Welfare-to-Work Program – Ohio

Ohio pushes welfare recipients to find work and exit the system, By Mark Guarino, October 15, 2012, Christian Science Monitor: “Karen Owens dreams of one day getting a job – perhaps becoming certified as a substance abuse counselor. But when a state welfare official told her she had to get a job immediately or risk losing her public assistance, her doctor repeatedly warned county officials she was not ready. A litany of diagnosed mental illnesses, including post traumatic disorder from the 17 years she was homeless on the streets of Cleveland, as well as a life of drug and alcohol addiction that landed her in prison several times, meant she had trouble coping with the filing job the county found her last spring. ‘I’d hold my ears, it would be so loud in there, it was just crazy. I had panic attacks, I cried. At the same time, I needed a way for my daughter to eat,’ she says. The experiment failed. Ms. Owens is back out of work and drawing money from Social Security. But it is a window into how many states have trimmed their welfare rolls to meet a goal laid out in a mid-2000s federal law. Now, Ohio is one of three states still scrambling to meet that standard. It has to get at least half of all adults receiving assistance into a work activity or face $135 million in penalties later this fall…”