THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 5, 1995 TAG: 9507050082
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARGARET EDDS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CULPEPER LENGTH: Long : 145 lines
Last February, with the General Assembly set to adjourn in 48 hours and stalemate hovering like a thundercloud over welfare-reform negotiations, Calvin L. ``Chip'' Coleman decided it was time for a little prod from the hinterlands.
The local director of Social Services scribbled out the words ``Keep on Working!'' and faxed the plea to two key players in the debate: Democratic Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr. and the Republican secretary of health and human resources, Kay Coles James.
Today, both sides credit the three-word missive with injecting fresh determination into efforts that culminate today in the launching of one of the nation's most far-reaching welfare experiments.
Now, last winter's roles are switched. Coleman and a core of Social Services workers, welfare recipients and community leaders are at the hub of change. Beyer, James and other state officials are rooting them on.
Five central Virginia counties, including Culpeper, were tapped by Gov. George F. Allen to go first in an overhaul that eventually will require most of the state's 74,000 recipients of Aid to Families With Dependent Children to begin working and will limit most benefits to two years.
Rather than debut the reform in urban areas, where the bulk of Virginia's welfare population lives, officials are taking an easier route. They're starting in an area where the welfare population is small, unemployment is low and enthusiasm for reform is high.
Other localities will be added over the next four years. But for now, the media glare is focused on settings such as the cramped, upstairs Social Services office where Chip Coleman answered yet another telephone inquiry last week.
``We're wonderful. We're ready. We're excited,'' went his exuberant litany.
Several blocks away, in a small classroom where about a dozen welfare mothers were honing ``self-esteem'' skills, the reaction was a more nervous blend of anticipation, hope and fear.
``Just as well to say the welfare raised me,'' said Mary Jane Wall, a 29-year-old mother of three, relating a history of parental alcoholism, foster homes and a failed marriage.
Asked her view of the welfare-to-work plan, Wall twirled a rubber band around fingers tipped with sequined-blue polish and peered cautiously into the lens of a German television network camera.
``I think it's great,'' she said. ``There's a lot of women out there - men, too - who just lie around and rely on the check.''
But life has taught Wall nothing if not skepticism.
Having physically abused one of her own children during a period of drug use and mental instability, she fears what may happen to some other children whose mothers find themselves without resources, she said. ``There's going to be a lot of anger taken out on 'em.''
The first-phase counties - Fauquier, Rappahannock, Culpeper, Orange and Madison - are home to about 117,000 residents, many of whom commute to the prosperous Washington suburbs for work. Unemployment rates range from a low of 3 percent in Fauquier and Madison counties to a high of 4.2 percent in Rappahannock.
The average monthly AFDC caseload goes from a high of 256 families in Culpeper to a low of 20 families in Rappahannock.
By contrast, Fairfax County, the largest of the 31 localities scheduled to come into the program during its first year, must find a way to move 4,400 AFDC recipients off the welfare rolls and into the workforce.
Even greater challenges will come in later years when localities with larger caseloads and unemployment rates are tapped. Norfolk, for instance, had an average caseload of about 7,000 families in 1994; Richmond had about 7,700.
Finding work for the 100 or so women expected to be eligible for the work plan in Culpeper County will be simple by comparison - a fact acknowledged by both Social Services and Chamber of Commerce officials.
``Businesses here are interested in being part of the solution,'' said Norma Dunwody, executive director of the Culpeper Chamber of Commerce.
Even so, there are few illusions about the ease of helping women - many of whom have limited job skills and multiple family problems - become self-sufficient.
Sam Found learned that reality last year. A funeral home director and Republican who sits on both the local Social Services Board and the Board of Supervisors, Found hired a former welfare recipient to work in his business.
While he considers the experience successful, Found said he was sobered by it. Ending welfare is going to be a ``person-by-person, case-by-case thing,'' he said. ``It's a difficult nut to crack.''
One source of consternation is the fact that some localities will have more financial help than others.
Under a complicated formula, Culpeper is getting about $547,000 - or about $2,100 per case - from the state for education, training and child-care costs. But Fauquier is receiving less than half that: $201,000, or about $860 per case.
Asked if the gap will pose a strain, Fauquier Social Services director Janice Selbo replied: ``Absolutely.'' Local Social Services officials ``sort of fainted when we saw the allocation,'' she said.
Starting today, Social Services workers in the five counties will begin moving eligible AFDC recipients into the work program. The recipients will sign a statement in which they pledge to seek work and acknowledge that getting off welfare is their responsibility.
Within 90 days of the signing, they'll be expected to have found a job or to be placed in either subsidized employment or community-service work. Localities will help out with day care and transportation during the two-year period before AFDC benefits end. Medicaid coverage can continue for a third year.
Coleman and other Social Services officials volunteered Culpeper to become a test site. Their enthusiasm for innovative ideas is high, as evidenced by a series of projects.
Six years ago, for instance, the department started the county's first day-care center. Today, the center provides after-school and summer care for about 250 children, many of whom are middle class. They help foot the bill for those who are not. The center's $500,000 annual budget is administered through Social Services.
In another program that should boost welfare reform, the board 19 months ago started a partnership with the Chamber of Commerce and the local community college to train AFDC recipients in proper work habits and self-esteem. That program will be expanded.
``We have a lot of things in place, a lot of partnerships developed,'' said Lisa Houck, employment services coordinator for the department.
A variety of approaches will be needed to meet the needs of Culpeper's welfare population.
Joyce Hinton extracted four bottles of medicine and a sheaf of papers about work-related injuries from her purse as she explained the medical problems that, she believes, have prevented her steady employment in recent years.
``Of course I'm worried. I've got diseases,'' she said of the new plan.
For Kim Glascoe, a 31-year-old mother of two, the barrier is transportation. Trained as a practical nurse, Glascoe acknowledges that she could probably find work tomorrow. But she is waiting for an automobile promised her by an uncle to arrive.
Experienced in losing jobs that she can't get to, Glascoe noted: ``I don't want to apply until I've got transportation.''
And for Wall, whose formal schooling ended in the sixth grade, the challenge is education. ``I like to have a secretarial job, but I ain't smart enough for a secretarial job,'' she said.
Still, Wall believes that it is right to make welfare temporary.
``I think it'll make people get out and work, I do,'' she said. ``If it don't, we'll have a lot more homeless people. But they've got a choice, don't they?'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
PAUL AIKEN/Staff
Welfare recipient Mary Jane Wall, shown with her children Angel, 9,
left, and Casey, 8, at her mother's house outside Culpeper.
KEYWORDS: WELFARE REFORM by CNB