ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 10, 1996 TAG: 9606100055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BEDFORD
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on June 11, 1996.
A word was omitted from a headline in Monday's paper. The headline
should have read, "Willingness not enough to get off welfare."
ELEVEN MONTHS into Gov. George Allen's plan to end welfare ``as we know it'' in Virginia, are the dependent becoming independent? A Bedford County woman, for one, sees reason for hope.
Frances Foxx moans of being off work for three months because of injuries from a mid-February car accident.
Her 10-and 12-year-old daughters complain that "mama's grouchy." They tell her they'll be glad when she goes back to work.
"To be honest, I get mad that I can't get up and go to work," Foxx said. "I miss going to work."
Nearly a year ago, the Bedford County woman told a reporter she could not remember the last time she'd held a job. Virginia's new welfare plan had just become law, and she was a bit squeamish at the thought of life without public assistance.
Foxx, 31, had been on welfare for a decade.
The state plan to wean people from welfare by imposing a two-year limit on Aid to Families with Dependent Children benefits - a plan that carries a host of penalties, incentives, conditions and, moreover, a requirement that recipients work for their benefits - flat-out frightened her.
But Foxx found a job at Elizabeth Arden in Roanoke through Manpower Inc., a temporary help agency. She drove 40 minutes in her 1980 Pontiac to the plant at the Roanoke Center for Industry and Technology, where she stuck labels on products and packed them in boxes. She earned about $175 a week.
The income was enough to treat her daughters to a "family night" every Friday, to buy them clothes that wouldn't provoke taunting and teasing from classmates, to give family members their first Christmas gifts bought before the holiday instead of the after-holiday sales in January.
In February, her efforts literally screeched to a halt. Her car was totaled when a driver hit her from behind as she turned into a gas station.
Foxx's back muscles were wrenched. She was unable to work. A doctor's excuse kept her welfare benefits coming in. Work is mandatory for most recipients. Unemployment means loss of benefits.
But "it was nice to see money coming in," she said. "To me, it was great to get up and go to work. I miss that happy feeling."
Granted, Foxx's financial picture was a slight step away from living welfare-free. She still gets her $265 monthly Aid to Families with Dependent Children check, about $200 a month in food stamps, and Medicaid benefits. The state plan allows it: the AFDC check for two years; food stamps and Medicaid for three.
But what then?
"Hopefully, I should be on my feet then ... if I don't get in another car wreck," Foxx said.
Eleven months after Virginia's welfare plan became law, Gov. George Allen's administration is cautiously praising its welfare-to-work results. The plan's work component - requiring recipients to sign an agreement of personal responsibility, pledging to adhere to stringent requirements, and find paid or community service work within 90 days - is being phased in over four years. It took effect in the Bedford/Lynchburg area Oct.1
It's a life adjustment many welfare recipients want, said Martin Brown, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Social Services.
"We have to understand that welfare recipients are no different from our friends and family," Brown said. "We all want to work. They've always wanted to work.
``This plan is going to help them obtain job skills and jobs that they may not have been able to acquire before. That's why this reform is successful. We're tapping into the `want to' not the `have to.'''
Since July, the state's AFDC caseload has dropped from about 70,800 to 65,600.
"There's no question that the plan has had an effect," said one social services worker, who did not want to be identified. "Whether it is all because of the plan is another matter."
Some of the drop in caseload is because of the toughened rules and regulations.
Of the 4,215 AFDC cases closed in April, 107 were closed because of new policies or existing ones made stricter - a minor caretaker wasn't living with a parent or legal guardian, children were not attending school, a recipient refused to sign the personal responsibility agreement, or a recipient refused to cooperate in establishing paternity.
The latter policy has prompted a lawsuit against the Virginia Department of Social Services by the Virginia Poverty Law Center on behalf of three women whose benefits were cut off because they could not identify the fathers of their children.
Some people contend the plan has pushed people off the rolls without a safety net.
"People are gone," said Joe Szakos, founder of the Virginia Organizing Project, a grass-roots organization in Charlottesville. "People are starting to leave those public assistance rolls. And if they don't get an AFDC check, where are they going to go? In some areas there are no agencies to pick up those services."
The Virginia Poverty Law Center held a meeting two weeks ago to gauge the plan's impact on AFDC recipients. The conclusion? "That we didn't know," said David Rubinstein, executive director of the Richmond-based advocacy organization for the poor.
"Nobody really knew what the effects were," he said. "It's too early to say. Nobody is doing much comprehensive monitoring. We have some statistics, but we really don't know what they mean."
One advocate said he shudders to think of what's to come. The law center's suit could be the first of many legal challenges, he said.
But to Foxx, the legal wranglings are foreign. She is among the plan's supporters. Without the nudge to get off the dole, "I'd probably still be sitting at home, still depending on the system."
Not that Foxx doesn't care about the big picture, or others who are similarly situated. She is troubled by recipients who have ignored the state's edict, as if the new plan did not exist.
"They're ignoring the fact that this is not going to be here forever," she said.
Foxx moved from her government-subsidized apartment in Bedford in January, fed up with rent that would rise every time she earned a paycheck. She'd paid as little as $6 a month in rent when she wasn't working. It rose as high as $200 once she started working.
Home now is a small trailer in Bedford County, once rented by her sister. She pays a manageable - unsubsidized - $175 a month in rent.
She replaced her wrecked car with a 1986 Ford Escort. Her former brother-in-law sold it to her for about $1,000. She paid for it with insurance money.
Life is OK, Foxx said, wincing at the pain in her back. But it's not easy, easing into life without welfare after living with it for so long, she said.
``Some people would have thrown up their hands and said, `So long, see you later,' and would have been gone,'' Foxx said.
``I'm trying to keep this family together. They know I can't take them to the top. But I can bring them to the middle.''
LENGTH: Long : 142 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: WAYNE DEEL/Staff Frances Foxx got a job and moved herby CNBfamily from a government-subsidized apartment to a trailer home of
their own, but an injury in a car accident has slowed her progress
toward giving up all assistance. Color.