Street roots., April 15, 2011, Image 1

The Temporary Assistance for
Needy Families and related
employment services has helped
thousands o f people like Jamaica
'get
its own future looks less positive.
' P H O T O B Y JE N N IF E R J A N S O N S
BV JOANNE ZUHL
| S T A F F W R IT E R
hrough the clarity of her own past, Jamaica
Imani-Nelson can see the future, in a sense,
of thousands of Oregon families struggling to
overcome poverty and unemployment.
It does not look good.
Not too long ago, Imani-Nelson was in their
shoes, one o f the 30,000 families — including about
55,000 dependent children — using the Temporary
Assistance for Needy Families and related
programs to get back on their feet. TANF, as it’s
known, provided a small cash allowance per month,
but it also enveloped Imani-Nelson "with programs
to help her overcome her barriers to employment:
recovering alcoholism, employment gaps, a legal ,
history and incarceration. Because without a job,
and with two small children, $488 per month from
TANF was no measure of surviving.
With support, however, it worked. She competed
for and received an internship with PovertyBridge.
Within three months, she was hired and is now a
full-time employee there.
Under Gov. John Kitzhaber’s proposed budget,
an estimated 7,000 families with children will lose
that kind of stability or support. Kitzhaber is
proposing more than $67 million in reductions in
TANF as part of an across-the-board effort to
balance the budget against a $3.5 billion anticipated
shortfall, ft’s a penny-wise and pound-foolish cut,
observers say, that will result in more families
becoming homeless, more children entering foster
care, and fewer people getting back in the work
force. Earlier this month, hundreds of people who
have or currently receive TANF, along with
advocates for families and children in poverty,
testified in defense of TANF before the Joint Ways
T
and M e a n s su b c o m m itte e in S alem , spilling o u t
into the hallways and into waiting rooms to give
their testimony. Imani-Nelson was among them.
“It is our reasonable duty to make sure that our
children, our most vulnerable community members
are safe, that they are taken care of, that they are
not neglected,” Imani-Nelson says. “If this
proposed cut is set in place, we are neglecting our
reasonable duty to do just th at We will be throwing
thousands of children in Multnomah County into
the street.”
Since 2007, the caseload of people enrolled in
TANF increased 57 percent - from 18,600 families
to 30,000 today. There’s rid question that the
economic slump and chronically high
unemployment in the state have driven the
increase: The number of two-parent families on
TANF increased 330 percent in the past two years.
Approximately 95 percent of all families receiving
TANF have no earnings. The maximum from TANF
is $506 per month, with a lifetime benefit limit of
60 months, according to federal policy.
Kitzhaber’s budget would cut that down to 18
months, making it the shortest time limit in the
nation, and it would cut employment-related
childcare. On average, TANF recipients qualify for
and use TANF for 24 months.
“Even somebody receiving TANF right now, it is
hardly getting enough to pay the rent,” says Jean
DeMaster, executive director of Human Solutions,
which helps secure housing for families with
children. “Families on TANF are doubled up and
they’re just scraping by to pay the ren t If the
TANF is eliminated, they won’t have enough
money to pay the ren t It means more families stay
with other people to pay the rent, and when
landlords see that, they say, ‘No, you can’t live
lie r ^ a iia flnen p^ople^^raruecxime^oin^eS^Tt ‘
will increase homelessness, there’s no question
about that.”
Families stay oh TANF until their children can
go to school, then they go back to work, DeMaster
says. They cannot afford rent, food and childcare.
These cuts will force families to either lose all
support, or put their children in unstable or unsafe
" If this proposed cut is set in place, we are
neglecting our reasonable duty. We w ill be throwing
thousands of children in Multnomah County into the
street."
— JAMAICA IMANI-NELSON
F O R M E R T A N F R E C IP IE N T, N O W W IT H P O V E R T Y B R ID G E
environments in order to take temporary
employment.
“TANF is a safety net, and we should be
increasing TANF, not decreasing it,” DeMaster
says. “That’s the travesty in this.”
ichelle MacMurray arrived in Portland on the
run from domestic violence. She had three
babies in tow. TANF helped her get into housing,
get day care and supported her for a month, at
which point she found a job, stabilized her life, and
left TANF. “I had breathing space,” MacMurray
says.
M
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