Welfare Programs

Despite their expressed concerns about the deal, county supervisors voted 4 to 1 Tuesday to spend $108 million more on an aging computer system responsible for tracking and determining welfare benefits for more than 1 million residents. Supervisors acknowledged that the system needs to be replaced but said they had to pay for upgrades and keep the technology running at least four more years.

Lisa Valverde never thought she'd be a welfare mom. But a divorce triggered a downward spiral that made her turn to Ventura County's welfare-to-work program as a last resort. Four years later, Valverde, 39, is employed full time as a fiscal analyst and is studying at night to earn a bachelor's degree. Her two teenage children are doing well, she said. She recently received her final CalWORKs check. "I've learned that I'm a survivor," said Valverde, a Santa Paula resident.

Ex-convicts returning to city neighborhoods will receive new job training, housing services, education opportunities, healthcare and other help under a $1.2-million pilot program announced Friday. The city, one of 21 recipients of grants totaling $11.3 million from the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, will use its money to help parolees from Lancaster state prison make the transition back to their communities.

Los Angeles County housing officials failed to hand out 3,500 housing subsidy vouchers even though poor families were sitting on a waiting list that was years long. "It makes me sad.... There are people who really need it," Carolyn Davis said Tuesday. Davis, 40, said she has been homeless and sleeping on her sister's floor while waiting for a subsidy. "I am bipolar times five," she said to explain why she can't work and needs a public subsidy to afford a place to live.

Less than 1% of Medicaid spending went to healthcare for illegal immigrants, according to a study that the researchers said defied a common belief that they are a bigger drain on taxpayer money. The study, published March 14 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn., appeared in an issue of the journal devoted to access to medical care in the United States. Concern has been growing over rising U.S.

A widely touted law that was supposed to provide medical care for poor, uninsured Californians infected with HIV has yet to be put into practice by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration, leaving thousands without the health coverage lawmakers promised more than four years ago. The 2003 law was endorsed by newspapers across the state and championed by activists as the most significant piece of AIDS-related legislation in a decade.

Sonny Okereke combs the crime-plagued streets of skid row, but the Los Angeles County social worker isn't seeking criminals. He's looking for children. In a push to reduce homelessness downtown, the county Board of Supervisors has declared zero tolerance for families living on skid row and is concentrating efforts on finding homes for children, even if that means children are eventually removed from their parents.

TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Jack Perkins has lifestyle choices middle-class people take for granted. From his home in Valencia, it's walking distance to both a Whole Foods and a Vons supermarket. He exercises daily -- lifting weights in his condo's workout room or jogging through safe, quiet, meandering streets. "It's almost like it's designed for runners and walkers," he says. Maria Sahagun's Huntington Park home has bars on the windows and doors, and the 61-year-old doesn't venture far on foot.

This is how it seems: The state Assembly speaker uncorked two bottles of very expensive wine as legislative leaders sat around negotiating a budget deal. They got a little buzz on and decided to go out and mug some blind, disabled and elderly poor. That's not exactly what happened, probably. But it's close enough to be cataloged as nonfiction.

The hundreds of thousands of lunchboxes given away by state health officials were designed to promote healthful habits, bearing slogans such as "Eat Fruits & Vegetables and Be Active." Just one problem: At least some of them were made with unhealthful levels of lead. The California Department of Public Health said Thursday that it was recalling 300,000 green and blue canvas lunch coolers made in China and distributed throughout the state at health fairs and other events since 2004.