THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 21, 1995 TAG: 9510210275
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
It was a community symposium on welfare reform - more than 100 people at St. Nicholas Catholic Church on Friday. And much of the discussion seemed to raise the question of why there was a need for the symposium in the first place.
As one questioner asked a panel: If less than 6 percent of all Americans and less than 3 percent of Virginians receive Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the main welfare component, ``Why don't we just declare victory and go home?''
The inquiry was moot, but the crowd loved it anyway.
Welfare reform - time limits, benefit caps, funding cuts - is here. It has already begun in other parts of Virginia. Congress is working on a federal version; the only question is how restrictive it will become.
It's not whether or how the systems of public assistance will change, but how communities will deal with the changes.
Bringing community resources together - the people and agencies who deal with poverty issues - to talk and share information was the purpose behind The Coalition for the Common Wealth, a new organization of women's, education, religious and poverty groups, which sponsored Friday's daylong event. It was responding to Gov. George F. Allen's request of localities to help make his welfare-reform efforts work.
Key products of the meeting Friday were several sheets of paper scattered on a table in the church lobby. They were sign-up sheets, organized by city, of contacts and resources. The coalition's plan is to compile a computer database of people and agencies who can help get people off welfare, meet their needs once they do or try and change public policy if things don't work.
``My big hope is this networking table,'' said Teresa Stanley, a coalition member and social minister at St. Nicholas. ``It's very important to the coalition that this be the beginning of a dialogue.''
Hard questions still exist about job availability, transportation, child care and health services, Friday's participants said.
Most of those attending were professionals or volunteers involved in poverty issues: Social Services officials, educators, students, church representatives, homeless-shelter workers, children's and older people's advocates, community activists. Most questioned the direction and scope of welfare reform, and worried about the consequences.
The keynote speaker, Roberta M. Spalter-Roth, director of research for the Institute for Women's Policy Research in Washington, criticized ongoing welfare reform efforts and warned against making public policy based on stereotypes.
Information sheets from Justice For All, a Philadelphia-based advocacy group, knocked down some of the stereotypes with her statistics:
70 percent of recipients stay on welfare two years or less;
welfare accounts for about 1.5 percent of the federal budget, and the average state spends 2 percent of its budget on AFDC;
women on welfare have the same number of children - 1.9 on average - as other women;
two-thirds of recipients are children;
8 percent of AFDC families are headed by teens.
Spalter-Roth added that 75 percent of AFDC recipients work, and 40 percent work ``substantial hours.''
``It's no big surprise - although policy-makers are ignoring this - but people work when there are jobs,'' she said.
One panel member was Cassandra Frazier, a mother of three whose husband left her. Frazier receives public assistance while taking classes at Tidewater Community College in hopes of becoming a registered nurse. Contrary to common belief, she said, she's living no ``Life of Riley'' and is trying to get off welfare permanently, not temporarily through a minimum-wage, fast-food job without benefits.
``Where are my children and me going to stand if all these changes take place before I finish my education?'' she asked, pausing several times to control her emotions. ``We have to have some means of raising our children after their fathers abandon them.''
Stephanie P. Stetson, executive director of the Community Networking Association, conducted a workshop that showed how various segments of the community had similar desires and goals and how they needed to talk together to work toward them.
``If we're going to make some permanent changes in the way we do things, we're going to have to work together,'' she said. ``You may change what you want after you talk.''
KEYWORDS: WELFARE SOCIAL SERVICES REFORM by CNB