefits if they're not working, then interrupt their work schedule?” Mr. Budke asked.

        There also are $8 an hour minimum-pay requirements for people moving from welfare to work.

        “When they put restrictions on the number of hours a person has to work and the amount they have to be paid, it makes it difficult to hire them,” Mr. Budke said. “My jobs pay what they pay. I can't afford to pay more.”

        Lora Jollis, a client services director for Hamilton County DHS, said the county is trying to offer later hours during the week and occasional Saturday hours.

        Pay and work hour requirements, though, are mandated by the state.

        “Those are issues, but the three biggest issues for people looking for work are the number of kids they have, their work history and their education level,” Ms. Jollis said. “Those are the things that either help you or doom you.”

        Terri Streater, a 30-year-old mother of four, had to deal with them before landing a job as a receptionist at the Fernald Uranium Plant.

        Ms. Streater, who lives in downtown Cincinnati, was on welfare for two years before getting her job. She needed computer training, along with day care and transportation before entering the work force.

        “I felt miserable on assistance,” Ms. Streater said. “I was just lacking in one area, and once I got my computer training nothing could stop me.”

        Despite the success stories of Ms. Streater and Ms. Brown, the real work of welfare reform is just beginning.

        More than 800 people in Hamilton County currently on the welfare rolls stand to lose their benefits in October 2000. Another 800 will come due in November, and so on.

        They are the people who are the most difficult to place in available jobs.

        What will happen to them — and thousands of others who may return to to welfare if the economy turns sour — is a worry.

        Hamilton County's Mr. Thomas said if those things happen, another change in public policy won't be far behind.

        “Cincinnati won't stand to be another Calcutta,” Mr. Thomas said. “If we cut off 1,000, 2,000, 5,000 people and we start seeing poor children in the streets with their hands out, we'd see some pretty quick and significant changes.

        “But it's our job to make sure that doesn't happen.”

       

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