Lansing (AP) -- State social workers struggling with mounting welfare, food stamp and Medicaid caseloads said Wednesday they fear for their lives after being assaulted or threatened by recipients frustrated by delays in state aid.
Employees of the Department of Human Services said at a legislative hearing that they are overwhelmed with bulging caseloads and people seeking help are taking out their frustration on innocent workers. The employees said local DHS offices are packed because there are not enough workers to deal with the influx of cases as Michigan's unemployment rises.
"We need to help these families,'' said Jan Brown, who works in the Berrien County office. "They are families that need us. There are families who meet us saying, `I never thought I'd walk into this office."
Brown was one of seven caseworkers to testify before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Human Services.
DHS administrators did not dispute much of the testimony, though they stressed they take employees' safety seriously. They said the state's estimated 8,500 field caseworkers need more help. At least 700 more staffers need to be hired, said Terry Salacina, director of field operations. But that will be a challenge because Michigan has been cutting state government to deal with multibillion-dollar budget deficits.
Wayne County eligibility specialist Colette Gilewicz said she has more than 800 cases and handles 100 phone calls a day. She said a line forms outside her office in northeast Detroit at 7 a.m., an hour before the building opens.
Gilewicz said a client frustrated by the long wait threw a chunk of concrete through a window. The office has been broken into three times. The computer server was stolen for scrap metal.
Gilewicz said she is seeing an increasingly large number of former middle-class workers who were laid off from small auto-related factories and tool and die shops.
"Now at age 55 or 60, they're entering the system for the first time,'' she said. "They simply don't know what to do and where to turn.''
DHS spokesman Edward Woods III said 2.2 million people, or more than 20 percent of Michigan's residents, get some type of government assistance - 400,000 more than a year ago.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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