Welfare-to-work initiative pathways to success project for Dorchester, Roxbury and South Boston neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts
Date
2001
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Southern New Hampshire University
Abstract
Welfare-to-work changed the former entitlement program, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), to a time-limited, work-based program known as Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC). The Commonwealth's new welfare system, in conjunction with federal reforms in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, limits benefits to 24 months in any consecutive 60-month period, subject to several statuary exceptions. The TAFDC program also requires that welfare recipients, in order to retain benefit eligibility, must actively seek employment through an intensive, structured job search process. With the Commonwealth's two-year time limit entering into effect on December 1, 1996, a number of welfare recipients lost their benefit eligibility after December 1, 1998. Welfare recipients living in Dorchester and Roxbury communities who are unable to find work after benefit termination would suffer great difficulty meeting their needs as a result. This new WtW initiative initially launched by the Boston Technical Venture Center (BTVC) is designed to link local residents in Boston's most disadvantaged neighborhoods, who lack sufficient education and training, to the technology marketplace. This new initiative will entail community outreach for "hard-to-employ" and other eligible TAFDC recipients, hiring them for production/assembly jobs at the BTVC developing an on-site Training Program and providing on-site case management for them. It targets low-income residents, long-term or time-limit welfare recipients, former recipients who have exhausted their time-limited benefits, and non-custodian parents (with minor children who are eligible for, or are receiving TAFDC, or other related benefits, as specified). (Author Abstract)
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