Bermudez says he agrees that the programs could be more useful.

"The training programs that are put together by the state are pretty watered-down and boring," he says.

Take a Number

But DTA employees defend their attempts, pointing to the constraints on the government agency.

Benson says the size of her caseload bars her from getting to know her clients and their families as much as she would like.

Walter Kane, a supervisor at the Davis Square DTA, says personal attention is not the job of the DTA.

"I always try to deal with each person as an individual," Kane says. "But when you're dealing with any government agency you're going to get the impression that you're a number."

The Davis Square office's 57 staff members handle 1,300 cases.

Though many have expressed dismay at the DTA's unwillingness to track clients after their cases close, DTA officials say the organization does not conduct follow-up simply because they don't have the resources to do so.

"Although our caseload has only gone down by 10,000 cases in the past year, 55,000 have actually closed and 45,000 have opened," Power says.

"In order to track these closed cases," he continues, "you would have to duplicate this agency, because we're dealing with a total caseload of 58,000 families."

However, a new follow-up program is one payoff from the time limits. Workers from the Mass. Dept. of Public Health will be conducting home visits and serving as a go-between for former recipients and sources of help.

A Way Out

Programs like Just-a-Start are one such source of help, offering welfare recipients an alternative to government-run programs.

Dina D. Ronnet, a participant in Just-a-Start's YouthBuild program who has been on TAFDC since she lost her job a year ago due to an illness, says she looks forward to self-sufficiency.