County Administrator Judi Boyko defended the agency that is tasked with providing social services. She said Gilbert and team continuously strive to find the best ways to serve the residents.
A few things were overlooked, Boyko said — namely “the tireless efforts and the sincere dedication and the outstanding service that our JFS director, staff, Children Services staff and Child Support Enforcement staff so strive to serve and deliver everyday, in a very difficult scope of work.”
Carpenter has long complained the OhioMeansJobs center is located in Fairfield, which is not easily accessible to a large part of the county where residents need their services. On Monday she criticized the JFS operation as a whole.
“We know the one person that is out in the community is doing a lot of good,” she said. “I don’t expect much of anything from JFS to be quite honest, I find it is the agency that is the least likely to adapt.”
JFS is a multi-pronged social service agency providing public assistance such as food stamps, Children Services, OhioMeansJobs and child support enforcement.
Commissioner Don Dixon asked her who is complaining they are not being served adequately.
“Where are all these people you say come to you, where are they, do they just come to your office>” he said.
Dixon said they have been told when JFS calls social service agencies in Oxford, they are told no one is lacking in services.
“This proves my point that our JFS doesn’t know where these people are in the community,” Carpenter said. “And that makes sense they’ve never been there before ... this isn’t what JFS does. JFS lives in this building, works out of this building and doesn’t make connections out into the community.”
JFS has a staffer who holds office hours outside of the Government Services Center in Hamilton to help with public assistance such as food stamps. He is equipped with a computer so he can help people do whatever they would normally do in their offices. Gilbert told the Journal-News in August they have him stationed in the field five days a week in Hamilton, Middletown and Oxford satellite locations.
“We’ve been exploring other options [as to whether] there other places that would benefit from us spending some time in their space,” Gilbert said, adding that would probably require more staff. “That is always a struggle with us in that we are hiring and we do have a workforce shortage. There is a desire to do more outreach however with the workforce we currently have it’s difficult.”
For those with transportation issues they also have an arrangement with the Butler County Regional Transportation Authority so buses from Hamilton, Middletown and Oxford stop at the OMJ office.
Dixon said it is not their job to find those in need, it is to serve them.
“I do not want JFS staff to start going under the bridges hunting people at different times of the day and night and most of those people don’t want any help, and most of them aren’t even there the next day,” Dixon said. “We need to serve as many people as we can with the dollars we have.”
Carpenter said she wasn’t suggesting JFS workers do that, just that they need to be available in the communities where they are needed more.
The county as a whole has been struggling to solve a growing homelessness issue. It conducted a meeting a couple months ago with state legislators, county, city and township leaders and service providers. Dixon said it is up to all those people, not just the county, to deal with the issue.
Carpenter said she has talked to the city managers in Hamilton and Middletown and they have said “the county is not doing enough.”
“The city managers have said that in other cities they’ve worked in, the human service aspect of serving people has always been a county function,” she said. “And the structure of things it is a county function, we are the only agency that has Job and Family Services.”
That remark infuriated Dixon, who noted he has spent numerous hours discussing the issue with Hamilton City Manager Joshua Smith.
“That’s absolutely not true,” he said. Smith and others believe “it should be between the state of Ohio and the county and all those municipalities in all the areas that are affected, not just us.”
Dixon told the Journal-News if JFS wasn’t doing it’s job they would be penalized by the state, instead, “we’ve been told by the state they’re leaders in what they do and they’re innovative.”
He said Carpenter’s remarks that JFS isn’t doing its job right were unwarranted.
“We’re recognized as one of the better ones in the state of Ohio,” Dixon said. “It’s just not fair to just put a blanket statement and say you don’t get it, that’s not fair and not accurate.”
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