MAKING WELFARE WORK; AREA AGENCIES PREPARE FOR IMPACT OF REFORM

Frances Patterson, a Salvation Army volunteer, assisted with the distribution of government surplus commodities to welfare recipients Friday.

Agencies that provide assistance to needy families are working together to prepare for the first aftershocks of the new welfare reform program.

Aid agencies in Cape Girardeau County have formed several task forces to develop ways to better assist a greater number of families affected by the new system. Issues that have been identified as high-impact areas include child care, transportation, housing and emergency assistance and available jobs. Government and social organizations are working together to improve services in these areas before the needs arise.

"The entire program of cutting back is so complex because there are so many avenues being affected," said Gil Degenhardt, a board member of FISH Volunteers of Cape Girardeau.

Most agency officials believe the impact on Cape Girardeau County and surrounding areas will be considerable, although opinion varies on when the first wave of local impact will be felt. Most agree the first real wave of families seeking assistance from other avenues due to welfare reform will occur within two years, and they hope to be organized to meet the increased requests.

"I'm expecting we'll be ahead of many communities in coming up with ideas to help with the transition," said Roy Jones, chairman of the Welfare Reform Task Force. "We're still in the process of evaluating what types of resources we'll have, but we're trying to formulate community policy in areas we feel we can make a change."

Jones said the task force includes representatives from many of social service organizations as well as local, county and state government officials in Cape Girardeau County. Committees are being formed on various aspects of social welfare, including housing and emergency assistance, transportation and child care.

Another organizational think tank involving groups that distribute food is meeting regularly to develop a network for providing food without allowing individuals to abuse services. Degenhardt said FISH volunteers are meeting with representatives from the Salvation Army, Vineyard Fellowship, Ministerial Alliance Food Pantry in Jackson and the Bethesda group to develop a strategy to help the largest number of needy families.

Each of the organizations has internal controls that limit service to individuals within specified time periods. However, as yet there is not a way for the groups to know who has already been serviced by another organization within that same time period.

"We're addressing the issue of people going from agency to agency for food distribution," Degenhardt said. "We're looking for ways to form a central depository of information."

The East Missouri Action Agency is also working with other organizations that provide emergency assistance to needy families. Robert Fulton, executive director of the agency for Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, Iron, Madison, Perry, St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve and Washington counties, said it will be important to make emergency housing and utility assistance more effective, targeted and well-coordinated as the effects of welfare reform begin to impact these organizations.

"We're looking to provide more than just a Band-Aid in these crisis situations," Fulton said. "We're making the effort to tie energy services together better and help people get to what they need to buy but keep some from double- or triple-dipping."

Jones said social service organizations have realized that they will have to work together more closely because funding will be limited while requests will be great. Because the entire community will be affected, all of the organizations will have to pool their resources to meet the need.

"It's going to take a long-term commitment from community resource people and facilities as soon as possible to prepare for the tremendous change," Jones said. "We're all working together to try to come up with creative ways to use funds and find ways to train people for jobs."