State officials laud welfare reform for 'cultural shift'

Welfare reform has taken the security blanket away from America's poor.

The nation's neediest people no longer are assured they will receive a monthly check from the government for life, an assurance that dates back to the days of President Johnson's Great Society.

Welfare workers are becoming employment counselors while welfare recipients are being forced to take charge of their own lives as they face a five-year lifetime cap on their cash benefits.

Some have eagerly accepted the changes. Others are being pushed toward the edge of the nest.

"There has been a whole attitudinal and cultural shift," says Assemblywoman Jan Evans, D-Elko, who helped write Nevada's welfare-reform bill that was passed into law in 1997.

With welfare rolls at their lowest in 30 years, few are willing to criticize the reform. Many of those who deal with it call it a "work in progress" and say the jury is still out when asked about what will happen to the welfare recipients in the future when the unemployment rate is not so low.

Though happy that the reform seems to be having the desired effect, it still is not known whether things would be different if not for the country experiencing the lowest unemployment rate in decades. Nevada's jobless rate in December hit an all-time low, at 3.1 percent, and in Clark County it was 2.8 percent.

But for now, Evans says, "It seems to be working."

The law that started the shift in welfare emphasis from eligibility to jobs was the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.

It changed the federal funding method to block grants for each state, with states developing their own plans to get the money to those in need. Nevada's share of federal welfare money is $44 million, matched with $27 million in state funds.

Since the law went into effect, Nevada's welfare rolls have dropped from 39,220 to 27,848.

Mike Willden, deputy administrator of the state's welfare division, said Nevada began working on its own reform plan in 1995.

One of the major differences between the federal and state reform plans involves the time-limit provision.

While federal law establishes a five-year lifetime cap for receiving welfare, Nevada says a person's five-year cap is spread over a seven-year period.

In Nevada a person can receive cash assistance for 24 consecutive months, then must sit out 12 months. Then, if needed, the person may receive cash for a second 24-month period but will have to sit out another 12 months before being eligible for the last 12 months of assistance.

So in the early stage of reforms, Nevada welfare recipients have heard two clocks ticking -- one federal, one state.

Nevada's reform went into effect a year ago, giving the first wave of possible targets another year.

The federal law's two-year clock was up Jan. 1, but Willden said no one was dropped. Instead, a special emphasis was made to either find jobs for those most in danger of being dropped or to place them in approved programs.

David Wallace, manager of the state Welfare Division's Belrose District office in Las Vegas, said people should think of their five years of eligibility as money in the bank. "Spend it wisely. Use it only when absolutely necessary," he said.

Wallace's office, 700 S. Belrose St., is one of the busiest in the state, taking care of about 15 percent of the families on welfare.

Nevada law created a number of programs to help welfare recipients beat the ticking clock.

One is called New Employees of Nevada, or NEON, which helps welfare recipients get training, counseling and anything else that will help remove barriers to employment. "Through NEON, we put 350 to 400 clients to work each month in unsubsidized employment situations," Willden said.

When a person finds work and is dropped from the welfare rolls, he or she is still eligible for medical assistance for 12 months.

Other changes have welfare workers spending long hours in training sessions.

"Before '96, there were no social workers in the department," said Shannon Coubrough, a supervisor in the Clark County office of the Welfare Division. "We had case workers. Welfare reform created a need for social workers."

Social workers, 23 of them in the Las Vegas-Henderson district, provide counseling and an assessment. Meanwhile, eligibility workers determine whether the applicant qualifies for welfare, and employment/training workers try to prepare the recipients for a job, or to place them.

The emphasis today is on employability rather than eligibility, Evans said.

"That's the first thing we start to examine: What might they do? How quickly can we help them find a job? It's a whole attitude-cultural shift," she said.

'Personal responsibility plans'

All of them help the recipient develop a "personal responsibility plan" that is to supposed to help make them self-sufficient.

The plan "must be completed within 60 days (of a person's being determined eligible)," explained Rota Rosachi, chief of benefits and support for the state's Welfare Division. "The plan is mutually developed with the client. It could involve short-term issues or long-term. It decides who's going to do what -- the responsibilities of both the client and the division.

"The plan is revisited every six months -- monthly for the hardest to employ."

On Jan. 25, Clark County's welfare department began requiring everyone who applies for welfare, or who is currently receiving it, to attend a weeklong orientation program.

During their week in the classroom, the new rules are explained to the clients. Motivational tapes are played. There are discussions aimed at raising the clients' self-esteem and educating them not only in ways to get and hold jobs but in such subjects as attitude, proper dress and diet.

At the end of the week, the clients are directed to jobs or job counseling or training.

Three who attended the first class were enthusiastic about the experience.

"It helped build me up," said Carol Kirscher, married 32 years, a mother of five and on welfare for two years. Her husband receives disability.

"They help you every step of the way," said Shannon Broughton, who owned a business housing 30 mentally ill clients before being forced on welfare last year after there was a murder at the facility. She had to close because of increased insurance rates.

Dawn Neese, who has been on welfare about a year, said welfare is helping her with child care while she takes steps to become more self-sufficient.

"It costs $452 a week for child care," the mother of five said. "But I only have to pay $5."

Welfare also is buying recipients clothes to wear to job interviews and providing $4 a day for gas money or a bus pass. And it will pay to fix Neese's teeth.

Clients also may be referred to substance-abuse programs.

Wallace says the department is doing everything possible to provide the recipients with whatever they need to become employed, whether it is counseling, transportation, medical treatment, child care or advice on how to overcome any number of other obstacles that seemed insurmountable before welfare reform.

In April the Welfare Division in Clark County opened a Professional Development Center in a former Safeway store across the street from the Belrose office.

The center, which will be copied in Northern Nevada sometime in the future, provides a range of job- and life-skills training. Welfare recipients can learn to use computers, how to speak English, how to fill out resumes and how to handle themselves in interviews.

The facility also is used to train employees of the welfare department.

Child care is available at the center, which also trains people to be child-care workers.

There also are job placement counselors. "If the jobs are not there, or the training, education and other support, this thing isn't going to work," Evans said.

A Stratosphere success story

One of the most active companies in working with welfare in hiring is the Stratosphere hotel-casino.

Vicki Ham, the company's career counselor and recruiter, points with pride to a file clerk who was hired from the welfare rolls three years ago.

Michelle Duthie, 33, and her three children had been receiving welfare for six months. After going through self-improvement training she went to work at the Stratosphere and has earned several pay raises.

Now she's in the process of getting a loan for a home, which she would not have qualified for if not for her steady employment.

Barbara Stark, another supervisor in the Clark County welfare office, believes for the most part the changes that have taken place since welfare reform are good. But, she said, one of the most difficult things is getting clients to follow instructions.

"Changes are ongoing," she said. "Everyone is adapting to the change. It's a work in progress."

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