In a recent letter from Phil Bradley, director of the Illinois Department of Public Aid, the Child Support Hearing Officer Program was introduced to Tribune readers.
The program will help parents whose cases are immersed in the backlog of enforcement work requiring attention countywide. However, currently, the program is being proposed for a single downtown Chicago location with daytime hours only.
If that remains the case, single parents will have to fight another battle-getting to the hearing officers. For parents involved in a divorce or paternity child-support matter, several work days may be lost because of trips to downtown Chicago to establish an order for support.
Lack of child-support payments crosses geographical as well as economic lines. While we have 19,689 active cases with Chicago addresses, we have 9,542 with suburban addresses. From city to the suburbs, children are suffering from the selfishness of the parent who withholds support for reasons usually not associated with the children in question.
In addition, if the Circuit Court has been able to establish criminal courts, why not for child support?
Along with evening hours, hearing officers could be rotated to administer cases in suburban courtroom locations to accommodate working parents who can`t afford to take a whole day off work to travel to the city. To truly expedite child support, let`s make it a convenient service for parents.
I`m relieved to see that the plight of single parents and lack of child support payments is being recognized and discussed on the local and national level. The hearing officer project will be watched as a model nationwide by other child-support enforcement programs that could use the assistance.
If we`re going to make a difference in child support, let`s make it accessible to the people who need it most.
