Dream deferred: the most inspired caseworker in America's most lauded welfare agency can barely do his job

Washington Monthly, Sept, 2004 by Jason DeParle

Michael felt the room spin. He had poured some subconscious drive for redemption into a crackhead who bad scammed him. "I felt really stupid and really useless as somebody who was supposed to be helping her," he said. "And I felt very sad for her son." More shouting followed, then a parting embrace. He needed to refer her to a more specialized caseworker. "Do what you got to do, Mi-ike. I always do."

Backsliding into sadness

He went home and told his girlfriend he was looking for another job. His clients bear out the cynic's adage: No good deed among Feps ever goes unpunished. He got no argument from his girlfriend, Jai. Her own mother had spent years collecting welfare, while sending her to live with relatives. "I'd tell them their sorry ass was always gonna be in the gutter," she said. "He calls them 'job seekers,' I call them 'money seekers.' I'd cuss 'em out and lose that job!" Michael was going back to hanging drywall. You nail it, and it stays in place. His midnight resolve laded with morning; he bad rent to pay.

To boost his spirits, he hung up a "Certificate of Completion" that belonged to a woman he hardly knew. Angiwetta Hills had walked in at closing hour, looking as ragged as her tale. She was living in a shelter and a caseworker's error had cut off her check. Michael braced for the tirade. Instead, she apologized that she hadn't been able to change her clothes. Michael spent hours restoring her benefits. Then she surprised him with perfect attendance in a motivation class. It wasn't a new life, or even a new job, but the surprise ran in both directions. "He said, 'Everything's going to be all right, Angiwetta. You put in your half, and I'll put in mine," she said.

His expectations of Dinah Doty ran just as low. At 23, she was a high school dropout, pregnant with her fourth child, and about to be evicted. He rushed to get her a special want, but she got evicted, anyway. Once her maternity leave expired, he gave her the calculator spiel: $3.91 an hour, can you beat it? The next week, she announced she had a job at a homeless shelter for nearly $8 an hour. And she seemed so--he felt embarrassed to say it--proud. "Michael gave me that motivation to get up and basically open my eyes," she told me. "Michael understands where I'm coming from."

On that, she may have been more right than she knew. He had lost his business, wrecked his marriage, and wasted his shot at a college degree. There were days when he couldn't look in a mirror. "I say, 'I know what it's like to be down and out. I blow what it's like to not even be able to get out of bed,'" he said. Convinced he had nothing left to learn about ghetto life, Michael learned something, anyway. "They don't want to be perceived as vulnerable," he said of his clients. "But when you cut away the exterior, they're sad--sad for themselves, sad for their children, sad that they haven't done more with their lives. And they're just aching for you to listen."

The case he saw as his biggest success can be seen as a tribute to either his ample gifts or his lowered expectations. Shelley Block had collected $6,000 the previous year without doing a thing. Inheriting her case, Michael sent letters. Michael made calls. Michael took away her check. That made his telephone ring. "What--you don't give out checks?" she said. He told her to come see him in the morning. "I don't do mornings," she said. Finally, she darkened his door. Literally. She weighed more than 300 pounds, with a pierced tongue and a tattooed neck. Michael found her enchanting. When she talked about becoming a nursing aide, Michael told her the truth: She was too fat to stand up all day. "I respected him for that," she told me. He arranged a work assignment at Maximus, to keep her in sight. They talked--about her boyfriend, his crack problem, her days in a gang. "He made me fed like he actually cared," she said.