Effects on Northern Michigan Families from Welfare Reform

In February of this year a call came to The Neahtawanta Center asking for one of the staff to attend a meeting in Traverse City along with other community members and Sr. Rita Mary Olszewski and Raj Chlablani from Southeast Michigan. The meeting was to address the issue of how Welfare Reform is affecting the lives of the involved families. I volunteered to go, and in so doing soon became a member of the planning committee and, later, the Steering Committee for the Michigan Assemblies Project in Northern Michigan.

Sr. Rita Mary from the Southeast Michigan Office of the Catholic Caucus and Raj from Groundwork for a Just World met with a dozen volunteers like myself. We represented social service agencies, churches, food pantries, organizations concerned with justice, and private citizens who care deeply about the quality of life of economically disadvantaged people. They laid before us a blueprint for assessing, in the State of Michigan, what is happening to parents and children as a consequence of the Welfare to Work legislation. Traverse City is one of eleven sites selected throughout the state to plan for and conduct a "local assembly" for the purpose of hearing testimony from recipients of public assistance about how their lives are affected as well as from providers of care to these families. The goal: "The Michigan Assemblies Project aims to improve the quality of life among low income families, particularly those headed by a single woman, and of the communities in which they live. To this end, a process is being developed through which local communities can create and communicate plausible ways to support the efforts of marginal women to become economically independent, ways which also promote family stability and child safety."

The intent for these eleven local assemblies is that after hearing testimony, the Steering Committee for each one would arrive at recommendations for how families could be more adequately supported in the process of becoming self-sustaining. These recommendations are, then, to be taken by four delegates to a State Assembly in Lansing on June 12 and 13 at which time the delegates from all eleven sites will come up with recommendations which can be used to educate policy makers, e.g. legislators, about the effects of Welfare to Work legislation.

The focus of the Assemblies includes the following areas: Child care; transportation; health care; work requirements, training, and job development; and federal statutory lifetime limits on the receipt of cash assistance. After extending the invitation widely in the 5 county Greater Grand Traverse Area for persons to testify (governmental bodies, local offices of state agencies, nonprofit service agencies, crisis intervention agencies, transportation services, as well as recipients of assistance) the planning committee was able to get 9 people to give testimony on Saturday morning, April 4, 1998, These people were all involved in provision of services to persons who need help (Bay Area Transportation Authority, Goodwill Inn, Nazarene Church Food Pantry in Mancelona, Community Meals in Traverse City, Women's Resource Center, Headstart Family Services Worker, Great Lakes Mental Health Board, Salvation Army Director of Social Services, and migrant farmers services worker with Michigan Jobs Commission Employment Services Agency). Sadly, we were unable to find a recipient willing to tell her/his story to the Steering Committee. Speaking out in these circumstances can be very intimidating. The testimonies were recorded verbatim by a court recorder.

Much of the testimonies spoke to the very difficult struggles many families face as Welfare Reform is implemented. Following are a few excerpts:

• "I can say initially that the changes in our welfare delivery system have had very high impact on the vulnerable people that we provide services to?[P]eople do not have a safe affordable home. That is an immediate crisis. Last year [1997]?we housed 370 people including 103 children?up 23% over the previous year [1996] which was up 31% over the previous year [1995]. ?[O]ur clients?find it much more difficult today to access the services the state is providing. ?I literally have to go to FIA [Family Independence Agency previously known as Department of Social Services] or go to Jobnet with them and walk them through?to try to access the available programs. ?Tonight there will be 44 people at our shelter. We have 44 beds. There are 4 families that I know the Salvation Army are housing in motels. They are waiting in line to get into the homeless shelter. So we directly relate this to the changes. ?[T]hey need immediate access to services, to food stamps. We need transitional housing in Traverse City."

• "[T]he food pantry…began in 1994 and we had 30 families coming. Today&emdash;these figures are as of February&emdash;we have 351 families enrolled, we have 1,062 children, 20 single men and 21 single women. [S]everal come in…bring[ing] a wagon and pull their food home because they have no transportation."

• "There have been several fairly large scale studies done since welfare reform began on a national basis. What those studies have found about the population of people who receive services from the state, or welfare as we call it, is that 32% of those people are currently experiencing physical abuse in their relationships with their partners, and that 65% of them have experienced physical abuse in their relationships at some point in time. …I think for many people who experience domestic violence, they are able to work if we can help them overcome the barriers to their doing that successfully. Work…can be a method of escaping violence and abuse… [O]ne of the things we need to do in terms of public assistance is do a better job of identifying domestic violence… [I]t is not a new problem…it is an ongoing [one] and will become a more severe problem…with the limits on the length of time people are eligible for assistance…and job requirements that say if you don't cooperate with job-seeking process…you…lose your benefits. …Many times victims of domestic violence who don't comply…may be prevented from doing so by the behavior of their partners. …for people who live in our outlying counties, it's become more difficult…to seek emergency shelter when they need it. [T]hey are making choices between keeping them and their children safe, or…losing their job if they come into the shelter in Traverse City because their job is in Mancelona or…Beulah. [I]t is more difficult now for people to get education under the Welfare to Work program… It's one thing to work, but it is another thing to find a job in this area that you can support yourself and your children on. They are finding jobs but they aren't finding jobs that pay the bills. [Also] there are companies and firms that are well known in this area, that fire our clients because they had to miss a couple of days because their children were sick. We have clients who would like to go back to school but they can't figure out how to go back…and keep a job that's going to pay enough to support them and their children. Child care can be an issue because…the service-oriented jobs might require you to work nights when it is very difficult to find child care…"

• I work for the Bay Area Transportation Authority [BATA]. My own experiences have been with emergency cases [from Goodwill Inn or Women's Resource Center]. People…have been in town for a day or two and they have got a chance to get a quick job and get some money going and perhaps…change the situation, but they don't have the fare for a bus… Then there is a long pregnant pause on the end of the phone as this person realizes that this only hope they had…, being able to do it themselves, get to where they needed to be, has just disappeared."

• "[A]bout 30% of my low income families are single parent families. [E]ight families of the 30…low income families I work with have no insurance of any kind. Twenty one of 30 of the moms…have no health insurance. [T]he biggest concerns I have is…not job opportunities but opportunity to make enough to support themselves and their children. I have 5 moms…that are working more than one job. [O]ne is working two part-time jobs and going to school part-time. What I see happening is that the moms I work with are exhausted physically and mentally. They're stressed … worried … scared. They become ill…and have no way to go to the doctor because it [costs] $40. I have moms with pneumonia, strep infections …trying not to go to the doctor because…it's grocery money they spend to go to the doctor. [M]y biggest concern is how the children in these families…will be nurtured, …cared for the way a child deserves to be cared for, the way these women want to care for their children, when they are trying as hard as they can to just put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. [A] mom I worked with for 3 years…lost housing because her 13 year old son&emdash;she is another mom who was working two part-time jobs and going to school part-time&emdash;her 13 year old son, who was left on his own because child care isn 't provided for 13 years and above, committed a crime, and so they lost their low income housing and she ended up at a shelter. She has no family in the area to be her support system. He was left on his own, he made a mistake, and the whole family is paying for it… I guess my…concern is the mental and emotional state of the mothers who want so much to do well for their children, who want to work, who want to have a good job, who want to have a good future for their families, who don't want to be dependent on the system, but the opportunity for them to make a decent living just isn't available to them."

• "We have a 13% increase over last year in all services…rent, utility, shelter, prescriptions, groceries, clothing… The only way to get out of a flipping burger kind of thing is to provide someone the opportunity… We have to provide access and opportunity and empowerment."

• "The migrant and seasonal farm workers that come to the State of Michigan come here for one reason. They come here to seek work and not welfare benefits. [But] as they wait to be hired…they apply for food stamps and can't get them right away and they end up going to food pantries. It's hard for them to do that because they lose a lot of self respect. They come here to work… Sometimes they are treated rudely… The migrant farm workers need temporary supportive services and assistance such as food stamps and emergency housing and medical assistance and food pantry assistance just to get them by while they wait for employment."

There were many more very moving stories which space does not allow me to include. I find these testimonies to be powerful statements on behalf of vulnerable members of our communities.

Two weeks after the Northern Michigan Local Assembly, its Steering Committee met to make recommendations based on the assembly testimony, and to select delegates to take the recommendations to the State Assembly in June. Here is a sampling of recommendations arrived at:

• Make provision for ongoing health insurance for the underemployed.

• Establish health clinics with income based fees.

• Increase federal state funding for the building and maintenance of affordable, low cost housing in areas where jobs are located.

• There is a need for increased public funding for public transit in rural and semi-rural areas

• Some provision should be made for supervision of vulnerable children over the age of twelve when parent(s) are working outside the home.

• Provide incentives for employers to establish child care for the children of their employees.

• The opportunities for education and training should be equal to the requirement for work.

• There should be special work requirements for battered women.

• Employers who successfully employ, retain and were possible promote clients should be recognized and rewarded.

• Promulgate information regarding the 60 month time limit regulation to clients.

As the delegates from Northern Michigan Assembly carry the testimony and the recommendations to the State Assembly, along with delegates from 10 other areas of Michigan, the intent is that there will be consensus on recommendations for the entire state. The hope is that one use of the recommendations will affect actions of the legislature toward increasing the quality of life of low income families.

As stated by the conveners of the Michigan Assemblies Project, "These initiatives (welfare reform) are being undertaken in a strong economy with little current planning being devoted to how they will work in a weaker economy. Nor is there any serious attention being directed toward how the changes are affecting the quality of life in local communities, particularly that of the children who parents&emdash;typically female single heads of households&emdash;are being targeted for a quick transition into any available job." By participating in the Assemblies process all of us seek to support this good-faith effort to change for the better the lives of those in the Grand Traverse Bay Region affected by the welfare reform legislation. Ongoing local actions are needed to help create conditions in our communities and region which increase the well being of all children and families and particularly those who are most vulnerable because of poverty, violence and ill health.

Return to the Index of Synapse 44, Summer 1998