THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 11, 1994 TAG: 9406110346
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940611 LENGTH: NORFOLK
The setting was a classroom where welfare clients learn to work their way off public assistance.
{REST} Beyer talked about the 1994 legislative package he helped assemble to put Virginia near the forefront of welfare reform.
``What we've tried to do is build a welfare reform package based on the idea of personal responsibility,'' Beyer said. ``You have a responsibility to yourself, to your family and to society to do all you can to turn around.''
But Beyer said federal, state and local governments also have responsibilities, such as providing more day care for small children.
Components of Virginia's new laws include: A two-year limit on benefits, written agreements of responsibility, reduced client loads for caseworkers, one year of public employment if private-sector jobs are not available.
The reforms are effective July 1, but Virginia welfare recipients will be phased into the new system over several years, beginning with 3,000 people in 1994-95.
Beyer also said that the private sector must share responsibility for reform by hiring more people coming off welfare.
``It doesn't do any good to finish your GEDs, learn how to use Word Perfect, type up to 100 words a minute, find somebody to take care of your kids, find a way to get to work if nobody wants to hire you because you're poor and you're on welfare,'' Beyer said.
Welfare recipients told Beyer about their experiences trying to escape poverty.
``I don't focus so much on how I got to this point where I am. I try to focus on how I'm going to move on and become as educated as possible,'' said Crystal Thompson.
Thompson said she is learning skills not only for finding work but staying employed. ``One of those things is to be as dependable as possible, dependable and reliable,'' she said.
In the end, Beyer said he came away more convinced that most welfare recipients would rather work and ``that you can take charge of your own life.''
Beyer's visit was hosted by a pilot program named NEET, or the Norfolk Education, Employment and Training Center, located at 1312 E. Little Creek Road. The city has hired a private company, the Human Development Institute of Baltimore, to help welfare recipients prepare for the realities of finding and holding jobs. There's even a component that instructs clients on starting and running small businesses.
Denise Sykes, for example, has not yet graduated from the entrepreneurial training course, but she is a partner in a small clothing business.
As Beyer toured the NEET Center, he found Sykes rehearsing her sales pitch. Sykes eventually wants to design and manufacture women's swimwear, but for now her products fill another niche: costumes for go-go dancers.
``They're somewhat like bathing suits and that will carry me on into where I'm going,'' Sykes said.
Maxine O'Neal, meanwhile, said she hopes to use her new skills to start a transitional housing program where the homeless can live for up to six months.
But the key lesson she has learned, O'Neal said, is that ``what you put in is what you get out. And I've put my all in it, and my heart.''
Beyer also learned about a job training and placement program operated by the city's Industrial Development Authority and Social Services Division. So far, 69 of 141 graduates are employed, said Archie Seay, director.
Beyer also was given a strong dose of some issues that confront welfare recipients.
``That's a message that many people out in the greater world don't hear, that no one wants to be on welfare,'' Beyer said. ``It's important to break the stereotypes. It's worth saying again that the best social program ever created is a good job.''
Beyer also saw that welfare recipients can debate pros and cons of public assistance as fiercely as liberal and conservative politicians.
Cleo Dickerson suggested that being on welfare made her feel degraded. ``Yes, it affects you personally,'' she said.
But Jackie Bowser countered. ``I don't find welfare degrading. I don't find it belittling because I know I'm going to do something with my life . . . I wanted to do something with my life, but my life caught me.''
Beyer intervened: ``The debate in this room is just like the debate out there, because the debate out there is:
``On the one hand, people who say, `No welfare whatsoever, they're a bunch of deadbeats who are working the system.
``On the other hand, there are people saying, `Real people have real needs. People get sick. People's husbands leave them. People beat them up.' As a people, we have responsibility to step in for the least advantaged.
``What we need to do . . . is to balance these two different perspectives and try to find a way that sets real limits on welfare benefits, that creates high expectations . . . that come from within you.''
{KEYWORDS} WELFARE REFORM
by CNB