Help Needed When Welfare Benefits Lapse
DETROIT (WWJ) - Mayor Dave Bing has been reaching out to community-based organizations for help in assisting the 5,000 Detroit families who will lose their welfare benefits come October 1.
Detroit Workforce Development Department Director Pamela Moore said Workforce Development needs help to handle the increase in clients who will be coming in after their cash assistance is cut off.
"We need more access centers, we the department, where we can set up resource rooms," said Moore. "We'll find some computers, but a place where people can go, get familiar with computers, learn how to job search," she said.
"So, we need community-based organizations and some nonprofits and maybe the philanthropic community ... we really need some assistance right now," Moore said.
Workforce Development is also inviting in welfare recipients to a series of orientations at Cobo Center in early October.
A stricter, four-year lifetime limit on cash welfare benefits was signed into law early this month by Governor Rick Snyder.
City Councilwoman JoAnne Watson said she thinks the Mayor should be more aggressive in dealing with the state.
"We can't be doing nice talk when our people are dying," Watson said.
"We already have the highest level of poverty and foreclosure and unemployment, and now we're gonna have thousands and thousands, disproportionally, Detroiters who are going to be moved into nothing. They will have nothing," she said.
The state is offering 90 days of housing assistance for those who participate in a job training program. The governor also said that the state will offer exemptions for those with a disability who cannot work.
