When helping hurts

By Jon Moffett | March 13, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

Jobs and Family Services

Video

More people apply for benefits at Mahoning County Jobs and Family Services.

By Jon Moffett

Surging joblessness in Valley takes its toll on benefit providers

YOUNGSTOWN — Unemployment keeps Judee Genetin up at night.

Some nights, she can’t sleep at all. On others, tears flow uncontrollably from her saddened blue eyes.

As director of the Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Services, her job is to provide relief to those who are losing their jobs.

“I don’t think there has been anything as bad as what is happening right now,” she said.

Genetin has worked in the department for more than 20 years and has been in her current role for the past 18 months. Since last fall, her job has been especially rough.

“These are hard times in Mahoning County and across the nation,” she said. “There are many more people in the lobby than we’ve had in the past. Here in Mahoning County I think that they’ve suffered before; this is not a new thing. Mahoning has had some difficult times with job losses in the past, and this is becoming more severe now.”

Julie Smith, deputy director for the office of operations with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, said claim loads have “absolutely skyrocketed” over the past year.

There were about 575,000 continued unemployment claims statewide in January 2008. One year later, that figure almost doubled to more than 1 million. Mahoning County’s unemployment rate in January was 13.4 percent.

In 2008, the Job and Family Services department might have seen dozens of newly unemployed on a given day. This year, it is not uncommon to handle hundreds each day. On a busy day, the facility can see more than a thousand people.

“We’re struggling,” Genetin said. “I would never have predicted that we would have gotten here this fast.”

A hiring freeze since January 2008 and a reduction in funding of about $5 million have put the department in a tough spot. Some employees are being forced to take an unpaid furlough day in each two-week pay period. For some, losing eight hours can be detrimental.

“Eight hours can pay somebody’s bills,” said Emmaline Adams, a social programs administrator with the department.

The mental and emotional stress has taken its toll on the other side of the service window, too. Genetin said her employees invest so much of themselves into their cases that they can become discouraged by all the negative news.

“They’re suffering with the amount of work and [with] what they’re trying to do,” she said. “I’m used to being able to find answers and find solutions. That is the part that is so hard, to watch the suffering, look at the problem and not be able to find a solution.”

The hiring freeze has prohibited the department from bringing in entry-level workers to replace those lost by promotions or attrition. The declining base of employees is forcing everyone to do more. The wear and tear at the top is beginning to show.

“Directors are leaving their jobs because this is a horrendous responsibility to try and figure out how to do this,” she said. “You care about your own staff and you care about the community and the people you are trying to serve, but there are no answers.”

She added that frustrations mount each day.

“As times continue to get tougher and tougher, there’s no one to be angry with. There are people who are angry with me, and I understand that because this is the position that I am in. But we didn’t create this problem, and the people who are in need didn’t create this problem, and the people facing layoffs didn’t create this problem. There are no easy solutions — and I think I’m past easy solutions. I’m not even sure there are any hard solutions out there.”

Adams said she wouldn’t want to take on Genetin’s role.

“I wouldn’t want this job if it paid $100,000 a day,” she said. “I can’t imagine that responsibility.”

But Genetin’s endurance keeps her going, she said. That endurance is what keeps all the employees coming to work, Adams said.

“You can’t work here just because it’s a job; your heart has to be in it,” she said. “For all of us, we think that it’s going to get better. It might not be this year, or next year, but it’s going to get better.”

Despite cuts in the budget and staff, Genetin and the department continue to move forward.

“We have tried to do more with less,” she said. “Many people on the staff have more job duties and are doing things that they haven’t done in the past. We’ve had to cut some of our contracts, we’ve restricted travel, and we’ve done a lot with our budget to try to focus [more] on providing services to our clients.”

The problem transcends Mahoning County.

“We anticipated an increase, but the numbers that we saw in December and January were at a level that we really could not anticipate,” Smith said.” It coincided with what is considered our winter workload anyway, but we received almost 75,000 individuals on a mass layoff in the first two months of the year. That was an enormous increase.”

Smith said the technology at times couldn’t handle the load and dropped calls or locked agents out of the system. The system was updated, and an emphasis was placed on online applications, she said. Since December 2008, about 70 percent of applications were filed online.

Genetin said the Mahoning County department also has had trouble with phone lines. People calling can expect to be on hold for 30 minutes at a time, she said. And those who visit the facility can expect a line at the door when the office opens at 7 a.m.

Genetin has noticed a new trend in the type of applicants.

“The difference this time is the people who are being hit by the job loss are people who have never been hit before,” she said. “There are a lot of professional and middle-class jobs that weren’t hit in the past, and a lot of people are being taken by surprise. This is a new thing to them, and this is the first time that they’ve had to apply for unemployment or any type of medical services.”

Dennis Evans, public information officer with ODJFS, agreed, saying, “What we’re hearing from our counties is there are a lot of people who have not been in the system before. It’s people who have been out for some time that are coming in to use these services.”

jmoffett@vindy.com