Counties Fear Financial and Social Impacts of Federal Welfare Reform

In the wake of sweeping welfare reform in Congress, California counties braced Thursday for the possibility that families bounced from welfare will turn in droves to county governments and private charities that already are financially strapped and ill-prepared to take on a massive new burden.

In the San Joaquin Valley, one of the poorest regions in the state, county officials said the depressed economy with its dearth of new jobs simply cannot absorb welfare recipients suddenly removed from the rolls.

“This has been called the valley of the poor, and for good reason,” said Greg Wellman, head of human services for Merced County, a mostly agricultural area where one-third of the population is on welfare. “What jobs are they going to find in a place where the unemployment rate is 18% to 20%?”

A major concern of local officials in both rural and suburban counties is the provision in the law, to be signed by President Clinton, that would make legal immigrants ineligible for welfare and other assistance.

“Those who will be hurt most in San Francisco will be elderly immigrants, primarily from Asia,” said Michael Wald, San Francisco’s director of human services. “The elderly are scared.”

In the Imperial Valley along the border with Mexico, a third of the caseload in the federally supported Aid to Families With Dependent Children program is made up of legal immigrants.

“There is no way on earth [county] General Assistance could handle that many people,” said Jim Semmes, social services director for Imperial County. “I don’t think our [private and public] resources combined could help those people.”

Ron Roberts, chairman of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, applauded the philosophic shift behind the welfare reforms. But he said counties will need assistance from the state to avoid being driven into bankruptcy. He planned to speak to Gov. Pete Wilson at Wilson’s birthday party Thursday about the issue.

“My hope is that reasonable minds will help us resolve this in a way that works,” he said.

Ernest Velasquez, head of social services for Fresno County, estimated that 25,000 legal immigrants receiving welfare in Fresno County would be ineligible under the new law. The county now receives about $70 million a year in federal welfare money to sustain those 25,000 immigrants, he said.

“I don’t think there is a county in the state that depends more on welfare than Fresno,” Velasquez said. “And these federal dollars don’t just go into some hole. They reverberate through our economy. They buy groceries, they buy tires, they buy clothes and shoes and pay the rent. Kmart might have to close its doors.”

In changing the federal philosophy of welfare from a lifetime safety net to a short-term boost, the bill shifts the burden to counties which, under state law, must provide aid to people who are needy but ineligible for federal welfare programs.

“It’s a double whammy for the small poor counties,” Yuba County Administrator Jan Dunstan said. “Not only do we have proportionally more people who would fall into the [welfare] category, but we are less able financially to support them.”

Even if the state changes the law to give counties more flexibility to deny aid, there will still be dangerous ramifications, Dunstan said.

If the poor are cut off entirely, counties may see more mentally ill on the streets, more crime and more illness, Dunstan said.

The welfare bill is “essentially pushing the burden down to the lowest level of government that has the least amount of money and that can least afford it,” she said.

San Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin, president of the California State Assn. of Counties, said the measure will mean a “whopping tax bill of $10 billion over the next six years” as counties struggle to help poor families who are no longer eligible for AFDC or Social Security.

“This is not welfare reform,” Nevin said. “It is politics as usual. Politicians in Washington want to get their 15-second election-year sound bite. . . . [But] what they have done is slide the bill for those benefits under the doorstep of local taxpayers.”

Part of the increased burden on local general assistance would result from the federal provision making legal immigrants ineligible not only for AFDC payments but also for Supplement Security Income, a joint federal and state program.

Established in 1974 for elderly, disabled and blind people, SSI has increasingly become a primary means of support for immigrants who are sponsored here by relatives but who often go on public assistance. The eligibility categories are so broad that a wide range of people qualify for the monthly checks.

Supporters of banning legal immigrants from SSI say too many come to the United States specifically to take advantage of the program.

Angelo Doti, financial assistance director at the Social Services Agency in Orange County, said he generally supports the welfare reform bill because it aims to step up child support collection efforts and provides incentives for welfare-dependent people to work.

But he fears that a wave of new general relief recipients would drain resources. Last year the county’s general relief program served about 3,000 people. Adding 22,000 is unthinkable, Doti said.

“The remedy, if there is one, would have to be through the Legislature to give counties more flexibility in whether, or how, to operate General Assistance programs,” said John Blacklock, chief administrative officer of Butte County. “As long as we are the safety net, that is where many of these folks might end up.”

Butte County teetered on the edge of bankruptcy several years ago and still struggles to fund public services. The county is a magnet for the down-and-out, who are attracted by low housing prices and a relatively scenic environment, Blacklock said.

“We are unable to deliver good levels of basic services to our citizens now,” Blacklock said, “and we have no room to cut to provide additional funds for any more forms of social service programs.”

One irony of the welfare change is that many counties have tried for years to make general relief hard to get by increasing eligibility rules and keeping payments low.

In San Bernardino County, applicants must try to find work unless they are disabled, cannot own a home valued at more than $32,000, cannot have more than $250 in the bank, and cannot have a car worth more than $750 unless they are searching for work.

“We are tightwads,” said Robert McDonald, deputy director of the county’s Department of Social Services.

County officials worry that if legal immigrants now receiving federal SSI turn to counties for welfare, the number of people receiving general relief will skyrocket. In San Bernardino County, it would rise from fewer than 500 to 8,000 or more, at a cost of $26 million a year.

“This would have a terrible impact on the county,” McDonald said. “If we end up having to pick this up, it will have to come out of our other non-discretionary county programs. And that, most likely, would be law enforcement.”

Carol Birckhead, also a deputy director of the department, expressed another concern about the federal welfare overhaul.

“San Bernardino County embraces the idea of changing the program and emphasizing self-sufficiency,” she said. “But I don’t think there are 65,000 jobs out there [for former welfare recipients].”

“We knew it was coming and we know it’s going to be a tremendous change,” said Semmes of Imperial County. “But just how we’re going to cope is anyone’s guess.”

Times staff writers Tom Gorman in San Bernardino and Lisa Richardson and Lily Dizon in Orange County contributed to this story.