THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 12, 1995 TAG: 9509120297
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVID M. POOLE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Some 450 church leaders and social service workers crowded into a hotel ballroom Monday to learn about the added responsibilities they will be asked to shoulder under Gov. George F. Allen's package of welfare reforms.
In a keynote address, Allen left no doubt who is expected to pick up the slack as government steps away from the 75,000 families that receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children.
``I want to empower you, the people and the community,'' Allen said.
Some people who attended the two-day conference were enthusiastic about new opportunities for outreach and charity.
``I can go back to Franklin County and say: `Maybe this is the way we can go,' '' said Bonnie Turner, an outreach coordinator for Franklin Memorial Hospital.
But others were skeptical about the prospect of their civic or church group doing any more than they already are.
``What's going to keep these people from crashing?'' asked Teresa Stanley of St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Virginia Beach. ``They're going to end up on our doorstep because the government has already said they will cut them off.''
Later Monday, a welfare adviser to the Allen administration told the conference that problems aimed at ending addictions or promoting self-sufficiency cannot be successful without a ``spiritual'' component.
``I have not seen evidence of a program with no spiritual content - that treats people just as bodies - that works,'' said Marvin Olasky, a University of Texas journalism professor and the author of the book ``The Tragedy of American Compassion.''
If the Allen administration adopts Olasky's views, the awarding of state grants to religious-based programs could raise a host of issues related to the separation of church and state.
Hopes and fears surround the welfare-reform package, which is the toughest and most comprehensive in the nation. People receiving AFDC must work for their benefits, which will be cut off after two years. Mothers who have children while on welfare will not receive additional benefits, and all mothers under age 18 must attend school to remain eligible.
The law will be phased in across the state. It began July 1 in the Culpeper region and will start Oct. 1 in the Lynchburg-Bedford area.
Allen is seeking to portray Democrats as defenders of the welfare status quo as he campaigns to deliver a Republican majority in the General Assembly this fall. But some Democrats are taking credit for welfare reforms that began several years ago under Democratic Lt. Gov. Donald Beyer Jr.
``Nobody wants this to fail,'' said Del. David Brickley, a Prince William Democrat who showed up Monday.
The Fredericksburg conference was designed to give church and civic leaders a chance to swap strategies for their new responsibilities. But some who have been on the front line in charitable work question Allen's assumption that the mere threat of lost benefits will transform the unemployable into self-sufficient workers.
Stephen Colecchi, assistant to Bishop Walter F. Sullivan of the Catholic Diocese in Richmond, said the Allen plan fails to address the need for jobs that pay a ``livable'' wage.
More than half of the people who receive assistance from the Catholic Church in southern Virginia are not welfare recipients, Colecchi said. Rather, they are the working poor who are one hospital visit or automobile breakdown away from financial ruin. ``They are working, but they can't make it,'' he said.
Other conference attendees share his concern and want to explore the practical realities of welfare reform more fully. The Coalition for the Common Wealth, a group of concerned citizens from churches and universities around Hampton Roads, plans an Oct. 20 meeting at St. Nicholas Catholic Church.
Kay Coles James, Allen's secretary of health and human services, said the challenge will be to train people with little work experience for jobs at middle-class wages.
``These jobs exist - go ask Skunda,'' she said, referring to Allen's secretary of commerce and trade, Robert T. Skunda.
James insisted that ending welfare will require the efforts of not only churches and civic groups, but the business community. ``If businesses are tired of paying taxes, they've got to understand they have a role to play in this.'' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gov. George F. Allen discusses his ideas with James Breckenridge, a
representative of Black United Fund of Hampton Roads Inc., at the
welfare conference Monday.
by CNB