The goal, says SIUC social worker Joanne Chezem, is to figure out what works best in helping the rural poor find work. Researchers hope what they learn eventually will help others still receiving aid to land jobs.
Researchers expect to finish early next year.
Changes in the nation's welfare system make this project crucial to hardscrabble rural areas that suffer chronic poverty. Individuals can utilize welfare services for no more than five years over the course of their lives. Accustomed to newspaper and television reports on poverty in the slums and ghettos of large cities, many Americans think of welfare as an urban issue. But life in the country is no picnic for the poor. I could show you places that have no phones, no electricity and no running water.