Welfare Reform

Re “Tax Incentives Key to Welfare Reform, State Panel Says,” Dec. 3: Small businesses will certainly need incentive to reach out to former welfare recipients in need of work. Tax credits are a great start.

But moving people from dependency to self-sufficiency will take more than employers willing and able to hire them. Some long-term welfare recipients have nominal work experience. They need vocational training to prepare them for the demands of work.

At the Los Angeles Mission, we have learned that vocational training, when combined with rehabilitation, is what many poor and homeless people need and want most.

Any successful plan to offer tax incentives to businesses will include a provision for vocational training. Putting people--trained in a marketable skill--back to work is the only way to reform our welfare system.

MIKE EDWARDS, President

Los Angeles Mission