Cadesha Felder was standing in the driveway of Alexandria house, holding her two-year-old son, Eshon, waiting to speak at a press conference about how Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed budget cuts would affect her and her three children.

The 23-year-old single mother has been getting cash aid and services under the state's temporary welfare program, CalWORKs, since her daughter was born five years ago. Currently, she receives a maximum of $723 a month, along with food stamps and other services, including domestic violence classes and mental health counseling. She needs the former after being in an abusive relationship and the latter to cope with severe depression.

"I'm really depressed due to being homeless for three years now," Fedler said. "I know the money seems like a lot. But $723 is not a lot compared to when I have three kids who need certain things. It's a lot on my plate for me to be only 23 years old and having to worry about where's the money going to come from.

"If the governor cuts the budget, it's going to hit me hard due to the fact that I don't have a plan right now," she explained. "I don't know how I'm going to support my kids and have a roof over their heads continuously because I can't work I'm so depressed."

The young parent, who wants to go back to college to become a teacher, reported that at times she has even been suicidal. "I'm here at Alexandria House because I'm homeless," she said. "So the cuts would even make it worse for us. I'd probably be more depressed."

Replacing AFDC
Cadesha Felder and her family are not alone.

Currently, some 900,000 children along with 200,000 of their parents or guardians make up CalWORKs' caseload. If the governor's budget is adopted, tens of thousands of these struggling low-income Californians could wind up hungry and homeless, according to advocates for the poor.

Created in 1997 after federal legislation restructured the American welfare system, the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program provides cash assistance and services to eligible needy families with children. Its lofty mission is to move recipients from welfare to work and self-sufficiency.

Replacing AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), the program has a cumulative 60-month time limit, requiring recipients to meet strict work preparation and participation guidelines. After the five years lapse for a family --- or if parents do not meet work requirements --- a safety net provides additional assistance to the children.

The governor's plan, however, would eliminate cash assistance to the whole family. According to the premise, "full-family" sanctions would offer more motivation to parents and guardians to attend work preparation classes and then find steady jobs. Just 25 percent of CalWORKs families meet the minimum work requirements today.

In a high-cost county like Los Angeles, a single mother with two young kids currently receives $723. That drops to $584 when a parent is sanctioned. Under the governor's proposal, the family would receive nothing.

Schwarzenegger also wants to impose a five-year limit on cash grants to the U.S. citizen children of undocumented immigrants, drug felons and other ineligible adults. And for the third year in a row, the governor's budget would suspend a scheduled CalWORKs cost of living increase.

During the 2007-08 fiscal year, the cuts would save the State of California an estimated $464.6 million. But critics --- like those who spoke at the January 10 press conference at Alexandria House, a transitional residence for women and children in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles --- stressed that the savings would come at a terribly high societal and moral cost. Representatives of the Children's Defense Fund, Service Employees International Union, Hunger Action Los Angeles, LA CAN and homeless families attended the outdoor conference.

No 'safety net'
"The governor's proposed cuts to CalWORKs target low-income children and will harm those children and their families," declared Nancy Berlin, executive director of California Partnership, a statewide coalition of community groups fighting poverty. "The governor is now proposing to eliminate cash assistance to the entire family, even if the parent misses the bus or has sick children and can't get to their CalWORKs required appointment that day.

"The governor is also planning to restrict aid to what are called the 'safety net' children. These are families where the parents have timed-off aid. They've gone over their 60-month state time limit.... Protecting children is a non-partisan effort. The [safety net] provisions were signed into law by Republican Pete Wilson in 1997 in order to protect children. And our current governor is now proposing to undo these protections."

Pointing to a table with a box of Cheerios, gallon of milk, bottle of Pine Sol and other household items, Berlin said they added up to about $30 --- the same amount of the cost-of-living increase that the governor wants to freeze again. She said that $30 often meant the difference for a family between being able to buy groceries or pay the rent.

"We have 90,000 people on the streets every night in Los Angeles; 25,000 homeless people who are in families," she reported. "You can ask people here at Alexandria House; they get more calls every day from families they can't help because they're full.

"So this will push families into homelessness. We're sure of that because we hear that from families now --- already they don't have enough money to make ends meets. This will only make it worse."

The Reverend Emeritus George Regas of All Saints Church in Pasadena stressed that punitive approaches do not get people back to work. Instead, the proposed budget will put the health and welfare of poor children even greater in danger.

"Any policy that makes a child's life more miserable is an abomination before God," he said. "This state cannot be great if its poorest citizens are its children. And this proposal is something that will punish the children of families. That is unjust. It's immoral. The interfaith religious community stands behind these children and these parents."

55,000 families
Other service providers and advocates feel just as strongly about the proposed budget cuts to CalWORKs. Msgr. Gregory Cox, executive director of Catholic Charities of Los Angeles, calls the reductions "significant" for families. He points out that some estimates say about 55,000 families, representing 12 percent of CalWORKs caseload, could have their cash grants reduced.

"My issue would be that the economy is good in this country right now and it's good in the state at a time we don't need to cut back on programs to the poor who are increasingly in need, certainly at Catholic Charities," he said. "So it's sad to see such a cut in CalWORKs."

Mary Agnes Erlandson, director of the St. Margaret's Center in Lennox sponsored by Catholic Charities, which provides a variety of survival services to low-income individuals and families, is particularly concerned about the cost-of-living adjustment being frozen for the third straight year. She says the poor cannot afford to pay rising rents right now, and with no increase in aid the problem will just get worse.

"The high road is you try to really make welfare reform work by providing enough job training and education and support, so that people can get not just minimum wage jobs that aren't very stable, but good jobs. The low road is you just cut people off the rolls. I feel that we're taking the low road with this proposal.

"To just cut people off, definitely, there's going to be an increase in homelessness."

Sister of Social Service Marti McCarthy, executive director of Jericho, an interfaith anti-poverty lobby, says California has significantly reduced its CalWORKs caseload over the last 10 years. She wants to know: Who are the parents left? Do they have special needs? And what assessments have been made to look at the reasons for their noncompliance?

Sister McCarthy suspects that parents who haven't been able to find steady work have special problems, including lack of marketable skills, little education and mental health issues. Plus, of course, there might not be appropriate jobs where they live. She also believes the assumption that the threat of cutting off all cash aid will make parents work harder at finding work is based on "flimsy" evidence.

"Is it good public policy to punish kids for the alleged lack of responsibility of their parents?" she asked. "And then if you remove them from their homes because there's no money to pay the rent, you take away continuity of school and the possible interventions that school can make in the lives of these children.

"So, basically," she added, "you're putting a whole bunch of kids at risk."