Saturday, October 30, 1999
$25M awaits reform programs
County needs ideas to get federal funds
BY DAN KLEPAL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Hamilton County's Department of Human Services (DHS) officials are racing to find new programs so they can claim up to $25 million in federal money next year to help keep poor people off welfare.
DHS must submit proposals by the end of the year to qualify for the money. A meeting is scheduled with service providers Tuesday to explain the types of programs that could qualify for the money.
Statewide, there will be about $300 million doled out for such programs.
A wide variety of proposals could qualify for the money, so long as they deal with preventing people from going onto welfare or helping people keep a job so they don't return to welfare.
The Ohio Department of Human Services will accept the program proposals, then draw down the federal dollars to pay for them, said Lora Jollis, the county's welfare reform executive.
Among the types of programs that would be funded:
• Intervention programs to keep children from entering the welfare cycle. These could be pregnancy prevention, drug intervention or other education programs.
• Training for people so they can find a job, or advance in a job they already have.
• Counseling to help keep couples together. The federal government wants to encourage two-parent families.
There already are scores of such programs offered in Hamilton County. The $20 million will only be used to pay for new programs, or an expansion of an existing program.
“Our goal is to submit as many programs as we can right now with the costs associated,” Ms. Jollis said. “We want to secure the money, then start writing contracts and setting up programming.”
The new programs are needed, according to Katy Heins, director of Contact Center Inc., a social service agency in Over-the-Rhine.
Ms. Heins' organization released a study Friday of how welfare reform is affecting recipients. The conclusion: Welfare reform needs reform.
Contact Center Inc. hired Applied Information Resources Inc. to survey former welfare recipients on how reform has affected their lives and how well they understand the system.
The study found that DHS caseworkers are often uninformed about the new programs available to help people; that the system fails to track people once they leave the welfare rolls; and does not allow for meaningful education that will allow people to find good jobs.
Ms. Heins said the government needs to track such factors as housing conditions, job advancement and other quality of life issues after people leave welfare.
“The frustrating thing is that with welfare reform, the goal is to get people off the welfare rolls,” Ms. Heins said. “We're not looking at what happens to them once they're off.”
The report concludes that there needs to be more in the way of education and less in the way of programs.
“There are regulations put in place to prevent persons from continuing in technical or college education curriculums for longer than one year,” the report says.
Ms. Jollis says that is true, and acknowledges it is a failing of the system. But it's the way the law was written, she said.
“Welfare reform is called Ohio Works First, not Ohio Educates First,” Ms. Jollis said. “The reason the law was written that way is because taxpayers made it clear they did not want people going on welfare to get an education.”
Ms. Jollis said state and federal officials are working on ways to better track people who leave welfare.
“It's a valid criticism because the federal government is rewarding states for short-term success — that being get them off the rolls and get them into a job,” Ms. Jollis said. “But there are efforts being made to turn that around.”
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