(April 6) Perhaps the most important bill in Louisiana’s upcoming legislative session will be one almost everyone can agree on. Designed to make it easier for people to move from society’s economic margins to more comfortable, productive working lives, it should be a “win-win” for everybody.
To be introduced by Stephanie Berault, R-Slidell, in the House and Patrick McMath, R-Covington, in the Senate, the bill would institute the so-called “One Door” approach to public assistance that has worked tremendously well for Utah since 1997.
The basic idea is simple: Those who need public assistance should be able to navigate the system with the equivalent of “one-stop shopping,” with a single caseworker, rather than going to multiple offices, filling out multiple and largely duplicative forms, and waiting for multiple bureaucracies to provide ofttimes conflicting responses.
Better still, while disabled people should be able to receive help with more ease and certainty, the whole rest of the system should be designed to move people from assistance to work rather than miring them in near-endless dependency.
“The purpose of this is to start in a substantial way to address generational poverty in Louisiana,” Berault said. “We can move the people who can have the dignity of work and self-sufficiency back into the workforce at a time when we have announced to the world that we are open to business and we are going to need more people active in the workforce.”
The key element in the bill is to put the federal benefits programs into a renamed “Louisiana Works” agency that makes job training and recruitment available in the same place as the food and cash grants — and, to repeat, with a single case worker for each beneficiary who can help the recipients match up all the available aid and training….. [The full column is at this link.]
