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Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 10:29:53 -0500 (EST)
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From: RJurczyk <RJurczyk@aol.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list <nifl-family@literacy.nifl.gov>
Subject: [NIFL-FAMILY:1310] xpost: Welfare to Work
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The following is crossposted from NLA, NIFL-Workplace, and NIFL-Homeless. I
am not sure how many of you are on these lists and know this issue is being
discussed by family literacy programs everywhere I go, so I am crossposting it
also. If you have received it three times already, I apologize.
Robin Jurczyk
NIFL-Family list moderator
rjurczyk@aol.com
************
David Rosen posted the following LONG message (sorry folks, but it
addresses community response to welfare reform) -- thought you'd be
interested and might want to respond either to this list or the NLA
list.
David wrote:
The JOIN Coalition in Philadelphia is working on some very important
issues, and appears to be a good example of including adult literacy in
other community and neighborhood advocacy agendas critical to many adult
learners' needs.
I think adult literacy practitioners -- particularly those of
us who only see ourselves having a single role "in the classroom" or "in
research" or "in staff development" -- need to broaden our view of our
roles if we are to make a difference in the lives of our students.
"Welfare Downsizing," as Ed (rightly) refers to "Welfare Reform" -- is a
critical issue for us to be working on. While early results in some
cities and states may suggest success in getting people off of welfare
and into jobs, those who are easy to place in jobs have now been placed.
Increasingly welfare workers, and now perhaps even policy makers,
realize that much more is needed if those on TANF are to get -- and keep
-- jobs.
Now is the time for adult literacy workers and adult learners to be part
of coalitions working to make education and job training part of true
reform, and to work to prepare those adult learners who may be on
welfare for *good* jobs, those which are stable, offer at elast a living
wage and
benefits.
Is there a coalition like JOIN, in your part of the country? What
is it doing? Are adult literacy practitioners involved? Are adult
learners? Equipped for the Future folks: what are you finding? Are
adult learners part of these coalitions? If so, what are their roles?
What are practitioners' roles? If adult literacy workers and learners
are not involved yet, how can we change that?
On Sun, 23 Nov 1997, Ed Schwartz wrote:
JOIN is Jobs and Opportunity to Improve Neighborhoods, a coalition that
we've been building in Philadelphia around by the impending crisis
related to welfare reform. Despite the economic euphoria that appears to
have blinded much of the country, the prospects for cities remain
terrible. This past Friday, a number of big-city Mayors met in
Washington to warn that there were not enough entry level jobs opening
in urban America to accomodate the number of recipients who will have to
be absorbed in the workforce by 2001. We are heading for a social
catastrophe that will make current levels of homelessness seem benign by
comparison.
Faced with this situation, the Institute for the Study of Civic Values
is working now in Philadelphia to put together a city-wide movement of
neighborhood based organizations, human service agencies, and advocacy
groups to fight for a public agenda that will help addressing this
problem. The task is not easy. Much of it involves redirecting the focus
of community groups from their singular focus on housing, crime, and
kids to jobs, public transportation, adult literacy, and child care --
the areas challenged by welfare downsizing. My various posts on these
lists have yielded no comparable efforts elsewhere, as far as I can
tell.
Here in Philadelphia, however, we are making progress. Over the past
two months, we have held neighborhood roundtables among civic groups,
adult literacy agencies, and child care centers in three areas of the
city, and two city-wide meetings related to the broad issues.
Moreover, this past Thursday, representatives from more than 30 area
groups agreed to fight for the specific agenda that follows. We will
secure support from at least 100 community leaders around this Agenda by
Thanksgiving and hold a city-wide town meeting around it on Monday,
December 8th.
I commend this Agenda to you. It will define my own work in
Philadelphia for months ahead. I'm developing a web page for all
this--and, parenthetically, the "neighbors-online" email list that I
manage in
Philadelphia has emerged as a powerful resource to get information about
JOIN out to much of this organizational network almost immediately. The
web page will be up and running by December.
Those who would want to build similar movements, let me know. I'll be
glad to offer whatever help that I can.
Here's the agenda itself:
The JOIN Agenda
Jobs and Opportunity to Improve Neighborhoods (JOIN)
"To Promote the General Welfare"
We, the community organizations of Philadelphia, agree with the effort
tobring people on welfare into the workforce and believe it is the
responsibility of recipients to seek employment. At the same time, we
believe that it is the obligation of government to insure the
availability of jobs at a living wage, adult education, and quality
child-care for every resident of the Commonwealth seeking employment
and the means to support their families. We further expect the private
sector to support these
efforts.
To achieve these goals, we urge that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
and the City of Philadelphia take the following steps:
1. To insure that welfare recipients can compete effectively for
full-time jobs, the Department of Welfare must permit recipients to
pursue per week pre-GED, GED, or a work-related educational program for
not one, but two years--as a legitimate work related activity under the
required 20 hour per week. This should include two-year community
college programs.
2. The Commonwealth must triple its budget for adult literacy from $8
million to $24 million, with the goal of tripling the number of GED's
awarded each year. Approximately 2,200,000 people in Pennsylvania over
18 do not have high school diplomas including 411,000 Philadelphia
residents.
At a time when even computer literacy is needed for many jobs, a high
school diploma has become a necessity. Yet just 19,000 Pennsylvania
residents received GED's last year, a mere 1,751 in Philadelphia. We
need to award at least 5,000 GED's annually in Philadelphia alone.
3. The Commonwealth must invest in the purchase and operation of 500
vans and other vehicles, to be used by SEPTA, non-profit organizations,
and employers to transport at least 10,000 people from Philadelphia to
jobs in the suburbs. Wherever possible, our goal should be to cut
commuter time to 45 minutes or less. While Philadelphia's economy
remains static, the surrounding suburbs have gained more than 32,000
jobs in the past year.
Employers are having trouble filling entry level jobs. Yet many
regional job centers are inaccessible without a car, and inner-city
residents cannot reach most suburban job locations by public transit in
less than an hour.
4. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania must develop a child-care plan that
provides affordable, quality care to every child. The Welfare
Department has proposed a "tier system" for child care that will raise
the co-pay for quality care beyond the reach of low income workers. The
Department must withdraw this plan and develop and implement a subsidy
system that makes quality child care affordable for all.
5. To insure that low-income residents achieve self-sufficiency, the
full-time jobs that welfare recipients receive must pay a living wage
no less than 100% of the poverty rate plus health insurance.. To
demonstrate its support for this principle, the Philadelphia City
Council should pass the proposed living wage ordinance that will set
this minimum for all companies that receive assistance under the City's
economic development programs.
Ed Schwartz, Institute for the Study of Civic Values, 1218 Chestnut
St., Rm. 702, Philadelphia, Pa. 19107 215-238-1434
edcivic@libertynet.org
The ISCV home page can be reached at
http://libertynet.org/~edcivic/iscvhome.html
Also check out "Neighborhoods Online" at
http://libertynet.org/community/phila/natl.html.=20
It's the Institute's project with LibertyNet to support neighborhood
activism.
To subscribe to the Institute's international mailing list send to
majordomo@civic.net the one line message: subscribe civic-values
To subscribe to the Institute's Pennsylvania mailing list send to
majordomo@civic.net the one line message: subscribe penn-neighbor
Barb Van Horn
BLV1@PSU.EDU
NIFL-workplace list moderator
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