THE COP WELFARE PLAN : Teen Mothers Say Reforms Could Limit Opportunities : Aid: Youths say cash is a bridge to better lives and is not permanent situation. Few dwell on past mistakes.

At 15, Veronica Telles was thrust into the world of parenthood. She had to buy diapers, formula and little outfits she couldn’t afford. She had to find a place to live.

The wounds from her own troubled childhood had not healed and she was responsible for keeping a newborn safe from harm. There was little time to dwell on the past, on thoughtless acts that included having a child out of wedlock.

Like thousands of teen-age mothers scrambling to gain control of their lives, Telles and her daughter, Ebony, went on welfare--something mothers her age may soon be prohibited by law from doing.

Under a much-debated welfare reform package passed by the House of Representatives on Friday, states would be allowed to cut off cash welfare payments to parents under age 18. The package would roll 40 federal programs into broad block grants to the states, saving about $66 billion over five years. It would end the entitlement status of many programs, meaning that individuals would not be guaranteed aid and federal spending would not automatically rise to meet increased need.

Supporters of cutting off welfare payments to teen-age parents argue that the cuts are needed because the welfare system encourages teen-age pregnancies by softening the economic blow.

But Telles, now 17 and living in the Mid-City area, says that in her case nothing could be further from the truth.

“When Ebony was born I wasn’t thinking about welfare, about raising a child,” she said. “I was too young myself.”

At the time, Telles said, she was on a downward spiral, experimenting with drugs and alcohol, hanging out with street gangs. Motherhood was a dose of reality.

She returned to school with a sense of purpose, something the former honors student had neglected for some time.

“I’m not living off welfare, I’m surviving off of it,” Telles wrote in a letter to Congress this week. “I’m using it as a steppingstone to help me in the future when I do get off and have a career.”

Telles and other teen-age mothers at the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Business Industry School turned over several protest letters to Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), who promised to carry their message. After Friday’s 234-199 vote, the welfare package moves to the Senate for further debate.

In the letters, the mothers offered no apologies or words of regret. They urged the legislators to support programs that will enable them to help themselves.

“People often get pregnant for many confusing and distorted reasons,” said Ruth Beaglehole, who directs the center’s Teen Parenting and Child Care Program, which provides free child care, meals and counseling to mothers working on their high school diplomas. “Cutting their benefits is not going to help. It’s just cruel and mean. It’s a form of punishment and the truth is children don’t learn anything from being punished.”

Neleyda Ramirez, another student at the center, said measures such as those passed Friday would not have affected her because she never planned on going on welfare. After all, she had a boyfriend when she became pregnant at 15, and he promised to stay.

“Guys tell you they love you and you just want to have their kids,” said Ramirez, 18. “But then when the real problems come they are not really mature enough to handle it.”

Her boyfriend disappeared, leaving her with a daughter to support. Living on her own, she receives $490 a month from welfare, and pays $385 a month for rent for an apartment in Los Angeles. In hindsight, she admits she was not ready for motherhood.

“I know I should have waited,” she said. “But I can’t think about that now. Now I have to struggle” to make ends meet.

Laura Magallanes was carrying the same good intentions. She was 14 when she got pregnant but her boyfriend was working odd jobs and she figured they would make it. Against her mother’s advice she left home and moved in with him Downtown after her son, Ricardo, was born. When money got tight, Magallanes went on welfare. Then her check was cut after she took a part-time job at McDonald’s.

At first, she thought she could make it without the monthly welfare check. But the $200 a month she receives from the fast-food restaurant and the money her boyfriend brings in has not been enough to live on. She has applied to get her full welfare payment restored.

“I have to do something with myself, and welfare is the only thing that will help me get a start,” she said.

Studies show that 70% of welfare mothers move into jobs within two years of getting their first welfare check. Many mothers at the center see welfare neither as a way of life nor as a social tool to improve behavior. To them it is merely a bridge they must use as they seek to sort out lives that have been complicated by bad choices, yet are often enriched by children.

To this day, Angelica Pasasi, 18, regrets the day she took up with a gang member from Los Angeles. But she has no regrets about the daughter she gave birth to.

For two years, she said, she lived with the young man who offered her no future. He beat her and used drugs and alcohol. Finally, she left.

“I didn’t want my daughter in that life,” she said.

She moved back to her mother’s house in South-Central Los Angeles, which was already crowded. She got on welfare and went back to school, determined to have a better life. Someday, she says, she would like to be a police officer.

“Sometimes I know I should have waited” before becoming pregnant, she said. “My daughter deserves better. But when I was with her father I was going nowhere. There was nothing to look forward to.

“Then my life changed when I found out I was pregnant. I wanted to go to college, I wanted to make something of myself. I’m changing because of her. I want to be a better mother because of her.”

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O.C. Welfare Profile

The number of people receiving welfare assistance in Orange County in 1995:

AFDC: 120,000

MediCal: 238,000

SSI: 46,766

Food stamps with AFDC: 97,871

Food stamps only: 55,416

ASSISTANCE DEFINED

Aid to Families with Dependent Children: Established 1935; gives cash to families facing one of these problems: unemployment; death, incapacity or absence of a household head. Largest U.S. welfare cash program; about 85% of county recipients also receive food stamps.

Food stamps: Established 1964; supplemental food program does not pay for alcohol, tobacco, pet food and other non-edible products. Orange County issues $9.6 million worth of food stamps monthly.

SSI: Established 1972; gives cash to poor who are aged, blind or otherwise disabled.

MediCal: Established nationwide 1964 as Medicaid and implemented in California as MediCal in 1966; provides health services to low-income people.

Sources: Orange County Department of Social Services; Social Security Administration; Researched by CAROLINE LEMKE / Los Angeles Times