THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, December 16, 1994 TAG: 9412160546
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARGARET EDDS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
About 48,000 welfare recipients in Virginia will be dropped gradually from public assistance over the next five years if a far-reaching poverty policy announced Thursday by the Allen administration is adopted.
In 55 areas of low unemployment, including Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, most men and women who get checks from Aid to Families with Dependent Children - the nation's major welfare program - would have to start working for their benefits next summer.
Other cities and counties would be phased in gradually. Recipients in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Northampton County would enter the program in July 1996, and those in Accomack County a year later.
The legislature and federal welfare officials must approve those timetables and other major segments of the plan, including a 24-month limit on the number of AFDC checks a welfare recipient can get in a five-year period.
Speaking in a public housing-project gymnasium freshly painted for the occasion, Allen called the proposal ``a revolutionary change from the concept and the times when the government simply doled out a monthly check and turned its back on real problems.''
Allen challenged ``every Virginian to reassume responsibility for your society.'' He called on civic groups, churches, synagogues and families to fill any gaps left by the state's withdrawal.
``For too long,'' he said, citizens have ``viewed helping the needy as primarily the role of the government.''
He announced the formation of ``Volunteer Virginia,'' a group that will try to match volunteers with poor people who need a helping hand.
While some of the ideas proposed by Allen's Commission on Citizen Empowerment have been disclosed, others were new - including requiring the parents of fathers who are juveniles to support their grandchildren financially.
``This is a great one,'' Allen said of the idea. But a Democratic lawmaker on the empowerment panel, Del. David G. Brickley of Woodbridge, said its constitutionality will have to be checked out.
The plan calls for emergency help for poor people with temporary needs and up to three years of state-financed day care and medical assistance while welfare recipients make the transition to work. Advocates for the poor say such support is critical to any welfare reform.
But it was still unclear how much money Gov. George F. Allen intends to invest in providing that help. Allen's dollars-and-cents commitment won't be known until his proposed budget revisions are unveiled Monday, and some advocates for the poor said they fear funds for day care and medical needs will be insufficient.
Nor was it clear how many of the 48,000 jobs to be held by welfare recipients will come from the private sector and how many will be government-subsidized. State officials said they are working to identify jobs and that no salaried worker will be displaced in creating them.
Secretary of Health and Human Resources Kay Coles James, who headed the empowerment commission, projected a $135 million savings over five years. Budget officials later acknowledged that the program will cost - not save - money in at least its first two years.
While the projected savings are a relatively modest portion of the state's $1.2 billion annual public assistance tab - not counting federal dollars - officials said the value of getting families off welfare cannot fully be measured in dollars.
The current system ``has trapped many Virginians and their families in a saga of dependency,'' Allen said. ``We have taught people not to be self-reliant. We have taught people not to be self-sufficient.''
The range of ideas - including making mothers identify the fathers of their children before they get benefits, and yanking driving privileges from fathers who don't support their children - will go far toward correcting that deficiency, he predicted.
Democratic response to the plan was muted. Several policy leaders noted that Democratic Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. embraced many of the same ideas before Allen, a Republican, took office.
Stephen M. Colecchi of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, a member of the Campaign for Virginians in Need, said details of the Allen plan remain too sketchy to evaluate the plan fully. ``There are some good things in it,'' but questions remain. For instance, he asked, how will someone with a minimum-wage job finance day care and medical costs once benefits run out?
About 73,000 families receive AFDC annually in Virginia. by CNB