THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 18, 1995 TAG: 9510180560
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: WELFARE REFORM
First in an occasional series
SOURCE: BY MARGARET EDDS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CULPEPER LENGTH: Long : 304 lines
As Denise Fletcher remembers it, the temperature in central Virginia was about 103 on the day last summer that she, four of her daughters and a boy she was baby-sitting went job hunting.
Packed into her uncle's 1989 Chevy Cavalier hatchback, the six hopscotched from Culpeper to Front Royal, depositing at Wal-Marts, 7-Elevens and Exxon stations the job applications that could make Fletcher a victor in Virginia's war on welfare.
It was mid-afternoon when the car's engine died and Fletcher coasted to a stop in the parking lot of a Front Royal motel. There are no guidelines for what happened next in the poverty policies being charted by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, President Bill Clinton, Gov. George Allen, and other lofty theoreticians.
``I put in my application, and then I asked to use the phone'' to call for help with the car, said Fletcher, a shy 30-year-old whose face is illuminated by earnest brown eyes.
Instead, the motel manager demanded that she get her automobile off the parking lot. ``He said he was going to get a tow truck. I told him I couldn't afford a tow truck. He yelled at my kids and got them upset. He ran them out of the bathroom.''
With the tow truck on its way, Fletcher could think of only one thing to do: ``I called the cops.''
Over the next several hours, the police came and went, Fletcher's uncle and boyfriend eventually showed up to fix the car, and Fletcher placed a collect call to the Culpeper Social Services Department to explain why she'd missed that day's deadline for submitting a list of potential employers. Late that evening, still jobless, she drove her wilted crew home.
Here in Culpeper, on the front lines of a revolution that is dramatically altering the nation's major welfare program for poor women and children - Aid to Families With Dependent Children - Denise Fletcher, Michelle Wallner, Deborah Taliaferro, and about 80 other women are living out their lives in the precarious space between theory and reality.
As the nation seeks the best way to end welfare as we know it, they are juggling rules and regulations - imposed under a Virginia law that took effect July 1 - with the assorted dead-end relationships, troubled family histories, and personal problems that landed them on public assistance.
Michelle Wallner, 24, needs no policy wonk to tell her that transportation is a major barrier to self-sufficiency. The mother of a 4-year-old girl, Wallner's spunky grin and nonchalant air belie the seriousness of her predicament: With her driver's license suspended, she's behind on applying for jobs as required by Virginia's new welfare law and will get no AFDC check next month. Last week, she was saved from spending two weeks in jail in Prince William County for driving with a suspended license only when her boyfriend showed up at the last minute in court with $600 to pay two fines.
``I didn't ask where he got it,'' said a relieved Wallner. ``All I know is I owe him.''
For Deborah Taliaferro, the most daunting task in getting off welfare is selling a job resume that includes three felony convictions for drug possession. The most recent was last spring. ``I'm a woman. I'm black. I've got felony charges,'' the 39-year-old said as she warily discussed her future after a court-ordered session at a drug treatment center. ``It's triple hard for me.''
With help from a social worker and friends, Taliaferro - who does not drive - is meeting the law's required regimen of applying for up to 10 jobs per week. (The requirement was recently dropped from 10 to five in Culpeper.) So far, no prospective employer has called back.
Meanwhile, Denise Fletcher has a triumph to report. She is one of 38 Culpeper AFDC recipients who've gone to work since the law took effect. For Fletcher, the challenge of welfare reform now is to turn the $4.65 an hour that she is earning at Burger King into a livable wage for herself and her five girls before her benefits expire in two years.
``I'm taking home $118 to $240 every two weeks,'' said Fletcher, who stopped studying for her high school equivalency degree when she began her job. ``I sat down and tried to figure it out. How am I going to live off that income when two years are gone?''
In Washington, lawmakers are still hammering out the particulars of national welfare reform. But in Virginia, many of the ideas they're considering already are in place. Women who want a welfare check will have to work in return. Benefits are available for no more than 24 months in a five-year period. And women who give birth while on welfare will get no extra money.
Over the next four years, Virginia's reform plan will take effect in communities across the state. But in a handful of counties, including Culpeper, the experiment is underway. By July 1997 AFDC recipients there will be among the first in the nation to answer a crucial unknown:
What happens to women and children when their welfare benefits end?
Blunt and assertive, Taliaferro thinks she knows. ``Women are going to be begging, borrowing, stealing, hustling . . . whatever they have to do to feed their family,'' she said.
Fletcher fears an even more drastic result - that her children might be taken away. In a series of interviews, the concern was ever present. ``What are they going to do if we don't have no place to go?'' she asked. ``I'm worried to death about that.''
The recurring themes and individual differences in the life histories of Wallner, Taliaferro, and Fletcher suggest the complexity of obstacles facing poor women. Wallner and Taliaferro have high school degrees; Fletcher does not. Both Wallner and Fletcher suffered childhood abuse and spent time in foster homes. Taliaferro's family was more intact, but her high school flirtation with drugs evolved into a heroin addiction.
Each of the three has had troubles with men. ``There was a lot of abuse, a lot of depravedness'' in the relationship with her former husband, the father of her four oldest daughters, Fletcher said. The man who fathered her youngest child initially seemed a godsend but turned out to be violent when he was drinking.
Fletcher's former husband pays child support that adds $50 to her monthly income of $380 from AFDC and $385 in food stamps. She is locked in a custody dispute that will be decided in January with the father of her youngest daughter, Daisy.
Taliaferro receives no support from the father of her children, Mario, 7, and Monique, 15, a runaway since April. That's because he is serving a four-year prison term for drug distribution.
``He's a part of me,'' she said, referring to their 17-year relationship. ``But us getting back together? No. It's too destructive.''
Michelle Wallner left her adoptive parents and moved in with her former boyfriend, Angel, the day after she turned 18. ``I said, hell, I'm outta here. See you later,'' she said, recalling the memory with the husky giggle that punctuates many of her sentences.
The couple moved to New Jersey, delved into drugs, conceived a child and split when Michelle discovered that Angel's attempt at drug rehabilitation had not taken. By then their daughter, Devon, was 3 months old. ``I packed up, got on a bus and came back,'' Michelle recalled.
That was in October 1991. Since then, Michelle has worked periodically as a sales clerk or cashier, a sign that her need for public assistance may be temporary.
Even before the recent reform, about two of three recipients moved off AFDC voluntarily within two years. But many of those women wound up back on the rolls when another pregnancy or emergency occurred.
Angel's only contribution to Devon's upkeep are occasional packages that Michelle suspects come from his mother. Three times she has gotten court orders to dock his salary for job support, she said. Each time he wound up quitting his job. ``He knows the game . . . I've given up.''
Curled up on a faded quilt in the homey, toy-filled living room of a farm house she shares with a girlfriend, Michelle sipped a soda, nursed the sniffles, and spoke with bewilderment of her escalating troubles.
``My problem is, I don't have a car and I don't have a driver's license,'' she said.
Earlier this month, Michelle received notices sanctioning her for failing to complete the job searches required under the new law. AFDC recipients are expected to look for work for three months. After that, they're placed in community service work if they haven't found a job.
Michelle said she met the job search requirement the first week after signing her Agreement of Personal Responsibility in early September. That form describes an AFDC applicant's duty to become self-sufficient. But without transportation, she's fallen behind since. Her $115 a month check will be withheld until she complies.
Asked how she deals with the turmoil, Michelle shrugged. ``It depends on what day it is,'' she said. Some days she is OK. ``Others, I just cry. You could probably say `hello' to me and I'd cry.''
The way Deborah Taliaferro faces life is summarized on the green bracelet circling her right arm: ``One day at a time.''
Two years is eons away when every day is fraught with the danger of being a recovering addict in an area where drugs are plentiful. ``The neighborhood I live in is a drug-oriented place. I can see drug deals go down all the time,'' she said.
She would consider moving, but believes the $200 a month rent she pays to a family member is half to two-thirds of what she would pay for other one-bedroom houses or apartments in Culpeper.
Outspoken and angry over her life circumstances, Deborah blames both herself and her community. ``I wish I didn't get involved with drugs, and I wish I didn't live in Culpeper,'' she replied when asked what she would change about her life.
When she graduated from high school in 1975, Deborah said she had high hopes of becoming a licensed practical nurse. She did get certified as a nurse's aide and worked in the Culpeper Health Care Center for about a year. She quit both that job and another in the mailroom of a local company because of poor working conditions, she said.
Now the reception she receives when she applies for jobs leaves Deborah worried about finding work of any caliber. ``My best job is slinging hamburgers. I'm sorry to say I'm above that . . . I should be anyway,'' she said.
But would she take a job at a fast-food restaurant if it were offered? ``Yes, and that's something I said I would never do,'' she said. In part that is because turning down any job offer without good cause is grounds for sanctioning under Virginia's welfare reform. In part it is because Deborah acknowledges the importance of reordering her life.
``I've got to do something, not just for this reform, but for me,'' she said.
For Denise Fletcher, working at Burger King is anything but demeaning. She takes pride in the manager's compliments on her performance, pride in her ability for the first time to buy a few extra things for her girls. Because of the size of her family, Denise is allowed to keep all the money she makes without reducing her AFDC check.
She paid recently for 11-year-old Heather to go to the movies, something she could not do in the past. She has taken the children skating. And, as a doting mother whose dream is to become a cosmetologist, who carefully coordinates eye shadow and nails with her maroon work uniform, and who cites the versatility of her light brown hair as one of the things she likes best about herself, Denise used some of her first paycheck to fulfill a private wish.
With 9-year-old Christina in tow, ``I walked into that Hair Cuttery,'' said Denise, who at just over 5 feet tall and less than 100 pounds is scarcely larger than her children. Christina walked out with her hair cut, feathered and permed. The cost was $75.
Denise acknowledges that saving the money or applying it to her debts might have been its soundest use. But she said the temptation is strong to give her daughters a few frills.
After an adulthood of subservience to the men in her life, ``this feels real good,'' Denise said recently as she took a cigarette break in the Burger King parking lot. ``The independence I have never had before.''
Already, however, the threat of AFDC ending looms like a gathering storm.
She has debts totaling about $1,800. She makes ends meet by living with an uncle. She would like to have her own car but cannot get a loan. She is considering applying for a second job but fears she already is spending too little time with her girls.
Denise Fletcher is following the rules. But she fears those who write them are grounded in a reality far different from her own. ``If they have never been in our predicament - if they have never actually lived the trauma of what has happened to us as individuals - they would never be able to understand.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
Photos
MICHELLE WALLNEr
Age: 24
Children: Daughter, Devon, 4.
Education: Completed high school.
Income: $115 monthly in AFDC benefits
$202 monthly in food stamps
Living Situation: Lives with a girlfriend on a farm outside
Culpeper. Exchanges babysitting for rent. Has a suspended driver's
license and a truck that needs major repairs.
Program Status: Enrolled in Job Search. AFDC check is being
withheld because she is behind in applying for jobs. Wallner
attributes that delay to her transportation problems. She hopes this
week to begin doing unpaid community service work at the Head Start
center attended by her daughter.
DENISE FLETCHER
Age: 30
Children: Five daughters, ranging in age from 2 1/2 to 11.
Education: Dropped out of school after 11th grade. Has worked on
G.E.D.
Income: $380 monthly in AFDC benefits, including $50 a month in
child support from former husband
$385 monthly in food stamps
$4.65 an hour from Burger King
Living Situation: Lives with uncle, and sometimes babysits for
his son in payment. Borrows uncle's and friend's vehicles for
transportation. Pays $25 a month in babysitting fees, with social
services picking up the rest of the tab.
Program Status: Working a flex schedule at Burger King
DEBORAH TALIAFERRO
Age: 39
Children: Daughter, Monique, 15. Son, Mario, 7. Monique ran away
from home in April, and is thought to be somewhere in Culpeper.
Education: Completed high school
Income: $207 monthly in AFDC benefits
$221 monthly in food stamps
Living situation: Pays $200 a month for a small house owned by a
relative. Does not drive. Relies on friends and social services for
transportation while searching for jobs. Attends a drug
rehabilitation program several days a week.
Program Status: Enrolled in Job Search
Graphic
ABOUT AFDC
Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC), which dates to
the 1930s, is the nation's major cash welfare program for poor
children and their parents, most of whom are single women. The
program, which serves about 74,000 Virginia families, provides
monthly checks based on family size. A family of three gets a
maximum of $354 a month from AFDC and $254 a month in food stamps
for a total of $608 per month.
Although food stamps may be withheld from individuals who fail to
participate in the work program, food stamp and federal housing
benefits are not cut off when AFDC ends in two years.
FROM WELFARE TO WORK
Step 1: AFDC clients sign an Agreement of Personal
Responsibility, in which they agree to work toward becoming
self-sufficient.
Step 2: Clients enter Job Search. Requirements may vary by
locality, but in Culpeper clients must file five job applications
per week for 90 days or until they have found a job. If they fail to
submit applications or refuse to accept a job without good cause,
their AFDC benefits will be withheld. The state will pay up to $10 a
week for gas.
Step 3: While job hunting, a client may be expected to attend a
job readiness class for up to eight hours a week. The class teaches
skills such as filling out a resume and addresses practical problems
such as what to do if a child or baby sitter is sick. (Answer: Have
a backup baby sitter.)
Step 4: Clients who fail to get a job after 90 days will be
required to work in a community work site determined by the Social
Services office. To collect food stamps and AFDC, clients must work
a minimum of 20 hours per week and a maximum of 32 while continuing
to submit job applications. Those who have found jobs and those who
are working in community work sites may get help with day care and
transportation.
Step 5: If at the end of six months, clients still haven't found
a job, their community work hours may be reduced while they receive
education and job training. But at all times, the clients must be
doing some work and must meet high standards in a training or
education program.
Step 6: At the end of two years, AFDC benefits end.
KEYWORDS: WELFARE AFDC by CNB