DATE: Sunday, July 6, 1997                  TAG: 9707040534

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SERIES: FOLLOWING WELFARE REFORM

        In July of 1995, a group in Culpeper and a few neighboring counties

        became the first in the state to enter the welfare-to-work program.

        The Virginian-Pilot has followed three women through the two-year

        period before welfare ends. Their fate is a clue to the future of

        hundreds of local people.

SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER LENGTH: 190 lines

MAKING THE CHANGE AS HAMPTON ROADS SHIFTS TO REFORMS, THOSE RECEIVING AID MUST START REACHING

FOR SELF-RELIANCE.

For Latissa Phillips, the leap off a two-year stint on welfare came down to this:

The 20-year-old Portsmouth mother was tired of the hassle of government checks, and of social workers wanting ``to know all my business.''

Since May, she's worked as a receptionist at the Hampton Roads GM Dealers Training Center. As such, she is one of more than 5,000 people to peel off the welfare rolls in Hampton Roads since July 1995 when welfare reform first went into effect in Virginia.

Even though the work mandate of the reform effort doesn't hit this region until Oct. 1, the Aid to Families with Dependent Children caseloads have dropped 24 percent in the Hampton Roads region from July 1995 to April of this year. That figure closely tracks the state drop of 25 percent. Three cities - Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Newport News - dropped by even greater percentages than the state.

Social agency supervisors and people who work with the poor attribute the drop to three factors: a robust economy, a spate of policies and training set up to move people off welfare, and the psychological impact of knowing reform is coming down the pike.

``Folks are beginning to hear, and to believe, that welfare reform is a reality,'' said Suzanne Puryear, director of human services for Norfolk. ``For so long, there was systematic denial on the client level and the bureaucratic level. Now there's a clear realization that welfare reform is here.''

People who have depended on welfare checks have watched the amount of paperwork and requirements grow over the past two years, and are well aware that the Oct. 1 approach of work mandates will only increase that pressure. Margie Russell, a 31-year-old former welfare mother from Norfolk, said many recipients don't like to be told what to do, and when to do it.

That, more than anything, has led people to get jobs, she said.

But for Russell, pride was a major driving force. ``It's better for my kids to see me working instead of waiting for a check,'' said Russell, who got a job as a dispatcher at Clogbusters in December. ``I feel more pride in myself now.''

A White House report released in May cited the economy as being responsible for 44 percent of case load drops across the nation, and welfare reform policies as being responsible for another 31 percent of the decline.

While the state and local drops in Virginia are being hailed as a welfare reform success by state officials, advocates for the poor say it's too soon to celebrate.

Teresa Stanley, a social minister at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Virginia Beach, said many of those who have dropped from government welfare rolls are working in minimum-wage, dead-end jobs. They may be living in tenuous conditions that could easily topple with a dip in the economy, a family crisis, or even a car breakdown.

If they have a car, that is.

``My concern is that many of these people are working at less than living wages,'' said Stanley, who is trying to link welfare recipients with mentors who will help them through the reform effort. ``I don't see how they will sustain themselves over the long run.''

She also suspects some people who have stopped receiving government assistance haven't gotten jobs, but are living with friends or relatives to avoid cumbersome welfare policies. ``They're choosing stop-gap situations because of the hopelessness of it,'' Stanley said.

She challenged state and federal officials to use savings from caseload declines to bankroll three of the biggest concerns of the working poor population: transportation, child care and health benefits.

Phillips said she's been able to survive without welfare, but couldn't do it without her mother taking care of her two sons, ages 3 and 1, while she works, and the Department of Social Services helping her buy bus tickets to work. Phillips also got a boost from a training program that taught her about automotive technology. By the time she graduated from the three-month training in April, she'd been offered a job as a receptionist at the training center.

Such training programs and job readiness seminars are cropping up across the area to ease recipients off welfare, another factor in dropping government rolls.

And, the welfare reforms that first went into effect in Virginia in July 1995 are contributing.

For instance, mothers are already required to identify fathers of their children to help in child support enforcement and are being denied benefits for children born while the mother is on welfare.

But the biggest piece of welfare reform will fall into place this fall when the Virginia Initiative for Employment not Welfare takes effect. Under that program, welfare recipients will be expected to get a job within 90 days of applying for welfare, and if they can't find one, they will be required to do community service work.

Local social services agencies are gearing up for those mandates in a variety of ways: holding job fairs, soliciting contracts with private companies for job readiness and job placement, restructuring departments to allow case workers to work better with welfare recipients, and in some cities, hiring more employees. Leonard Horton, assistant director for Suffolk's Department of Social Services, said he anticipates caseworkers will need to spend more time with recipients who have poor education, substance abuse problems and children with disabilities.

While the new welfare system may bring new pressure to get jobs, it also has facets that should help ease the transition. For instance, recipients will be able to keep their earnings, plus some of their welfare benefits, up to the federal poverty level.

``We're sort of in this funny place right now where under the old system, it can be a dollar for dollar loss to get off,'' Puryear said. ``Some people are saying let's wait to take advantage of the new system.''

But Puryear said people need to be aware that come October, limitations will begin on how long a person can receive welfare payments. ``That's when the clock starts ticking,'' Puryear said. ``You don't want to fritter away your time.''

Altheda Murphy, a Portsmouth mother with three children, said she has been trained in automotive technology, but she still hasn't gotten a job, because of ``personal problems.''

But she said she hopes to have one by the time October rolls around. She wonders, though, whether there will be enough jobs for people getting government checks. ``I don't see anything good in it,'' said Murphy about welfare reform. ``A lot of people will be hurt.''

Angela Walker, a Norfolk mother who first went on welfare when her son was born eight years ago, said those who are still receiving welfare face a lot of different problems in getting off of government assistance.

``Some people have gotten accustomed to laying back and getting assistance,'' she said. ``Others don't have proper training. Some people have just lost hope. They feel stuck, trapped.''

Walker is learning job skills at the Norfolk Education Employment and Training Center, and is looking for a clerical job.

``I have heard a lot of people say welfare reform is coming and I have to provide for my child,'' Walker said. ``I think the public's eyes are open now, that it's do or die now. People are going to have to find work.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

BETH BERGMAN/The Virginian-Pilot

An automotive training program helped Latissa Phillips, here with

sons Kaquan, left, and Curtis, leave welfare behind.

Graphics

PLANNING AHEAD

What South Hampton Roads social services departments are doing to

gear up for the work mandate phase of welfare reform:

Chesapeake will be opening a Jobs Work! Center at its offices at

Outlaw Street and Bainbridge Boulevard Oct 1. They also will be

hiring employment services counselors to help link recipients with

jobs, and a job development and placement specialist to determine

what kinds of positions are needed in the community.

The department is also soliciting bids for a contractor to help

train welfare recipients and place them in jobs.

Norfolk began restructuring its department four years ago in

anticipation of welfare reform. Previously one case worker helped

welfare recipients with benefits and a different one worked with

them on lining up employment. Now the same case worker - called a

self sufficiency worker - does both tasks.

The number of cases those workers handle was reduced from about

200 cases a worker to 50, which gives the worker more time to help

the recipients devise a plan to get off welfare.

Three years ago, the Norfolk agency also started contracting with

Norfolk Education Employment and Training Center, which teaches

clients job readiness skills, and helps them get jobs.

In Portsmouth, presentations have been made to civic and business

groups throughout the community, and partnerships made with

organizations like Tidewater Community College and General motors to

help move people into jobs.

Judy Mallory, chief eligibility supervisor for Portsmouth Social

Services, said more presentations are planned during the coming

months to help educate welfare recipients on the specifics of the

welfare reform law.

Suffolk is restructuring its department to include ``self

sufficiency'' workers to help recipients with both benefits and job

placement. The department is also going to open an Employment

Resource Center to help people get jobs.

Leonard Horton, assistant director of Suffolk's Department of

Social Services, said the caseload of the self sufficiency workers

will also be smaller than current case worker loads, to give them

more time to help recipients with tougher problems, such as

substance abuse or lack of education.

Virginia Beach is holding job fairs, setting up mentoring

programs, and working with economic development and tourism

organizations to tap job markets. That department is reorganizing

into a team approach to working with clients. Last year they created

a Center for Employment Partnerships at the department to help

people get jobs.

VP

TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY FAMILIES (TANF)*

SOURCE: Virginia Department of Social Services

[For complete graphic, please see microfilm] KEYWORDS: WELFARE REFORM MOTHERS VIRGINIA

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