From welfare to workfare: private sector program creates new employees and entrepreneurs

Eloise Blackmon is a businesswoman on the move. As founder of F&B Transportation, she is president of a company that daily moves dozens of people to work, school and daycare. Growing demand for her services in Gary, Ind., has made it necessary to move into a larger office and increase her fleet of vehicles. Looking at Blackmon, a confident woman with a winning smile, it's hard to believe that she was on welfare two years ago.

Blackmon is one of 135,000 former welfare recipients who wer-e assisted by the Welfare to Work Partnership, a national program designed to move people from public assistance to jobs in the private sector. Founded in 1996, the Partnership provides companies with the information, technical assistance and support necessary to create successful Welfare to Work programs."We want to move as many people as we can from lives of dependence to lives of independence while the economy is strong," says Eli Segal, president and CEO of the Partnership. Gerald Greenwald, president and CEO of United Airlines and chairman of the Partnership, is encouraged by the fact that more than 6,000 corporations are actively involved in recruiting, hiring and employing welfare recipients looking for a second chance. "Involvement in welfare to work," he says, "is much more than a goodwill gesture. It is a smart solution for business."

When Blackmon went on public assistance in 1994, she had lost one job due to transportation problems and another due to downsizing. The mother of two young children, she had no savings and no one to help her. Depressed desperate, she signed up for welfare. "They gave me food stamps, a check, medical insurance . . . They paid for the house bills and everything," Blackmon recalls. "I'd worked and struggled all this time, and sudddenly taken care of."

While her financial problems seemed to be over, Blackmon wasn't comfortable taking money for nothing. "I wanted something better for my kids," she says. In 1996 she applied for and got another job, but transportation was still a problem. Realizing that she wasn't alone, Blackmon decided to start her own transportation business. She surveyed coworkers about their transportation problems and called day-care centers to see how many children needed rides. "They couldn't wait for me to get started," she recalls.

Blackmon also contacted the government agency office, which needed someone to take clients to work. This turned out to be a turning point in her life, for under a welfare-to-work program the agency started under the Partnership, Blackmon was hired to transport their clients. Armed with a chauffeur's license, fax machine and leased vehicles, she was in business. Within two months, F&B Transportation (named for her son, Floyd, 8, and daughter, Brandy, 4) was shuttling over 60 customers to work, job-training programs and day-care centers. Today, Blackmon has five drivers and a part-time assistant in her employ.

"I need to increase my staff and van size . . . it's going well, and I wouldn't trade it for anything," says Blackmon. "I love it."

Like Blackmon, many people on public assistance want a decent job and decent wage, but feel trapped in a cycle of dead-end, low-paying jobs. The Partnership works to fight stereotypes and encourage businesses to take a chance on welfare recipients. "They are not pariahs," Segal says emphatically. "These are people down on their luck who, if given half a chance, will work."

Michael Bradford, for example, had been down on his luck for a long time. Before he got his current position as convention services supervisor at the Crystal Gateways Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Va., he was struggling to survive.

"My family had been on welfare for almost all of my life," Bradford says. One of 11 kids, he was 5 years old when his father died and his mother went on public assistance. Embarrassed by the situation, Bradford grew up without focus or ambition. "I didn't have any goals," he admits. As an adult, he became addicted to drugs and alcohol. Living in a men's shelter, Bradford was undergoing treatment when he heard about Pathways, Mariott's welfare-to-work program, which like all Partnership programs, gives former welfare recipients the skills and motivation to work entry-level jobs.

"I had doubts at first, but as I was exposed to the associates at Marriott, they welcomed and encouraged me," says Bradford. "I started setting small goals at first, like just showing up for work every day, which is something I never did before."

Bradford moved from the shelter to a rented room; today, he lives in a home of his own and plans to marry his fiancee, Catrina Glover, whom he met in training class. In the past year, he showed such dedication on the job that he was promoted to a supervisory position. "I had jobs before, but never kept them because I never wanted to," says Bradford. "I love my job, and that made it easy for me to work hard."

Another graduate of the training program, Rhonda Costa of New York City, never thought she'd go on welfare. "I thought it was for people who lived in the street," she admits. "I never thought I'd need it." Two years after her high school graduation, Costa was unemployed and pregnant. She went on welfare for two years, then got a job in the mayor's office and became a corrections officer. After she had another child in 1993, she went on welfare again when her hectic work schedule made it hard to find childcare. "I just didn't care anymore," Costa says of that difficult time. "T was living day-to-day, taking care of the house and the girls ... I didn't have any plans for the future."