Preventing the Need of Welfare:
How Welfare Agencies Are Keeping Families From Needing Welfare Again

Aired October 12, 1999

This is INFOhio After Nine for Tuesday, October 12th. I'm April Baer, filling in for the vacationing David Barnett. When we talk about welfare in this country, very often we concentrate on what the government is doing to force people to get to work. Well, suppose those efforts are successful. What happens then? This morning we're going to spend some time looking at the weeks and months after those county checks stop coming. In many ways, this could be the true measure of the success of federal welfare reform: can people get by on their own? In little less than one year, benefits for many Ohio welfare recipients are going to run out. But, as more people leave the public entitlement system behind, welfare agencies are now facing this new challenge: how to keep families from needing welfare again. As part of our year-long series, "The Changing Face of Welfare," INFOhio's Karen Schaefer has this report on what welfare agencies are doing to support working families.

Karen Schaefer–When the clock started ticking for Ohio welfare recipients two years ago, there were nearly 27,000 families on the welfare rolls in Cuyahoga County. Today, there are fewer than 15,000, half of whom will be cut off from cash assistance in less than one year. On October 1st of this year, Cuyahoga County commissioners held a press conference to emphasize the urgency of moving people from welfare to work.

But as more people leave the welfare rolls for employment, welfare agencies are finding that the key to their success is helping them stay on the job. Jackie Ward is manager of community-based benefits with Cuyahoga Health and Nutrition, the agency which now provides all benefits other than cash assistance. She says the demand for services for working parents is high.

Jackie Ward–The child care and health care benefit for children continues to move up, the income limits, and it's because we're seeing that people need those basic supports to be able to continue to work and they're still qualifying for food stamps, even though they're employed, which places them at a very low level, 130% of poverty.

KS–Cuyahoga Health and Nutrition can provide working families who qualify with food stamps, child care vouchers, and health care for children 18 and under. But Ward says her agency is developing new services for working families, from referrals to child care providers to hours of operation outside the usual 9-to-5.

JW–There's also a new program that we've been referring to as the PRC program, that is sort of a grant program in order to prevent some kind of emergency, causing someone to lose employment. We've used it to help people get car repairs, we've used it to get insurance covered, and actually we have someone who is applying to get some help to buy a car.

KS–Ward says the PRC program can offer as much as $700 in emergency funds for low-income families that are already working. For those that are still seeking employment, or want to move up to the next level, there are new opportunities as well. Deborah Copeland is manager of the Central Fairfax-Kinsman Neighborhood Family Service Center, with Cuyahoga Work and Training.

Deborah Copeland–As of August 1st this year, we entered into an agreement with what has now been called The Alliance, and this is a consortium of six service providers. They have set themselves up whereas they take the client to the next level, and they will work with those individuals extensively to move them towards self-sufficiency.

KS–Copeland says Cuyahoga County commissioners are committed to making sure no one falls through the cracks. That's why her administration has been creating new links to community resources, and are taking those resources into the neighborhoods.

DC–Well, currently, we have eleven neighborhood family service centers. Four of them are within the community. The goal is to move all of us into our respective communities, and the nice part about it, at this point in time, children and family services have committed to join us in the community, and I believe that that will add a lot of our community efforts.

KS–Copeland says her agency has even begun exploring ways to take family support services into the public schools, with the long-range goal of fundamentally changing the welfare culture.

DC–I think by moving into the school system, and addressing the issues of poverty with younger children and adolescents, that we can help them make that transition from school to work, and they won't really look at public assistance as an option.

KS–But before that happens, there are at least 7,000 families in Cuyahoga County who need to overcome multiple barriers to becoming employed, and front-line welfare workers like self-sufficiency coach Keith Aboiski, have their doubts about a 100% success rate.

Keith Aboiski–To realistically have them self-sufficient and never have them look back is unrealistic, although it can happen, depending on the individual. Look at the worst-case scenario, somebody with a child or two with no education, very limited work skills, and you're saying, "OK, now we're not going to give you anything else, go out on your own and do it," and there are going to be some children who fall through the cracks, and it's going to happen. There's no way around that.

KS–Ohio counties do have one other option for families facing cut-offs next year. They can exempt up to 20% of the current average welfare population. But most counties will use that exemption as a safety net, not a solution. In the meantime, and probably for years to come, welfare agencies will be charged with the task of providing support for working families. For INFOhio, I'm Karen Schaffer in Cleveland.