[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 29, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E784]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                FAMILY SERVICES IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 1997

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 29, 1997

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, as a Member of the Appropriations Committee, 
I am particularly concerned that our tax dollars be spent efficiently 
and effectively. Congress has created hundreds of programs that help 
communities and families deal with numerous issues related to 
joblessness, homelessness, poor health, and education. We created each 
of these programs with its own rules and regulations to deal with 
specific problems. In some areas where local needs do not perfectly fit 
the problems covered by these programs, services for children and 
families are vastly inadequate. In other areas, services overlap and 
duplicate each other. Multiple programs may point multiple case workers 
toward a single family, but each individual case worker only handles 
one aspect of that family's needs. I believe the time is long overdue 
for Congress to deal with this problem. We must coordinate our 
categorical programs to provide more effective and efficient help to 
children and families.
  Imagine a single mom who is trying to get off welfare. She gets up in 
the morning and helps her two children, ages 4 and 7, get ready for 
school. Together, they walk down the street to the bus stop. All three 
of them get on the bus together and go to school. Mom drops the 4-year-
old off at Head Start, takes the 7-year-old to second grade, and goes 
down the hall to her own computer literacy and graduate equivalency 
degree classes.
  When the family needs immunizations or health screenings, they can go 
to the school-based clinic. There is also a social services office at 
the school. The social services coordinator can help the family find 
housing, food, and health care. There is also a job placement 
coordinator down the hall to help mom find a job when she finishes her 
classes.
  At the end of the day, the family goes home from school together. Mom 
cooks a meal she learned about in her nutrition course taught by the 
school nurse. She gives her children jobs in the kitchen recommended by 
the parent education coordinator.
  The kinds like going to school. They know it's important, because mom 
goes to school, too. Mom talks to their teachers every day and knows if 
there is a problem in the classroom. If one of the kids is sick, mom is 
at school to take care of them. Instead of spending her day traveling 
from school to GED classes to computer training to social service 
office after social service office, mom can focus on her most important 
tasks: caring for her children and learning marketable skills so she 
can find a job and support her family.
  Unfortunately, this model of coordinated, one-stop programs to help 
children and families move off of government assistance is rare. Last 
fall, I pretended that I was a welfare parent for a day. I needed help 
with child support enforcement, housing, school registration, child 
care, and heating my home through the winter. Even though caseworkers 
expedited my applications, I spent more than 2 hours driving across 
southern Maryland collecting several hundred pages of application 
forms.
  Our service system is too disconnected. There are literally scores of 
different programs in separate parts of each community. Caseworkers 
spend far too much time dealing with redtape and paperwork, multiple 
eligibility criteria, application processes, and service requirements. 
These workers may not know about each other or talk to each other, even 
when they are helping the same families.
  We have asked families to get back on their feet so they can take 
care of themselves and their children but our maze of Federal rules, 
regulations, and systems makes it more difficult for community programs 
to assist families in doing this. We must help these families help 
themselves by reinventing a system of coordinated, one-stop programs.
  This is why I am reintroducing the Family Services Improvement Act. 
The bill takes important steps to correct these problems. It seeks to 
eliminate Federal redtape and unnecessary regulation. It will give 
local programs the flexibility they need to address local problems. It 
will create incentives for program coordination which will serve 
children and families better while making more efficient use of our 
resources. It will shift Federal attention to outcomes so we can make 
sure that we are getting real results for our taxpayer dollar. Our 
taxpayers, and our children, deserve nothing less.

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