AGENCY TO ISSUE CAR LOANS; NEW PROGRAM WILL HELP WELFARE-TO-WORK CLIENTS BUY AUTOS.

Byline: David Greenberg Daily News Staff Writer

Welfare-to-work clients who need transportation to get to jobs could benefit from a new program that would make loans available for buying used cars.

The new Job Opportunity Transportation Program comes as Ventura County is putting in place the final pieces of its welfare reform program, and after a hoped-for $1.2 million transportation grant for vehicles was turned down.

``It's really the last thing we need to do in the welfare reform area,'' said Ron Cuff, a board member of Many Mansions, which oversees the program. ``The county is so spread out that public transportation usually doesn't work for getting to a job. And it doesn't do much good to get a job if you don't have reliable transportation.''

Loans for up to $3,000 each will be made available to as many as 100 recipients with good driving records over the next year to use for getting to and from jobs, employment training courses and child care.

The Ventura County Credit Union, working in partnership with the housing advocacy group, has made available $60,000 for loans in what is to be an ongoing program.

Clients may take up to four years to pay off the debts.

``They're trying to keep the payments under $100 a month,'' Cuff said.

Welfare officials are grappling with the dilemma that most of the county's 6,561 recipients live in west county while the majority of the job opportunities are in east county.

Oxnard, Ventura and Santa Paula have the three highest numbers of welfare recipients, with 3,156, 1,031 and 567, respectively, as of last month, according to Jim Becker, a Human Services Agency administrative officer.

That compares to the east county with 438 in Simi Valley, 206 in Fillmore, 198 in Camarillo, 197 in Thousand Oaks, 102 in Moorpark, 74 in Newbury Park, and 55 in Oak Park.

Those loan applicants with drunk driving convictions or other serious motor vehicle violations will stand less of a chance of obtaining a loan, officials said.

``We have more people who want cars than we have cars,'' Becker said. ``So we have to set priorities.''

The cars are expected to be donated to the program from fleets or individuals. Any profits from the sale of the cars will be earmarked toward the housing agency's endowment for purchasing and restoring properties for low-income residents.

A second transportation program under way with a $1 million federal Congestion Management Air Quality grant will enable the county to buy nine vans to shuttle welfare recipients to jobs.

The vans, each capable of holding nine to 12 people, will be driven by workers hired from existing county staff or welfare-to-work rolls who will pick up passengers at designated hubs across the county.

Officials acknowledged, however, that the number of vans will offer only limited coverage.

Meanwhile, Ventura County Transportation Commission officials are wondering why the county was recently rejected for the $1.2 million car-sharing grant from the Federal Transit Administration. The agency awarded $73 million nationwide.

``It's always disappointing when you have a vision for something that can't be realized due to a lack of funding,'' said Maureen Lopez, the commission's transit programs director.

The funds would have purchased 28 vehicles that recipients could have checked out from seven job-and-career centers countywide.

Once they arrived at work or other welfare reform programs, a second group of recipients could have then picked up the cars, used them for transportation and dropped them off by the time the first clients needed to go home.

As much as $150 million will be made available in the next round of Federal Transit Administration funding this fall, said Jim Sims, spokesman for the Southern California Association of Governments, which made the application.

``Obviously, there's something we need to know in order to strengthen the application,'' he said. ``We're going to find out what that is.''