Workfirst Success Slow Here Region’S Caseloads Lag Behind Progress Reported Statewide

The East Sprague diner is empty again, save the velvet paintings of cattle drives on the smoke-darkened walls.

Unfortunately for waitress Glenda Moore, velvet cowboys don’t tip.

Few customers here do. Tips average 85 cents per shift, hardly gas money for her battered Corolla, let alone enough to get her family off welfare.

It’s a familiar, uncomfortable situation for Moore, who’s been on welfare or food stamps all her life. Since welfare reform kicked in across Washington a year ago, she’s tried even harder to make it on her own.

A state worker helped her land a plum job last winter selling magazine ads. She gleefully dropped welfare, felt flush for a few months - then lost the job.

Demoralized, she’s returned to the dole and the lousy pay of a diner waitress. “I’m almost 50,” she said. “I feel like I’m trapped.”

Pulling Moore out of the poverty-wage trap is the mission and biggest challenge of the state’s revamped welfare system.

One year after its launch, WorkFirst has done that for many. Nearly 23,000 people statewide have left welfare. Rolls last month plunged below goals set for June 1999.

A study released Wednesday by the state Department of Social and Health Services found three out of four families leaving welfare increased their income; 60 percent report being better off.

The results surprise even architects of the program.

“More people than we expected went to work,” said Mike Masten, head of DSHS’s WorkFirst division.

The program’s mantra - any job, not just a lucrative job, is a gateway to self-sufficiency - is credited with the decrease, as is a fertile job market. Washington unemployment rates hover at 30-year lows.

Those factors are credited with plunging rolls in Oregon and Idaho as well. Both states have aggressive get-to-work welfare programs. Oregon’s rolls have shrunk by 45 percent since welfare reform took root in 1996. Idaho’s year-old program has already reduced its caseload by 77 percent.

But shrinking rolls are just one measure of success.

“I’m much more concerned about the level of poverty here than the caseload numbers,” said Carl McMinimy, deputy administrator for the DSHS region in Eastern Washington, which includes Spokane County.

It’s too early to tell if WorkFirst has decreased poverty, he said.

In this region, WorkFirst has sputtered at times. More than 11,800 families remain on assistance. Caseloads fell 5.5 percent, less than the 9 percent statewide rate since participation in job-hunting became mandatory Nov. 1.

State officials bemoan the region’s dearth of high-paying jobs. The average wage in Spokane for people leaving welfare is $6.38 an hour.

Rich Hadley, Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce president, doesn’t expect welfare rolls to plunge here. “I’m not interested in the fastest-reduced caseload, but the best job-training program, so you get … qualified workers,” said Hadley.

Concern deepens in rural counties north of Spokane. More than half of recipients returning to work found part-time jobs at pay insufficient to lift them off welfare.

The region also leads the state with a 55 percent “nonparticipation” rate, meaning those recipients haven’t even begun looking for work.

State officials blame the lag on a lack of staffing. More workers are coming, but some recipients still won’t begin job-hunting until Nov. 1.

By then, one-third of their lifetime, five-year limit on benefits will have ticked away. Officials say they’re working as fast as they can, but recipients themselves could help by coming to welfare offices voluntarily.

“Anyone who wanted to come in sooner could have,” said Masten.

The DSHS responded to another criticism last month - that WorkFirst demands recipients take dead-end jobs - when it contracted with nonprofit agencies to help working recipients get and keep better jobs.

Those agencies, such as Career Path Services, will work one-on-one to line up job training or help defuse problems at work.

But critics say the WorkFirst approach lacks flexibility.

“It’s a very complex problem, and we only have simple solutions in place,” said Dan Jordan, community services director with Spokane Neighborhood Action Programs.

“The program fails to take into account that there are good work environments and bad work environments.” If a job that can lift a family above the poverty line isn’t available, recipients should get training, suggests Jordan.

Jennifer Lauritzen found WorkFirst to be a godsend.

She’s been a sporadic welfare recipient since 1986, when she got pregnant at 15. She and her husband, Tony, received a DSHS letter last fall telling her to find work.

She heard WorkFirst was “worthless,” but packed the freezer with meals for her 11-year-old son, left him home alone, and reluctantly reported for job-hunting duty.

A motivational speech by an Employment Security worker “unlocked some doors in my head,” she said. Instead of sacrificing career, money and self-esteem by remaining a welfare mom, do something for yourself, she was told.

In less than a week, she landed a full-time job as a secretary at Empire Ford, paying $1,300 a month. Her husband, an unemployed mechanic, soon found a $7-an-hour security job.

The couple paid off debts, bought a used Honda and, last month, moved from a cramped apartment to a rental home in north Spokane.

They hope to buy a home next year, plans that would have seemed alien six months ago.

“You really try not to think of the future on welfare because you have nothing to look forward to,” she said. “Now, we’ve got everything to look forward to.”

Others present tougher challenges.

A 33-year-old Spokane father, on welfare for six years, has been fired from several jobs in the last six months because of clashes with his bosses.

The man, a longtime drug user, claims an “empathic” ability to read his bosses’ minds and “auras.” Several past bosses had auras indicating “negative energy,” said the man, who asked that his name not be used.

When he bluntly reported his findings, supervisors let him go, said his social worker, Suzanne Anderson.

He’s now in a state-subsidized workfare program, sweating 20 hours a week in a warehouse for his welfare check.

Getting the man, who is bright and mechanically adept, a job is not difficult, said Anderson.

“It’s getting him to realize that being a member of society is very beneficial,” she said. “He doesn’t see any benefit now. That’s really tough.”

The toughest cases are those resulting in sanctions - financial penalties levied when a recipient refuses to follow welfare-to-work rules. Workers have dinged more than 5,700 families statewide - 879 in this region - since Nov. 1.

For Xandra Case of Spokane, job-hunting meant choosing between the demands of the law and the needs of her severely disabled daughter.

Autumn, 8, has a neurological disorder similar to cerebral palsy. She weighs 70 pounds, is wheelchair-bound, epileptic and permanently unable to speak or walk.

When told to participate in WorkFirst last December, Case tried to arrange care from the state developmental disability office for Autumn and her older sister, who has severe Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

But finding steady care for both was difficult. Workers didn’t show, or couldn’t cover when Case had appointments with her case manager. Care for the children would have cost the state double Case’s $440 monthly welfare check.

Refusing to leave her kids unattended, Case wouldn’t sign a DSHS contract requiring her to work. She got a letter Jan. 16 telling her she was cut off entirely.

Angry, baffled, she called state Sen. Lisa Brown, who referred her to a free legal clinic. They took the case and saved Case’s benefits. For now.

The experience left her rattled and nervous. “I don’t know what the future holds,” said Case, 32.

Meanwhile, her five-year benefits clock continues ticking. There aren’t yet exceptions to the clock, although Gov. Gary Locke says some may be granted later to parents like Case.

“I think the program will work, as long as there’s exceptions for vulnerable populations,” said Tammy Warietz, coordinator of a Spokane Regional Health District program for disabled children.

“If you can’t get child care for your child, how will they go back to work?”

OTHER STATES Oregon and Idaho also have aggressive get-to-work welfare programs. Oregon’s rolls have shrunk by 45 percent since welfare reform took root in 1996. Idaho’s year-old program has already reduced its caseload by 77 percent.