From Welfare to Work

Appendix C, Assistance and Employment History, lists each participant’s situation prior to ABLE enrollment and after program completion as well as their gender, ethnicity and age. Of the 32 individuals who received some type of assistance prior to ABLE program enrollment: 10 were black (53 percent of black participants); one was Asian (20 percent ); three, Hispanic (60 percent ) and 18 (44 percent) white. Of those currently receiving assistance, four are black (a reduction of 60 percent), none is Asian (a 100 percent reduction), one is Hispanic (a 66 percent reduction), and 10 are White (a 45 percent reduction).

Working participants receiving assistance at program entry held manual labor jobs such as laundry, maintenance and factory workers or entry level service jobs such as nurse’s aides and sales clerks. There was also a cab driver and a woman who ran a drug rehabilitation program after her own recovery. Individuals who had been treated for substance abuse accounted for 22 percent of initial assistance recipients. Currently, only two participants on assistance had previous abuse problems (a 71 percent reduction).

Five of the seven men on assistance at program entry (71 percent) had experienced a prior physical injury and one was a recent immigrant who needed to improve his language skills before he could gain employment in his field. Of the five men currently receiving Unemployment Disability or SSI/SSD, two are college students, two work part time in literacy and community development positions and one is retired. The remaining male participants formerly on assistance are now self-sufficient and working at hospitals: one in food services and the other as a physician.

Initially, the largest number of those receiving assistance were single mothers (44 percent). Currently, only three of these women are not self-sufficient, a reduction of 79 percent. The following story describes Gina’s journey from welfare to work. It illustrates the career ladder available to a determined and resilient woman as well as the challenges that must be met and overcome by a single mother.

Gina’s Story

Neither of Gina’s parents had finished high school, so there was no pressure from home when she decided to drop out in 9th grade. She started a course at an OIC but became pregnant and did not finish. Twelve years later, Gina was in trouble. As she explains:

I had two kids and I was on Welfare. That was the only life I knew since I became pregnant. I was working on my own but I wasn’t making any money. I was living with some elderly woman, cleaning her house for room and board. I was only making $5 a week but that was enough for me at the time. I had two boys at the time and the father and I weren’t going anywhere. I decided to go back [to school]... I didn’t want Welfare. I wanted to take care of my own. That’s what kept me going. I became pregnant with my daughter and I was afraid to give up. Because I felt that I would be stuck on Welfare for another five years.

Gina did remarkably well. She went from GED classes to the career exploration program, New Choices. Refused admission to college, she entered the university’s ACT 101 program and completed it, receiving an outstanding student award on the day her baby was due. When her daughter was one month old, she was accepted at the university as an undeclared student. After a year of courses as a matriculating student, Gina earned a scholarship and graduated with a 3.35 cumulative average in her major, Radiology.