April 23, 2008

A Tale of Ten Cities: Creating Welfare Reform Programs That Make a Difference

The publication highlights the efforts of ten cities that implemented groundbreaking programs to meet the needs of families receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). An introductory section discusses the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) in 1996, and the provision of TANF block grants to States that provided a new flexibility that empowered States and communities to support families in achieving positive outcomes and enact programs that met their own needs. The following section introduces profiles of the original ten cities involved in the Urban Partnerships Initiative, an initiative that convenes National Academies of key stakeholders from urban areas to develop strategies to meet the needs of TANF families and provides follow-up technical assistance to cities to support the development of relationships between systems, identify and remove barriers to collaboration between those systems, and develop strategic plans to address the needs identified during the National Academies. Each profile includes a success story, along with lists of lessons learned, tips, or advice about how to implement programs or receive technical assistance. Each of these ten cities worked on addressing the challenges that were most pressing to them. The cities include: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Dallas- Fort Worth, Detroit, Minneapolis, Oakland, Omaha, Seattle, and St. Louis.