CONCLUSION

If successful, the Bridges to Work strategy holds potential benefits in a number of areas: increased regional collaboration; improved placement capacity for employment and training providers; cost-effective service delivery options for social service agencies; new markets for public transportation systems; new sources of workers for employers and jobs for the urban poor. As evidence of this promise, some policymakers already see Bridges to Work as an important welfare reform strategy. The coincidental timing of HUD's announcement of the Bridges and the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act has triggered calls for the application of Bridges' strategies for assisting welfare recipients to become self-sufficient.

However, at this point in the demonstration, important questions loom about whether and how the promise of Bridges can be fulfilled. For example, is the Bridges to Work strategy, with its limited support services and emphasis on the private labor market, a realistic approach to lifting from poverty welfare recipients and others among the long-term unemployed? As this report is being written, some of the Bridges to Work sites are worrying that welfare reform could overwhelm their ability to recruit and place the strongest job candidates in newly developed suburban jobs.

Also, even if the Bridges to Work demonstration is successful, can the model be implemented more broadly without major policy and funding shifts in large public systems (transportation, social services and employment/training) and more creativity and flexibility than we have seen in the field to date?

These and other major policy questions will need to be answered over the next four years before we learn the real value of the Bridges to Work approach. In the meantime, the five sites beginning the Bridges to Work pilot are grappling with immediate, fundamental concerns: complex operations, demanding research requirements, new relationships and an uncertain polity environment. They're off to a promising start. Succeeding field reports will chronicle developments in these areas as the full demonstration unfolds.