ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 21, 1997 TAG: 9704210075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR THE ROANOKE TIMES
At a daylong conference held Saturday, representatives discussed what role Roanoke's religious community can play in the state's changing welfare system.
When Oct. 1 rolls around, half of the estimated 1,700 welfare recipients in Roanoke will have 90 days to begin working in a paid or volunteer job to continue receiving their monthly checks.
Some have never worked before. Some can but don't because they have no one to watch their children. Some have never filled out a tax return. Some have never budgeted a monthly income any larger than $300.
They will need help that local and state social services departments can't fully provide. Gov. George Allen has called for religious, nonprofit and other charitable organizations to pick up the slack for a state government that has reduced its role in helping the poor.
Allen wants churches and civic groups to become players in the state's changing welfare system.
Saturday, 120 representatives of churches, religious organizations and human services agencies gathered at Second Presbyterian Church in downtown Roanoke to discuss what role the city's religious community can play.
"Our charge is to understand welfare reform, to work together and to try to do what we can to lift up those people who will be adversely affected by welfare reform," said David Nova, president of the Roanoke Area Ministries' board of directors. RAM sponsored the daylong conference, called "Partnership with the Poor: A Religious Response to Welfare Reform."
Moving off the welfare rolls will be a blessing for some, Nova said. "It will be a catalyst for them to get off of welfare, find a good job and have the satisfaction of working an honest job and coming home with a paycheck and enriching their lives.
"For others, removing that safety net will plunge them deeper into poverty. Those who fall will fall harder. Our charge is to try to learn about welfare reform so we can help soften that blow."
Last year, Allen announced that he was speeding up the timetable for phasing in the work component of the state welfare plan - Virginia Initiative for Employment Not Welfare. The Virginia Initiative requires people receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families to work in exchange for their benefits. Benefits are cut off after two years.
The Roanoke and New River valleys had been scheduled to phase in the Virginia Initiative on April 1, 1999. Allen's accelerated schedule moved the date up 18 months to Oct. 1 of this year, meaning that people in both regions who on Oct. 1 are receiving the temporary assistance and are not exempted from the Virginia Initiative must be working in a paid or volunteer job by Jan. 1 to continue receiving the temporary benefits.
If the job is paid work, they can keep that income and continue getting their temporary assistance checks - until the two-year cutoff.
The Bedford-Lynchburg region was the second in the state to phase in the Virginia Initiative - three months after the state welfare-to-work plan was signed into law in July 1995.
"We did not have time to prepare, did not have time for meetings like this," Sharon Swedlow, Lynchburg's welfare reform coordinator, said at Saturday's conference. "We were learning and doing at the same time. It was mass chaos."
The city quickly learned that its Social Services Department couldn't do it alone, Swedlow said. So it turned to churches and religious organizations for help.
They have provided child care, particularly for shift workers; transportation in church vans and buses; mentors to help guide welfare recipients through the world of work; and closets full of clothing suitable for job interviews.
"Some of those things you already have in place and perhaps can look at differently," Swedlow said.
There have been skeptics, people who've argued that the religious community is doing all it can already, with limited resources. They have wondered what more it can do.
But the Allen administration's response has been to point out that feeding the hungry and providing shelter and clothing have largely been the church's responsibility for centuries.
Others maintain that the burden may simply be too great for the religious community to bear.
Corinne Gott, superintendent of the Roanoke Department of Social Services, said Saturday that the welfare population is a diverse group with diverse abilities, barriers and problems.
A third of them hate the welfare system and use it only for a short period of time and only in crisis situations, she said. The middle third need help, but the best help they can get is from a social services caseworker.
The bottom third are people "who are just not competitive in society," Gott said.
"They've got the two-year deadline just like the rest," she said. In Roanoke, "that's about 500 families - 1,000 children - who will not have financial help.
"We are going to have problems down the road that the church can't handle. My selfish side tells me there's no way for the church to take over that load. You've got to get politically involved."
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