Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509290059
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ADRIANNE BEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Medium
James spoke before concerned citizens and representatives of social service agencies at Christiansburg Presbyterian Church. The topic: "Human Services under the Allen Administration."
"Commonwealths can't raise children," James said. "I have seen welfare sap motivation, self-esteem and human dignity.
James said she decided to take the job with Gov. George Allen when she realized "he was overseeing the two most important issues facing the country: health care reform and welfare reform."
But to get to those issues, she claimed she has had to "plow though misinformation" in the media. "Nobody wants to throw people off AFDC [Aid to Families with Dependent Children]," she said. Rather, James stressed the point that people sometimes pass over many job opportunities when they view them as "demeaning work."
"I come from a mother who scrubbed people's toilets to feed her family. ... I've cleaned other people's houses," James said. "If it takes care of your family, it's not demeaning."
Not liking your boss, dreading each day of work because "it's not your dream job, you know how many jobs I would have quit if that was the criteria?" James said. "We have a culture where people no longer understand the work ethic."
James said the heart of the problem is that fathers aren't involved in the lives of their children and mothers lacking the skills to make a living. "No child deserves the right to grow up with their mom or dad on AFDC" she said.
"Literacy, not job training is the most important thing," James said. "We send people from job-training program to job-training program and we don't have the programs connected to jobs that actually exist."
"It's impossible to create jobs for AFDC recipients" when they can't "read, write, spell or think," James said. "The harder question welfare must address is 'how do you prepare AFDC recipients to compete in the existing job market?'"
James described Virginia's welfare program as "the most pro-family and compassionate reform anywhere in the nation." But there is difference between compassion and entitlement, she said.
In an attempt to counter comments such as "You're making children suffer because of your policy," James said that when a woman can identify the father who has walked out on her child "we'll find him, get money from him and pass the whole check on to the mother."
James had to catch a plane immediately after her speech which left little time for audience comments or questions. Only Rose Teixeira, a representative from the Montgomery County Community Shelter, got one in. She expressed concern that depleting resources will prevent her organization from meeting the needs of homeless people in the county. "We're only meeting about 20 percent now," Teixeira said.
"I don't think we have a problem with homelessness," James responded. She said the problem is "disconnectedness," which she described as people with mental problems, substance abuse problems and dysfunctional families "disconnected from support systems others have."
James said that resolving those types of needs is necessary "or there will never be enough resources to meet people's needs."
Teixeira responded that in the New River Valley she rarely sees such typically-urban problems. "People are working and bringing home pay-checks here," she said. "The jobs don't pay well enough for them to support their families."
"What did the Irish do when they ran out of potatoes?" James asked.
"Well, a couple thousand died," quipped one citizen in a back row.
"You move to where the jobs are," James explained. "If you find a job in another location we'll pay for the move if you can't afford it." According to James, more money is available now with Allen's program than ever before. She wants to cut through the bureaucracy and see community involvement, a woman teaching others to cook out of her home for example. "Instead of sending Grandma to the nursing home first thing, why not see if we can provide community-based service and keep her independent."
With 27 months left in James' term, she hopes to leave women and children better off than when she began her work with Allen. "You might debate my policy but no one is more committed than I am," James said.
She also hopes to leave an impressive resume with "the really important things" she has accomplished, she joked, such as being on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" and having her hair done by the talk show host's make-up artist, dropping a spoon in Ronald Reagan's lap at a state dinner and her recipe for hot rolls that "nobody can beat."
Next time James said she wants to "just sit and listen" to the community. In the parking lot after James' speech, one woman turned and spoke as she hurried to her car. "She's right, it's time to talk, time to compromise, that's the only way we're going to get out of this mess."
by CNB