Thursday, September 30, 1999
$5M to help find jobs in Butler
Tough to employ are grant's aim
BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — A $5 million federal grant will be used to train and assist with job searches for Butler County's hard-to-employ welfare recipients and unemployed parents who owe child support.
The Butler County Department of Human Services is among 64 grant recipients sharing $222 million from the U.S. Labor Department for innovative “welfare-to-work” programs.
In Butler County, the money will be used to establish two Opportunity Centers in cooperation with eight public and private nonprofit groups.
Welfare recipients and unemployed parents who owe child support will receive on-the-job training in or near the center, and also may get help with searching for jobs via comput ers and telephones. Extended-hours child care also is planned, and the county Regional Transit Authority has agreed to help take participants to the center.
While U.S. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, applauded the funding for Butler County, he said he remains concerned about an unresolved problem: how these former welfare recipients will obtain health care once they become employed.
Mr. Boehner pointed out that health care access is an important issue for Butler County, after the closing of two Hamilton clinics that provided low-cost or free medical and dental care to uninsured and underinsured patients. He also noted that the U.S. Census Bureau estimated last year that 1.3 million Ohioans lack health coverage, along with about 44 million nationwide.
“The White House hasn't been eager to acknowledge it, but the issues of health care reform and welfare reform are directly linked,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement Wednesday. “Millions of Americans are moving off the welfare rolls into jobs with small employers who can't afford to offer health care coverage for their employees.”
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