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Vera used MFIP to start over
By Linda Vanderwerf
Staff Writer
West Central Tribune
Text version of this story

WILLMAR - Elizabeth Vera's brothers and sister already lived in Willmar, so it seemed like a logical place to move when she needed to start over nearly a year ago.

Vera moved to Willmar from Texas with her two sons in August. She participated in the Minnesota Family Investment Program, a welfare reform program, for a few months before she started working at the Willmar Kmart in November.

When she first moved here, she lived with a brother and later moved to an apartment. In about a year, when her lease runs out, she plans to buy a house.

Vera said she wouldn't have been able to make those plans without the help she got from the program.


Elizabeth Vera reads to her son Matthew in their Willmar apartment. Since moving to Willmar from Texas, she has used the Minnesota welfare reform program to start over.

Classes helped clients look for a job and pick up some computer skills. The program helped find reliable day care for her son, Matthew, who is now 20 months old. Her other son, Rene, is 16.

Without the program, Vera said, "I really don't know (where I'd be) - lost, probably."

With the child care help, she was able to look for a job and find one fairly quickly, she said.

"If you really want to work, you can," she said. "It didn't take me that long to find a job."

Being on welfare isn't common for her family, she said, and she didn't like it, even though it helped her get her new life in Willmar on track.

After her father died in 1970, her mother raised four children alone, she said.

"My mom's been working ever since," she said. "We never went on welfare. ... My mom, she did it, so what makes me think I can't."

Vera said she likes her job at Kmart. "It's better than staying on welfare," she said. "You don't have to worry about things."

A self-confessed worrier, Vera said she is happier when she's busy.

"It's a whole lot better having a job," she said. "With a job, you buy whatever you need. It seems to be a whole lot easier."

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Last updated: February 1, 2006