Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 17, 1994 TAG: 9408100003
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: E3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CORINNE GOTT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
One person had actual knowledge of a woman who was illegitimate and was reared on welfare. This woman had four illegitimate daughters, also reared on welfare, of whom all four now have illegitimate babies - on welfare.
That example is the nightmare of the social workers' profession. It almost makes one wonder if the laws of nature are against us, as if all illegitimate babies were born female, bracing themselves in the womb to rise and reproduce their like again.
It certainly would give me great grief, considering that I've spent more than 40 years identified with my chosen profession, if this example were typical of what I have encountered working with families on welfare. I'm sure if valid research were done, such a family could be found. I can think of three or four myself.
But such a family would not be typical.
Statistics on 2,000 Roanoke city households taking Aid to Families with Dependent Children reveal the following profile:
The average family on AFDC has two children.
The average length of stay on AFDC is 21/2 years.
The overwhelming age group is 24 to 45 years of age for heads of households. Only 235 are under the age of 21. Of these, 23 are under 18.
More than 90 percent of the households on AFDC are there as a result of failed marriages or failed relationships.
It is too easy to assume that social services, identified as "the bureaucracy," is just sitting here shuffling papers and perpetrating the problem. In fact, any welfare-reform effort must be prepared to hit a moving target. In the past six months in the city of Roanoke, we have received 1,371 applications for AFDC. We approved 675 and denied 687. We also closed 865 cases. The point is, there's a lot of turnover of families we serve through this program.
The good news is that people get off AFDC on their own if they can. Others get off with the help of our staff. The bad news is that many of those who get off have very little, if any, reserve to see them through financial hardship, such as a breakdown in day-care arrangements or loss of transportation. An illness of the caretaker or child can push a family back on AFDC. It is like a revolving door.
Having watched this process over the years, I've come to the conclusion that having to be on AFDC is not the poor families' fault. There are a lot of flaws in the economic system. The incentives to stay on welfare do not lie within the program's rules and regulations. And the incentives to stay off it do not exist, sufficiently, outside the welfare system.
There's a lack of adequately paying jobs, of day-care resources, of transportation, of available health-care benefits, of affordable housing - and now the experts are going to reform the welfare system?
Some of the solutions offered are time limits on AFDC, no help for children born after a parent has been on AFDC for 10 months, placement in jobs in the private sector (where most available jobs are minimum-wage) or placement on jobs created in the public sector.
I've heard a definition of an expert as anyone more than 50 miles from home. Well, an expert on welfare reform is anyone more than $50,000 from poverty. The experts should get away from placing blame, and get closer to dealing with the failures in our social structure.
Welfare reform has been tried many times before, but always, as now, in a punitive mode, such as by restricting eligibility requirements. A policy that allowed children to continue to receive assistance through AFDC if the caretaker married or remarried was changed in 1982 to hold the stepparent financially responsible for step-children. In Roanoke, we cut off 150 stepparent families, all of whom were at or below the poverty level of income. I wish someone could explain to me how that policy change relates to official talk about supporting family values such as marriage.
Don't get me wrong. I'm in favor of welfare reform. It wouldn't take a search for the Holy Grail to find a solution. We already have at least two models at the federal level.
In 1973, the federal government passed legislation putting a platform under aid to the elderly and disabled, guaranteeing that those eligible would not fall below the poverty level. Almost instantly, the poverty rate in this country dropped from around 20 percent to 14 percent. An eligible elderly or disabled person living alone today will receive $446 per month. Compare that to a family of three receiving $291 a month on AFDC.
Where we succeeded for the elderly, we have failed with families. President Nixon could not get his legislation through Congress that would have guaranteed a level of income for all families. The echo we hear today is: ``People who work should not be poor.''
The other model is the GI Bill, surely the most successful welfare program we've ever undertaken. It had all the right components: education, stipends and housing - which are basically what we need today. In both these models, the secret to success was in adequate funding, not moralistic judgments about who is deserving.
In Roanoke, we have a model that includes the components of successful welfare reform. Operated jointly by social services, the Fifth District Employment and Training Consortium and the housing authority, it is called Project Self-Sufficiency. It offers adequate education and training, adequate housing, and adequate case management to help participants overcome barriers to self-sufficiency. It contributed to Roanoke's winning an All-American City award.
The participants enter into an agreement with us to develop a plan for self-sufficiency. The agency assigns a case-manager to the family to ensure that the plan moves forward. A job developer with the training consortium helps the participant develop an educational program to acquire skills for the job market. The housing authority negotiates a housing unit through the Section 8 federal program.
With adequate housing, a strengthening of job skills, and a casemanager coordinating resources such as day care, transportation and budget mangement, a person with a 9th- or 10th-grade education may become a registered nurse or a nursing assistant. Our success rate speaks for itself: 72 percent of participants have not returned to public assistance by the end of five years.
In the eight years of its existence, Project Self-Sufficiency has served 190 participants. Participation is limited by the number of Section 8 certificates and by the amount of case-manager time and day-care funds.
Out staff has also seen a significant change in the job market itself. It is a lot harder today than it was eight years ago to find jobs with the salary and stability needed for self-sufficiency. There has been a shift from permanent jobs with benefits to temporary part-time jobs. Day-care budgets are more unstable because appropriations are reduced at the beginning of each budget year.
I ask you, are we good public servants if we help a participant get registered for fall courses at the community college during the summer and then yank her day care in October or November because funds are exhausted?
When I was growing up in a family of seven children, I remember my mother advising us, ``Don't ever make any idle threats, because you are just asking for more trouble, and don't start any fights that you can't finish.''
I think that advice has served me well. That is the advice I offer the experts: Don't threaten to take children off AFDC rolls in two years unless there's a better plan made for them. Don't promise people jobs in the private sector if there aren't ones available that will pay enough to support a family. Don't promise to put people in public-services jobs without proper staff to train and supervise. And, whether they are private- or public-sector jobs, where are the resources for day care?
If I were put in charge of welfare reform, two items would make up my agenda: universal day care and universal health care. Until we get those two resources for all families, any threat will be an idle threat. With those two resources, we could do away with welfare ``as we know it.''
Corinne Gott is director of the Roanoke City Department of Social Services.
by CNB