Enterprise Foundation Newsletter, Winter/Spring 2001

MARIA, READY TO TAKE HER CHANCE

Anyone who still believes in the myth that people on welfare don’t want to work should meet Maria. After 12 years in “the system” of welfare and public assistance benefits, Maria is all too grateful to be working her own way toward a life that is more productive and satisfying than she’d ever imagined. “Wow,” she says, “this program’s really gonna help me move on.”

The program Maria refers to is HomeBASE (Building Assets and Securing Employment), a collaborative effort that combines a broad spectrum of housing and employment services in one model program. An initiative of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), the purpose of HomeBASE is to distribute 700 HUD-sponsored “Section 8” rent subsidy vouchers to families moving from welfare into the workforce. The Enterprise Foundation, charged with the program’s administration, is working not only in tandem with HPD, but also with Federated Employment and Guidance Services (FEGS), a long-trusted employment services agency, and community-based organizations in Northern Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx.

HomeBASE coordinates its housing services with its job readiness training and employment support though “program coaches,” individuals who work closely with participants through each phase of the program. “She was just excellent,” says Maria of her program coach. “She would call me, she would come by the apartment. She would explain to me in detail what to do. She’s always helping me out, asking me how I’m doing, asking what is my ambition, what are my goals, what am I going to do next.”

A single mother of three, Maria talks openly - and even philosophically - about her life on public assistance and the path that led her to HomeBASE. Taken out of school at the age of 14 to help support her family by working in factories (“My parents did what they had to do,” she says, matter-of-factly), Maria found herself pregnant at a very young age and was universally counseled to support her child through welfare. “If I knew better I would have gone to a program that would help young mothers. Maybe then I wouldn’t have ended up in the system. But that’s the only way I knew at the time.”

Years passed, and Maria struggled as well as she could to break out of the system. She even applied for a Section 8 voucher in 1990, but the demand far exceeded the supply and - in spite of her tenacious follow-up - her application never made it through the system. “That’s how depression kicks in,” Maria observes in her sanguine manner, “that’s how you feel you don’t have a chance.” Oddly enough, it was the building manager of her last apartment who referred Maria to HomeBASE after receiving an outreach flyer from Enterprise. “He liked the way I kept my apartment, and said, `I have a program for you to attend…’” He referred her to WHEDCO (Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation), Enterprise’s community-based partner in the Bronx.

Four months later, Maria is in a new apartment in a safer neighborhood where there are after-school programs for her children. “In the area where I was living,” she says, “there was nothing.” She has completed a computer training program (where she was the only student to earn a perfect attendance certificate), and now she has a part-time job at WHEDCO - in their HomeBASE program. Maria’s job description at HomeBASE includes “a little bit of everything,” from filing to keeping records to helping screen prospective participants. “I don’t just like my job,” she takes great effort to make clear, “I LOVE my job. Because I feel comfortable, because I know what I’m doing, I’m respected. I’m not looked down on the way I was when I was a PA client.”

What Maria sees down the road is “a better future for me and my children. And I’m showing my children that school is the main thing.” She just started her first semester of college, and she’s working to improve her reading and writing skills. When it comes to her long-range goals, Maria is still considering her options, though she does “want to get into a field where I could be able to help people.” “When you live in this life,” Maria says, looking back at where she’s been and where she’s going, “nobody’s going to give you anything in your hands. You have to do the hard work. But that’s okay; I’m willing to do it if the resources are out there.” She’s ready to make a better future for herself and her children, but “…right now there’s this chance that I have and I’m taking advantage of the program that is here.”

(copyright 2001 The Enterprise Foundation)