Leadership in some community colleges simply does not see welfare clients as a primary client base. Unless these welfare reform initiatives make some provision for follow-up encouragement and support for education and training once participants find employment, the relationships with community colleges may deteriorate. However, in most of the One-Stop models assessed by this report, these benefits are phased out after welfare recipients find employment that raises their incomes past the threshold for cash assistance. In most cases, funds for child care seemed to be adequate for participants in the focus groups with the exception of children with health needs, although availability of child care to match many low-wage work schedules and geographical locations is still a problem. Even some states that have dramatically increased child care funding from their own resources, such as Washington, still find that these combined federal and state resources fall far short of the support that is needed.
Housing assistance is also problematic.
Nationally, over 30 percent of AFDC recipients also received federal housing assistance in the late 1980s. This proportion seemed to vary considerably in the sites visited, based on anecdotal information provided during focus groups. Tarrant County seemed to be the only location where most current welfare recipients lived in public housing or received Section 8 housing assistance. This is not surprising, since it was by far the largest urban area included. It would appear that the overlap between cash welfare assistance and public housing assistance declines as the service delivery areas become more rural.