County Backs Wright’s Plan for Welfare

Some Ventura County officials and social workers reacted with fear and concern Thursday after President Clinton signed into law a sweeping welfare reform bill that shifts responsibility for the poor and disabled to state and local governments.

Others embraced the new regulations, saying that job-training programs will prepare chronically unemployed people to reenter the work force.

But with new welfare costs of more than $40 million a year and no clear-cut means to pay for them, local officials are pinning their hopes on a test program pitched by Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) that would put Ventura County at the forefront of a new welfare delivery system.

“We’re proceeding on the assumption that Cathie Wright’s bill will clear the Legislature and that the governor will sign it,” said James E. Isom, head of the county’s Public Social Services Agency. “If it doesn’t fly, we’ll have to wait until the state comes up with a plan of its own.”

Wright’s legislation would establish a three-year pilot program allowing Ventura County flexibility in designing its own welfare program instead of having a state program forced on it. The test plan would bring employers, job-training specialists and social workers together with the sole purpose of finding jobs for welfare recipients.

An aide to Wright said Thursday that the legislation would hit the Assembly floor next week.

“We’re doing everything we can to see that the bill is passed,” said Catherine Morrison, Wright’s chief of staff and an attorney who helped write the proposal.

“The clients who are served by these programs benefit and ultimately the taxpayers benefit because it costs less to deliver the services,” Morrison said.

Clinton signed the federal welfare reform legislation Thursday, transferring the responsibility of providing for the poor and disabled to state and local governments.

The law limits for the first time the number of years a person can receive welfare benefits and ties those benefits to job-training programs. It also reduces cash payments and food stamps to legal immigrants until they become citizens.

Meanwhile, many local leaders worry that the legislation goes too far in denying benefits to people for the rest of their lives once they have exhausted their five years of eligibility.

Nearly 30,000 Ventura County residents collect Aid to Families With Dependent Children benefits, about 41,000 people get food stamps and 13,800 qualified for Supplemental Security Income checks, state records show.

“People have to eat, people have to have a place to sleep,” Isom said. “Once you deny that, you’ll have the haves and the have-nots.

“I don’t think families will go hungry,” he said. “One way or another they’ll find some way to cope, even if they have to take it from someone else.”

Isom said he worries about other provisions of the new law as well, such as cuts to programs that fund home care for elderly and disabled patients.

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“What we’re going to find is that people will receive reduced hours and in many cases will be institutionalized,” he said. “That will end up costing the taxpayers a lot more money.”

Clyde Reynolds, director of the Turning Point Foundation, which provides services for homeless and low-income clients, said that agencies such as his may become overwhelmed by a new population of needy people.

“It was inevitable that there would be some welfare reform, and there needs to be some,” he said. “But I’m very concerned about the effect on our local community.

“I don’t believe we’ll have the dollars necessary to meet the needs of people who are dependent on the system,” Reynolds said. “There’s going to be a lot more demand on agencies that provide help to homeless and other low-income individuals.”

Disabled veteran David Shaw, who rents a cramped room at the Ventura Inn and subsists on a small disability check each month, said he worries that his benefits will be targeted next.

“They should be increasing the benefits to people like us, not lowering them,” Shaw said. “I served 10 years in the Army and I was almost killed. They should be taking care of the people.”

Longtime mental health patient Lisa Grignon, who lives on a modest Social Security allowance, predicted that more and more people will become homeless--and despondent.

“It’s going to cause a lot of problems,” she said, waiting for a hot dog at a downtown Ventura eatery Thursday. “I think it will cause a lot of suicides.”

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Some county officials, meanwhile, hope that months of bracing for welfare reform will pay off if Wright’s bill is enacted.

“The work we’ve done will position us to assume some leadership,” said Randall Feltman, an administrator with the county Health Care Agency.

“If the worst happens and the bill isn’t signed, it will help us to get going as soon as we can get direction from the state,” he said. “Either way, we will be able to move forward faster.”

County Supervisor John K. Flynn, who testified earlier this week on behalf of Wright’s bill before a state Assembly subcommittee in Sacramento, said the local test program will succeed in finding people jobs.

“I know there’s concern about not having enough money, but our thrust is to get people off welfare and improve their quality of life,” said Flynn, who heads a Ventura County welfare reform steering committee.

“We want to get people out of that caste system,” he said. “If the state doesn’t mess it all up, we’re going to make welfare reform work.”

* BARGAIN WITH THE POOR

President Clinton signs historic welfare legislation. A1