The Hassle Factor

Michael W. Lynch from the December 2000 issue

(Page 4 of 4)

Welfare veteran Deborah Keys was hassled off the system. I catch up with her a week later at Camden's Housing Authority office, where she has just ended a workday spent remodeling a public housing unit. The 46-year-old Keys decided welfare wasn't worth it when her caseworker told her she would have to go to school or get a job to keep receiving her grant. Keys protested that she wasn't going to work for free. Her caseworker retorted that she wasn't going to get her check. "I said, 'I'll find a job somewhere, somebody will give me a job,'" recalls Keys. "I'm not going to go somewhere and work for free just for that little bit of money."

Keys first went on welfare in 1971. She was 17 and had just given birth to the first of five children. The Camden native had already dropped out of school, which she found boring, and needed a way to support her baby. She has held many jobs since then, working as a nurse's aide, department store clerk, and cashier. But the jobs always ended, and she always ended up back on the system, which is where she was when Work First New Jersey became law.

At first, Keys enrolled in a job training program run by the local housing authority and a nonprofit. It was a 13-week course in construction skills taught by an official from the local carpentry union. The promise was that the union would pick up the newly trained individuals. Keys says that didn't happen. "We just get one lie after another," she says. "Not one of us has been picked up."

The housing authority, however, hired Keys to rehab units for $9 an hour. Now she says she's better off both financially and emotionally for it. Keys emphasizes that she's not knocking welfare: It was there when she needed it, and for many peo-ple, she says, especially older women with health problems, it's still necessary. But she feels better about herself when she's working. She's proud of the example she sets for her children, the youngest now 14. She likes to buy her groceries with cash, rather than food stamps, or "foodies," as they are known in Camden.

Key's finances have improved. Her last welfare payout was $322 a month. Now her take-home pay is $268 a week. Money is still tight, and she says she struggles at times, especially around Christmas. She is still not saving-she is using any extra money to pay down credit cards and other debts. And she is not entirely off the system. A diabetic, she'll be on Medicaid for at least another year, or for as long as they allow it. After that, she figures she'll have to pay her doctor herself.

Keys has ambitious plans for the future. The week before we meet, she has filed papers to start a construction company, Aames Construction LLC, in a partnership with an established local contractor. She is optimistic this venture will work, even though she has already started and buried one company, Keys Construction LLC, due to problems with her partner.

"I love it," she says, her paint-speckled face lighting up when she's asked about her job. "I wake up and hit the floor smiling every morning. Even when I have problems I smile."

Hurdles Ahead

Federal lawmakers set some specific goals in their 1996 welfare reform bill. They set out to "end the dependence of needy parents on government benefits by promoting job preparation, work and marriage"; "reduce the incidence of out of wedlock pregnancies"; and "encourage the formation of and maintenance of two-parent families." To achieve these ends, the new system must not only move current welfare recipients like Keys into permanent work but also prevent the next generation from signing up. Childless women must remain so until they are fully able to support a family through work. Women with children must refrain from having more until they can do likewise.

Keys represents a successful aspect of the new system. But whether the new system is a complete success-in New Jersey and elsewhere-depends on the story of someone who wasn't smiling much on that March morning at Nancy's Rest Home.

At 17, Tiffany Washington has been groomed since birth to take her place in the cycle of poverty. Raised on welfare and in public housing, she was shuttled between her grandmother, mother, and aunt. "When I needed my mom, she wasn't there," she says. "She was in jail, incarcerated, drugs and everything. I don't have a dad." Tears start to roll out of her eyes and over her young cheeks.

In late April, Tiffany gave birth to a 10-pound boy, Rasheen Tyree Fisher. She has big plans for him and herself-plans that don't include welfare. "I don't want it," she says. "I see what my mom went through and what others went through. It's better for me to get a job." She's finishing her junior year at Camden High via homeschooling. Last summer, she planned to put Rasheen in day care and get a job before returning to Camden High to complete her senior year. After that, it's on to Camden College, where she wants to study to be a nurse. She hopes to get married someday.

Tiffany is a former track star who tripped on a common hurdle for young women in Camden: teen pregnancy. Now she must get up and go on. If, by erecting barriers to welfare dependence, the system pushes her to achieve even half of her goals, the reforms will be a success.

But Tiffany still has a long way to run.