Who is invited to Listen?

pstrongWho’s invited to Tommy Thompson’s Welfare Reform “Listening” Session? /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/516/photo_1_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Gretchen Hildebrand/PoorNewsNetwork/p pDirector of the federal agency of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, is coming to San Francisco on October 25th, supposedly to listen to real life testimony on the last 5 years of welfare reform. But there is a catch. Just about everyone—from elected officials and local and state welfare agencies to welfare advocacy groups and, most importantly, welfare recipients—are NOT INVITED. The people with the most crucial perspectives on, and experiences of, welfare reform and welfare to work will not only go unheard, they won’t even have a seat in the audience./p pThis closed door “listening” session is a pretty good example of our government’s historical attitude towards people on welfare. Since the Clinton administration’s welfare reform in 1996 things have gotten even worse for people struggling to survive on government assistance. The time limits imposed on benefits and the creation of the welfare-to-work system have managed to drop millions of needy people off of government assistance. /p pFewer people on the rolls looks like a success story to government statisticians, but this policy has been a nightmare for poor folks who are still struggling for survival. The “workfare” system has not meant economic independence or stability for poor people, but instead has created a new pool of extra-cheap labor available for exploitation. People on welfare are designated for menial, underpaid jobs that lack meaningful training, education, benefits, security or advancement. And welfare reform has never addressed the fact that a job doesn’t guarantee economic stability or survival. In fact, these reforms have handed over administration, training and placement of workfare participants to private corporations, who use these contracts and workers to make a profit. /p pBut even the politicians in D.C. decided to check themselves when they voted in welfare reform measures five years ago. They put a time limit on it—and soon those same politicians will be deciding if welfare reform has been working. Politicians will be deciding on the suggestions of Bush’s new appointees to the Health and Human Services department, who have their own agendas as far as welfare is concerned. Tommy Thompson, the former governor of Wisconsin, championed dropping the most needy from that state’s welfare rolls and is the new head of HHS. Now in charge of the Administration for Children and Families is Wade Horn, a right-wing pop psychologist and a former leader of the Fatherhood Initiative. As part of this group, he argued that welfare should be used to promote marriage and that married couples and their children should have priority for all government assistance, including food stamps and housing as well as health and education services. /p pThese are the men who will determine the future of welfare policy and will be coming to town to “listen”. But they and the government aren’t interested in listening to just anybody. The five sessions, scheduled to take place in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco, will be a welfare dog-and-pony show, a scam designed to tell the government what it is maneuvering to hear. The first half of each session will be for officials to speak. Although it is unclear now who will be present, local and state welfare offices and elected officials have not been invited, or even informed of the location of these events. The second half of each session is designated for “public” feedback—this will consist of four hand-selected welfare recipients who will speak about their experiences with welfare reform. Thus, a total of twenty people, handpicked by the government, will represent the more than two million people who have been dependent on this system for survival over the past five years./p pIn San Francisco, local welfare advocacy and economic justice groups have figured out that these so-called listening sessions will be nothing but a justification for policies the government already has in mind. All over California groups like People Organizing for Work and Employment Rights (POWER), the Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO), the Coalition for Ethical Welfare Reform (CEWR) and Every Mother is a Working Mother are working to be heard in the welfare debate. After being denied both a chance to speak and seats in the audience of the session, these groups are now strategizing on how to work around this listening session to get people’s real experiences heard and respected. At a recent meeting local activist and advocacy groups denounced the listening tour sham and made plans to participate without the invitation of the government. /p pThe location and time of this event, publicized for Thursday October 25, 2001 and rumored to be held in a downtown hotel, are still undisclosed, but plans for protests and alternative listening sessions are underway. Many groups and their constituents will be present both inside and outside the session, and there will be a Community Town Hall on Welfare Reform held on Saturday, October 27, 2001. That event will be an ideal occasion for a real listening session and a chance to develop a welfare policy based on the realities of need, not politics. /p pOne activist at a recent meeting described this as a “perfect opportunity” to expose the way the government silences poor people’s experiences and demands. It is also a crucial time to make sure silenced voices are heard. The word listening implies a willingness to hear, but to our government it is clearly just another way to manipulate people and the media to promote their own message. While politicians try to justify the butchering and moralistic manipulation of welfare, poor folks are finding their own ways to speak up and give the government no choice but to listen. /p pTo find more information about the listening session, protests and the Community Town Hall on October 27, 2001 in San Francisco, call the Coalition for Ethical Welfare Reform at (415) 239-5099, in Alameda County call (510) 452-5192, or in Santa Clara County call (408) 268-5680 ext.103./p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p