Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 9, 1994 TAG: 9401080016
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The young, single mother had the help of a few people willing to go the extra mile. She had a rare determination. And perhaps most importantly, she had luck:
When she was feeling hopeless, social workers steered her into a small jobs program called IMAGE (Independent Mothers Achieving Growth and Employment), giving her the training - and confidence boost - she needed to trade in her monthly $231 AFDC check for a nursing job that pays $10 an hour.
When she was sure she couldn't scrape together the money to take care of her baby, friends gave her a used bassinet and crib, and three garbage bags full of baby clothes. Cousins pointed her to the RAM House, Salvation Army and area churches for food and more clothes. And a friendly landlord helped out by finding her a cheap, used washer and dryer, then providing her with the hook-up.
``Basically, it was a lot of people doing little things that really made the difference,'' King, 24, recalls.
There were also the usual detractors:
She comes from a family ''where a lot of us get pregnant young and stay in the system.''
Welfare workers didn't help matters by assuming her goals were the same when she applied for AFDC after her son was born three years ago. ``They acted like I was dirt - like I wanted to stay on the system,'' she says.
A neighbor in the public housing complex she was living in laughed and called IMAGE ``a crock'' the day the two of them received letters inviting them to join the program.
As soon as King began the LPN nursing-school program at Roanoke Memorial, her son developed asthma. A few months later while taking an exam, her appendix ruptured, resulting in emergency surgery and an eventual diagnosis of Crohn's disease - a rare, degenerative intestinal disorder for which there is currently no cure.
A boyfriend who seemed supportive at first, loaning her his car to go to nursing school, ``left me for another woman as soon as I graduated and started making more money than him,'' she says.
To repeat: Tonie King is one of the best-case scenarios.
``People who are making it themselves have no idea at all what it takes to get free from this life,'' says social worker Angela Perkins, an IMAGE case manager.
King, for instance, is one of few AFDC recipients in Roanoke lucky enough to receive transitional welfare, which weans recipients-turned-workers from the system by giving them an extra nine months of Medicaid and day-care supplements. As an incentive for businesses, it also pays King's new employer, Avante Nursing Home, $200 a month for hiring her.
But the budget allows for just 25 transitional cases in the entire city of Roanoke. ``That's a drop in the bucket,'' says Vickie Price, administrator for the Fifth District Employment and Training Consortium, which houses IMAGE. State and federal welfare regulations do more to encourage the welfare existence than discourage it, she adds.
``For most people it's an uphill battle to even start working,'' Perkins says. ``Their rent goes up, their food stamps go down, they lose their utility allowances and Medicaid.
``Most AFDC recipients, they think it's impossible to get off welfare.''
While President Clinton has called teen pregnancy ``the most important indicator of welfare dependency,'' his administration's proposals for welfare reform - especially the proposed two-year time limit - have shown little understanding of the realities of generational poverty, area experts say. Local figures show that among the AFDC population that does gain self-sufficiency, the average person received welfare nearly five years before becoming independent.
One IMAGE client who's been studying for her GED for three years is still at the third-grade reading level, Perkins says. The mother of two had her first child at 14.
Most lack the most basic of skills: knowing to call an employer if they're going to be late for work; knowing to schedule a doctor's appointment for when they're not in school. Some won't leave their apartments for GED classes because they're afraid someone might break into their homes.
``Part of it's assertiveness,'' Perkins says. ``They feel powerless, and they've never seen anyone do these kind of things.
``One woman did really well in our assertiveness training, but when she went back home and asserted herself, her boyfriend broke her jaw for it.''
Part of the IMAGE philosophy is to introduce clients to the world beyond the housing developments, then follow up with intensive case management that coordinates education, job training and practical necessities like transportation, day care, birth control and budgeting.
Weekend retreats are held at Natural Bridge and Smith Mountain Lake, where many are introduced for the first time to hotels and place settings with multiple forks and glasses.
Clients make collage pictures of their goals. They do esteem-building exercises like riding horseback and climbing 16-foot walls. They pretend they have $1 million to spend, and then figure out in groups how to spend it.
``There's a definite connection between no intervention and second and third pregnancies,'' Price says. ``Programs like IMAGE can work to reduce teen pregnancy. The initial outlay of funds reaps a whirlwind of rewards - not only the AFDC dollars saved, but think of the taxes they're now paying, and the good they're doing for the economy because they can buy things they couldn't buy before.''
Preventive programs like IMAGE could also snowball if expanded, making success stories like Tonie King common, instead of the current trend - to have more children. Out of the 153 program participants in five years, 36 have obtained their GEDs, and 39 are currently working and off welfare.
``The way it is now, it's bass-ackwards insanity,'' says Corinne Gott, Roanoke's social services superintendent. ``We can get all kinds of money for Medicaid, food stamps, AFDC - there's no cap. But we can't get money to pay staff to do the prevention to get people off welfare.
``And here's Clinton talking about cutting staff. He doesn't seem to have the picture yet.''
For King, who was interviewed at Roanoke Memorial Hospital during a relapse of Crohn's disease, life is still paycheck to paycheck. A Roanoke social worker had to make special arrangements to get King's Christmas gifts out of layaway for her son, Levi.
And she's had to dissolve a lot of her old friendships - to keep those old temptations at bay.
``I've come to find the biggest enemy to the black man and black woman is each other,'' she says. ``A lotta men feel if they can stick you with a baby, they can control you.''
Men preyed on her more when she was on AFDC, she says. ``They try to take your food stamps, your check. And I have to admit, I had these ideals of the man on the white horse because you do want someone there to be with you.
``I'm scared now,'' she adds. ``Being a black single woman raising a young black male - he needs a black role model, and there aren't any.''
Aug. 20, 1993 - the day she graduated from nursing school - was the happiest day of her life. That was four years after she moved to Roanoke from Houston - "and got hooked up with the wrong guy.'' Levi's father has since moved back to his native Haiti and offers no support.
``I used welfare to get ahead, and I'm not sorry about that,'' she says. ``Otherwise, I'd still be on ADC in [public housing] - with a whole bunch of men trying to use me.''
While King knows that not all welfare recipients find it as humiliating as she did, she says the self-esteem she's gained from becoming independent will keep her from ever turning back.
``I'm confident now; I have to be. With my having Crohn's and Levi being asthmatic and people stabbing me in the back - you have to believe in yourself. Because it's just you and God, and that's it.''
by CNB