Deanna Streets worked for 23 years, but in 1989 the single mom quit her job at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to raise the son of her teen-age daughter, who had cerebral palsy.
She needed help making ends meet and went on welfare in 1990, eventually taking in another grandson. Once welfare reform was approved, Streets accepted a work assignment that combined training and working as a receptionist at a local social service organization.
Streets, now 55, is grateful for the job training she received and said it led her to a good job as a typist with the city of Dayton.
"They give you food, they give you medical. You just can't beat it," Streets said of the welfare system. But, she said, "You've got to work for something. Nothing in life is free. If you get off your butt and do something positive you feel better. It worked for me."
Not long ago, "welfare mothers" were political pariahs. These women and their families were a favorite target of politicians and scorned in the public arena. At worst, they were portrayed as lazy and manipulative; at best, they were victims of a system that both liberals and conservatives said trapped them in a life of poverty and dependence.
In 1996, a Republican Congress and Democratic President Bill Clinton fulfilled a promise to "change welfare as we know it," enacting the landmark Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.
The law dramatically revamped a welfare system that began in the Roosevelt Administration as a program for widows and evolved into a seemingly never-ending source of welfare checks for poor people.
Under the revamped system, states get federal grants — called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families — and are responsible for offering the poor cash assistance and work supports, such as child care and transportation subsidies. Thanks to the change that made childless people ineligible for cash assistance, 70 percent of welfare households are now single women with children.
Furnas, the Springfield-Burkhardt Neighborhood Association president, sees the strain in her east Dayton neighborhood, particularly in the wake of the recession.
"I get calls that they're losing their house, their utilities are shut off, they don't have any medical insurance so they can't go to the doctor," she said. "(Welfare reform) just created a larger number of working poor."
States like Ohio, in the face of a weakened economy and a strapped state budget, sliced resources for some anti-poverty programs. The cuts cost Montgomery County $1.6 million, forcing reductions in programs that help people finish job training or find and keep jobs.
The economic downturn has also battered state budgets and cut into the funding for many of the programs that made welfare reform successful. Cuyahoga County sued the state of Ohio after the legislature last fall used federal welfare money to help cover the state's $1.5 billion budget deficit.
http://www.activedayton.com/ddn/project/welfare/0616welfare.html