The Life Skills Ministry:

An Interview with Jim Hunt

Aired December 22, 1999

David C. Barnett–Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime. That's the philosophy behind a California-based organization called Life Skills Ministry. Jim Hunt is the president of that organization, and he joins us on the phone. Good morning, Mr. Hunt.

Jim Hunt–Good morning David.

DCB–We appreciate you getting up so early in the morning out there.

JH–It's a pleasure to be with you.

DCB–Could we start off, can you give us a sense of welfare reform in California, are there certain time limits and such things?

JH–I think welfare reform in California is basically no different than it is anywhere else in the United States, the same timelines exist and the same approach to the reform as far as preparing and not preparing the individuals to go back to work or to work is about the same.

DCB–In our case, the option was held out of five years, we were given a five-year time limit, but our governor decided, "no, we're going to speed that up a bit," so it's more like a three-year deadline.

JH–And as far as I know, in the state of California, it's still a five-year deadline out here too.

DCB–So what kind of jobs are available, is there decent work?

JH–Oh, absolutely. This is probably the greatest location in the whole country to get a job, particularly if you have some technical capabilities, either the ability to learn to be a technician or already have those capabilities. In fact, you can't drive down a street here in this whole San Francisco/San Jose area without seeing signs out, "Now Hiring."

DCB–But are those the kind of jobs that you can take a person who's been on public assistance for a number of years and get them up to speed?

JH–Yes they are, because it's across the board, it's not just the computer companies. The construction companies are constantly hiring. A lot of the companies here have what are called entry-level positions, so that they will take individuals in and train them in the areas that are needed, that's how bad the need for workers are.

DCB–Does your organization have some link with the local county out there, like a number of such organizations do here?

JH–No, we're completely independent of county, state, or city. We're dependent on support from individuals, corporations, and churches.

DCB–Does the state or county recognize what you're doing and refer people to you?

JH–We get all of our referrals from the rehabilitation programs in the Bay area. As far as the state is concerned, they have their own life skills programs, in each of the counties here has a life skills coordinator.

DCB–Are people assigned, is there ever a time when people are required to go to you, when they're under some kind of pressure in that way?

JH–Generally, the only reason they'd be required to come to me is if they were required by the court to go through some sort of a rehabilitation program that is a part of that total rehabilitation program, they would be required to take our classes.

DCB–Now your organization focuses on those basic skills, the life skills, but does that work for everybody?

JH–Well, we have a series of ten classes that we teach, that there are some of the ones that Andrea had indicated she had taken classes like how to fill out an application and do a resume and manage her money, but we go a step further with it and we teach the individuals how to keep the job once they've got it, how to set goals, how to make decisions, how to get back into school, that sort of thing, and over the last five years, we've found that less than 2% of the people that have graduated from our program have returned to any of the rehabilitation centers where we teach.

DCB–Do you have a way of tracking what happens to them?

JH–Not a very good, scientific way of tracking because of the privacy laws of the state, but we are able to observe who returns and who doesn't.

DCB–What would you say, and here comes the big grand question, what would you say is the biggest challenge that you face in this line of work?

JH–The biggest challenge that we face in this kind of work would be the understanding the different reasons why people are homeless, on welfare, addicted, whatever their reason is for being in need. The needs are as varied as the personalities of individuals. Sometimes you can pinpoint it right away and you can keep the person from leaving the program, sometimes you don't pinpoint right away, and they'll recycle through several times.

DCB–Do you think there's a general understanding about that among the public?

JH–No, I'm not sure that there is, and a lot of that is because the reasons that people are homeless haven't been that much publicized and the effects of that lifestyle on individuals hasn't been publicized. People need to understand that there are generally four major categories of homeless people. There are those that want to be homeless, the ones we used to know as hobos, and you'll never get them turned in a direction that puts them into a permanent job, and then there are those that have psychological conditions that preclude them from having a job. Then there are those that have dependecies that keep them out of work, like chemical, welfare, crime dependencies, and then you have the chronic unemployed, so it's usually the last two categories, the dependency problems and the chronic unemployed that were able to help.

DCB–Jim Hunt is president of Life Skills Ministry based in California. Thanks for joining us this morning.

JH–Thank you.