Last week, five months after losing a bid to maintain its tax-exempt status, the agency's Palomas Restaurant closed its doors, at least temporarily. When Palomas opened at the agency's site in July 1994, plans were to teach food service and restaurant management skills to unemployed workers. Oulahan has been critical of W-2's lack of provisions for training. Philosophically, the new program values work as the quickest and surest way to get adults off welfare. Oulahan holds up success stories from Esperanza Unida as examples of how W-2 should be equipping workers for occupations through which they can provide for their families and secure futures for themselves.
Nobody here likes welfare.
I know Cheryl didn't. Rogers found most of her previous work low-paying or demeaning. I had a real bad attitude. And that's where someone with her intelligence should have been. Welfare was a hassle, Rogers said, and she resented having to prostrate herself for the cash, food stamps and health insurance her children needed.