An Interview with Daisy Alfred Smith

Aired September 30, 1999

David C. Barnett–About a year ago, Daisy Alfred Smith left Cleveland and the world of academia to take over the reigns of the then-troubled Summit County Department of Human Services. She joins us on the phone. Good morning, Dr. Alfred Smith.

Daisy Alfred Smith–Hi David, how are you doing?

DCB–Pretty good. Many of us know the experience of taking over a job, moving into somebody's old desk, going through the old files. What kind of issues were you faced with when you started the job?

DAS–Well, I don't think they were any different than anyone else. The challenges, obviously, of what we had to do in terms of just looking at this whole time limit countdown, making sure that our employees had the appropriate skills and knowledge, and obviously looking for new and different and creative programs to assure that our clients had the appropriate levels of support.

DCB–So, what have you been doing about those issues?

DAS–Well, we've done quite a few exciting things. I think it's been extremely encouraging. We've implemented an outreach program where we have our employees go door-to-door doing canvassing, particularly those individuals that have not been participating at a level to meet the requirements. We've decentralized, in fact, we now have three satellite offices in addition to our downtown main office. We've expanded our hours, and then we've added another component to it, what we call intervention specialists, and those are individuals that are external to the Department of Human Services who have the responsibility of maintaining ongoing contact with each of our clients.

DCB–What about progress towards tracking, what happens to people after, supposedly, they get a job and then they kind of drop out of sight?

DAS–Well, what we've done is, right now, we kind of call it, we're looking at it as our "lost and found" category, and what we've basically done is engage the services of an outside resource to assist us not only with planning for the tracking for those individuals who will be exiting the system, but also those individuals who we've lost just this year, those that were eligible until next year, and for some unknown reason, they are no longer receiving assistance, and we don't know what happened, so we clearly see that as an issue that needs to be addressed. Otherwise, it's going to be one of those problems that will end up to be addressed by one of our safety net organizations.

DCB–Then there's also the issue of jobs with a living wage. We just heard the story of a mother who is a telemarketer, she's not bringing enough money into the house to support her and her child.

DAS–Well, I think that's really one of the downsides of what we're calling welfare reform and it's unfortunate because when you really look at the level of skills that most of the individuals that we're attempting to serve the schools that they have, it's rather limited, and quite frankly, what we're basically doing is increasing this pool of low-wage earners, in one way or another, so to that extent, we have to be prepared, and I think we've begun to look at those things in terms of expanding, which I'm sure you're aware of, are prevention, retention, and contingency programs. That is something we're attempting to provide those necessary services to individuals as they attempt to mainstream into the workforce, affording them access to child care, transportation, and in fact, we're beginning to look at a food voucher program, which doesn't carry the eligibility criteria that food stamps does, so we're hopeful that we will have some type of program in place, and which we've already embarked upon, in fact most of the components are in place, but certainly to help those individuals, especially after they exit our systems next October, November, December.

DCB–Last month, President Clinton praised the progress of welfare reform so far over the past two years, and he was at a meeting in Chicago with some business leaders, and he urged them to "finish the job of welfare reform." How would you suggest we finish the job of welfare reform?

DAS–Well, I think what we really need to do is take a step back and really be realistic about what that challenge was. How can we finish the job of welfare reform in three years when we've been dealing with a system that has been basically dysfunctional for decades? We're expecting now to take individuals who have reperpetuated their cycle of dependency for years, and now it's to be corrected in three years. I think it's certainly the wrong approach and it's the wrong attitude. I clearly believe the components of welfare reform are critical, I think they're important, and I support them, but I think at the same time, we need to understand that we're talking about a massive change in a system that has existed for years and it's really not very practical to think that it's going to happen that easy.

DCB–So what do you think is going to happen one year from now?

DAS–I'think if I were to look into this crystal ball, I would say there are going to be extensions to many families, as it relates to the services we have to provide. We're going to have to begin again to look at what was termed "general relief," that was really removed, because when you really look, David, at the clients we are serving, in most instances, we're talking about women and children. We're not talking about individuals that are able-bodied and just don't want to work, most do, but they lack the appropriate levels of skills and support.

DCB–Daisy Alfred Smith is the director of the Summit County Department for Human Services. Thanks for joining us.

DAS–Thank you so much.