New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino has suggested turning prisons into dorms for people who receive welfare through a proposed Dignity Corps. The Buffalo developer’s welfare reform plan includes reusing “old prisons, colleges and other buildings to teach life skills” for “people on welfare, unemployed or lacking job skills,” Buffalo’s WIVB TV 4 reported this week.
“If you’re an able-bodied man or woman, you will be compelled,” Paladino said. “If you want to get your help from the state of New York, you’re going to have to join this program and work for it. … You take down all the barbed wire. You take out all the nonsense about being a prison. We’re reusing a facility.”
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“Bottom line: when I am governor of New York, if you are out of work, we will do everything we can to help you back into work. If you are medically unable to work then we’ll give you the help you need. And, if you are able to work, your unemployment benefits will be geared towards getting you back in the workforce,” according to a statement on his Web site. “New York is facing enormous challenges and only new ideas and radical reform will turn this state around. The Dignity Corps can prepare and launch our unemployed into fulfilling jobs and lives.”