The story itself and the agency's continuing problems seemed to demand not just a response but a sharp break from past practice, and that was what Street delivered when he named social services advocate Alba Martinez as his DHS commissioner several weeks later.
At 37, Martinez had never worked in city government. Her resume lacked the executive-level experience that might suggest her as a logical candidate to head a $435 million children's welfare system. The nonprofit organization she was leaving had a staff just over 100. The one she was taking over employs nearly 20 times that many. But Street figured the troubled agency didn't need another veteran bureaucrat at the helm. What it needed was someone more like Martinez- -an energetic, politically attuned turnaround artist who could articulate a vision, even when few others could see it.
In part, the appointment was a measure of the growing influence of Philadelphia's burgeoning Latino community. Mainly, however, it was a recognition of Martinez' remarkable success in retooling the city's largest Latino social services provider.
In 1992, just a few years out of law school, Martinez took over as executive director of El Congreso de Latinos Unidos, an organization that, at the time, was reeling from a corruption scandal, a shortage of resources and inadequate facilities. When she arrived at Congreso, it had a $2.8 million budget and 65 employees. By the time Martinez departed for DHS early this year, the budget had tripled and the staff had doubled. Congreso offered so many services--from job training to drug treatment to childcare--that it had outgrown the 25,000-square- foot building it moved to just five years earlier. At the time she left, the organization was in the midst of a $6 million capital campaign for a new building.
"She's a fantastic communicator with a kind of boldness about her," says Frank Cervone, executive director of the Support Center for Child Advocates. "The advocacy community sees her as a friend and reformer. This offers her some opportunity for leverage."
The challenges that Martinez faces at DHS aren't all that much different from those she faced at Congreso in 1992. They are just vastly larger in scale. The agency isn't the worst of its kind--in fact, there have been signs of improvement in recent years--but its public image is a disaster. There isn't enough funding to deal with the staggering caseload--some 20,000 children are in the DHS system-- and the labor-management relationship is strained. As one of Martinez' predecessors once put it, "They gave me an umbrella and asked me to stop the rain."
In that sort of situation, Martinez can't be expected to work miracles, but she does begin with several advantages. In the sharp- elbowed world of Philadelphia government, her successful blend of politics and advocacy at Congreso won her widespread support from the both the Latino and gay communities. That support will be invaluable to her in the new job, perhaps as important as decades of administrative experience. "It's a political environment," acknowledges Martinez. "It's an environment where relationships are important."
Perhaps equally crucial, Martinez does not harbor any illusions. Indeed, she declined to accept the position when the mayor first approached her. "This job is really scary," she says. "I didn't think it was something I was ready for. It's an enormous challenge without a road map for doing it right. By its very nature, this is the kind of organization that will always be a little messy."
