Thy Neighbor's Keeper

Can private charities replace tax-funded welfare? A program in one Maryland county suggests the challenges facing church-based efforts to help welfae mothers become self-sufficient.

Amy Sherman from the August/September 1997 issue

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C-DAP also supports volunteers by hosting occasional meetings where teams from different churches gather to swap stories and learn from each other's experiences. "That was extremely useful," says one volunteer. "In hearing from the other church volunteers, I realized we were too soft with our participant. You don't want to pry. All the volunteers felt that. But then you realize that that's what you have to do." A man from a Catholic church added that while his team had "tried to develop a good rapport" with the participant through friendly, supportive conversation, sometimes it was necessary, though uncomfortable, to probe and "root out the problems," such as misplaced spending priorities or a disinclination to save. Knowing that other volunteers were doing this, and finding it effective, reassured him.

Finally, C-DAP personnel were prepared to play the heavy if a participant was not fulfilling her end of the bargain. Remy Agee would meet with her, review the original contract, discuss areas for improvement, and add specific action items to the agreement that the participant needed to complete by a deadline. "I'd tell them that this is a voluntary program and you don't have to be in it," Agee says. "But if you're going to be in it, then you've signed an agreement and you need to keep it."

According to C-DAP statistics, church volunteers spend an average of 400 hours with their participants over a six-month period. Some of the teams from the seven churches I surveyed had put in considerably more time--over 500 hours. "To get people back on their feet," Ed Kirk explains, "it's not just about getting a job. It's about getting all their problems solved." And Jane had a lot of problems. Her license had been revoked because of unpaid traffic fines. An acquaintance borrowed her car and wrecked it. She lived in an area not served by public transportation. The father of her son provided no assistance, and her family had written her off years before, when she'd gotten hooked on drugs.

"She owed money on her car loan," Kirk says. "She owed money to a hospital. She owed back state and federal taxes. Cripes! If they don't resolve each one of these problems, they're no better off than they were the day you met them." Most of these problems had to be handled during normal business hours, when Jane was working. So Kirk met with the bureaucrats, called the creditors, and drove to Washington to meet with the IRS, while his wife, Elaine, took Jane's toddler to the doctor if he got sick at the babysitter's. "It was a full-time job," Kirk says.

That reality points to the necessity for struggling individuals to re-affiliate with their families and seek aid from diverse sources. Recognizing the significant challenges Jane faced, Kirk encouraged her to contact her relatives and to begin attending a church near her home. Members of that church ended up providing a lot of free babysitting and transportation, thus easing the burden on the Kirks. To get her driver's license reinstated, Jane needed to pay traffic fines. So Kirk suggested that Jane call her father and explain that she was trying to make a fresh start in life. Her father paid half of the fines, while Jane used C-DAP funds for the other half. After some refresher driving lessons from Ed--and Jane's receipt of a donated used car through the county Department of Social Services--she was mobile once again. Several months after the Kirks began working with Jane, Jane's brother and sister-in-law also stepped forward and offered assistance.

Agee says this pattern is common. When weary family members see that their needy relative is receiving crucial emotional and personal support, they become more willing to help. They seem to have greater confidence that perhaps this time real change will occur.

Jane's bumpy ride to independence from welfare demonstrates clearly why reform was necessary. After all, if it's tough for a group of diligent, dedicated volunteers putting in many hours to help a person exit welfare, it's virtually impossible for a government caseworker, who doesn't have one-tenth the time, to help a client
do so. "With their high caseload, [case]workers can provide only limited support," Agee observes. In my own county, according to Bryan Betts, management analyst for the Albemarle County, Virginia, Department of Social Services, a caseworker typically juggles 19 cases each month. County statistics indicate that caseworkers spend, on average, 6.5 hours a month on each case. The six-month total, then, is 39 hours dedicated to one welfare recipient--versus the 400 to 500 hours logged by the C-DAP volunteer teams.

And it's not just the quantity of time that is important. The quality of the relationship matters too. C-DAP participants said personal support made a huge difference. Last Mother's Day, Jane called Elaine Kirk and thanked her for "being like a mom." She also said that if Ed hadn't picked her up every day in those first few months, she would have skipped work. But she knew she had to get up and keep trying because he and Elaine were working so hard to help her. Now, many months later, Jane and the Kirks still keep in touch. "We'll never forget her," Elaine says, "and she says she'll never forget us."

Tierra, a stocky, feisty 37-year-old mother of three who's now in a manager-trainee program at a dry cleaning store, said she appreciated her team's "tough love." Somewhat unexpectedly, she reports, she clicked best with the volunteer who pushed her the hardest. "She was straight up, and I liked that," Tierra says with a smile. She confesses that she used to have a bad attitude that got in her way. I ask her what it takes to change someone's attitude. "Another person caring," she declares. "These are volunteers doing this. It's not a job. They care about you."

Some of the participants initially expressed concern that the team members might pressure them to join their church, but these fears never materialized. C-DAP staff told the churches that their involvement was not an opportunity for proselytizing. They really didn't have to, since church members saw their participation as community service, not missionary work. They invited participants to social events at the church, but, in the words of a Lutheran volunteer, "we did not press religion on our participant." Nearly all the volunteers were quiet about their faith, witnessing through deeds more than with words.

They didn't put their values on the shelf, however. They expressed frustration when participants "didn't appreciate the urgency of getting to work on time or straightening out [their] finances," as volunteer Glenn Parker puts it. They expected participants to make meetings with them, keep job interview appointments, and stick to their budgets. Volunteers encouraged thrift, punctuality, showing respect on the job, sexual restraint, and personal responsibility. In short, they were willing to challenge self-destructive behavior or attitudes that hindered participants' progress. This was something the old welfare system rarely did, and really could not do very well, since it is best done in the context of a personal relationship of care, candor, and trust. C-DAP put welfare recipients into such friendships with caring individuals, who also took time to impart basic life skills--time management, keeping a checkbook, budgeting, smart shopping--essential to achieving and maintaining independence from public assistance.

C-DAP has many strengths. There's no bureaucratic inertia: The county's social services staff have modified the program as they've heard constructive criticism from front-line volunteers. Red tape is minimal. The volunteers often go beyond the call of duty. Taxpayers' money is spent carefully, in conjunction with a strategic plan for gaining stable, full-time employment. Welfare recipients are encouraged, treated with dignity, and given attentive, individually tailored assistance. Several have made remarkable progress in the face of overwhelming obstacles. As noted earlier, two-thirds of the C-DAP participants are now off the dole.

Still, if the real goal is genuine economic self-sufficiency rather than independence from cash aid, the statistics are a bit more sobering. By this criterion, only four of the 13 cases I examined were clear successes. Four others were clear failures and five were mixed. Such numbers force us to accept that even a good program--and C-DAP is very well conceived and managed--is no panacea. Ultimately, the individual recipient holds the key to success. As one volunteer put it, "All we can do is try to steer these people. If they don't really want to go, you can't force them." And some who do want to go lack the education, marketable skills, or reliable transportation needed to secure jobs with salaries that support two or three kids. Those with a good attitude and solid work ethic can move up over time, but without adequate transitional assistance such as day care subsidies and food stamps, they probably won't make it.

Fortunately, under the new welfare reforms many recipients will receive day care subsidies and medical assistance even after they are no longer eligible for cash aid. These measures address the "cliff effect" problem many C-DAP participants have encountered in the past. "We were really angry that as soon as [Donna] got a job, her rent went from $25 to $425 a month and she lost most of her food stamps," complained church volunteer Kathy McFadden. A Methodist volunteer agreed: "The clients need at least six months of earning a salary before they can even begin to take on some of the expenses that they're going to have to take on. The medical and day care assistance should continue for at least a year. We can't just cut them off and say, `OK, now you're working, so you're no longer eligible for help.' They're not really self-sufficient yet."

Remy Agee enthusiastically reports that nine new churches are "ready and waiting" to be matched with C-DAP participants. Concurrent with the growing enthusiasm for C-DAP, though, is a disturbing rumbling in a segment of Maryland's religious community. A coalition claiming to represent 250 congregations recently met with Governor Glendening and told him they would not participate in "dehumanizing" welfare reforms, complaining that the government was abdicating its responsibilities and "dumping" the poor on the churches.