[HPN] NYC: From welfare to work - as a telephone psychic

[Tom Boland]

http://www.bouldernews.com/opinion/columnists/5chris.html
FWD  The Daily Camera - February 5, 2000

     FROM WELFARE TO WORK - AS A TELEPHONE PSYCHIC

     Christopher R. Brauchli

"Let not ambition mock their useful toil Their homely joys, and destiny
obscure; Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile, The short and simple
annals of the poor." -- Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard

His creativity continues to astonish. In November it was the homeless, in
December those on welfare and in January an explanation of how the December
success was achieved.

In November New York's Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, issued instructions to the
police that were designed to help the homeless better their lives. What the
regulations lacked in compassion they made up for in simplicity.

New York state regulations provide that people wanting to live in homeless
shelters are required to work and if they decline to do so they must leave
the shelters and consign their children to foster care. To enhance the
program Mr. Giuliani instructed New York police to devote their energies to
putting in jail those living in the street instead of homeless shelters.
Thus, those who had been thrown out of the homeless shelters for failing to
follow state regulations (or who had never taken up residence there) found
themselves the object of increased police scrutiny with the result that
many of them substituted life in jail for life on the streets. That is
because, among other things, sleeping on streets or sidewalks or in
cardboard boxes that were erected without building permits qualified them
for time in jail.

That was such a clever idea that it momentarily caused one to forget that
18 months ago Mr. Giuliani had announced another new initiative. It was a
plan to alter welfare in New York City by shifting thousands of recipients
into work, job training or treatment and cutting off benefits for the rest.
In early January we were advised that Mr. Giuliani had met his goal. He
announced that all able bodied welfare recipients without infant children
were either in jobs or taking steps to get them. As he explained, "Today
marks the milestone of replacing the culture of dependency in New York City
with the culture of work and employment."

The success is reflected more in the numbers than in the lives of the
welfare recipients. As of December 20, 1999, there were 266,628 cases in
New York City's welfare system and all of them had been assigned,
assignment being the hallmark of success.

23,004 cases were considered assigned because the people in those cases
missed appointments or otherwise failed to participate in programs set up
by the state. As a result they were dropped from the welfare rolls and were
no longer dependent on welfare since they received no benefits.

33,857 are assigned because they are contesting the work requirements that
have been imposed on them. They are awaiting a fair hearing and while
waiting continue to receive benefits. 7,584 are assigned by virtue of being
temporarily disabled, 20,099 because they are indefinitely disabled and
50,480 because of age, disability or caring for a newborn. All of those
categories continue to receive benefits. 131,604 cases comprise people who
are actually working, are assigned to a job or training program or are
being evaluated.

In January we were told of one of the methods used by Mr. Giuliani to
achieve this remarkable result. It is Business Link, a division of the
city's Human Resources Administration that finds and trains workers who are
on the welfare rolls. Welfare recipients are required to attend a screening
session during which the administration determines the kind of work for
which they may be suited and puts them in touch with potential employers.

One of the jobs that was available until Jan. 27, the day it was reported
in the New York Times, was the job of telephone psychic. Although not the
sort of thing one might have expected welfare recipientsto be good at,
according to a flyer put out by the city, all it takes to become a
telephone psychic is high-school graduation or a high-school equivalency
degree, a bit of training, a "caring and compassionate personality" and the
ability "to read, write and speak English."

Asked what the city did with people who were not born psychic, a city
spokesperson said the would-be psychics would be trained, thus debunking
the notion that psychics are any different from the rest of us.The
spokesperson went on to explain that Psychic Network, the company that
hires the would-be psychics, trains them to read Tarot cards at the city's
Business Link's office. They are probably taught to do other things as well
but the city spokesperson didn't get into them because she had promised
participating companies that those matters would be confidential.

The good work that the phone-psychics do it available for all to see by
watching late night television when one is instructed on what number to
call in order to get a consultation with one of the former welfare
recipients who, having solved his or her own problem, is now in a position
to help the caller do the same, thanks to the new found psychic powers of
the former welfare recipient.

The sad news is that no sooner did this creative use of former welfare
recipients make the front page of the New York Times than the city
abandoned the program because of what a spokeswoman for the department
described as "all the coverage."

Welfare recipients who hoped to become psychics but had not yet received
the training and were, therefore, unable to foresee the program's end will
have to find other work. If they want to learn what the future holds for
them they can call the psychic hotline. If they don't have the money to pay
for a call they can look to the past for an answer. So long as Mr. Guiliani
is their mayor, their future is bleak.

END FORWARD

**In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and
educational purposes only.**

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