Congressional hearing set on Nevada welfare reform

Nevada was chosen as a field hearing site by the House Subcommittee on Human Resources because of the state's progress in implementing welfare reform, said Rep. E. Clay Shaw Jr., R-Fla.

State Welfare Division Administrator Myla Florence said welfare reform still is a work in progress in Nevada, but it's succeeding in moving people from welfare to jobs.

"I don't know if I want to declare it a success yet," she said. "But the program is moving in the right direction."

President Clinton signed the welfare-reform bill into law two years ago this month. The state's plan was approved by the 1997 Legislature in line with a congressional mandate.

Since then, the number of people in Nevada receiving cash assistance has dropped 42 percent from its pre-reform high of 42,703 recipients in March 1995.

The number of food-stamp recipients also is down, from 86,814 in the 1997 fiscal year to 73,876 in the 1998 fiscal year.

Child-support collections are up because of another provision of the law: from $83 million collected last year to $92 million this year.

But Lisa Appelrouth Guzman, director of the Nevada Empowered Women's Project, said it's too early to know if single mothers off the dole and in the work force will be able to sustain themselves on low-paying jobs.

"They could be out there in the lines for the food bank," said Guzman, whose Reno-based group helps women and children living in or near poverty.

Requests for food are greater than ever, said Kevin Day, executive director of Catholic Community Services, whose Reno pantry provides supplemental food to about 7,000 people a month.

"There has been an increase ever since they cut out food stamps or reduced food stamps," he said, adding more than 80 percent of those who come to the pantry have jobs or some form of income.

The public forgets the majority of welfare recipients are children, said Teresa Benitez, president of the Nevada Empowered Women's Project.

"I want to know how a child in poverty can leave the rolls and survive," she said.

But Nikki Firpo, social welfare manager at the Reno welfare office, said recipients' children would be ultimate beneficiaries of welfare reform.

"We're just creating a generation that will be stronger and more successful," she said.

The congressional hearing will begin at 10 a.m. Monday at the Legislative Building.

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