ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 18, 1996 TAG: 9602190083
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-16 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG
SOURCE: ADRIANNE BEE SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
"Dear Editor: It's about time our community realizes not everyone on welfare plans or even wants to stay on assistance. ... I am a divorced, single mom and on the system to help me further my education in hopes to be a better provider for my daughter. ... I will have completed my education in an appropriate amount of time and have not abused the system. ... I hope people understand that the system can be used in a positive way."
The letter is signed "Anonymous." Single mothers who receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children are often nameless, faceless.
Nine out of 10 families on welfare in Montgomery County are headed by single women. These female heads of households include not only unmarried mothers, but also divorced, separated or widowed women, according to last year's social services report.
Wendy Audette, 32 , is one of these mothers. Tonight she sits eating spaghetti with her daughters, Bethany, 14, and Jessica, 5, in their Christiansburg apartment.
When Audette gave birth to Bethany she was just three years older than her oldest daughter today. She left high school to raise Bethany and went on welfare thinking she could eventually get a job. "The only jobs I could get were waitressing, cashiering or being someone's maid," she says referring to her lack of education at the time. "There's no future in those jobs and day care takes half your paycheck."
Audette received her General Educational Development diploma in 1984. "I thought this would do it for me, set me on the track of being what I always wanted to be," she says.
Getting off government aid by working a string of jobs as a waitress and cashier, she found she didn't have enough money to put food on the table. "I couldn't even take my daughter to McDonald's for a hamburger."
Audette thinks this is why many women in her situation stay in their homes and don't look for a way out. ``It scares them. They think, `If I get a job, I'll lose Medicaid and my low-income housing,''' she says.
Work requirements
Dan Farris, director of Montgomery County Social Services, acknowledges, "That's one of the problems in the transition as you move off the system. Many of our clients are only skilled in the service industry. I'm not sure what the answer is."
With recent welfare reform and stricter regulations, however, there will be only one option: getting off assistance.
"You have two years' benefits - max," says Farris of the Virginia Initiative for Employment not Welfare, the state's welfare reform program. This program will soon come to Montgomery County and be phased in over four years. The program requires that welfare recipients, even those working on their education, be involved in some sort of job training within 90 days of receiving benefits.
The responses to the reform from AFDC recipients have varied. "With some there is fear, others think it's time some control was brought to the situation. Those last ones are the ones looking at this as temporary assistance," Farris says.
The director said about half of those receiving assistance will get off with a small amount of help or a lot of extra help with things such as job training.
A fourth of Montgomery County's recipients "are the more hard core ... maybe they don't have the social skills it takes. There's a lot more than a GED that goes with making it," he said.
The last group Farris describes as the one "that causes the rest of the program's participants to all be viewed in the same way. They are the group that looks at it as a way of life," he says.
To understand why women on AFDC are where they are today, a look into their pasts often offers insight. "It's somewhat generational. That's where you get into social competence, what skills you develop early in life, what you saw then as your potential," Farris says.
Breaking the cycle
Audette's family history is a cyclical one she is trying to break. Her mother had separated from her husband before Audette was born. In 1985, Audette says, "I married a man just like my father." She called the marriage a disaster.
Audette's mother, with four children to support and a fifth-grade education, trained to be a nurse's aide with government assistance. Jobs in nursing were scarce. During those lean times, Audette says, the family received little help from her father.
In the midst of Audette's marriage, she received training as a certified nurse's assistant, trained in blood work. When she became pregnant with Jessica, dealing with blood on a daily basis became a possible health hazard for her unborn child.
"I tried to stay off welfare but there weren't any places that would employ a pregnant woman who could only stay a few months," Audette says. In 1990 Audette left her husband in Florida and moved to Virginia.
"Homeless, jobless, with low self-esteem and $200 in my pocket," Audette walked into the welfare office. Though she says a social worker suggested jobs such as fast-food work, she thought they would not provide her with an "escape from welfare in the long run."
Back to school
Fifteen years after leaving school, Audette decided it was time to go back. She walked through the doors of New River Community College in the fall of 1993. She expects to graduate in May and "reach out to women who are afraid " by going into a career in social work.
Audette received C's and D's when she was in high school. Now, she shows up on both the dean's list and the president's list. She gushes with compliments about the community college staff. "There are people there who care. They love the AFDC parent who needs and wants to further their education," she says. Internships through the college led her to work at New River Community Action where she volunteers and gets firsthand experience in social service work, helping families in crisis.
"I work for my AFDC check and food stamps," says Audette.
Audette will search for a job this summer after graduation and may go on for a bachelor of arts degree. Once she obtains a stable job, she plans on getting off welfare.
She is thankful for the Rev. Harry Scott, chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Social Services, whom she sees as a role model.
A sense of humor is important she says, that and faith in one's self. She now can look into educated people's eyes, something she had problems with before her success at the community college.
She says she has known people who fit the stereotype of sitting at home getting checks and doing nothing to get off welfare. "Those are the women I want to reach out to," Audette says.
LENGTH: Long : 125 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Gene Dalton. Wendy Audette studies in the library at Newby CNBRiver Community College. She is working to earn a degree in an
effort to get off welfare (ran on NRV-1). color.