Molly Ivins June 4

AUSTIN, Texas — As we all know, when you squeeze the toothpaste tube hard enough, if it doesn't come out one end, it will come out the other. The Texas Department of Human Services has been squeezing mightily on the welfare system — and trumpeting its success in news releases and internal memos. Welfare rolls are down! A triumph for welfare reform! Unfortunately, the clientele at food banks is up dramatically. For every cheerful bureaucrat claiming victory at the Texas Department of Human Services, you can find an exhausted hunger worker sounding increasingly discouraged.

Human Services now has an award, the Commissioner's Cup, that goes to the region with the best record for 1) talking clients out of applying for welfare in the first place (called "redirects" in DHS jargon) and 2) getting those now on temporary assistance transferred to the transitional benefits program.

There's just one problem with "redirects": By law, states have to have a plan for medical assistance, and citizens have a right to apply for it and a right to due process. DHS Commissioner Eric Bost recently wrote state Rep. Dale Tillery about the "effort to help clients and potential clients understand the requirements of federal Welfare Reform legislation and how they have limited lifetime benefits that affect not only them but their children. ... When someone comes in to apply for Temporary Assistance, we explain about time limits and the process for applying for assistance, and inform that 'Work' is better than 'Welfare.' However, this is an informing process, and the potential client is free to choose to apply for assistance or to look for work instead."

Right. Except that more and more people who come in to apply for help are under the impression that they are being "informed" they can't get any.

The happy recipient of the first Commissioner's Cup, for the first quarter of this year, is the Abilene Region, with an impressive total of 11,848 "unduplicated redirects" and a total cost avoidance of $2,644,696. I know we are all pleased and proud for them. There was an impressive second-place finish from the El Paso Region, which is pushing uphill against a regional unemployment rate of 9.93 percent.

Meanwhile, Nancy Gibson, director of the Food Bank of Abilene, reports that 1.8 million pounds of food were distributed through food banks there in 1996.

That went up to 2.7 million in 1997; the figures for early '98 continue to soar.

Barbara Anderson of the East Texas Food Bank, covering 27 counties between Dallas and Louisiana, found an increase of 25 percent in pounds-distributed between '96 and '97, with the numbers still shooting up. In March, the East Texas Food Bank distributed 370,000 pounds; in April, 511,000.

Anderson said: "Now that the kids are out of school, they're getting no hot meals — certainly no hot breakfast or lunch. These are latch-key kids; there is no child care. You can safely say we're up 25 percent to 30 percent because of welfare reform. If we're doing that, I can't imagine what the inner-city people are doing."

In a study released in March by Second Harvest, reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the nation's largest hunger-relief organization and supplier to many Texas food banks, came up with a profile of hunger in what is supposed to be a booming economy. The clientele of food banks consists of children, seniors and the working poor. In North Central Texas, served by the Tarrant Area Food Bank with almost 250 member organizations, these percentages are higher than the national average: Children under 18 make up 45 percent of the clients, and people over 65 constitute 27 percent.

Among adults who receive emergency food, 62 percent lack a high school diploma. Randy Clinton, executive director of the Community Enrichment Center in North Richland Hills, told the Star-Telegram in March: "That's the working poor. They can get jobs, but they're uneducated, and they get jobs at $6 an hour or minimum wage, and trying to take care of a family, they can't do it." Forty percent of those who come to food banks say they are recently unemployed.

As a matter of logic, we must conclude that there is a significant overlap between these recently unemployed and the "redirects" who have been sternly warned by the Department of Human Services that if they persist in applying for Temporary Assistance, they will be using up their lifetime allotment of time on welfare. Well, that's the way it is with toothpaste and hungry people. How nice that the stock market is up.

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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