Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 17, 1995 TAG: 9509180011
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"Plus, we have a lot of people who come in off the streets," said the Rev. William Klein, pastor. "And we're starting our fifth Habitat for Humanity house."
What more, Klein asked, can his congregation do?
Help pick up the slack for a state government that is lessening its role in assisting the poor, Gov. George Allen says. He wants religious, nonprofit and charitable organizations to become players in the state's changing welfare system.
"We are doing about all we can do," Klein said of Second Presbyterian. "I think the scope of the problems is beyond the capacity of most churches. There's a limit to what volunteers can do and will do."
Last week, Allen summoned religious, nonprofit and community leaders to Fredericksburg to discuss their role in making Virginia's welfare plan work.
The reviews were mixed. Some applauded Allen's "call to action." Others were baffled by the suggestion.
The state's welfare plan, considered the toughest and most comprehensive in the nation, cuts off Aid to Families with Dependent Children benefits after two years, with a third year of transitional aid.
Though the plan became effective July 1, the component that requires welfare recipients to work for their benefits will be phased in statewide over the next four years. That component - which will require preparing recipients for work and providing them with day care and transportation - primarily is where religious, nonprofit and charitable organizations are being asked to lend a hand.
The work component has not yet reached the Roanoke and New River valleys. But in the Bedford/Lynchburg area, phase-in of the work portion of the plan is a little more than two weeks away.
The area has been pressed to pull together an implementation plan by Oct. 1. And in mapping a strategy, administrators have turned to churches and charitable organizations for help.
Leighton Langford, director of the Bedford County Department of Social Services, needed ways to get welfare clients, many of whom have no transportation, to their required jobs. He discussed the department's needs with churches, and is negotiating with them the use of church vans and buses plus volunteer drivers.
Asking churches and other organizations to "pick up the slack is fine, but many of them are financially burdened as it is now," Langford said. "They're trying to keep up adequate personnel for their own programs. They are at the point now where they are solvent. But beyond that, if they get many more people, they won't be."
What has been interpreted as religious and charitable organizations doing more simply to allow for government spending cuts is slowly shifting into opportunity for outreach and charity.
The Presbyterian Community Center in Southeast Roanoke has responded to Allen's call by exploring expansion of its emergency financial assistance services to include "counseling needs, budgeting needs, life-decision type of needs," said Pat Dillard, executive director. Nearly 20 percent of the 1,900 families the center served last year were welfare recipients.
"We're going to try to set up literacy classes, some parenting programs, things people really need help with," she said. "Many people we see have no real literacy skills. That impairs their opportunity for job placement."
Though the Roanoke Valley has not yet been scheduled to phase in the welfare plan's work component, the center has hired a program developer. He is creating a program with Literacy Volunteers of America and is developing partnerships with several other organizations, Dillard said.
"It's going to take the partnerships of a lot of different agencies and churches to deliver needed services to those who are impoverished," she said. "No one agency or church can do it by themselves."
But not everyone has embraced the idea.
"In some areas I think it is positive," said Ronald Herring, executive director of Lutheran Family Services of Virginia, a Salem agency that, in part, provides counseling, crisis intervention and parent education to families.
"When we talk about recapturing the role of the church, on one hand there's merit to that thinking. On the other hand, we have to be careful that we don't try to compare one time in history with another. We have a different time in history and different things apply."
Last year, Roanoke Area Ministries served 45,000 lunches to the poor at its day shelter and provided $170,000 in emergency financial assistance to 3,500 people.
"I understand that the state and country are in need of welfare reform," Wendy Moore, executive director, said. "But I also think the Roanoke Valley is doing its part already. I'm not sure how much more the governor can expect them to do, because they are going above and beyond already."
Moore is not convinced that Allen and his administration are aware of how much some organizations are giving, that he has "a real good working knowledge of what's going on with the everyday citizen."
"The volunteer hour is much more restricted," she said. "People are called upon to do so much more than ever before with cutbacks.
"It's easy to make wide proclamations. You have to build resources, see what's being done already, see how much more you can ask for."
by CNB