Helping Dorchester's
Refugees Find Work
 Bowdoin Park welfare office in Dorchester. |
The 46-year-old immigrant sitting in the Dorchester office of the Vietnamese American Civic Association (VACA) is about to begin his first job in America. He'll be washing cars in Needham for $8 an hour. The man, who wished to remain anonymous, came to the US from Vietnam in 1995 with his wife and children. Since his arrival here he has been receiving public assistance from the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA), but those benefits were set to be discontinued on December 1, when his new two-year time limit was scheduled to expire.
Passage of the 1995 Massachusetts welfare reform law and the 1996 federal Welfare Reform Act have led to dramatic changes in the way cash assistance in distributed to low-income families in the state. Under the reforms, people are now only eligible to receive public assistance for two years within a five-year period. Moreover, those who receive assistance must also work part-time while they are receiving benefits.
In recent weeks the Dorchester father of five has been attending a VACA job-assistance program for people who are about to be dropped from the welfare rolls. Funded by the DTA, the program escorts clients to job interviews and includes a 15-hour class to develop job-search skills.
Helping the Vietnamese immigrant population in Dorchester find jobs hasn't been easy, say social service workers involved in helping them make the transition from welfare to work. "It's really hard," says Xuan Bai, the VACA program's case manager. "Right now we have 20 people in our program. Only five have a job."
"People are still in their dream," says VACA caseworker Phuong-Mai Nguyen, who adds that some recipients don't want to accept the fact that their benefits are about to end.
A number of factors contribute to the difficulties welfare recipients face as they turn from welfare to work, including limited English skills, lack of work experience in the US, worries about child care, and lack of confidence in their ability to function in the workplace. Moreover, some recipients have become dependent on welfare and are no longer eager to find jobs. Of the many welfare recipients eligible for the VACA program only a handful have consistently showed up, says one caseworker.
Many of the Vietnamese who have been receiving welfare in the US had traumatic experiences before their arrival here. The father of five, for example, served in the South Vietnamese army during the Vietnam War and was jailed when the North Vietnamese invaded the South. He spent four-and-a-half years as a political prisoner, then worked as a farmer after his release. Sponsored by a friend to come to this country, he has been living in Dorchester and receiving welfare since his arrival in the US.
When he first arrived here he received $850 a month in benefits, but that amount was eventually reduced to $672 a month after his wife began working part-time as a stitcher in a garment factory. He says he pays $850 per month in rent.
While he says he would like to work in the US, he worries that his limited English skills (he has taken two, three-month English courses since his arrival here) will hurt his job prospects. He says he is also concerned that he and his wife won't have enough time to spend with their children - aged 7 to 23 - if both of them are working. Two of his children are now attending city high schools and one is attending Fisher College, he says.
Bai says that finding a job for men tends to be easier because their English skills are generally better and most of them can drive to a job if public transportation isn't available. But finding jobs for women who have been receiving welfare is often more complex, particularly if they are single mothers.
Another welfare recipient who is scheduled to lose her benefits soon is a 46-year-old mother of four who has been receiving assistance since 1984. Bai recently took the woman to the Marriott Hotel in Copley Square to interview for a housekeeping job, but the woman didn't receive a job because her language skills were too limited. She was also unable to work the second shift and couldn't drive.
The most difficult people to help are single parents, says Bai. "It's hard to motivate them," she adds. "In their culture the women stay home."
The woman, who also wished to remain anonymous, left Vietnam by boat with her 7-year-old child and two younger brothers. She made it to a refugee camp in Malaysia and eventually came to Louisiana as a refugee. She tried to get her former husband to sponsor her to come to the US, but he was unwilling to help her because he had remarried since arriving in the US in 1975.
After her arrival in the US she had three more children (aged 6, 8, and 10) by different fathers. The fathers, however, have not been providing support for their children, she says.
The woman, who currently receives $290 in food stamps and $600 in cash assistance, says she was supposed to lose her cash benefits Dec. 1 but was granted an eight-week extension. She says she has been trying to find a job but has neither work experience nor a driving license.
Bai suggests that people receiving public assistance in the Dorchester Vietnamese community include people who have genuine needs as well as those who have been taking advantage of the system. "You don't really know who really needs welfare and who doesn't," says Bai. Single mothers are generally the people who have a genuine need for welfare support, she adds, but "for other people I think they should go back to work."
The ongoing changes that are forcing people off the welfare rolls in record numbers originated with the signing of a welfare reform law by Gov. William Weld in 1995. At the time the bill was signed there were reportedly 102,993 families receiving Aid to Families with dependent Children; in December, however, that number had been reduced to 58,961.
While a booming economy has apparently contributed to the decline, changes in regulations governing the distribution of cash assistance appears to be the biggest factor in the decrease. Under the new regulations, families are only eligible for Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children for two years within a five year period. Extensions beyond the two-year cutoff will also be granted to some recipients who are working but not earning sufficient income, as well as to recipients who have been unable to find work despite making a good-faith effort to find a job.
Also exempt from the two-year cutoff are families with disabilities; families who care for a disabled person; women in the last 120 days of pregnancy; families with a child under age 2; teen parents who are attending school full time, a GED program, or a training program; and people 60 or older.
Under the new regulations, people who are receiving cash assistance will also be required to work 20 hours in a paying job or in a community service job. Recipients will be allowed to keep the first $120 of their monthly earnings, plus one-half of the balance before deductions are made in their payments.
Teen parents or teens who are pregnant must either attend a school or GED program full time while they are receiving cash assistance. Those who fail to meet these educational requirements will have their benefits reduced and eventually eliminated. Most teens receiving cash support are also required to live with parents, an adult, or in a structured setting.
Transitional child care may also be provided to recipients for up to one year after their cases have been closed. The DTA will also provide families with help in finding work, including programs such as the one currently available through VACA.
Vietnamese refugees have been coming to the US since the 1970s. From 5000 to 6000 Vietnamese now live in Dorchester, which currently has the state's largest Vietnamese community. While programs offering cash assistance for refugees provided 36 months of cash assistance in the early 1980s, similar programs today offer only eight months to refugees without families, reflecting a trend to encourage people to become self-sufficient as soon as possible. Refugees who have families immediately enter the DTA system and are limited to two years of assistance, like other recipients.
Phuoc Cao, acting director of the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants (MORI), believes that welfare reform is a positive development because its goal is to help make people self-sufficient. Moreover, he adds, the changes should make it more difficult for people to "manipulate the system." He says MORI records show that 63 percent of refugees who receive eight-months of cash assistance and do not receive DTA services are able to become self-sufficient within one year of their arrival in the US.
A key player in the Vietnamese community's ongoing effort to help people adapt to the new welfare regulations is Misen Chau, a social worker at the DTA's Bowdoin Park office in Dorchester. In recent years, Chau has organized numerous conferences and training programs to help people in the Dorchester community prepare for the changes. "A lot of people don't believe the welfare reform is a real one," he says. "In the last three years we spent a lot of time. We tried our best to send out the information."
"We ask people to take a step to become independent," says Chau, who believes that a support system is in place for most people to ease the transition from welfare to work. Child care and Medicaid, for example, will continue to be available to people for a year after they find work. The DET has also been steering clients to employment services and job-training programs.
Chau says the Bowdoin Park office currently has 2,796 families receiving assistance, including 616 who are Asian (529 are Vietnamese). He says that of the 2,796 families currently receiving benefits, 273 are scheduled to lose their benefits soon because their two-year eligibility period is about to expire. Of the 273 about to lose their benefits, 65 are Vietnamese.
Chau believes that helping people enter the work force is a positive development. "I believe it's a good thing for the Vietnamese community because when you come to a new country you should adopt to a new culture," he says.
Chau says it's important for Vietnamese children to see their parents working in the US. "You have to be role model," he says, adding, "You come here not for yourself."
At the same time, Chau says he recognizes the difficulty some people may have making the transition from welfare to work as well as the shortcomings of some services geared to the Vietnamese community.
He points out that the background of some clients makes it more difficult to find them jobs. Many, for example, have little education or were political prisoners in Vietnam. He also believes that more people need English as a second language courses to prepare them for the workplace. "They don't really target ESL," he says of the current transition plan.
Chau also believes that the community-service component of the new welfare regulations are a burden to Vietnamese recipients who may be better off using the time to learn English and find a job.
Vincent Yee, a career associate at JobNet, a Department of Employment and Training program that helps DET clients find jobs, goes to Bowdoin Park every week to register people for an employment program. He says lack of English, transportation difficulties, and an unwillingness to find a job are factors that come into play in his effort to help people find work. While Yee recently found one Vietnamese client a factory job at the Colehersee Co. in South Boston, he points out that some people he has tried to help are less willing to focus on their job search and tend to give excuses for not finding a job. "Sometimes I find a good job for them but they say, 'Today I can't go to find a job,'" he says.
Joseph Casey, director of the Bowdoin Park office, says that while "we're a little bit nervous about some of those folks who would fall through the cracks," he points out that no one thought the previous system was a good one.
Asked if many people work under the table while receiving welfare, Casey said some most likely do. "The question is, do people cheat? Of course they do," though he was quick to add that the office only investigates such cases when there is evidence that cheating is occurring.
Casey suggests that the Vietnamese population presents special problems for DET social workers. "It's a more difficult population to move into employment," says Casey. "They see us as their lifeline. They're afraid to take a chance." Unlike the Chinese, who have access to a mature immigrant community and economy when they arrive in the US now, the first wave of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian refugees were less educated and fleeing from war zones.
Casey points out that "the amount of money people receive in public assistance is bare subsistence ... At some point people are better off with any job." Working, he adds, is better for people's self esteem and improves the image they present to their children.
"It's a win win win situation even if people sometimes have to be nudged to take the first step," he says.