Keep on Truckin’: County Program Drives Residents into Full-Time Jobs

Problem: Finding jobs for residents receiving assistance.

Solution: Expand a training program that matches residents with a job category where applicants are scarce: long-haul truck driving.

Truck driver Anthony Perkins is on the phone, taking a break in Wilson County, Tenn., from hauling paper to office supply stores in Cass County, N.D. A self-described former heroin addict, the 46-year old father of four daughters is now employed full-time. “I went from being a burden on society…now I’m happy to pay taxes,” he said.

Perkins turned his life around thanks to a program run by Hamilton County, Ohio. He found the program about eight months ago, trying to get his life together at a sober-living house called New Foundation. “I was out of options, I had hit rock bottom,” he said.

One of the requirements for living there was finding your own meals, and Perkins “went down to food assistance,” he said. One of his daughters found information about a county-run, free truck-driving school training program for people who were receiving food assistance and told him to go check it out, he said.

“I got into the school right away,” he said. “It was a six-week program and something I was determined to do.” A friend loaned him an old car that he used to get to and from the sober living house and the school. He passed the test for a commercial license and was hired by May Trucking and has been on the job now for seven months. One of the benefits? Seeing the country. “I’d been to Florida and back by bus but I’d never really been out of Ohio,” he said. He said he especially enjoys traveling out West, where there is less traffic and lots of wide-open spaces.

Another perk? His company allows him to take passengers and he’s had a chance to take one of his daughters, who are ages 18 to 23, out on the road. “I get a lot of respect now,” he said. “I do recommend it. It’s a total lifestyle change.”

County connects food assistance, job training

The trucking partnership program that helped Perkins get on his feet came about after the county had previously helped residents get trained for jobs driving trucks using federal dollars.  Hamilton County was looking for ways to expand that effort, to get even more people trained for jobs and onto better lives.

The county found a willing pool of eligible trainees through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, food assistance program — a population that grew to nearly 125,000 today from 77,000 in 2008. Many of them were new to the world of public assistance and ended up at the door of Hamilton County Job and Family Services because they had lost a long-time job during the recession, according to the department director, Moira Weir.

“Even if they were able to find work, it was often in a job paying less than what they were used to, and they turned to food assistance to help fill the gap between their monthly income and monthly expenses,” she said. SNAP recipients earn 130 percent of the federal poverty level or less to be eligible. That means a family of four must earn less than $32,000 annually to be eligible. That family would receive a maximum monthly allotment of about $650, or about $21 a day, to feed their family.   

To get the expansion on the road, the county — working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Services (USDAFNS) — developed a plan to expand the program using SNAP employment and training dollars. But those dollars needed a local match. The county turned to the state of Ohio to identify funding that could be used for the local match.

The county created the program, secured the training through competitive procurement, screened and referred eligible clients to the program, and supported and monitored their participation in the program.

The state of Ohio made the SNAP Employment & Training 50/50 dollars available to counties and provided guidance and support. The USDA’s FNS provided guidance and support to the county in setting up the program and championed the effort from the beginning, Weir noted.

From food stamps to full time

Funding for the program, which started July 1, 2016, was limited and time sensitive — it had to be spent by Sept. 30, 2016. Eleven recipients in all graduated from the truck driving school.  Seven of them, including Perkins, are now employed full time, earning an average $47,112 annually.

 Funding was recently secured to continue the program, a spokesman said.

“Programs such as this take the county agency from the position of providing a handout during troubled times of need to a hand up to long-term stability,” Weir said. “Eventually, the agency would like to duplicate this program and help food assistance recipients receive training in the health care and advanced manufacturing fields.”