THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407030162
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Welfare mom.
Those two words alone are enough to make people angry.
Add to it a name, Lynette Porter, the number of children she has, four, plus a little about her background - she's a recovering drug addict - and that's enough for a large segment of the population to write her off.
That societal disgust is one reason why welfare reform is on the front burner of every state and national agenda around. It's also a barrier in understanding just how thorny an issue it is.
People don't want to hear about it, don't want to see the faces behind the issue, don't want to hear their stories. They just want to keep their tax dollars from getting sucked into what they see as a bottomless hole that's growing by the minute.
``Get a job'' is the common refrain.
But Porter, who lives in Chesapeake, puts a human face on the issue, and makes us see that welfare reform is not just about saving tax dollars, but about saving lives. These are some of the reasons Porter has had trouble getting off welfare: She can't read or write. Doesn't have transportation. Can't find a job that makes enough to support her family. Has four children she's raising without a father in the picture.
The blueprint for her life has been outlined in poverty.
She's also a recovering drug addict, a problem that's common in the welfare population. According to a just-released study from the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, one in four mothers on welfare uses illicit drugs or drinks excessively.
It all adds up to an issue a little more complicated than ``just getting a job.'' Her problems run deeper than what a welfare check can solve.
President Clinton's $9.3 billion welfare reform plan addresses some of the issues Porter faces: getting fathers reconnected to the picture with stronger child-support initiatives. Training and educating women to boost them out of custodial jobs into employment that can actually support a family. Targeting high school students to prevent teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock children. And limiting welfare.
In the Clinton plan, after two years of training, mothers must get a job, whether it be a subsidized one or in the private sector, while they're weaned off welfare payments. End of story.
It all sounds good on paper. But applying the general layout of the plan to the specifics of people's lives will be trickier. Will there be money for drug treatment? For bus fare to jobs? Will there be money to help shift families from poverty to self-sufficiency? To change in two years what a lifetime of poverty has wrought?
And will this trek toward responsibility turn a public attitude of disgust to one of greater understanding?
We can only hope.
No, Porter doesn't wear a white hat. She's made mistakes. Even if you can't relate to the face of Porter, you can't dismiss the smaller faces of her children. The mistakes of parents don't make the poverty of the children less real, or less worthy of attention. Nor do they make those children any less a part of this world's future.
Welfare reform is about more than keeping tax dollars from flowing into a bottomless hole. It's about doing that in such a way to keep families from dropping into that hole instead. by CNB