Reality Check For Welfare Reform Panel Lone Welfare Mom In Group Is Pregnant With Fifth Child
The people appointed by the governor to help refocus Idaho’s welfare system on family, work and responsibility are getting a real-life lesson none of them wanted.
The only welfare recipient on the 15-member advisory council, single mother Jill Van Sant of Dietrich, is expecting her fifth child.
It’s the kind of situation that incites angry editorials and negative stereotypes. But panel members see it instead as a chance to gain another perspective, and to show that accountability is more than a concept.
“The fact of the matter as of today is that Jill’s going to have another baby, and people will judge,” said state Sen. Gordon Crow of Hayden, a conservative Republican on the advisory council. “What we need to do is design a system so that all the Van Sant children have a chance in life to make it, and to be able to rely on themselves and on their families.”
Van Sant, 30, was named to the council last spring by Gov. Phil Batt. Idaho Department of Health and Welfare employees recommended her as someone who shares Batt’s view that public assistance should be a temporary condition on the way to self-sufficiency.
Her husband left in December 1993, and Van Sant has been attending the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls while collecting $448 a month from Aid to Families with Dependent Children since early 1994. She also gets food stamps, Medicaid and $150 a month for a work-study job at the college to help support herself and four children under the age of 10.
She did not return repeated telephone messages during the past week, but council members say she continues to play an important role in preparing Idaho for the coming shift in responsibility for welfare from the federal to state governments. And they want her along at October public hearings, starting Wednesday, on their 42 preliminary reform proposals.
“The input that she’s given the council has been very valuable,” said Karen McGee, the panel’s chairman and a Pocatello City Council member. “She’s the one who’s really pushed the idea of getting people independent.”
They are disappointed, but Van Sant’s colleagues are not criticizing her. And they are confident her pregnancy will not reflect on the council’s work toward reforming welfare.
“I don’t see why it should make any difference,” said Senate Health and Welfare Chairman Grant Ipsen of Boise. “I would hope that people would not condemn or criticize the whole council because of one person’s actions. She apparently made a choice and she’ll have to live with it.”
In any case, Crow said, cases like Van Sant’s are not the problem.
“This council wasn’t brought together to judge welfare recipients,” he said. “This council was brought together to fix a system that’s broken, that traps people in poverty.”
Indeed, Van Sant will have every incentive to get off welfare as quickly as possible if her own council’s recommendations are enacted. One would limit benefits to two years. Another would set a maximum family grant, regardless of a household’s size. And yet another would end the policy of increasing cash benefits for additional children.
Van Sant already is among only 6 percent of Aid to Families with Dependent Children recipients in Idaho with four or more children. Her benefits are scheduled to increase to $513 per month after the baby arrives, but under the council’s recommendation they could be chopped back to the amount now paid to a mother and just two children - $317.
“There is a public perception that some women already receiving cash assistance get pregnant again in order to receive more money,” the council wrote in Proposal 3. “The current policy doesn’t mirror the real world. Most people do not get a raise each time they have a baby.”
Council members ascribe no such motive to Van Sant.
“What has happened to her since she’s been on the council is something she takes personal responsibility for,” McGee said. “I know that some of the things she hears are going to be tough, but she’s a member of the council and she chose to stay on.”
Having the impact of the recommendations hit so close to home, so soon, does nothing to shake Crow’s commitment to reform.
“We wanted perspective from a current recipient. We’re getting perspective from a current recipient. Her being there has allowed us to walk a mile in her shoes,” he said. “I think the world of her. I think every member of the council does. And if she needs us, we’ll be there.” xxxx RECOMMENDATIONS Among the advisory council’s recommendations: Limit benefits to two years. Establish a maximum family grant, regardless of a household’s size. Eliminate policy of increasing benefits for additional children.