New--but Improved? : The Poor Say Welfare ‘Super Office’ Has Its Drawbacks

Nine months after the controversial close of three welfare offices in Long Beach and one in San Pedro, disagreement continues over whether a replacement “super office” near Compton adequately serves poor people from southeast Los Angeles County and the South Bay.

Activists for the poor staged protests last April, saying the “super office” in Rancho Dominguez would hopelessly isolate many people from the bureaucracy that is their link to subsistence benefits such as food stamps, housing vouchers, Medi-Cal, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and General Relief. They predicted the trip to the new county Department of Public Social Services office would be too lengthy or expensive for many.

Administrators at the massive office--housed in a defunct auto parts manufacturing plant--say the new operation has proved those predictions wrong. They also say the Santa Fe Avenue building, just south of the Artesia (91) Freeway near Compton College, offers more room for employees and clients, cleaner waiting areas and more efficient service.

It costs $100,000 more a year to operate than the four offices it replaced, but welfare officials say the added expense is more than offset by the improved atmosphere. And the office serves more clients than the four defunct ones, they say.

The poor people who receive government aid through the office and their advocates generally are not as glowing in their assessments. Although they agree that the office is bigger and cleaner than its predecessors, they say it can still take a full day or more to complete the daunting paperwork that will qualify them for benefits. And many clients continue to complain that the office is too far from their homes.

Owners of the office’s neighboring industrial firms also have their gripes--they say the welfare office has brought congestion and petty crimes to a once serene area.

What county workers and the poor can agree on is that the new Rancho Dominguez office--part of a consolidation effort that has reduced the number of General Relief offices from 30 to 15 in recent years--serves a tremendous number of people.

The office provides government benefits for more than 26,000 people, 19,000 of whom receive funds on behalf of at least one child. More than 1,700 clients visit the office on an average day, said Lynn McCune, district director for the Department of Public Social Services.

The demand has been particularly heavy for General Relief--the benefit of last resort for poor people who do not qualify for state unemployment insurance, AFDC or other programs. Single men and women receive up to $312 a month from “G.R.,” as they call it, and are also eligible for food stamps and housing vouchers.

More than 3,400 new applicants, half of them homeless, come through the door each month seeking the subsistence payments, officials say. That is 50% more than the number of new cases processed by the defunct offices, said Daryl E. Grenier, director of General Relief programs. Grenier said the unexpected surge in cases might be caused by tremendous “word of mouth” about the office among the impoverished and homeless on the streets in the county’s south end.

At Rancho Dominguez, county officials have separated General Relief recipients into one office and AFDC clients into another.

Earlier this week, as at the start of any month, the General Relief office was filled to overflowing with poor people waiting for checks or trying to iron out problems concerning their payments. More than 200 plastic chairs, tightly packed in rows, were all occupied. Dozens of other people leaned on the walls or waited at glass intake windows that line an entire wall. It was cool in the staff offices at the back of the building, but the crush of humanity in the waiting area conquered the air-conditioning and raised the temperature at least 15 degrees.

Many of the homeless said they could not raise the bus fare to get here, so they walked to the office. They had piled their bedrolls beside the metal detector at the front door. The air was stale and heavy with the respiration of hundreds of people.

A knot of heavily tattooed men sat on one side of the waiting area. “When guys get out of prison,” said a guard, nodding in their direction, “this is usually the first place their parole agent sends them.”

Considering the crush, the low rumble of conversation seemed subdued. Occasionally, the calm was pierced as a clerk plaintively called the name of a client who had failed to respond to repeated paging.

Don, 39, said the main hardship for him is the long walk that he must make to the super office from Carson, where he has been living on the street since he lost a maintenance job three months ago. He said he awoke at 4:30 a.m. and, missing the police patrols that sometimes question him along the way, arrived in Rancho Dominguez at 6:30 a.m., half an hour before the office opened.

Those with money for public transportation said access to the office has improved since its opening because the RTD routed a north-south bus line directly in front of the building and the light rail Blue Line opened in July, with a stop just a block from the building.

But many people still have trouble reaching the office, said Craig Sampieri,associate director of the Harbor Interfaith Shelter. The San Pedro agency has diverted money from its food pantry and other programs to buy more bus tokens so that clients can reach the welfare office, Sampieri said.

Welfare administrators said last year that the opening of the new office was expected to cut daylong waits in half.

Grenier said his office has generally met that goal and that waits exceed four hours only on particularly crowded days or for complicated cases.

A few clients concurred, saying the new office provides more efficient service. Most of those waiting this week, however, said they don’t see the improvement.

Don, who did not give his last name, said he expected to wait until 3 p.m. for his paperwork to be completed. “What’s the use?” he said, looking up from “Think and Grow Rich,” the paperback he was reading. “I was one of the first people in here and they haven’t gotten to me. . . . It’s tension, a lot of tension.”

Sampieri said he tells clients to expect a full day’s wait when they go to the Rancho Dominguez office. “I would say the wait is the same, or at least it is not significantly better,” he said.

Those waiting for service agreed the new office is cleaner and lighter than its predecessors. They also said the division of the operation, which puts single adults and families in separate waiting areas, has helped diffuse crowding.

During the office’s first nine months, several problems that initially arose have been worked out, administrators said. For instance:

* A severe parking shortage has been somewhat mitigated by adding 80 spaces to the original 64.

* Administrators initially banned food and newspapers in the waiting areas, saying they wanted to avoid messes, but quickly reversed that decision when clients said they had to eat and peruse the want ads during their long waits.

* An outdoor public address system was shut down because it encouraged clients to congregate in the parking lot and spill over into neighboring properties. And a fence was erected to encourage clients and their families to stay at the welfare office, rather than wander the surrounding neighborhood.

The latter change pleased the Rancho Dominguez Industrial Assn., which represents 40 neighboring businesses.

The business group says it is still concerned, however, about the traffic and loitering the welfare office has brought to the area. The crowds have, in turn, attracted hot dog vendors, catering trucks and car trunk salesmen. Rickey Gamore, director of the industrial association, said she is concerned these developments have discouraged new businesses from coming to the area.

Several social workers have at least one remaining complaint about the office--the use of interview booths that place a wall between county workers and force clients to communicate through a glass partition.

Some welfare workers meet with clients face to face, as they did in the old offices, to reduce the feeling of isolation, Sampieri said. But most workers meet with clients in the booths, an alienating and troubling experience for the large percentage of welfare recipients who are mentally disturbed, said homeless advocate Brad Stevens of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

Grenier said the barriers will stay because they are necessary for the safety of his workers.

As the new welfare office approaches its first birthday, the greatest concern among administrators is a hiring freeze imposed on all county departments. If employees cannot be replaced, service will suffer, Grenier said. “The processing time and the waiting time could increase because of that,” Grenier said.

The poor people who come to Rancho Dominguez say they are used to coping.

“You’ve got to do it,” said Don. “There is no other way.”