One of the major talking points by counties in support of the racist WtW forced participation program is that participants can get child care and transportation. When the WtW program was first proposed by counties in concert with the Department of Social Services. a needs assessment for child care was done. The result was that 70% of the WtW participants will need child care.
Since then, after WtW was enacted into law as GAIN and then rebranded to WtW, less than 30% of the participants have received child care.
Transportation has also been major issue. Over the years, about 50% of participants have not received transportation. We are often asked “why”. Well, it is rather simple. Over the years there has not been a way for the WtW participant to request transportation, like a form that is readily accessible to be completed and submitted for payment. There is no statewide transportation request form due to opposition from counties.
The county welfare worker can get the travel claim, complete it and give it to clerical staff to process it. That is nice. But there is no travel claim for a WtW participant. There is no clerical staff to submit the claim to.
These are barriers that WtW participants encounter trying to get their transportation payments. In the early 2000s advocates suggested that WtW participants be empowered to submit travel claims on line. That suggestions were rejected by counties.
Some WtW participants are able to overcome these complicated “county business practice” barriers to attain transportation payments that they are entitled to according to county propagandist of WtW and many are not.
TABLE #1 shows the percentage of unduplicated participants who were able to navigate the “county business practice” erected barriers to secure the transportation services. Statewide it is 51%, which means 49% were fleeced of their transportation money.
Madera county only gave transportation to less than 11 persons out of 277 participants.
Butte County business practices were successful of making sure that 87% if the WtW participants did not get transportation.
Stanislaus County, a large county, a mix of urban and rural, denied transportation to 723 of the total 842 participants in September of 2023.
San Joaquin County 343 participants did not transportation out of 424 unduplicated participants in September of 2023.
Kern County, another urban/rural county, had 2441 unduplicated participants in September 2023. Under the Kern County Business Practices” a whopping 1,619 families were fleeced in September of 2023 by Kern County.
TABLE # 1 County Unduplicated ParticipantsGetting Transportation% Statewide 648323333151% Madera 277114% San Luis Obispo 214115% Lake 170116% Mendocino 1111110% Marin 1041111% Butte 6027913% San Francisco 127017013% Stanislaus 84211914% Merced 81011514% Trinity 721115% Napa 691116% San Benito 691116% Del Norte 641117% Tuolumne 631117% Shasta 1723118% San Joaquin 4248119% Tehama 1614025% Orange 215854125% Santa Barbara 2476526% Ventura 47713428% Kern 244182234% Humboldt 37413636% Tulare 151556637% Placer 44717840% Kings 70730543% Los Angeles 252591229449% Source: September 2023 WtW 25 and 25A |