Virginia’s Tough New Welfare Law Poses Problems in Transportation, Education : Cutbacks: Recipients must go to work within 90 days of getting first check. But the jobs may not be where mothers and their children live.

Beginning July 1, Virginia will implement one of the toughest new welfare laws in the country, forcing recipients to go to work within 90 days of receiving their first check, and will cut off their benefits after two years.

But the jobs that could mean the end of dependency for some of Richmond’s welfare mothers are just over the county line, in suburban Chesterfield and Henrico, and the buses from downtown Richmond hardly ever go there.

And the education that many of these women seek to escape a life of dead-end drudgery often is gained by attending classes for up to three years at J. Sargent Reynolds Community College. Now some may have to drop out, pressed to get a job--any job--fast.

The new law--a microcosm of the kinds of restrictions expected to be imposed nationwide by a reform-minded Republican Congress--will bring unprecedented changes on a scale that many professionals working in the welfare system had yearned for as they endured the old way’s infuriating contradictions.

But the specifics of those changes--and how they actually will connect with a collection of trouble-plagued lives and logistics problems--are leaving social workers almost stunned and experiencing mixed emotions.

The challenges these social workers conquer--and the ones that conquer them--could offer a preview of the future welfare era as Congress moves to turn over welfare largely to the states, which are planning new limits and requirements. As much as any other single factor, these workers’ ability to get the best and prevent the worst from the changes may determine whether the movement is a success or a disaster.

On an unusually warm mid-March afternoon, Michael Evans has shed his jacket in favor of shirt-sleeves. In meetings throughout the day, he struggles to sort through the complexities of the new law. As director of the city’s department of social services, it is his responsibility to figure out exactly what Richmond’s welfare recipients have to do now--and how his employees can help them do it.

“We can implement (the new law),” Evans said. “But it’s going to be the biggest challenge the system has ever seen.”

In preparation, the department is moving away from the specialization that has dominated the system since the 1970s and is returning to the classic model of the caseworker. Each recipient will deal with only one social worker for everything, instead of one for each program she is enrolled in. Also, caseworkers will spend more time in the neighborhoods rather than meeting clients in the office.

*

Administrators hope the closer bonds will ease the transition and help families reach the reform movement’s goal of self-sufficiency, rather than falling off in midstream into crime or destitution.

But that internal change is just the beginning. Richmond, the state capital located 100 miles south of Washington, has a population of about 203,000, about 10% of whom receive Aid to Families With Dependent Children.

When children are subtracted, Evans’ staff is left to come up with 3,500 jobs for able-bodied recipients in the area--jobs that can be done with an often-limited education and yet pay enough to support them.

The magnitude of that challenge settled in shortly after the Legislature approved the measure in February--and sent Evans into an urgent session with top city officials March 1 to ponder what to do.

As Evans described the situation to the group, George Musgrove, the assistant city manager for human services, drew the grim conclusion: “There’s no way we can accomplish this alone.”

In the weeks since then, officials have struggled to come up with a plan that will produce results soon--matching people up with immediate opportunities--as well as long-term changes that will steer poor families away from a collision with the new penalties.

A key part of the emergency effort has been an appeal to community business leaders to round up jobs for the new workers.

The businesses seem to be responding. Jonathan Johnson, chief executive officer of Community Pride Food stores, agreed to co-chair a panel to identify jobs in industries throughout the area.

Johnson is a crucial ally. “Right now, he’s employing about 45 (people) who are receiving some kind of assistance. And he employs many others who used to get assistance and worked their way off,” Evans said. “We’re looking for Johnny to be a link for us, to help us with jobs and to recruit other business leaders to support the effort.”

Whether the new jobs will total 3,500, or can be filled by people with limited skills and other home problems, remains to be seen.

Working on the long-range front, officials are considering shifting local job-training efforts away from general education and toward “concrete jobs-skills development.” For welfare recipients, Evans explained, that means “instead of spending four years getting a bachelor’s degree, you enroll them in a six-week welding program.”

In both the private and public sectors, the administrators are wrestling with the logistics quandary--how to get welfare mothers from their inner-city homes to jobs in stores, restaurants and service industries in the suburbs. Without transportation, welfare mothers whose benefits are phased out would have few safe or legal ways close to home to feed their children. Hungry children or drug-selling mothers are not consequences Richmond wants to risk.

Evans and Musgrove are examining a number of intriguing possibilities. There could be “jitney” vans sponsored by “creative entrepreneurs” running fixed routes on flexible schedules for low-income people who need a ride, or a special bus service for welfare recipients funded through local minority business development organization.

“Also, why couldn’t the city--instead of selling the old (city) cars we normally sell at auction--sell them to welfare recipients, cheap?” Musgrove suggested at one point.

The cost of insurance for these individuals “is going to be a tough issue,” but maintenance of these aging cars “could become another job opportunity,” Evans said.

*

“Some enterprising soul, for a few thousand dollars in tools, could set up an auto repair business to specifically service those cars,” he continued. “Or we could develop an arrangement with the Richmond Technical Center, where they train auto mechanics, and have them work on these cars.”

No answer is at hand, but officials are determined that something will be ready by July 1.

More troubling to the caseworkers is what will happen to the mothers who manage to travel to those jobs but have to leave their education behind in the process. That could be a particularly painful side effect of the new system--making life harder for some of the very recipients who are working the hardest to help themselves.

“Until now, we’d been devoting most of our efforts into advancing education, so they can move into the work force at above minimum wage, where they can get the kinds of benefits to support themselves,” Evans said.

But under the new restrictions, welfare recipients will be forced to take “minimum-wage jobs, fast-food kinds of stuff,” he added. “Once you get your work habits down pat, you can move from McDonald’s to cleaning houses, which will pay a little bit more. But you still won’t have any benefits.”

*

Rose Brown-Jones is among the Richmond caseworkers trying to find a way to salvage clients’ career dreams under the new system. In a recent session with 22-year-old Sheryl Brisco, who is studying office systems technology at Reynolds Community College, Brown-Jones had a hard time cushioning the blow of the new rules.

“I don’t think the welfare department should have the right to tell me when I have to drop out of school!” Brisco shouted in anger, then in tears. “I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. And on top of that, now you all are telling me there’s a possibility I won’t be able to receive that check long enough for me to get my education?”

“There are some choices,” Brown-Jones said, trying to calm her. “You could think about working during the day and continuing your education during the evenings and weekends.”

Brisco, a mother of two preschool children with health problems, was doubtful. “I am doing all that I can do to handle my children and to take care of them,” she said.

*

Brown-Jones tried to end the meeting on a hopeful note. It was not clear yet whether the 90-day job requirement would apply to all recipients, or just to new ones. Furthermore, “you will only have one social worker now, and it will be me. I will be the one working with you, helping you through these problems,” Brown-Jones said. “I’m not just going to throw you out there. I am with you.”

Evans and others working to implement the new system said they believe that the tough work rules will help some families--providing the discipline and motivation they lacked under the more permissive system.

But, he said, the extent of any benefit that society realizes from welfare reform will be limited unless something is done at the same time about the many non-employment problems that afflict poor families--particularly crime, drugs and inadequate schools.