LOCAL PANEL PURGES COUNTY WELFARE ROLLS

It's not hard to get a job; it's hard to keep a job.

Kimberly Crawford, a mother of two and former welfare recipient, knows how hard it is to go from the welfare rolls to the employment rolls, and she and others are working to make the transition easier.

"At first there was no transition," she said, "it was just put them in a job and let them sink or swim."

"We're working to address the important issues so it's easier to get a job and stay there," said Crawford, a member of the Community Caring Council's work assistance coordinating committee.

The committee wants to help Cape Girardeau County's nearly 1,000 employable welfare recipients find jobs and become self-supporting.

The 25-member committee is spearheading a community effort to unite aid recipients, agencies and government personnel to eliminate barriers to employment.

The goal is simple: Eliminate the county's welfare roll.

"The goal, while lofty and which we don't know if it's attainable or not, is to move everybody from welfare to work," said John Mehner, committee chairman. "Rather than say move all but a certain percentage, we don't want to limit ourselves."

In 1996, the council organized the welfare reform task force to study issues facing welfare recipients. The task force's survey indicated factors affecting recipients' getting jobs as problems with child care, life skills, education and transportation.

The task force, renamed the work opportunities coordinating committee, has become a standing committee for the Community Caring Council.

"It's a real communitywide effort now," said Shirley Ramsey, executive director of the Community Caring Council. "We're talking about helping people find work and supporting them and keeping them there once they get jobs."

Ramsey said the committee contains representatives from local service agencies, government offices, former recipients and employers. In the past each group addressed different needs, but now the committee has taken on improving the county's unemployment rate in the county.

For example, the committee works to improve enrollment in programs like Jump Start on Jobs, an inter-agency effort that provides skills in seeking jobs. It also works with the Private Industries Council and local government officials to research job training and transportation.

"Quality employment for all people is our goal," said Ramsey."There are lots of pieces in place, and we're just trying to bring them all together."

Mehner said cutting the county's welfare rolls in half during the past five years indicates how low unemployment, a job-directed system and a fairly well-educated community can help people become self-supporting.

What needs addressed now is underemployment, the working poor and high-needs cases, he said.

"If you look at where we were and where we are now, we're getting down to the people that need extra help," said Mehner. "I think everybody who could stroll into a job has done that."

Crawford, who was forced from her gas station manager's job after 10 years because of medical problems with a pregnancy, said she was lucky. She had experience to fall back on.

Too many welfare recipients have no work experience and don't know how to keep a job, she said.

"Once I was in that system it was very hard to get out of it," Crawford said. "I couldn't make it with the system, and I couldn't make it on a minimum-wage salary, which is all I could get because I didn't have any computer experience. I don't want anybody else to be put in a position I was put in."