Inside NCR

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 11, 1996 by Tom Fox

Under the sweeping Republican-sponsored welfare-reform bill signed into law by President Bill Clinton in August, legal immigrants will lose their food stamps, disabled will face Supplemental Security Income--SSI--benefits cuts, and it is predicted that more than 1 million additional children will be pushed into poverty.

But make no mistake--not all plates will be empty.

Catholic Charities officials say they've got heaping portions of work and responsibility facing them as the continuing battle to forge humane welfare policy now shifts to the state level.

"We have predicted disaster, destitution and degradation," said Sharon Daly, Catholic Charities USA's deputy for social policy. "Now we have to try to prove ourselves wrong and minimize the damage by getting states to make the best use of their discretion."

The landmark federal welfare law slashes America's 60 year-old social safety net, putting at greater risk poor women and children; it decimates public assistance for legal immigrants; puts a life time limit of five years on welfare benefits; and requires welfare recipients -- many poorly educated and untrained -- to begin working two years after receiving welfare.

But as Daly points out, there is much the lay, does not do, leaving it up to the states, for example, to decide whether to impose a family cap by denying additional benefits to children born to a mother who already receives welfare. State lawmakers also must determine whether a pregnant teenager will be required to live with her parents in order to receive welfare; and they have the authority to shorten the federal five-year limitation provision.

"The whole community -- local governments, business, foundations, other nonprofits, the whole religious community -- everybody's got to be mobilized," said Daly, "and it means our people are going to be working much harder." Not only must the policy issues be addressed, she pointed out, at the same time social services providers have to make sure the people losing their safety net benefits don't go homeless and hungry.

"Direct services, advocacy and convening -- bringing together all the players in the private, nonprofit and business sectors to figure out a solution -- that's our traditional role," Daly said of Catholic Charities. "But now it's really going to be life or death."

William Rasberry, a columnist with The Washington Post Writers Group, in a column countering the doomsayers in the aftermath of the bill's passage, wrote, "Isn't it likely that organized religion will take a larger role in providing help (economic as well as spiritual) for society's needy?"

But according to Kathy Gallagher, associate director of the New York State Catholic Conference, "Catholic Charities agencies already are working beyond their capacity. Government is looking to them and other private entities, saying, `You'll have to pick up the slack.' But we're not going to be able to. It's going to be massive, and I don't think we'll be able to pick up everybody who's left hungry and homeless."

Through the services they provide, Catholic Charities nationwide gets about $1 billion in indirect federal funding. That amount is expected to be reduced, as each state now faces the weighty task of disbursing federal block grant funds that represent a $55 billion reduction in total federal welfare spending over the next six years, mainly by cutting Food Stamps and aid to some 900,000 legal immigrants.

State lawmakers must also find or create work for heads of households in half of the more than 4 million families nationwide now receiving assistance. If they miss their targets, they could eventually lose up to 21 percent of their welfare funds. Yet, according to The Wall Street Journal, even the nation's best example of a successful welfare-to-work program in Riverside, Calif., managed to get just 39 percent of recipients working after three years.

In California, where some 400,000 legal immigrants stand to lose Food Stamps and other benefits, county governments that are required to pay for general assistance, the public assistance program of last resort for indigents, have begun actively encouraging people to become citizens. Santa Clara County supervisors in September allocated $140,000 to help the county's 17,000 eligible immigrants apply for naturalization. And President Clinton has directed Attorney General Janet Reno to reduce the bureaucracy of the citizenship process.

In San Jose, Calif., on Sept. 18, nearly 11,000 people were sworn in as citizens during the largest naturalization ceremony in the history of the San Francisco Bay Area. Applications at Immigration and Naturalization Service offices around California, home to the largest population of immigrants in the country, have reportedly soared.

Daly expects outreach to immigrants, many of whom live in isolated communities, to be a key role for Catholic Charities, too. "As of next year, immigrants who are legally present in this country, many who have worked here for years, will be unable to get SSI no matter how old or disabled they are," she said.