New to the System : Laid-Off Professionals and Skilled Laborers Seeking Welfare Aid

More and more fired and laid-off workers are joining Ventura County’s hard-core unemployed in welfare lines, asking for their chunks of a dwindling pie.

The number of family welfare cases rose by almost 20% to include 11,557 in 1993, according to the latest report from the Public Social Services Agency, with unemployment-related cases jumping by more than one-third.

Gov. Pete Wilson’s welfare reforms pared the amount of aid available to Ventura County welfare recipients to $6.53 million in 1993, or 8.4% more than the amount spent in 1992, said the report, which was released last week.

The newest of the poor--laid-off professionals and skilled laborers--are frustrated and insulted by the process, caseworkers say.

They simply cannot believe how little welfare pays.

“They just roll their eyes and go, ‘My goodness, how do they expect you to live on this?’ ” said Karl Arasmith, a welfare caseworker in Simi Valley.

The county welfare system helps indigent people through three programs: the state-funded, general relief program for single adults; the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, and the federal food stamp program.

Many of the newest recipients are jobless workers whose state-managed unemployment benefits have run out.

Cuts to welfare benefits over the past two years have shaved the monthly welfare check for two people--for example, a mother and child with no income--from $535 to $490.

“They say, ‘I can’t even rent an apartment on that,’ ” Arasmith said. “And (I) say, ‘Well, you’ve got to redo some of your thinking.’ ”

Food stamp grants, $206 a month for two people with no income, have increased only slightly in recent years, and recipients often complain.

“They’re always running out of food in the middle of the month,” said Retha Meurs, a caseworker in the Oxnard-based office that oversees Camarillo, Port Hueneme, Santa Paula, Fillmore and Somis.

For many new welfare recipients, shame comes with the handout.

“In the last four months, we’ve seen more people that apply that have degrees and their companies have folded and moved out of the county,” Meurs said.

“Most are pretty embarrassed,” she said. “When they come in, they say, ‘I’m only going to do this for a month.’ A lot of them end up getting off (welfare) after six months--they have degrees, they’re looking for other work. But some end up staying on the aid because they can’t find a job.”

It’s not for lack of trying, she said.

The Public Social Services Agency works to prod people off public assistance and into jobs as soon as possible.

It offers more aid to people who find temporary work. The agency’s Greater Avenues for Independence program provides mandatory job counseling for nearly all welfare recipients except disabled people, pregnant women in their third trimester and mothers with children under age 3, Meurs said.

Yet the caseload increases as the economy keeps more people out of work longer, said Karla Olander, who oversees the welfare offices countywide.

The rise in cases, she said, could mean that recipients are staying on welfare longer.

“It could be an indicator that there are more people staying on longer and their unemployment benefits are running out,” Olander said. “They’re having to come to us for help, whereas before they were probably going back to work before they lost their unemployment.”

As laid-off workers add to the new cases, so do the more traditional types of welfare recipients, said Teresa Elenes, manager of the Camarillo-Santa Paula welfare office in Oxnard.

“We are pretty used to the third or fourth generation of people coming in, where we know the grandmother and mother,” she said. “We hear stories of younger people . . . now their kids are wanting their own case files. Your heart goes out to these (other) people that have worked all their lives.”

The welfare application forms ask intimate details of personal lives and take more than an hour to fill out, said Maria Older, Ventura district office manager.

“They ask you everything under the sun, and some of it’s very personal,” she said. “It’s worse than the income tax form.”

Bill of Simi Valley, who declined to give his last name, reluctantly applied last week for welfare and food stamps. He is trying to retrain himself after a back and leg injury ended his job as a spray painter.

He is a “pinkie,” as Simi Valley caseworkers call the first-time applicants who carry their pink application forms into the clutch of cramped cubicles.

Hunkered over the desk in a 7-by-9-foot cubicle with caseworker Valerie Wilson, Bill answered several personal questions:

Who is his landlord? How old is his landlord? Who lives in his house with him? Are they working? Do they share or prepare meals there with him? Are any of them illegal immigrants? Does he have any bank accounts? Does he own any real estate or personal property? What kind of car does he drive?

Then she read him his rights, saying he must keep answering such questions if he hopes to receive aid.

“You are required to cooperate with the county, state or federal staff,” Wilson said, reading the governmental fine print. “You may not get benefits, or your benefits will be stopped if you do not cooperate.”

As the interview continued, he told a reporter: “I’m just really doing what I have to do to make ends meet. I don’t like it at all. It’s very uncomfortable. I was always brought up that you pull your own weight around and you don’t like to get handouts.”

As difficult as the application process is, there are no guarantees.

Many laid-off professionals have too much money set aside or earn unemployment benefits that disqualify them for welfare.

“It’s hard for them,” Arasmith said. “They’re amazed at what our gross income and property limits are. One-third don’t even qualify because they exceed our maximum limits.”

Single applicants for food stamps must earn no more than $756 a month.

“Some of them are OK with it, but others are mad at the system,” he said. “They feel they paid into the system. . . . They curse you out and say things like, ‘If I were a Mexican, Spanish-speaking person here illegally with 12 kids, you’d be giving me aid.’ That’s not true, but that’s how they feel.”

Lillian Sharples fumed on the sidewalk outside the Simi Valley welfare office.

Sharples said she was two months behind on her rent after GTE fired her while she was seeking workers’ compensation for job-related stress. She said caseworkers warned her that she will probably be turned down for welfare benefits.

The problem is that she owns a 10-year-old Cadillac. She cannot prove to caseworkers that she is unable to get work or visit doctors without a car, but she would not get much if she sold the car.

“After nearly 30 years working in this country, my country’s telling me to go live out on the street,” groused Sharples, 48, who is originally from Liverpool, England.

“I had to borrow money from my friend just to buy toilet paper,” she said, “after working and paying into this system for 30 years.”

As the caseload grows, welfare offices countywide are running out of space, caseworkers said.

In Simi Valley, caseworkers sometimes must meet clients in conference rooms because all the cubicles are occupied, said Kathi Strahl, district manager.

Caseworkers who once handled 145 cases a month now handle 185 a month, she said.

In Oxnard, clients from Camarillo and Santa Paula often wait up to an hour for a caseworker and a cubicle, Meurs said.

The extra caseworkers added to the regional offices force staff to squeeze themselves and case files into conference rooms, Elenes said.

“We put workers and cases in every nook and cranny that we could,” she said. “We are at our capacity with the spaces we have.”