Welfare to What?

pstrongAn insider look at Welfare to "Work"/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/353/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Lisa Gray-Garcia/p pThe edges of the hard plastic chairs sliced deeply into my legs, the longer I sat in my workers’ office , the more pain I felt...physical pain that is, my emotional pain was more like an ache, a dull terrifying ache that accompanies hopelessness, and yet I tried to looked pleasant anyway, rarely even risking a sigh, worried that any minor indication of my humanity might annoy or distract him, causing him to react with some new and different punitive measure against me, something he had a habit of doing at random times if he had to look up from his paperwork too much. /p pIt was 1998 and I was trying to not be discouraged by the Personally Assisted Employment Specialist (PAES) Program options offered to me. The PAES Program was newly implemented in San Francisco due to the Welfare Reform bill signed by Clinton in 1996 - “you would be a great receptionist” I was told several times, while being handed a brochure on the possible programs I could get into. It seemed odd to me, even at that time, that I was offered information on the same training programs at the same agencies at three different appointments. /p pThe concept of me` being a “receptionist had been established at a series of “assessments” and yet in each one I felt more discouraged. I had told workers on several occasions that I wanted to be a “writer” a writer and a reporter- I had also told them that I lacked formal education but I would be interested in pursuing a college degree program - to this I was told - a degree with your lack of education will take too long, and besides, is that really a practical career choice for someone in your position./p pI don’t know.... was it?- my mother and I were endlessly battling homelessness - we were deeply entrenched in the so-called “cycle of poverty”... one crisis - snowballing into the next until you are never really able to fix any one problem, because you are just catching the last one, barely. There was no substance abuse- but there iwas/i disability , eviction, depression, isolation, confusion, incarceration and poverty, grinding endless poverty with noone to call and no where to go, that is, until there was writing - writing freed me - someone heard me and that “voice” allowed me to hope again - to dream again - to care about going on. Then there were plastic chairs and receptionist jobs and nothing all over again. /p pI didn’t mention the writing I had been doing with POOR Magazine to my worker because it paid no money and would have therefore been frowned on as more examples of why there was no viability to my “career” dreams, but quietly I forged ahead, barely moving in the plastic chair that was my life vowing to somehow change the situation for very low income people like me - to change the “career” options for welfare recipients like me./p pI began to work on the impossible- while still on welfare, still sitting in the plastic chairs - hard and not so hard - postponing the inevitable PAES training and still in silent fear of my workers assaults I began to formulate the POOR Magazine Welfare to Work job training program in journalism, media and multi-media through a Request for Proposal process at San Francisco Department Of Human Services/ Private Industry Council. /p pThe struggle to actually get this proposal seen as a “viable” career option was also felt on the other side of the chairs, from the inside of DHS - It took almost 12 months, but we prevailed, our support came from the organizing efforts of other community based organizations working for economic justice, who gave us the confidence organizationally and conceptionally, to forge ahead with our idea. These grassroots organizations also gave me the confidence personally, that I wasn’t stupid, bad or lazy just because I was on Welfare./p pAnd then the day came to meet with who we at POOR would later call “visionaries” two women who decided to “take a chance” on a new program that wasn’t like anything else - just because they thought it had merit- those two visionaries were; Amanda Feinstein and Joyce Crum, from DHS and PIC respectively./p pbDateline 2001, 33 Gough, San Francisco,/b The newly formed Workforce Investment Board (WIB) was convening to hear the decisions on the proposed Welfare to Work (WTW) programs for 2001-02 in San Francisco. The crowd was nervous, several people were hoping to speak on the decisions, a two minute per agency limit was announced. ../p p A permanent pit was lodged in my stomach, I had been here before - almost a year ago-in 1999 facing the PIC board of directors to fight for our (WTW)job training contract that we had proposed to PIC/DHS- fighting what seemed like an uphill battle - After the emotional testimony of several staff members and students at POOR questioning the fact that several larger organizations were getting grants and several of the smaller ones were only getting a vendor status- we were granted a partial contract - but the battle was terrifying, and here we were again, fighting the same fight../p pThis time there was more confusion with process, several members of PIC staff were explaining the funding process to the WIB board, with a complicated warning about the possiblity of "conflict of interest" issues. We didn't know what to think, after all, this was supposed to be a new, more just situation- The workforce Investment Board - who knew what would happen? - all we did know is, once again, the smaller organizations and some of the innovative larger ones were getting no contracts, while several small organizations like POOR Magazine and Recovery Survival Network were granted mere vendor status. /p pThrough the ongoing dedication of all the journalists, writers, artists and poverty survivors, POOR’s bNew Journalism/Media Studies Program/b is still here, fighting for comprehension, recognition and understanding every step of the way. We continue to be optimistic because we know so clearly... that without hope - possibilities and a voice... biall/i/b people suffer...especially bipoor folks!!/i/b/p piPOOR Magazine created and proposed the bJobs Organized to Break Stereotypes (JOBS) in the Media Program/b which is specifically aimed at JOB creation for very poor people, who are the “so-called” harder to serve population, a population who all the studies show are unable to successfully transition off of welfare into permanent economic stability due to long-term welfare dependency, disability, substance abuse and/or homelessness./ibr / /p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p