Getting Off the Welfare Treadmill : Education: Greater Avenues for Independence works with the needy to help them gain marketable skills.

Katrina and Ruben Gonzalez and their two daughters live in a cramped one-bedroom apartment in Mar Vista. Ruben assembles wooden boxes for $9 an hour when he can get the work, and Katrina is unemployed.

They have been on welfare for two years and, until recently, appeared to have little prospect of getting off it. Katrina, 24, was a high school dropout and barely literate. Ruben finished high school but had no marketable skills.

Things are changing, however. Katrina is now enrolled at West Los Angeles College as a student and participant in a program called Greater Avenues for Independence, which was created for people like her.

Known as GAIN for short, the 5-year-old program pays for welfare parents’ tuition, transportation, child care, books and vocational training and has a simple goal: to get parents into the work force and off welfare.

Any welfare recipient can volunteer for GAIN, but it is mandatory in California for recipients whose youngest child is older than 2; state rules say benefits of parents who do not take part are cut. In Los Angeles County, the program costs $39 million a year to run; the federal government picks up the tab for half of it, and the other half is split between county and state governments.

Since its 1988 inception, 70,000 people from Los Angeles County have enrolled in GAIN, according to John Martinelli, the county coordinator of the program. Of those, 19,150, or about 27%, have gotten jobs so far.

Martinelli said he regards that as a good success rate. He explained that the GAIN clientele consists of “exclusively long-term recipients” of welfare, who in most cases have a very low literacy level and poor work histories. In that context, he said, “I’m not at all ashamed of a 25% success rate.” Of L.A. County’s GAIN participants, 80% start the program without any marketable skills, he said.

That was true in Katrina’s case. Before she got involved in GAIN, she could barely read or spell. “TV, taking care of the kids, cooking, cleaning, those were my hobbies,” she said. Now, she reads books for pleasure when she is not studying. “I am passing the classes. It’s building my self-esteem, because I didn’t think I could do it.”

GAIN programs are offered by community colleges and adult schools throughout the state. The program at West Los Angeles College in Culver City now has an enrollment of 180 students. They spend from six months to two years learning basic skills and getting ready for jobs, said Avery Johnson, director of the GAIN program at the college.

Once students pass a basic proficiency test in reading and math, they are referred to a county program that helps them find a job in areas ranging from dental hygiene to typing to nursing, Johnson said.

Gain participant Nilka Weaver plans to become a dental hygienist. She found out about GAIN in a letter accompanying a welfare check. “I didn’t think it would be as good as it is,” she said, applauding the academic support and encouragement of the GAIN staff.

Paul Babatunde, a West Los Angeles student who serves as a tutor to some of the GAIN participants, said Weaver has progressed well in her studies since she started the program earlier this year. “When she came, everything was real, real difficult, but she picked up quickly,” he said.

On a typical day, Weaver said, she gets up at 5 a.m., gets her two children, Shanil, 12, and Clarence, 6, off to school or day care. She uses a private baby-sitter for her child care, and GAIN pays the baby-sitter directly. Another option for GAIN participants is to bring their children to the college’s on-campus day-care center, with no charge, but the facility has a long waiting list.

Weaver signs in at GAIN at 8:15 a.m. and studies algebra, vocabulary and other subjects until early afternoon. She and her children all do their homework and are usually in bed before 9 p.m., she said.

“I could never have gone back to school without the free child care,” she said.

Ruben and Katrina Gonzalez say the same thing. They receive $625 a month in welfare, and about $150 in food stamps. Rent payments alone are $600, so before GAIN, they never had any money left for baby-sitters, Katrina Gonzalez said, meaning that she had to stay home with Sarah, 4, and Kory, 3.

Since being in GAIN, “we’re struggling, but we’re doing fine,” she said.

The same might be said of the GAIN program itself. A nonprofit organization that analyzes education and work-related programs has determined that GAIN has had a small but definite effect on Los Angeles County’s welfare budget, and has clearly helped some of the participants. No one is sure yet, however, whether its impact will justify its cost.

Manpower Demonstration Research Corp. compared a group of three-year welfare recipients who were enrolled in GAIN against another group living in the same socioeconomic circumstances who were not, and found that GAIN brought about two significant changes between 1990 and 1992:

Welfare benefit payments to GAIN households went down by 5%. And earnings increased 4% per year in single-parent GAIN households, and 22% for heads of two-parent households in which one or both parents were enrolled in GAIN.

John Wallace, vice president and regional manager of Manpower Demonstration’s San Francisco office, said the figures are encouraging, considering the skill level at which most people enter the program and the current slack demand for labor in Southern California.

Some participants find that they enjoy the learning process so much that they don’t want to leave the program. “They feel good about what they are doing and want to continue with it,” said tutor Babatunde. “Their spirits are awakened.”

Katrina Gonzalez, who hopes to eventually become an elementary school teacher, is one who would like to continue her studies. “I passed the GAIN test but I don’t feel equipped,” she said. “It’s like elementary school stuff. If you know common sense, they want you out there. They feel you can get a job.”

But county GAIN coordinator Martinelli says GAIN’s function is to make people employable, period.

“I don’t think the public would care for long-term educational subsidies for people who are employable and on welfare,” he said. “The purpose of GAIN is to assist (participants) to receive the minimum skills they need. We’re not in the business of getting people four-year degrees.”