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On the Move?
On the Move?
March 26, 2001
A County by County Review of Welfare Transportation Policies in New York State
In 1996, Congress enacted and the President signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Oppor-tunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). This new law replaced the long-standing Aid to Families withDependant Children (AFDC) program with a new Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)program. The TANF program has given states extraordinary flexibility to implement their welfare pro-grams in ways designed to best meet the needs of their low income citizens.
One area where TANF offers enormous opportunities to target funding and craft effective policiesis in the area of transportation. Transportation issues represent one of the most significant barriers tostable employment, second only to child care needs. Many of New York’s social services districts havetaken advantage of the flexibility afforded by TANF in crafting their transportation policies. Most, butnot all districts use a combination of different transportation strategies to meet the individual transpor-tation needs of TANF participants, including public transportation, paratransit services, and privatelyowned vehicles. Unfortunately, many districts have not availed themselves of TANF’s flexibility or havedone so in ways that themselves pose barriers.
The following recommendations result from an analysis of the employment plans prepared by eachof the 57 social services districts outside the City of New York in order to see how districts have chosento structure transportation services, as well as to identify innovative strategies and key areas of weaknessin these plans.
Download the PDF: On the Move
