Suspended Driver’s Licenses Slow Workfirst As Welfare Recipients Try To Land Jobs, Amnesty Sought To Get Many Their Driving Privileges Back

It’s one thing to require welfare recipients to get jobs. But officials are finding it’s another thing for those on welfare to get to those jobs.

Marsha Miles-Summerise is one of those caught in the dilemma.

A recovering drug addict, Miles-Summerise attends Bellevue Community College and wants to be a drug counselor.

But she has more than $2,000 in unpaid traffic tickets.

“I’m driving with a suspended license. And I’ll probably get in trouble for saying that,” the 48-year-old Seattle resident said. “But I have to get ahead in life. I have to drive to go to school. I’m willing to do anything to get my license back.”

Miles-Summerise was among more than 250 people who met Tuesday night at Central Area Motivation Program offices to discuss a possible amnesty program to help mostly low-income Seattle residents pay their fines and get suspended licenses reinstated.

Many jobs require a person to drive, either to get to the work site or as part of the work itself.

“That’s a powerful tension there,” said Hayward Evans, director of CAMP, an agency that provides services to poor people and is spearheading the license-amnesty drive here.

“A large number of our client base - about 8,000 people - have their (traffic) tickets caught up in collections, unpaid fines or suspended licenses. They have to go to work,” Evans said.

Statewide, the WorkFirst reform program requiring welfare recipients to get jobs affects about 100,000 households. It took effect last week.

CAMP officials and lawyers for the city’s public defender office plan to approach the city attorney and Seattle municipal court to see if they would agree to a license amnesty geared for the urban poor.

“We are proposing that the court entertain applications from people who show a compelling reason to drive and whose lack of a license is interfering with them getting or keeping a job,” said attorney Lisa Daugaard of the Seattle public defender’s office.

“They are a lot of hardworking people who are just caught up. They are not irresponsible or trying to avoid their obligation.”

Under the program, drivers would be required to show “good faith” in paying either with installments or by working on community service projects.

Thomas Clark, a Seattle Municipal Court supervising magistrate, said the court could look at cases individually.

But he added, “There are limits to what we can do when responsibility is not taken by the driver.”