By Keyonna Summers
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 13, 2006
Thirty-three-year-old single
mother Rose remembers the scratchy feel of a food stamp in her palm and the
embarrassment she felt as she used it to purchase groceries so that her son
wouldn't go hungry.
The Olney resident said she slipped in and out of the
welfare system for years as she struggled to scrape together funds for her
college classes and the electricity bills for her two-bedroom Silver Spring
apartment on a yearly $9,000 salary.
"I had a dead-end job, not making enough money for
the cost of living, to support myself and my son," said Rose, who asked
that her last name not be used. "It was just poverty from check to
check."
But thanks to the Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS)
program, a federal welfare-to-housing program offered through the Montgomery
County Housing Opportunities Commission, Rose -- like hundreds of other
Montgomery County residents -- has within the past year forged a remarkable turnaround.
She now has a good-paying job as an administrative
assistant for an accounting firm, the keys to a three-bedroom town house and a
new lease on life.
Created 12 years ago, Montgomery County's FSS program
provides an avenue for families in public housing and Section 8 programs --
most of them black single moms -- to reduce their dependency on welfare and
steer their lives down a path of educational and financial success, home
ownership and independence within five to seven years.
Participants voluntarily enter contracts outlining
milestone dates for personal goals, which they must complete in order to
graduate. They team with a caseworker who guides their progress and refers them
to education, job training, counseling, child care, transportation and other
support services. Families build savings in escrow accounts used to buy homes.
The Montgomery County program is part of a larger
federally mandated Housing and Urban Development project created by the first
Bush administration that in 15 years has given more than 52,000 single moms and
families the opportunity to realize their middle-class dreams.
Statistics show the Montgomery County program has
changed lives.
Ninety-five percent of participants are single parents,
and about 30 percent are on welfare or unemployed.
Many lack high school diplomas and job skills, struggle
with illiteracy, face language barriers or suffer from low self-esteem,
organizers say.
But a third of the program's graduates in Montgomery
County have risen from unemployment or welfare assistance to self-sufficiency,
and about 82 percent took job skills or education training. Graduates, on
average, triple their incomes.
More than 100 of the county's total 447 graduates are
homeowners.
"To live in Montgomery County is not easy. It's
not a particularly cheap place to live [so] our record for helping get them
into home ownership in an expensive area like this is really remarkable,"
said Lillian Durham, director of resident services. "They need time more
than anything else, and this program allows them to have that."
Lagena Smith, an FSS graduate and mentor who lives in
Silver Spring, agrees.
"I had things really stacked up against me,"
said Miss Smith, 36, detailing her rise from a welfare recipient to a
consulting firm receptionist logging $28,000 a year to deputy director for
facilities at the District-based law firm Williams & Connolly, where her
income is fast approaching six figures.
"I got pregnant at 16 [and] left home at 17,"
she said. "I was considered a statistic ... but I've succeeded, and I
haven't even reached my career peak yet."
Her contract goal was a bachelor's degree, but Miss
Smith did the contract one better, earning a master's in business administration.
The child care services allowed her to attend night classes while she worked
her way up the corporate ladder.
Miss Smith bought her first home in March 1999, using
the budgeting skills taught by her FSS mentor. Today, she lobbies for continued
FSS funding on Capitol Hill.
"It can be done," she said. "We just
need to help people and that's what I try to do: I tell people all the time, if
I can do it, you can do it."
Rose, who landed a job within four months of attending
an FSS resume-writing and interviewing workshop, attributes her success to the
support from caseworkers, mentors and participants.
"The workshops, they meet you at your level [and
there's a] common bond that us single women have," Rose said. "We're
single parents trying to get ahead."
Despite the program's success, organizers worry federal
budget cuts may stifle the little-known effort.
HUD cut back FSS funding after Congress initiated an
across-the-board reduction of 1 percent, said Jeff Lubell, executive director
of the D.C.-based Center for Housing Policy.
"The effort to reduce the costs of the Section 8
voucher program is in some ways putting pressure on programs like the one in
Montgomery County," he said.
He emphasizes that the effects are likely
unintentional.
FSS "has a track record of success but it's fairly
small in size, and it's not really on anyone's radar," he said. "I
hope once [Congress and others] realize it, they'll fix it."
So does Rose.
"If they cut [the program], it's just going to be
more women on welfare," she said.