Welfare Cuts Go Into Effect : Benefits: Recipients try to find ways to cope as their monthly checks shrink 4.5%. More reductions may be coming. About 63% of the 2.4 million on state AFDC rolls are children.

Thursday marked the beginning of Family History Awareness Month, but it was a dark day in the annals of hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles County families whose welfare checks shrank 4.5%.

The statewide cut in welfare benefits adopted by the Legislature last month took effect, dragging down the monthly allotment for a mother with two children from $663 to $633 in a county where federal officials say the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $804.

The loss in benefits “may seem minuscule to us, but is horribly drastic to these families,” said Steve Barrow, legislative director of the Children’s Advocacy Institute in Sacramento. “It means they lose the ability to buy some article of clothing for a child like a coat for the coming winter. . . . A great number of people may not be able to pay the rent.”

From Granada Hills to South-Central, 280,096 families who receive Aid to Families With Dependent Children are seeking ways to stretch their checks further, begging a baby-sitter to work for less pay, cutting out trips to the park to save on bus fare and canceling plans to leave an abusive husband for fear of becoming homeless.

“Getting evicted, moving from place to place, that’s how it’s going to be,” said Renee, 30, a South-Central mother of four whose monthly check dropped from $899 to $859. Standing outside the welfare office in South-Central Los Angeles, she added: “You don’t want to do people wrong, but I don’t see how I can pay $778 in rent and utilities and have anything left over for the kids.”

Others said they would get by, provided that nothing unexpected occurs.

“If anything goes wrong with my 16-year-old car, I’d have to become a beggar to make it,” said Irene Brennick, 32, a Reseda mother of two who attends Cal State Northridge. After paying her monthly rent of $500, Brennick said, she will have $283 left, including $150 she earns working part time as a secretary. “There’s not going to be one extra penny.”

Although the government raised food stamp allotments a maximum of about $15 a month for a mother with two children, welfare advocates said the additional coupons will not offset the reduced cash benefits.

“Food stamps . . . don’t pay the rent,” said Laurie True, a spokeswoman for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

Welfare recipients, whose grants had dropped 4.5% in 1991, may lose more in coming months. About 63% of the 2.4 million AFDC recipients in the state are children.

The federal government is expected to grant the state permission to cut another 1.3% on Dec. 1. That would cut the monthly grant for a mother with two children another $9, to $624. The total 5.8% cut is expected to save the state about $122 million this fiscal year, said Kathleen Norris, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Social Services.

The state will save more if voters decide in November to cut an additional 19% in AFDC benefits under Proposition 165, Gov. Pete Wilson’s plan to reduce welfare costs and encourage parents to work.

But some AFDC recipients said Thursday they were forced to go on welfare because they were laid off. About 11% of the families in the county who receive AFDC benefits do so because one of the parents is unemployed, twice as many as three years ago, said Paul Fast, research director for the county Department of Public Social Services.

“There’s no jobs out there for us to find,” said Delaine Webb, 34, a South-Central mother of five whose monthly grant was reduced $40 to $859, most of which goes to pay her monthly rent of $725.

Judy Peterson, 46, of Granada Hills went on welfare last month when her husband stopped receiving unemployment benefits after being laid off as a lecturer in the business school at Cal State Northridge. The couple and their three children will receive $753 in October, $35 less than the month before.

Unable to pay their monthly mortgage of $3,000, the Petersons have filed for bankruptcy and are trying to sell their four-bedroom house.

“With the cutbacks, I’m wondering if I’ll even have enough money to buy gas to get to the store and back,” Peterson said. “I ran out on the Ventura Freeway last month, and, boy, was that a nightmare.”

With the first of two monthly checks mailed to welfare recipients Thursday, county social workers were bracing themselves for an onslaught of angry phone calls as the reality of the cuts sinks in.

“My staff will have to do a lot of consoling,” said Mattie Gardette, director of the South-Central welfare office.

More than 5,000 welfare recipients in the state have called a special state telephone number to complain about the cuts since being notified last month, Norris said. But only 125 have filed appeals because most recognize that it would be futile to try to overturn state law, officials said.

People may be resigned about the cuts, but many are still angry.

“It makes me mad because I know I have to count on my husband now,” said Maria, 25, a Bell Gardens mother of three who will receive $633 this month. Maria said she is afraid to leave her husband although he beats her and only occasionally gives her money. “I have no other choice because I have no money to do it on my own.”

Lashonda Mitchell, 20, a South-Central mother of one child, warned that anger over additional cuts could spark more violence in Los Angeles. Mitchell will receive $495 in welfare benefits in October, $35 less than previously. Her rent is $450 a month.

“They thought that was a riot before?” she said. “Well, it’s going to be worse, and this time we’re not going to mess up our own neighborhoods.”