Filling welfare gap; upgrading Project Chance

Lawmakers spent some of the $1 billion raised by new taxes on the poor. The General Assembly approved higher welfare grants and continuation of a program to pay heating bills for the poor. Lawmakers also modified Illinois' welfare-to-work program, Project Chance, to ease the transition from welfare rolls to payrolls. The Department of Public Aid has promised to return with further Project Chance revisions and new funding requests next year.

This spring the big issue for those on welfare was an increase in the basic grants that had remained unchanged since January of 1985. Effective January 1, 1990, grants will be increased 7.5 percent, a change that will cost the state $36 million between January 1 and June 30, 1999.

The change boosts cash payments for a mother and two children in Chicago from $342 per month to $367 monthly. For 1989 in Chicago the standard of need —the state's estimate of what it costs a family of three to live — was $740 per month. The welfare grant, food stamps and home heating assistance totalled $588 per month. That $152 gap will not be bridged by the $25 per month increase, and the gap will grow wider when the standard of need is recomputed in January.

Advocates for the poor had sought an 18 percent increase in welfare grants, returning them to 54 percent standard of need reached by the 1985 increase. Douglas Dobmeyer, executive director of the Public Welfare Coalition, characterized the 7.5 percent increase as a step in the right direction. His goal is meeting 100 percent of the standard of need and putting an automatic adjustment in the welfare grants so that recipients do not fall so far behind.

Dobmeyer was encouraged this spring by progress that he thinks was made in breaking down stereotypes of those on welfare. He says that because his coalition has pointed out that welfare growth rates were highest in southern Illinois and declining in Chicago that welfare is increasingly recognized as a statewide issue rather than a Chicago problem. More people are also recognizing that because children make up a majority of those on welfare rolls, welfare is a children's issue, Dobmeyer says.

The other big cost item that the poor won from lawmakers this spring was the continuation of home heating assistance. Since 1985 the Illinois Residential Affordable Payment Programs has capped winter utility bills at 12 percent of a low-income family's household income. The program had been funded with the state's share of federal lawsuits against oil companies that overcharged customers when prices were regulated. That revenue source has been exhausted. Lawmakers expanded and extended the program by tapping $24 million in general funds, to be matched with $24 million in federal funds. Thompson, who had said an extension would require a new funding source, signed the measure anyway.

Also coming in for revision this spring was Project Chance, the state's welfare-to-work program. Lawmakers removed the disincentive to take temporary jobs that occurs when the job ends and the family must wait weeks to get reapproved for aid. And medical benefits for those taking jobs were extended from six to 12 months after leaving the rolls.

Project Chance also took a knocking this spring. Dobmeyer's group took the Public Aid Department to task for its annual report on Project Chance, claiming the report omitted information the General Assembly needed to assess the program. The Public Welfare Coalition's report, Project Chance: Beyond the Hype, termed the program "cheap, punitive and inflexible."

The 82-page document, illustrated with anonymous examples drawn from the clients it serves, went beyond criticism of the annual report to condemnation of the program. It criticized Project Chance for offering cheap training programs that did not prepare clients to become self-sufficient. Its example was training at for-profit proprietary schools for which clients were not adequately prepared. And the report said there must be better coordination among the 11 state agencies that run education for employment programs.

While the Public Welfare Coalition was leveling its criticisms, the Department of Public Aid was pondering changes in Project Chance to satisfy new federal legislation. In late June the department recieved the final recommendations from the Social Service Advisory Council on how the program should be adapted to meet new federal welfare reform law, The Family Support Act of 1988. Department of Public Aid Director Susan S. Suter characterizes the council's recommendations as fine-tuning of a program that has proven successful. The council recommended that:

• Each client referred to Project Chance be given an immediate assessment, including literacy screening, by the Project Chance worker.
• The plan to make the client employable be developed after referral to an educational or training program.
• Project Chance caseworkers sort participants into groups: (1) those needing rehabilitation for drug or alcohol abuse, mental illness or other problems, (2) those needing educational or literacy services and (3) those ready for training programs.
• Project Chance caseworkers not only assess the clients and refer them to education or training programs, but track and assess their progress.
• Project Chance be voluntary to the extent possible and that volunteer clients get priority and be somewhat insulated from the repercussions of not complying with regulations.
• Parents whose youngest children are 1 or 2 years old continue to be exempt because of lack of day care.
• A statewide resource and referral system for child care be developed.
• Clients be given clothing and transportation allowances.
• The state seek federal funds for an implementation and effectiveness study.
• The state seek federal funds for programs to reduce pregnancy, substance abuse and school dropouts among teenagers.

The advisory committee's recommendations will form the basis of revisions to bring Project Chance into compliance with the Family Support Act, Suter says. One federal requirement will bring 40,000 mothers with children between ages 3 and 6 into the program. A second will bring in federal money, to the tune of $14 million this year for what Illinois already does and the promise of as much as $56 million

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Public Aid Director Suter

annually to support job trianing for those on welfare.

The biggest change from the council's recommendations will be a shift from a shotgun to a focused approach. Suter wants to focus the program on three populations targeted by the federal law: families that have been on welfare three of the last five years, mothers under age 25 without a high school diploma, and mothers whose youngest child is at least 16. Service would be offered initially to volunteers from those three groups, although if too few come forward to enter Project Chance the department would have to order others to participate.

At the same time that Project Chance is made more voluntary, one of the benefits of being a volunteer will be diminished. Currently a volunteer (a participant who is not required to participate) who leaves the program incurs no penalty. A volunteer who leaves the new program will set off a series of conciliation activities designed to bring — or eventually, force — him or her back into the program.

The recommendation by the advisory council to have Project Chance caseworkers perform initial assessments is critical for success in placing clients, says Jimmy M. Lago, chairman of the advisory council and lobbyist for the Catholic Conference of Illinois. "One of the shockers to me was that one-third to three-fifths of the people invited into the Project Chance office couldn't even read the forms," he says.

If another council recommendation is accepted, the caseworkers will also take on case management responsibilities, tracking the client after he or she gets the job. Lago also sees this follow-up as critical to keeping clients on the job. "I think the worst thing that could happen to people is to get them a job for six months and then lose it," Lago says.

But throwing more responsibilities on caseworkers will be difficult. They already carry loads of 350 cases, and Suter says she is not prepared to ask for the money to hire more caseworkers. Focusing on the Family Support Act's three target populations will reduce the number of clients, but the department has not yet determined by how much. Suter says the solution may be to try the new program in a couple of offices or on a phased-in basis.

Another set of recommendations involves softening of the "sanctioning" process by which individuals who refuse to cooperate with Project Chance are denied welfare benefits. The council urged easing the punishment for those who volunteer for the program by allowing conciliation before sanction and by writing rules on "good cause" excuses to favor volunteers. "We were looking at something maybe less intense, like a benefit reduction, to try to slowly begin to force people into a more cooperative stance," Lago says. The balance between threat and persuasion is difficult to strike according to Suter: "We have to do whatever we can to assist people in being self-sufficient and getting jobs. Some of that is a carrot and some of that is a stick kind of thing. There's a fine line between the two."

The charge has been made that sanctions have been used to save money and reduce the state's caseload. Lago doesn't buy that. "Project Chance has not been a vehicle for reducing caseloads in Illinois," Lago says. And he does not think Project Chance should be sold as a way to reduce caseloads. "I think the right idea is using the prime public agency that these people come into as a resource, and I think job readiness and job training is a good idea."

Suter agrees with Lago: "We have reduced our caseloads. Jimmy's right. It's not because of sanctioning; it's because of the economy. I think people are getting jobs."

The man who has run Project Chance disagrees, however. "It has helped reduce caseloads," argues Randale Valenti, director of employment and social services. Valenti says that there has been an increase in the numbers of clients who take jobs, over and above what would have been expected given the improvements in the economy.

What Project Chance should do is one question. Another is whether the program has been oversold as a simple way to save taxpayers money. Lago says that although not intended, that may have happened. "I think there's a certain element of that, maybe in the best-intentioned way. What I heard were different messages going to several audiences, depending on who you're talking to." Suter says only, "Different people read into it different things."

But no matter where the program has been, Lago is confident that it can be improved and become the intermediate step that he sees between welfare and work. "I'm convinced that the blueprint of a very successful workfare program is here . . . as long as we realize that there's going to be a certain percentage of fallout from any program."

The Public Welfare Coalition and the advisory council were not the only ones studying Project Chance. The Chicago-based Taylor Institute undertook a two-year study of welfare-to-work programs in Chicago. Their study concluded that Project Chance clients should be tested before referral to a program, that a case management system should be developed for clients and that more emphasis be given to job retention.

And in December the General Assembly's Joint Committee on Welfare Reform urged immediate testing for literacy of Project Chance clients, targeting job training to available jobs, comprehensively assessing each client and easing the punitive nature of sanctions.

The similarities are striking. And their value is obvious. Of course you should know if a client can read before sending him or her off to a training program. Certainly case management would offer clients a better chance at success. And there should be both emphasis on job retention and some method of tracking clients.

A caseworker struggling with a caseload of 350 will be able to do little more than fill out the paperwork. The changes that everyone recommends will cost money. Some will come from the federal government under the Family Support Act, but Washington has proven an unreliable funding source. More will likely have to come from state or from private sources.□

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