‘Appalled’ at Move of Welfare Office

On March 1, I attended a rally held in front of the Long Beach welfare office to protest the closing of four welfare offices in the South Bay. This rally was sponsored by the Los Angeles Countywide Coalition for the Homeless. Speakers were John Suggs, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless; Cheri Milla, director of Harbor Interfaith Shelter; Melanie Stephens, associate director of Southern California Interfaith Hunger Coalition; Rabbi David Lieb of Temple Beth El in San Pedro, among many others. Included in the large assemblage were many leaders of various social and service organizations, as well as many homeless and welfare recipients with their young children in baby carriages.

All the speakers voiced their opposition to the threatened closing of these welfare offices and the opening of a new office in Rancho Dominguez. Food, medical and housing assistance would be more difficult to obtain for the county’s 61,000 poor, 17,000 of them children, if the Board of Supervisors plan prevails. The closest present welfare office is 6 1/2 miles, and the one in San Pedro is 15 miles from the intended new facility. It would take up to six bus transfers, if bus fare were available, to get to the Rancho Dominguez office. Most would have to walk.

This is an impossible situation! Welfare recipients have to be available at a scheduled time, usually 9 a.m., if they are to be serviced, otherwise they lose their chance to be serviced. Most have to wait many hours before being called, and sometimes they are told to come back the next day. Typically they have to make five trips to the welfare office each month and will spend, for a family of three from San Pedro, $48 and 20 hours round trip on buses each month to get to the new office. This will increase the misery of the people already homeless. Why add to their despair!

It will cost the county about $1 million more to lease the new facility. Is it being done to harass the poor and the homeless so that they will find it too difficult to share in the welfare program to which they are entitled? Why not spend that money to improve conditions at the present facilities.

I, for one, am appalled at the proposed change, and I hope that those who read this letter will feel likewise. I have already written a letter to Supervisor Dean Dana expressing my feelings and I call on all of you to do so. His address is 500 W. Temple St., Los Angeles.

J. WILLIAM FINKEL

Rancho Palos Verdes