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As President of Metropolitan Family Services, I wish to submit the following comments to guide your work with the reauthorization of the Act that funds and regulates the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program. Metropolitan Family Services is the oldest and one of the largest non-sectarian agencies in Illinois. We serve over 92,000 individuals and families in the city of Chicago and its Cook and DuPage county suburbs. My comments come from the insights and experiences of our more than 500 staff members who provide counseling, domestic violence, mental health services, Head Start, camping, financial education counseling, legal services, and many prevention services to low income individuals and families. Fifty-five percent of our clients come from households with family income under $10,000. Eighty-two percent of our clients come from households with incomes under $25,000. Forty-five percent of our clients are African-American, thirty-eight percent are White, and fourteen percent are Hispanic. Seventy-two percent are female. We serve Spanish-speaking, Polish-speaking, and Arabic-speaking immigrant families at several sites. Let me begin by stating that we did not oppose many of the experimental policies embedded in the 1996 legislation. Our staff felt that the five-year time limit helped to motivate some of their clients with little or no job history. The time limit, coupled with a booming economy, produced some startling reductions in caseload size and helped many people begin to achieve self-sufficiency. The Administration must now determine how to reauthorize the TANF program so that more families become economically self-sufficient and are able to raise their children well. In our experience, we believe that four key steps must be taken to ensure that vulnerable families thrive. The first key is to fund services that are essential to protect the wellbeing of the children whose parents have moved from welfare to work. The State of Illinois used the TANF block grant wisely and well to pay for child care services, after school programs for children, and other services. But with the recession and the events of September 11th, Illinois may be called upon to use more of their TANF funding for income support, rather than support services. This then begins to reverse the good outcomes produced by quality childcare and improved after-school programs. Funding for programs that support those who have left welfare but still live in poverty is essential. We strongly support an increase in the level of TANF funding with an adjustment for inflation to ensure states can continue to address the needs of those in poverty. Because successful implementation of the TANF program requires commitment from the states and the federal government, we also believe that state Maintenance of Effort requirements must be maintained. The second step required to make the TANF program successful is to provide specialized help to those families with particular blocks to balancing work and family. Our staff describes heads of households with mental health needs, those who are victims of domestic violence, and those who have demanding roles as caregivers of children or adults with special needs. Some of them will be able to move into the world of work with the proper encouragement and helpful support along the way. Others may need substance abuse or job training programs to help them turn into someone who can contribute on a job. It is not reasonable to expect clients facing significant long-term barriers, regardless of their motivation, to succeed unless we are willing to meet them halfway with an individually tailored plan. Some states have done this. Illinois has not. A third step, we think, is to create a public system that recognizes and adapts to the needs of the families working in low wage jobs. This system would make sure that families received the benefits they were eligible for when they moved off of public assistance. This system would have office hours in the evenings and on weekends so that working heads of households could come without losing valuable time on the job. Our seven community centers follow this approach, frequently offering services in the evening. In our opinion, the fourth step to expanding the success of TANF is to focus the program on poverty reduction, not caseload reduction. As a nation we should strive to make poverty reduction a principal purpose of human service programs. Our organization’s various counseling and family economic development programs provide tools that help our client families develop the skills they need to achieve and maintain self-sufficiency. Based on our experience serving low-income families, we believe the purpose of TANF should be redefined as the reduction of child and family poverty. Specifically, TANF should focus on supporting caregivers, promoting education and training, safeguarding access to Medicaid, Food Stamps, child care and other work supports, and mandating access to services to address employment barriers such as mental illness, physical disability, substance abuse, and domestic and sexual violence. TANF program goals and outcomes should focus on poverty reduction using indicators no less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. Another troubling issue for us is the treatment of immigrants under this law. We serve large immigrant populations in the city of Chicago and its suburbs. These immigrants and their children come to us in need of domestic violence, mental health, and other family services, often during a personal crisis such as loss of employment. Most, if not all of them, have worked hard and paid their taxes. Their children, most American-born, need our temporary support, in order to reach the goals in school that we set out for them. TANF is meant to provide temporary relief to help families stabilize after unexpected hardship. The denial of benefits to legal immigrants has created significant hardship for our clients who need temporary assistance during times of crisis in their lives. We ask you to ensure full access to TANF benefits for qualified legal immigrants. Our clients tell us that child support reform is another important aspect of TANF Reauthorization. Most Americans agree that the goal of child support should be to provide the family with a predictable and adequate source of financial support. Yet the current child support distribution laws have a very different policy goal: that of reimbursing government for past and current welfare payments made to the families. Intuitively, it is easy to understand why this acts as a disincentive to the non-custodial parents, primarily fathers. Over the next few years, this policy will make increasingly poor fiscal sense in cost/benefit terms as the administration of complex distribution rules becomes more costly and the amount of assistance collections continues to decrease. We recommend simplifying the process by distributing all child support directly to the families with some portion disregarded in determining eligibility for benefits. Also, clients in our programs are reluctant to participate in the Illinois Child Support Program based on its performance record. Unfortunately, cooperation requirements often serve to penalize these needy families. We believe sanctions should not be imposed for failing to pursue child support. Finally, we offer a caution to this discussion of TANF reauthorization. Based on our years of experience serving teen mothers and fathers, we know that a focus on marriage as the first and most important goal is not effective in terms of building strong families. Our Young Fathers Initiative helps teen fathers become financially self-sufficient and raise healthy children. The program includes education, job-readiness training, on-the-job skill training, job placement assistance and parenting education and support. We know that these young parents can learn to be better parents and better partners. Thirty percent of the graduates from our teen mothers program are married to the father of their first child. We believe a critical first step in family formation is to engage fathers in the lives of their children and provide employment opportunities that allow them to provide for themselves and their children. Sustainable marriages will follow without state intervention. Thank you for the opportunity to share these comments. The families and communities we serve depend upon the multiple supports provided by the TANF program. We strongly urge the Administration to consider these recommendations as you create a proposal for TANF Reauthorization. Sincerely, Richard L. Jones, Ph.D. President, Metropolitan Family Services |
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