”I am an American statistic,” says Geraldine Jensen, founder of the Association for Children for Enforcement of Support (ACES), the nation`s largest child-support advocacy group.
Jensen formed the Toledo-based group in 1984 because of what she terms
”personal frustration” caused by a seven-year effort to get her ex-husband to pay the $12,000 he owed to support their two sons.
The federal Office of Child Support Enforcement`s 14th annual report to Congress shows that scofflaw parents nationwide owed more than $18 billion in unpaid child support at the close of 1989. In Illinois, the report shows $662 million still owed.
The percentage of court-ordered payments that are made is dismal. Kathy Penak, program specialist of the Office of Child Support Enforcement, says that nationwide, 20.9 percent of all court-ordered support payments were made; in Illinois, it falls to 15.5 percent.
Jensen was divorced in 1977 in Nebraska after five years of marriage. ”I got custody of the boys and he was ordered to pay $50 a week in child support.” But after six months the payments stopped.
”Six months is the average time ACES members say they received support following their divorces,” says Jensen. ”By that time, 80 percent of non-custodial spouses are behind in payments and no longer visiting their children on a regular basis.”
Jensen sought help from local authorities, but says she repeatedly was turned away from the agencies whose job it is, she now knows, to help her.
”My first problem was in locating my ex-husband,” says Jensen.
”Because I didn`t know my legal rights, I didn`t know that when I went to the child-support agency that they could do what`s called a federal parent locator: They can take a name and a Social Security number and do a computer match with IRS, Social Security, Labor Department and other records.
In the ensuing years, Jensen says she lost her house in a foreclosure and moved back to her home state, Ohio. For a time, she tried to make ends meet, working two jobs. Then she became ill. Finally, she ended up on welfare.
Jensen eventually was able to return to school and become a nurse.
And, on her own, she was able to locate her children`s father, who was living in Council Bluffs, Iowa. She gave the child support agency in Toledo his name, address, Social Security number and employer`s name.
”I was desperate,” Jensen says. ”I had $12 to my name and a half-pound of hamburger in the freezer. But the social worker told me, `I`m so tired of you women coming in here and complaining about the system. If you think you can do a better job, go do it.`
”So I did,” says Jensen. ”I took $8.40 of my last $12 and put an ad in the newspaper, asking other women who did not receive owed child support to contact me. We got together and now we`re the largest child-support group in the country, with more than 160 chapters in 44 states.”
ACES is a self-help program, says Jensen, who earns $25,000 a year as the group`s president. ”We give parents the information and they do the footwork,” she explains. ”We let them know what their legal rights are.”
Within three months of starting ACES, Jensen says, she learned that the Toledo child-support office had not sent the proper documentation to Nebraska. She had the paperwork sent again, at which point a court hearing was held.
”My ex has never missed a payment since,” she says. By the end of `86 she had recouped the $12,000 backlog.
Now the organization, which is financed primarily by private foundations
(including the Joyce Foundation in Chicago), employs five full-time employees.
Jensen says 50 percent of ACES members live at or below the federal poverty level. The group often waives its $18 annual membership fee.
”ACES` philosophy is that it is the children`s right to be supported by their parents. When you fail to meet this obligation, you are breaking a promise to your child,” Jensen says. ”We want society to begin to look at this problem this way, rather than as an argument between two ex-spouses.”
Debbie Kline of Leavittsburg, Ohio, is Midwest Regional Director for ACES, which includes the Chicago area. ”More than 20,000 people have contacted ACES,” according to Kline, ”and more than 70 percent have begun receiving child support.”
ACES, which helps custodial fathers as well as mothers, has two active chapters in the Chicago area, in Du Page and Cook Counties, as well as in Madison, McHenry and Kankakee Counties. Kline says new chapters are being organized in Kane and Lake Counties, and a second Cook County group is in the works.
Jeanne Baxter, coordinator for the Du Page County chapter, says the goal of the Du Page chapter ”is to empower the parent with education.”
For more information, contact ACES` national hotline, 1-800-537-7072. The Cook County ACES chapter meets at 7:30 p.m. the first Wednesday of every month at the Harris YWCA, 6200 S. Drexel Ave., Chicago. The Du Page ACES meets at 7:30 p.m. every third Thursday of the month at the Glen Ellyn YWCA, 739 Roosevelt Rd., Suite 210.
