COUNTY NEEDS TO PUT PEOPLE FIRST IN QUEST FOR WELFARE REFORM.

Byline: Karen Bass, Kathy Cooper-Ledesma and Sam Mistrano Local View

WELFARE reform is not yet over in Los Angeles County. In fact, it has not yet truly begun.

By state law, the county's new welfare system must go into effect April 1. Thank goodness there is still time to create true reform. Nearly half a billion dollars, more than $400 million, is earmarked for welfare-to-work and administrative services for this fiscal year.

With so much money at stake, it is imperative that the county develop real support services for the poorest Los Angeles residents. Simple, comprehensive and integrated services like job training, mental health and substance-abuse treatment, and skills education must be provided to best assist people to gain employment.

The service delivery system being developed, however, is not the simple and integrated program needed to help real people. For example, a person must first fail to find a job or be on the verge of dropping out of the system before he is even assessed for possible barriers to employment, let alone referred to services and treatment. Many applicants will be forced to navigate through five or six separate offices to apply for, and stay eligible to receive, aid. People with extra needs, such as those requiring child care, must travel to even more offices.

If a person does find a job before his assessment takes place, an employer may be saddled with a worker unable to read, write or communicate effectively. That person is unfairly and inappropriately placed, because services are available that could treat his condition before he is placed in a job.

The result of the system now being planned is self-defeating. People will drop out of the system in confusion and consequently be sanctioned, then have to reapply again and again until their lifetime limit for assistance is used up. This recycling will waste precious resources, cause otherwise reachable populations to fall through the cracks, and force people from the welfare rolls without a job and without a safety net.

There is no sense in building a half-billion-dollar system that frustrates the very people it is designed to serve. In an era in which local governments face severe limitations on their resources, it is scandalous to invest enormous amounts of money in a program that is not simple, comprehensive and integrated.

We do not blame anyone in particular for this state of affairs. Welfare reform is so vast and affects so many different issues that most people have not been able to focus on the big picture. But for all the attention given to a thousand details, we cannot overlook the lack of coherent, people-first vision for welfare reform.

A people-first vision is about building a system that is client-friendly and comprehensive. It means integrating activities into one office, not five. It means empowering staff with resources and appropriate training so they can be helpful, not overwhelmed. It means providing critically needed services in a timely manner, not constructing speed bumps on the road to success.

A people-first vision of welfare reform empowers the bureaucracy, enables clients to gain opportunity and creates an effective stream of skilled and willing new employees.

Los Angeles County needs to head in this direction.

There is time to chart a people-first course. The Board of Supervisors could exercise leadership before the April Fools' Day implementation of the county's welfare-to-work plan. They have the power to make law and to compel change. A critically important vote is scheduled for March 24, when the board will consider welfare-related child care, mental health, substance abuse and domestic violence proposals. The supervisors need to understand how welfare clients will be served under the currently planned system, and they need to take the leadership in mandating improvements.

If the county moves blindly ahead and continues with its present system, vast amounts of money will be wasted in a program that helps few people and needlessly frustrates many more. Failing to identify welfare recipients' barriers to sustained employment at the earliest stages in the process does not save public funds. A well-planned and strategic system benefits everyone.