Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 19, 1994 TAG: 9403190031
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Before him sat participants of Total Action Against Poverty's employment training programs, low-income Roanokers weaning themselves from government handouts with education and job skills. That they were his chosen audience was no accident.
Beyer - who led the state's welfare reform efforts through his poverty commission - wanted to show that the poor can work their way to economic independence. In 30 years, TAP's employment training programs have helped more than 25,000 people move from public assistance into the skilled labor force.
That is the goal of the Virginia Independence Program, the state's effort to reform its welfare system: to help move welfare recipients into what Beyer called the "best social program in the world" - a good job.
"It's time to put a human face on the fight against poverty," Beyer said. "We're all familiar with the stereotypes, and we know that few of those stereotypes are true. To change the way welfare works, first we have to listen to real people who are struggling to make it."
Lisa Campbell of Roanoke sat next to Beyer's lectern, an example of his pronouncement. She would still be on welfare, she said, had it not been for training she received through one of TAP's employment programs.
Campbell works at Allstate as a work-flow coordinator in the company's mail room. It is a good job with benefits, she said. "Everyone wants a chance to be more productive in society. But without job skills, you can't do that."
Virginia's welfare reform program calls for thousands of poor families - 3,000 in each of three years - to receive job training, child care, transportation and health care in exchange for a two-year limit on welfare benefits. Participants would be required to seek private-sector jobs within a year of going on welfare rolls, or take public service jobs.
They would be forced off the rolls completely after another year, whether or not they had a permanent job. The measure would impose a "family cap," denying extra benefits to mothers if they had more children while in the program - but only for the first two of the three pilot years, Beyer said.
The measure - which has been called a model for nationwide welfare reform - was quickly embraced across party lines.
"We've been very fortunate to have Democrats and Republicans willing to work together to change the way the system works," Beyer said. "When we held public hearings with people living in poverty, we never talked to a person who said the system worked.
"It's easy to have a rich person living in the suburbs bash welfare. But it's another thing when someone on welfare says it doesn't work."
Without real investment on the state's part, however, welfare reform efforts cannot succeed, Beyer said.
"It's going to take a real state investment in human capital - in job training, day care, case management - to move families who have been on welfare for a long time into independence," Beyer said. "And it's much better than the kind of investment that we do now - just saying, here's a little bit of money to eke by indefinitely."
Provided Gov. George Allen lends his endorsement and it meets federal waiver requirements, the program will be phased in beginning July 1.
In its three pilot years, the state is expected to make money by taking job-ready people and moving them into the work force, Beyer said. In 1997, when the program is to be implemented statewide, the projected cost to the state will be $50 million to $60 million, he said.
The "family cap" portion of the program is the only part that could be categorized as "pilot," Beyer said. Opposed by members of the state's Black Caucus and women's groups, it was voted in primarily because it would be limited to the first two years.
"Hopefully, it will give us the data needed to solve the often raging social debate about whether a family cap should be a meaningful part," Beyer said.
by CNB