EDUCATION MADE THE DIFFERENCE

(Article published in HWW Oct 2007)

Welfare Rights Initiative reports research shows that two years after getting into college 75 percent of students on public assistance move off of welfare.

VALERIE SPENCER is an actress, a dancer, a choreographer, and mother of five. Two daughters still live at home with her — a 15 year old basketball player — “She has scouts looking at her,” says her mom proudly — and a 11 year old who wants to be a doctor. But since 1999 her day job — and sometimes nights, too — is Community Assistant at Baruch Community Center on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

For Valerie, the past seven years have been a fast and impressive upward climb from homelessness and unemployment. “Seven years ago I was homeless, staying at the Latham Hotel. My two youngest were with me. Before that I had been denied shelter 13 times and stayed in different hotels each time. It was a nightmare.”

She credits University Settlement House with helping her find an apartment in Samuel Gompers Houses, a NYCHA project, and the education she needed to get on her feet. “Project Home at University Settlement House put me in an 8 month college program at PACE. I had my GED. The PACE program taught me business and office procedures and computers. They helped me get an internship with Downtown Family Care which gave me work credits. I was on public assistance and welfare was harassing me about WEP, but I managed to finish the internship and graduated from PACE and went out on interviews.”

“Next thing I knew I got a note from the New York City Housing Authority. I thought at first it was another demand that I do WEP. But no, NYCHA’s note offered me a position as Community Assistant. It offered benefits, and medical coverage and enough to support us. I started out making $24,000 a year and worked up to $30,000, earning extra for night hours.”

The Baruch Community Center is a freshly painted, cheerful place for neighbors to have fun. “We have Mexicans, Chinese, Puerto Ricans, you name it,” says Valerie. “It’s a multi cultural center.” Under her enthusiastic leadership, kids age 6 to 12 in the after school program and teens in the evening get homework help, play ping pong and chess, put on dance performances and fashion shows. The Center has a brand new computer room for the kids and adults. So since Valerie’s “proficient in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Desktop Publishing” — as her resume says — she can help teach those skills, too.

Meantime she dreams of an acting career. Growing up in Brooklyn’s Bed Sty in a neighborhood she recalls as too dangerous to go out much, she dreamt up shows to entertain the family at home. Now on days her Baruch job starts late, she dashes uptown to her agent’s office to check out acting opportunities. She had the role of “Funky Single Mother” in an off Broadway play and played a sergeant on TV in “Law and Order.” “I still dance some but I’m really an actress,” she says.