Program puts recipients to work in welfare offices

Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2003 | 11:02 a.m.

Looks of bewilderment and desperation line the faces of people standing in line at the state Welfare Division office in Henderson, a dilapidated old warehouse of a building in a rundown shopping center on Boulder Highway near Basic Road.

Welfare workers work the line and the lobby trying to make sure applicants understand the program and what is expected of them: Before receiving a check, applicants must look for a job and work to enforce child support due them.

That requirement may include work at the welfare office if they can't find something else.

Henderson district office manager Paula Petruso says many applicants leave when they hear that.

"They say, 'If that is all you are going to help me do, I can do it on my own,' and that's fine," Petruso says.

But some stay.

Behind the locked doors leading to the lobby, welfare recipient Amber Clark, 22, files and sorts mail. Eight and a half months pregnant with her first child, she's been doing menial clerical tasks for the Henderson office for the past month. Clark receives a minimal cash stipend, plus food stamps and Medicaid, for 30 hours of work each week.

Unable to find a job because of her pending pregnancy, Clark said she has no choice but to perform the clerical tasks to fulfill a federal requirement to spend 30 hours a week in work-related activity to keep her TANF benefits, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

In a push to get more out of those required hours from recipients and move people more quickly along the path to self-sufficiency, welfare officials are having all recipients spend at least their first week doing clerical tasks in their office and are beginning to raise the required hours to 40.

It's all part of a new policy that forces welfare applicants to first prove they are "worth investing state tax dollars in," state welfare Deputy Administrator Gary Stagliano said.

Under a new, stricter policy stressing the transition from welfare to work, beneficiaries are now required to perform "sincerity checks" to keep their cash assistance and related benefits such as food stamps and Medicaid, Stagliano said.

The policy, tested at the Henderson office since April, is being pushed statewide and is already being cited as the main reason behind a four-month decline in welfare recipients.

A sincerity check involves working a 30- to 40-hour week at the local welfare office doing non-essential tasks. Once that is completed, recipients can continue fulfilling their work commitments at the office or can combine job searches, volunteer work, vocational training and other activities eligible under welfare to work reforms.

The purpose of the new requirement is threefold, said Stagliano, who oversees the program and field operations: It shows applicants want to help themselves; it lets case workers do a more accurate skill assessment, including whether applicants can handle the basics of showing up on time and putting in a full day; and it allows case workers to develop a contract between the welfare office and the recipients detailing how they will get back on their feet.

"We look at what they are capable of doing and decide what path they are going to take, be that employment or job training, and what they need to get there," Barbara Clark, district manager of the Belrose office near Rancho Drive, said.

Recipients can be dropped from the rolls if they fail to follow through on the sincerity check or any other requirement, Stagliano said. They have 30 days to meet with their case worker and get back on track, and their cash assistance check is placed for pick-up at the office, so they have to talk to a case worker to get the money. If they fail, they have to reapply for benefits.

"Some of these things, which on the surface may seem harsh, they are designed to help get people self-sufficient," Stagliano said.

They are also necessary steps to curtail the welfare rolls, state welfare director Nancy Ford said.

The state receives a federal block grant of $47 million and has been over budget since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when welfare rolls soared. The $22 million reserve the state had left over from the prosperous 1990s is now gone, and the division had to ask for state money in the 2003 Legislature to help maintain current benefits through 2005.

If the numbers don't continue to decline, Ford said, the division will have to cut the amount individuals receive.

Such tactics are known to successfully motivate people to find jobs, said Kenneth Troske, a University of Missouri, Columbia, economics professor who has done extensive studies on welfare reform at the national level.

"They are raising the costs of (receiving the benefits) and pushing people who could feasibly get a job and get off welfare to do so," Troske said, adding that there are exemptions at the federal level to "shield the worst cases from these changes to rules."

Troske said his research has shown that "those leaving welfare after reform tend to be the same or even better off than those who left welfare before reform."

Welfare advocates in the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada fear the policy shoves people into jobs that cannot sustain them. Then, because of lack of money for child care, recipients end up back on the welfare rolls.

"From an advocate's (point of view), it seems shortsighted to force folks into menial jobs when they could be taking community college courses to sharpen their skills so that they'd qualify for better paying jobs," Paul Brown, PLAN's Southern Nevada director, said in an e-mail. "A parent with two kids can work two full-time, minimum-wage jobs and still not earn enough for the basics."

Welfare officials do not dispute the fact that someone cannot live on $6 or $7 an hour, but they say even that is more than the monthly welfare benefits. Recipients also keep partial benefits for six months after finding work and often qualify for food stamps and Medicaid longer.

Out of every 40 people who applied for benefits at the outset of the test-pilot in her Henderson office, Petruso said only two would make it through the first 40-hour week.

Brown's Northern Nevada counterpart, Jan Gilbert, worries that many welfare recipients may just give up because of the obstacles they face, such as domestic violence, lack of transportation, no child care or lack of skills to even get a job.

Stagliano said the division can work with individuals to overcome all of these issues.

"Let's talk about what your obstacles are and let us help you overcome those," Stagliano said.

Welfare recipient Jennifer Hernandez, 21, says she has seen people "drop like flies" in their first week at the Henderson office because they are unable or unwilling to put in that much work.

"It's really hard," Hernandez said, talking on the phone from her mother's home as she searched for jobs on the computer. "It's kind of not worth the money that I am getting. ... Right now the money is not enough, but the food stamps help a lot and the Medicaid is really important."

Recipients who do not show up to the initial orientation have 10 days to comply with that requirement or their application for benefits is closed, Stagliano said. Those who make it to Day One then drop out are given 30 days to comply.

Advocates said they hope these new sanctions focus on solving problems and getting people on track.

"It is really too early to tell if it is going to be helpful or punitive to recipients, and it is going to depend on how it is implemented," Jon Sasser, legal services statewide advocacy coordinator, said. "If the conciliation gets people on track, it will be a good thing. ... If it is a way to reduce the case loads and people fail to be reconciliated, it could be bad."

Stagliano said he hoped enforcement of the rules will benefit people in the long term because it will "condition them to self-sufficiency." Before if people missed an appointment, it was simply rescheduled, he said. This set people up for failure because, in the real world, things like a job interview cannot be rescheduled.

"The whole idea is to get their attention so we can work with them," Stagliano said.

Once that's done case workers are putting more focus on finding recipients jobs that fit their skills and that they can use to move to eventual self-sufficiency, Stagliano said.

Having recipients work in the welfare office helps build those skills, he said.

The program has provided a safe place where recipients can gain confidence for a real job, Petruso said. Often participants need to learn basic skills such as showing up on time and dressing for the job. Even those who manage that have few marketable skills such as being able to type or use a computer.

"It's completely immersing a person in a work environment," Petruso said.

Recipients who put in their 30 hours of required work at the welfare office spend about half of their time doing clerical work and the other half using division resources to look for jobs or get job training, Petruso said.

The recipients have been "surprisingly productive," needing little supervision to perform the required tasks, she said.

It also helps case workers and recipients work together, Petruso said.

Hernandez agreed.

"When you are in front of them and don't work back there, they look at you like you are another number," Hernandez said of the caseworkers. "But when you are back there and working, they smile at you. ... They saw that I worked hard and that I wasn't just another person milking the system."

Hernandez, who has children 2 years and 8 months old, has put in her required welfare-to-work hours at the Henderson office for the past several months.

"I've gotten a lot of experience in doing clerk stuff, and there are clerk jobs all over the city," Hernandez said. "I've got two letters of recommendation, so it will help my get my foot in the door if I want to get a full-time job."

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