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DOES CAL WORKS......
WORK?
by Jill Kearns ( PNN staff)
During the Fall semester of 1999 I had the opportunity to get to know
a group of women who were succeeding in getting an education despite tremendous
difficulty in each of their personal lives. This difficulty was mainly
due to the fact that these women were low-income single mothers on CalWORKs
( welfare). These women were also students at San Francisco State University,
enrolled in a class in which I happened to be the T.A. That class dealt
with the subject of welfare, from its inception to its current reform.
More importantly though, this class acted as a support group. It was a
place where these women could come and voice their frustrations with the
welfare system and know that they were not alone in their troubles. Common
areas of complaint were, among other things, the lack of knowledge of
their workers and payment for child care.
One particular annoyance was the fact that their
time spent in school did not fulfill more of their mandated weekly hours
for Cal WORKs. Many of these women were taking 15 units or more which
translates into many hours of study even outside of the classroom, but
on top of that they would have to go on to other activities in support
of their hours. All this activity alone would be enough to burn out most
people, but add on to that being a single mother. Many times just listening
to their stories of daily life made me feel tired
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On Wednesday, April 5th I attended a meeting of the Finance and Labor
Committee of the SF Board of Supervisors. One of the items on the agenda
was to consider the current status of the CalWORKs program, which is now
in its second year. There was not a lot of talk on the part of the supervisors
or Department of Human Services (DHS) representatives, most of the time
was given to public comment. As various people went to the microphone
to say their piece I could not help but think of the women I had known
last semester. This was because all of the frustrations they had expressed
about the CalWORKs system were being expressed again. Complaints included
inconsistent workers who act as gate keepers to services, workers who
are overworked and undertrained as to know what recipients rights to services
are, inadequate funds for proper child care, and attendance of school
not counting towards more weekly hours. A new complaint was of the current
initiative to start fingerprinting all welfare recipients. Many of those
who spoke pointed out that such a mandate would most likely prevent certain
people, such as immigrants, from seeking desperately needed services out
of fear. Representatives from Coalition for Ethical Welfare Reform addressed
all these issues plus others and presented the supervisors with a 10 point
plan as to how they feel the CalWORKs program could be improved. The supervisors
seemed impressed enough that they were willing to look into the possibility
of implementing some of the recommendations.
At the end of the meeting, DHS representative Will Lightbourne tried
to play down the complaints as best he could saying that in most of the
situations his hands were tied, but that only served to underscore the
frustrations of those who had spoken earlier.
From what I have seen it seems to me that if you experience problems
with the CalWORKs program you are not unusual, you are the norm, and that
is a strong argument for changing our welfare system yet again.
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