At that time, if the person has no job and no income, that s just tough luck. The Indiana legislature said that five years is too long and established only two years in Indiana. Our social service network needs to be prepared to embrace these individuals if they come off the system and can t find a place or don t find themselves in a level of self-suffiency. If people can t find assistance and support through the welfare system and can t get a job, their recourse in Indiana is to go to the township trustee. Once people start using the township trustee for assistance, we all pay through property taxes.
Property taxes is a major issue and major concern in Northwest Indiana.
We need to do something ahead of time preventatively and proactively on dealing with this welfare to work issue and getting people off the welfare system into employable jobs and jobs that will make them self- sufficient and sustain a family income. The United Way has also been involved in a housing initiative called the Millennium project. Vic DeMeyer, Tom McDermott, Chris Morrow, Jim Hornack and Lou Martinez decided that there is a market that we are not capturing in the inner city for people who can afford to buy a home. This is not subsidized housing, but for people who can afford to buy a home, who want to live in the inner city and yet don t have a market to get a new home. They approached the steel industry and unions to make steel framed union built houses.