Wednesday, May 14, 2003 | 11:58 a.m.
Nevada has been stingier than most states when it comes to assistance for low-income families with children.
That's what federal statistics reveal about Nevada's participation in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a program that provides financial help to unemployed adults and their children through federal block grants and state funds.
In 2001, Nevada, the nation's 35th largest state by population ranked 42nd in combined state and federal TANF spending on cash assistance at $29.7 million, according to the Health and Human Services Department. The prior year, the state ranked 44th in total TANF spending, including noncash assistance, at $55.9 million.
Seventy-three percent of the state's TANF recipients are children this fiscal year, officials said.
But because of the way Nevada handles its TANF program, many recipient children go hungry, according to Nevada Legal Services attorney Alda Anderson. And, she said, the relatively low benefits force many recipients to try to make money "under the table."
"In Nevada spending on TANF is not a priority. Poor folks are not a priority," Anderson said. "I believe that where a government puts its money reflects how it values people."
The low level of cash assistance forced TANF recipient Laurie Hays of Las Vegas to send one of her daughters to school wearing tennis shoes that had holes in them.
"She had a few problems where some of the kids would say a few things," Hays said. "I said that was OK because even though words hurt they don't mean anything. I told her she was better than that."
If Hays had her way, the state would increase funding for cash assistance enough to allow recipients to afford housing while they are looking for work. The single mother of five is one of the luckier recipients. She recently started working full time as a preschool teacher at Variety Day Home in Las Vegas and lives with her grandparents.
But prior to getting her job in early April, Hays and her children had to survive on food stamps and $525 in cash assistance each month. Of that, $300 a month went to her grandparents for rent and $100 a month went toward car insurance. That left her with $125 a month.
"I have a job now, but there are a lot of people who don't make enough money to put a roof over their children's heads," Hays said. "They don't have enough to pay the gas bill or electric bill. What they get from TANF is not going to cover the bills, especially if they're single. The state doesn't take into account the wait for Section 8 housing."
Under Section 8 housing, a federal program overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the tenant pays 30 percent of his household income in rent. The balance of the rent is covered by federal subsidies paid to the landlord, usually through a local housing authority.
Not surprising
When informed of Nevada's low ranking in cash support during a break in a recent state legislative budget hearing, Jan Gilbert, Northern Nevada coordinator of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said she wasn't surprised.
Gilbert's organization, which represents organized labor, environmental and consumer groups, minorities and women, has often criticized Nevada's relative lack of spending on social services.
"It's an indication that we haven't helped low-income people when they've been in dire need," Gilbert said. "These people are at the bottom of the list. When it comes to spending money in Nevada, low-income families and single parents just don't make the cut.
"We are one of the lowest taxed states. We just choose to be lean and mean rather than raise taxes."
Reigning Miss Nevada Teresa Benitez, a board member of the Nevada Empowered Women's Project in Reno and a former welfare recipient, has also been an advocate of increased TANF benefits.
"It's unconscionable that we rank so low and invest so little in these families," Benitez said. "It's extremely sad because the families are the ones who are suffering. I hope people realize that with the bad economy we need a social safety net for our families as a way to make ends meet to keep their heads above water."
If state welfare administrator Nancy Ford had her way, the Nevada Legislature would approve her request for $44 million in additional state funds over the next two years just to keep up with projected caseloads. That money would be on top of the $27 million in state funds that have been allocated each year since 1996, when TANF was created by Congress.
The state also receives $44 million a year in federal funds, but Ford said that money is based on a funding formula that dates to before welfare programs and has not accounted for Nevada's rapid population growth.
"We've been working with our congressional delegation to get more funding but so far we have not been successful," Ford said.
She told Nevada lawmakers this session that in fiscal 2000 Nevada ranked 44th among the states, with total cash assistance of $202 per family with children, according to Congressional Quarterly Inc.
"We've always been a low-grant state, even before TANF," Ford said. "Nevada traditionally believes in self-sufficiency and hasn't wanted to reward people for not working."
The TANF program, which replaced the federal Aid to Families with Dependent Children, grew out of national welfare reforms that were aimed at encouraging able-bodied adults to get jobs. The program distributes cash, vouchers and other benefits to help cover a family's basic living costs.
Benefits include payments for caretakers, such as relatives; transportation; work preparedness training; and counseling for domestic violence and substance abuse. Children benefit because the cash payments are designed so that their parents can take better care of them.
Incentives to work
The recipients usually apply for TANF after they have been laid off. One of the strongest incentives to go back to work is that a Nevadan cannot receive this assistance for more than two consecutive years. Thanks in part to TANF's more rigid eligibility requirements when compared with predecessor programs such as AFDC, Nevada and the nation as a whole witnessed substantial declines in welfare rolls from 1996 through 2001.
But after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Nevada experienced the nation's largest percentage increase in TANF recipients -- 12 percent from December 2001 through June 2002 -- according to the Health and Human Services Department. The terrorism jolted Nevada's tourist-based economy, which had already been slowed by a recession. About 15,000 Southern Nevada gaming employees were laid off, forcing many to seek TANF benefits.
"Most of the layoffs after Sept. 11 were with the low-income blue collar folks," Anderson said. "If tourists aren't coming in, the hotels don't need as many bed cleaners (maids) or cooks. These people are just living from month to month and don't have savings, so the only option for them is TANF."
Nevada's TANF caseload is projected to average 36,143 by fiscal 2005, and 26,374 of those would be children.
Some TANF recipients are simply victims of bad luck. Angela Smith of Las Vegas, a single mother of a 12-year-old son, had quit her job as a waitress at a truck stop because she moved out of state with plans to get married. When those plans fell through, she returned to Las Vegas last summer.
But she broke her arm while she and her son were skateboarding at a park, putting her quest for a new job on hold. She applied for cash assistance, receiving $289 a month, and lives with her mother to cut down on rent.
Smith hopes to land a full-time job as a receptionist for the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services in Las Vegas, where she has been in job training.
"I feel the assistance should be a little bit more, but I'm in a situation where I get help with housing," she said. "For someone without help, the cash assistance is not enough. They should put a little more money into it because these are people trying to help themselves."
Advocates for increased TANF spending praised Gov. Kenny Guinn for ensuring after the terrorist attacks that unemployment benefits did not count as "assets" when calculating income eligibility for that program.
But Jon Sasser, statewide advocacy coordinator for Washoe Legal Services and other Northern Nevada legal-aid agencies, said a negative consequence of Nevada's funding strategy is that the state hasn't increased its maximum monthly cash stipend for needy adults and their children since 1992.
A single mother with two children still gets a maximum of $348 a month, a figure that would be $100 higher today if adjusted for inflation. Sasser said the maximum for a family of three should be raised to at least $850 a month to make the program reasonable.
"The basic problem with the $348 is housing," Sasser said. "If you are one of the lucky 30 percent of low-income residents who receive subsidized housing, you can deal with this money. But if you are one of the other 70 percent, it means homelessness or families living together in overcrowded conditions or the mom living in a relationship out of economic necessity."
Tough luck
When Hays moved to Southern Nevada last year from Arizona, she had no luck landing a job at a resort, or anywhere else for that matter. After two months of job hunting without success, she applied for the cash assistance to keep her head above water.
"If not for my grandparents, I would actually be homeless," Hays said. "If you try to get into an apartment with five children, you will need at least a three-bedroom apartment and you can't find that for $525 with all the utilities included. I would lose my vehicle because I couldn't pay my insurance. I couldn't even pay for the gas in the vehicle.
"When I moved here I had a child in diapers. A bag of diapers a week, you're talking $60 a month. When I get my $525 check, the money is gone by the first week. They expected me to find a job but if I was having a problem keeping a roof over my head or taking care of my kids, how could I look for a job if I had no one taking care of my kids?"
Anderson also said the maximum cash payments should be much higher because they now keep many TANF recipients in poverty. She said it also makes it harder on battered women to get out of destructive relationships.
"Would $348 a month for a family of three meet your needs?" Anderson said. "Think of basic rent. A two-bedroom apartment in a rundown area is $400 to $500 a month. Section 8 housing is so limited and the waiting lists can be three to four years. We're talking about a lot of people without housing assistance, and TANF does little to help them.
"A lot of these people are stuck in abusive relationships where the other person is paying for the rent and the food. The system condemns these people to dangerous lives."
Benitez and her two sisters were periodic AFDC recipients who had to live with their grandparents for long periods of time because their mother, a waitress, could not afford to house and feed them on her own. The welfare money came in handy for those brief periods when Benitez and her siblings could live with their mother.
"What AFDC meant is that we could be with her because she had that extra income coming in," Benitez said.
Ford warned that if the state did not approve the requested $58 million funding increase, she would be forced either to cap TANF enrollments, slash programs or cut benefits. Neither she nor Gilbert want that to happen.
"We need to put more general fund dollars into TANF because these people are looking for work," Gilbert said. "As it is, the children don't get new shoes. They get hand-me-downs and whatever they can scour from free piles."
Smith said the level of cash assistance is such that there isn't much she can afford to do during her free time. She also cannot afford to pay for after-school activities or field trips for her son.
"I pretty much can't do anything," she said. "I don't really hang out with anybody anymore. It's pretty frustrating. It gets difficult but I try to keep a good perspective. I try not to let it get me down.
"I have my mom's support, but I don't want to live off my mom or the welfare system for the rest of my life. I want to pay my own way and my son's way."
If lawmakers wanted to get a taste of the struggles endured by TANF recipients, they should "try living in our shoes for a month to see what it's like," Hays said.
"It's not as easy as they think it is," Hays said. "They should see what it's like to be given so little money and see if it can last for a month. I guarantee you they couldn't do it."3"I believe that where a government puts its money reflects how it values people."
archive
