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Herald Palladium > Local News > Has the welfare well gone dry?
Sunday, October 02, 2011
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Has the welfare well gone dry?
Jet Osler, from Benton Harbor, organizes a rack of clothing while working at 6 Degrees Resale Store in Benton Harbor as part of a collaboration with
Michigan Works. Don Campbell – H-P staff
New, 48-month cap on cash assistance will cut about 110 adults in Berrien County. But community resources
are available to help.
By JOHN MATUSZAK - H-P Staff Writer
Published: Sunday, October 2, 2011 1:06 PM EDT
The reservoir of welfare in Michigan is a little shallower starting this month. But there are wells of community resources some of them largely untapped - available to help residents.
As of Saturday, the beginning of the month, 12,000 adults across Michigan have exhausted their eligibility for state cash
assistance under new rules signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder last month. Around 29,000 children will be affected by the
changes.
The new law sets a 48-month limit for receiving the cash benefits under the Family Independence Program, which is
available to families with minor children and pregnant women. Benefits average $500 a month.
The change gives Michigan the strictest welfare guidelines in the Midwest. More stringent requirements for food assistance
also have been enacted.
These moves are part of the Republican governor's program of budget
and tax cuts that he hopes will stimulate job growth. The cuts in cashassistance welfare payments are expected to save the state $77 million
http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/2011/10/02/local_news/6639048.txt[10/3/2011 8:15:48 AM]
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Herald Palladium > Local News > Has the welfare well gone dry?
in the first year.
Hitting home
About 110 adults in Berrien County are losing their cash assistance
under the new guidelines, said Kathy Miller, interim director of the
county Department of Human Services.
The state has been catching up with those at or over the 48-month
limit, and Miller expects the number of people cut from the welfare rolls
to be small after October.
Her office has been working to provide a "soft landing" for people losing
their benefits, Miller said. Clients were mailed a resource packet with
information on job training and other services and were given an
opportunity to meet with a specialist to aid in the transition.
About 20 clients asked to meet with the specialist, Miller said.
The department is planning a resource fair for the week of Oct. 10 for all of its clients to provide information on available
help. And it is recruiting a "job navigator" to help clients find employment.
With unemployment at around 11 percent, is this the right time to cut part of the social safety net?
Miller said "it's never a great time to lose benefits," but now the resources are available to help people.
Putting Michigan to work
Brenda Henry, 41, said she and her three children at home will get by without their $284-a-month cash allotment from the
Family Independence Program, and they will continue to receive food assistance.
Henry lives in Benton Harbor. She's working as a home-care provider, but she's reaching for a bigger payday down the
road.
Henry is a participant in Michigan Works' Benton Harbor Workforce Transformation Program, designed for people with
multiple barriers to employment, such as a lack of education or difficulty obtaining transportation or child care.
Henry came across as "a real go-getter" when she interviewed for a spot, said Charles Shasky, who runs the program.
"I'm getting myself ready for the real world," said Henry, who is working on her GED and wants to be a registered nurse or
a surgical technician. "It's helped me look at myself and do what I need to do."
Forty-five people are taking part in the 14-week program.
The clients come in "very frustrated," Shasky said. "The job market for them is very limited."
The program offers GED classes and instruction in job skills, writing resumes and cover letters. It also offers transportation
and provides "a network of moral support," Shasky said.
Clients are placed with 6 Degrees resale shop, across the street, to gain work experience, and later with employers,
including the Hotel Whitcomb in St. Joseph, The Livery in Benton Harbor, Holiday Inn Express and TJ Maxx. Their salaries
are paid through a federal earmark.
Some of the clients already have been hired full time, Shasky said.
Canya Jones, 32, will lose $300 a month in cash assistance to support her and her two children.
She has been working at The Livery and would like to own a restaurant someday.
The Michigan Works program "has made me more reliable, it has made me more responsible, it has made me more
dependable," Jones said. She hadn't worked in four years before enrolling.
Jan Vollrath, a program director in jobs skills training with Emergency Shelter Services, said the work experience gives
clients "something to take with them" when they are looking for a job.
The rest is up to them. "You have to go out and prove yourself," she said.
Now is the time for people on welfare to make a plan, said Megan McCausland, director of community relations at Michigan
Works.
"If you have a year or two" before benefits are cut, "that's a lot of time to get ready," she said.
Feeding the multitudes
Will the welfare cuts put more pressure on the organizations that help struggling families?
http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/2011/10/02/local_news/6639048.txt[10/3/2011 8:15:48 AM]
Herald Palladium > Local News > Has the welfare well gone dry?
Rich Glista, branch manager of the West Michigan Food Bank in Benton Harbor, isn't as concerned about the number of
people seeking assistance as he is about the food that's wasted.
Restaurants and other industries throw away 100 billion pounds of edible food every year, Glista said. That's 2,000 times
the amount his Empire Avenue warehouse holds.
Glista's branch of the West Michigan Food Bank, part of the national Feed America, provides food to 180 nonprofit agencies
in Berrien, Cass and Van Buren counties, including food pantries, soup kitchens, adult and child day care centers and
senior centers.
The amount of food delivered from the food bank has increased "exponentially" in the last few years, Glista said.
In 2007 the Benton Harbor food bank delivered 1.6 million pounds of food. This year it is on target to deliver 2 million
pounds. The food bank charges 11 cents per pound to cover delivery and administrative costs.
The volunteers who run the food pantries tell Glista, "We see more people every week than we've ever seen before."
And it's not just the regular
Terry Breen, principal at Gobles Elementary School, said that in the last year he has talked with many families who have
lost jobs and are struggling. At the end of the last school year there were 36 children at the school whose families were
homeless. More than half of the school's students qualify for free and reduced-price meals, Breen said.
With the help of the Gobles-Kendall Area Ministerial Alliance, which gets food from the West Michigan Food Bank, Gobles
Elementary will offer to send home weekend food packs with students whose families are in need.
Pastor Sheila Baker, president of the ministerial association, said tears came to her eyes when she heard that children
were collecting leftovers from the cafeteria to take home.
"I thought, 'This is America. This is Gobles. This is our country and this should not happen.' We are failing our children,"
Pastor Baker said.
Stretching food dollars
The West Michigan Food Bank gets its donations from the surplus supplied by companies. Glista believes in getting the
most out of them.
The food bank has doubled the number of people it helps by allowing food pantry clients to pick the items they want to
take home, he said.
Glista encourages donors to give cash instead of food. For every dollar donated, the food bank can buy 10 times as much
as can be bought for the same money at the grocery store, he said.
With all the surplus food out there, Glista isn't concerned about the potential uptick in the number of people seeking
assistance.
"It won't put us out of whack. The more food out the door, the more food we can take in the door," he said.
Hunger in Harbor Country
Last spring the Pokagon Fund, based in New Buffalo, provided an $18,000 grant to Feeding America to bring a mobile food
pantry to southwestern Berrien County. Two or three times a month the mobile pantry brings in 5,000 pounds of
perishable goods.
Hundreds of people line up to receive the groceries, reported Mary Dunbar, executive director of the Pokagon Fund. The
mobile pantry has given away well over 100,00 pounds of food to 4,500 residents, she said. Volunteers had logged 800
work hours by the end of August. Deliveries will continue until December.
The Pokagon Fund provides some unsolicited grants, but most organizations that want funding have to ask for it.
"We really want to give it away as fast as we get it," Dunbar said.
jmatuszak@thehp.com
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Reader Comments
The following are comments from the readers. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald-Palladium.
9726 wrote on Oct 2, 2011 2:59 PM:
" I wish these single mothers with multiple children and less than a high school education could be enlisted to talk to kids in junior high school about
the CONSEQUENCES of the choices they will make over the next few years. Maybe it could help to turn around this problem. Never again will there
be abundant jobs for people with these kinds of burdens! "
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