This 2-hour tutorial is posted on www.probono.net/dc/benefits. You must be a member of the practice area to view the video, which is in the Social Security Disability Programs folder of the Library. Any legal services or pro bono attorney is eligible for a free membership. To register, go to http://www.probono.net/dc/benefits and click “Join this Area.” Your application will be approved within 1 business day.

The table of contents for the video includes:

Introduction

Chapter 1: SSI & SSDI Overview: Eligibility, Sequential Evaluation, and Summary of Benefits

Chapter 2: Overview of the Application & Appeals Process

Chapter 3: Handling Cases & Advocacy Practice
3a. Interviewing Your Client
3b. Developing the Medical Evidence
3c. Writing the Brief
3d. Presenting Your Client’s Case
3e. The Medical-Vocational Guidelines
3f. Miscellaneous Eligibility Issues 

Chapter 4: Mock Hearing (Vocational Expert)

Closing Remarks and Resources

The supporting documents include:
SSA Best Practices
Local SSA Contact Information 2010
ODAR Logistics Sheet
Appointment of Representative Form
ALJ Hearing Form
Physical Records Release Form
Mental Health Records Release Form
Psychiatric Review Technique
Residual Physical Functional Capacity Assessment
Mental Residual Functional Capacity Assessment
Important Links

Thanks so much to Erin Loubier, Scott McNeilly, Jennifer Mezey and my colleague Sabrina Wear for their incredible work on this project. We hope this will provide tremendous support for all your good work in representing your SSI/SSDI client on appeal.

Executive Director

The Mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program has run into management problems each of the last three years.   This year is no exception.   The program has incurred massive cost overruns.    Thousands of young people were enrolled beyond the funds that had been allocated in the District’s budget.  On top of that, the Mayor sought approval from the Council to extend the program from 6 to 7 1/2 weekd.   To bridge the gap and pay for the extension, the Mayor took $8.4 million in TANF Contingency Emergency Funds that had been set aside for homeless services and other human services priorities.

Yesterday, Councilmember Michael Brown held a hearing on the program’s operation and the Mayor’s request.   You may read my testimony here .   The hearing was packed with young people who had been brought by their programs to testify about the benefits of the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP).  They were terrific and convincing, but none more so than the two young people who changed their minds.   Upon learning that the SYEP was being funded at the expense of people who are homeless, they urged that the homeless money be restored.

This morning, the Council voted to not extend the program.   It remains unclear whether the cost overruns have consumedthe TANF money or whether some might be returned to the Department of Human Services.

The Mayor’s actions were an end-run of the budget process.  The District just completed the drafting of its budget.   On April 1, the Mayor sent his proposal to the Council and there was a two month period of intense and public review.   Scores of hearings were held, advocates met with Council members and staff, careful reviews were conducted and the budget was marked up by committees and then eventually by the Council as a whole.   That budget was signed by the Mayor and sent to Congress for its review.   Less than a month after the vote, the Mayor skirts that process and takes money from one program to fund another.

TANF Emergency Contingency Funds are needed for other priorities.  They are part of the federal economic stimulus legislation.   The District is entitled to draw up to $46 million from the federal government to off-set increased costs due to the recession.  During the recent budget deliberations, the executive declared an intent to use $8.1 million in 2010 to cover the shortfall in homeless services, $5.5 million in 2010 to pay for a new IMA case management system and the balance of the money in 2011 in TANF cash assistance, job training and other TANF related initiatives.

The money that the executive committed to put aside for homeless services is critical.   In fiscal year 2010, the District directed $12 million in TANF money that had previously been used for homeless services to other purposes.   The $8.1 million in stimulus funding was supposed to provide a partial restoration of the cut and mitigate the impact on services to some of the District’s most vulnerable residents.

 A reduction in homeless services during a deep recession is particularly troubling.   Cuts to programs come at a time of increased need.  Extraordinarily high rates of unemployment are making many more families vulnerable and charitable services have been hit but cuts.   In July, nearly 450 families were on the waiting list for emergency shelter.

It is unfair to pit these two important needs against each other.   The choice should not be youth job training or homeless services.   But because of the way this played out, that is the choice the Council must make.   Maybe they ought to change the rules and take the money to fund both from somewhere else in the budget.

Supervising Attorney

Councilmember David Catania and his staff are developing proposals that would address several important issues, including unmet children’s mental health needs, truancy and disconnection from supportive services.  One of many proposals that Councilmember Catania will consider, as reported in The Washington Post, is sanctioning (or reducing) benefits for District Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients if their children have repeated unexcused absences from school.

Although we share the Councilmember’s underlying concerns and strongly support his efforts to improve the delivery of mental health services to children through schools and other public and private entities, we believe that the TANF sanction proposal will not improve school attendance and will harm some of the very families he is trying to help:

*   Sanctioning TANF families with truant kids does not lead to increased school attendance among TANF recipients’ kids.

*   Sanctioning TANF families with truant kids will merely punish families who are already struggling with significant challenges.

*   The proposed policies will increase the material hardship for sanctioned families which could make it harder for them to support their children’s education.

*   Children suffer when their parents are sanctioned.

*   The District could better engage families and improve school attendance outcomes by improving services for vulnerable families.

Please see the  fact sheet prepared by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, Legal Aid and the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless describing in more detail why we urge Councilmember Catania not to include this proposal in any package of legislative and other proposals to address the important issues of truancy and children’s mental health.

Executive Director

TANF. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program is scheduled to be re-authorized this year.  TANF was the centerpiece of the mid-1990’s changes to the public systems of support for low-income families dubbed “welfare reform.”  The stated idea behind TANF was that it would give a short term cash benefit while parents were assisted to move into the workforce.  The result is that TANF participation has decreased and the percentage of people eligible for benefits who actually receive them has declined.  Legal Momentum found that the decline in participation has, remarkably, continued throughout the recession.

Network, a group of Catholic social justice leaders, recently completed and published a report on the effectiveness of the TANF program during the recession.  TANF Tested: Lives of Families in Poverty during the Recession .   There are real questions about whether TANF’s focus on work made a difference during the boom years immediately following welfare reform.   Only a very small percentage of people leaving TANF for work secured employment with an adequate wage to lift them out of poverty.  During a recession, where official unemployment rates have climbed to nearly 10% nationally, the notion that work is the answer for most families living in poverty is absurd.

Driven by the results of the study, Network has made a number of important recommendations for the reauthorization bill.  The most important being that the basic measure of success be shifted from whether TANF caseloads are reduced to whether TANF recipients and those who leave TANF move out of poverty.

What the Federal Government Should Do Next to Reduce Poverty. Important provisions of the Stimulus Package provided support to state and local governments to continue and expand safety-net programs.   Key aspects of these programs are set to expire, despite that unemployment remains very high and communities are in distress.

The Urban Institute issued a briefing paper in July (Co-Authored by DC Access to Justice Commission Chair and Georgetown Law Professor Peter Edelman) with recommendation for short and long term measures that the federal government should take to reduce poverty and increase economic security.  Reducing Poverty and Economic:  Distress after ARRA: Next Steps for Short-Term Recovery and Long-Term Economic Security.  The paper looks at the immediate need for income support and job creation, but also looks forward to the next crisis in the job market and measures that might be taken to create long term economic stability.

Impact of the Recession on the Courts. We have previously written in this blog about the crisis in equal justice.  A new American Bar Association report examines the question from the perspective of the bench.  The ABA surveyed 1200 judges from across the country on the effects of the recession on representation in the courts.  The study found that self-representation is, not surprisingly, on the increase.  More significantly, however, the judges admit that self representation yields unjust results.  The report concluded:  “The most important issue with regard to self representation is what is its effect. The table below shows that while 37% of the judges say that it is not problematic, 62% say that individuals are negatively impacted. Only a very few say that there is a positive impact… Also troubling to 26% of the justices is that the court allows an injustice to occur when one of the parties is not able to properly present the valid claims or defense that they might have.”

Executive Director

The school lunch program is an increasingly important source of nutrition for low income children.   In 2007-2008, 32,000 District children received free or reduced lunches each day and 16,000 received breakfast.  Thanks to recent legislation, the federal government will fund evening meals for low-income children as well.  The demand on these programs has likely increased with the recession.

Despite the high rate of participation in free and reduced lunch programs, hunger remains a problem in the District.  Nineteen percent of the District’s population participates in the Food Stamp program, yet a recent study found that one-in-four families with children had trouble securing adequate nutrition.

When it snows and schools are closed, this important source of food is cut off.  What happens to the children and their families who are already at risk from hunger when a week goes by and the breakfasts and lunches that they rely on are not available?

Despite all the criticism that the school lunch program receives – poor nutritional quality, inadequate funding, over-use of processed foods – it is an essential tool to make certain that children are fed.  But the storms last week show that there needs to be a strategy to ensure that there is more food in the home as well.

The District Council has already mandated that the Food Stamp program be expanded to serve people whose incomes are at or below 200% of poverty (up from 133%), but the Department of Human Services is dragging its heels.  An increase to the embarrassing low TANF payment would also assist families to have greater nutritional security.  Currently, a family that receives both TANF and Food Stamps survives at just 50% of the federal poverty level.

Executive Director

The December unemployment numbers show a worsening picture for the District of Columbia.   The official unemployment rate is 12.1%, up more than 6% since December of 2007.   African American unemployment far exceeds white, with 17.6% of African Americans out of a job as opposed to 5.7% of whites. 

The Economic Policy Institute has created a useful tool called Economy Track that provides quick access to employment and economic activity data.    Economy Track compares the current recession to prior economic downturns and shows that unemployment is worse and the recession more sustained that anything within the last 30 years.  The crisis is likely to deepen.   Unemployment has risen steadily with no sign of abating.   Even when it turns around, it will take a long time to recover.

During this crisis, it is important that the District implement measures to support those who lived in poverty before the recession as well as those driven into poverty by it.   Measures might include: 

• Implement expansions to the Food Stamp program that have already been authorized.   In June 2009, the District Council unanimously enacted legislation to expand the Food Stamp program to include families up to 200% of poverty (from 130%).   The expansion was to be in place with the new budget on October 1.   It has still not happened, leaving tens of thousands of people at risk for inadequate nutrition.  Protect TANF.   District officials attempted this summer to throw entire families off of TANF for program violations.   Under current law, sanctions are limited to a partial reduction in the grant.
• Adequately staff the Department of Human Services to ensure that applications for benefits are timely and accurately processed.  Staffing shortages are creating real harm to people in need. 
• Restore local housing vouchers that were eliminated from the budget in July.   Stable housing not only reduces homelessness, but increases academic success in children and reduces hunger
• Fix the Department of Employment Services and create a real plan to put District residents to work.   Increased access to jobs, living wages and child care are among the most effective strategies to move families out of poverty.   Rather than sustain families in economic limbo, the District should strive to create meaningful income through work for all residents.

Staff Attorney, Public Benefits

Today’s Washington Post includes an important article on the barriers many low-income residents face to accessing our city’s safety-net programs.  The story reveals what residents who participate in these programs already know, which is that Income Maintenance Administration (IMA) service centers – where residents apply for Food Stamps, Medical Assistance, and other assistance programs – are under-staffed, over-whelmed, and unable to meet the increased demand for services.

As noted in the article, the Mayor closed two IMA services centers last year in an effort to save money.  This has increased the burden on the remaining service centers at a time when the number of District residents who need assistance has risen dramatically.  For example, the number of people enrolled in the District’s Food Stamp program has increased 22% since 2007.  The article also notes that the administration pledged to fully staff the remaining service centers, but has so far failed to honor that pledge.  The result is that residents – many of whom are elderly, pregnant, or disabled – must often wait for entire days for the assistance they need to apply or recertify.  At the end of the day, many are turned away without being helped and are told to come back.

Many Legal Aid clients tell a similar story.  Legal Aid assists clients who have been denied or terminated from Food Stamps, Medical Assistance and/or TANF – not because they do not qualify – but because of problems with the application and recertification process.  Notices are not mailed or received, application/recertification papers are lost, and recipients are unable to communicate with case-workers.  Those without the assistance of an attorney or case manager undoubtedly face a more difficult process of gaining access to the benefits they need and deserve.

Reducing IMA’s capacity to serve its clients is yet another way that the Mayor’s efforts to close budget gaps have disproportionately burdened our city’s low-income residents.  Rather than making it more difficult for those in need to access the District’s safety-net program, the Mayor should focus on policies that reduce barriers to assistance.  A major step towards reducing these barriers would be for the Mayor to fulfill his administration’s pledge to the city’s low-income residents by adequately staffing all IMA service centers.

Supervising Attorney

As we’ve discussed on this bog previously, Legal Aid joins other legal services and anti-poverty advocates in opposing changes to the TANF program that would harm poor families. We are very concerned that the District’s 2011 budget proposal could include full family sanctions – termination of benefits to families who, possibly through no fault of their own, are not in compliance with TANF requirements. Many of the families who could be subject to these sanctions are struggling with physical or mental disability, domestic violence and other challenges. A letter signed by Legal Aid and 39 other organizations and individuals was sent to Mayor Fenty, the head of the Department of Human Services and others in the District government stating our firm opposition to such a proposal. The letter is copied below.

December 21, 2009

The Honorable Adrian Fenty
Mayor of the District of Columbia
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20004

Dear Mayor Fenty:

As you begin the difficult task of preparing your FY 2011 budget proposal, we, the undersigned organizations, are writing to strongly urge you not to include any proposals to increase sanctions or implement new administrative requirements that would make it harder for low-income families to access the District’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

More than 16,000 DC households — and one in three children — rely on the TANF program for support. In the midst of the current economic downturn, more families are turning to TANF for job training, supportive services, and financial support. The program is responding to the increased demand for services, and we need to make sure that it continues to be available to families who are working to transition back to work.

As part of the July budget gap-closing proposal, the Department of Human Services (DHS) budget included a proposal to increase sanctions for TANF families that had not met at least half of the work requirement after six months. Language in the Budget Support Act also would have allowed DHS to implement increased sanctions, including the authority to cut families off completely from benefits if they do not meet the work requirement after a certain period of time. That proposal was not included in the final FY 2010 budget, and we urge you not to include a similar proposal in the FY 2011 budget for the following reasons:

• Increasing sanctions does nothing to improve TANF’s poor-quality employment services and assessment process. The employment readiness services within DC’s TANF program generally are limited to the most basic resume and job search assistance and focus on moving recipients into employment as quickly as possible. As a result, many TANF recipients find these services unhelpful, and most TANF recipients who become employed can find only low-wage work (the average wage is $9 per hour).

Additionally, there is evidence that many recipients who would qualify for work exemptions or supportive services that could make them more employable are not receiving this assistance. For example, while an estimated 20 percent of TANF recipients have experienced domestic violence, fewer than one percent of recipients received a waiver under the Family Violence Option in FY 2008. Survivors face multiple barriers to employment including sabotage from their abusive partners, lack of adequate child care, and physical challenges due to injuries sustained from abuse. As these barriers increase, a survivor’s ability to obtain employment is diminished. This would have a devastating impact on survivors of domestic violence — of which there may be as many of 75,000 in the District.

Similarly, while the rates of disability among the TANF population are significant, the POWER program for individuals who can’t participate because of a disability has only about two hundred participants. • Increased TANF sanctions are unlikely to result in greater compliance with work requirements. Studies of other states find that sanctions do not lead to improved compliance, largely because the recipients most likely to be sanctioned are those with the greatest personal problems and barriers to work.

• Further sanctions would increase hardship for children in low-income families. The District’s TANF benefit — $428 for a family of three — is already low compared with the city’s high cost of living and benefits in other comparable cities. Lowering this amount will leave families with even fewer resources to meet their basic needs and will place low-income children in more desperate circumstances. Compared to TANF families who are not sanctioned, sanctioned households more often have trouble paying for rent, food, medical expenses, and utility bills.[1] Some studies have also found increased rates of child abuse and neglect among sanctioned families.[2] 
• Families would lose access to benefits. The Department of Human Services (DHS) already has the authority to reduce families’ benefits if they do not participate in the required number of hours of work activities.Other states have instituted practices, such as mandatory orientations and full-family sanctions, that have made their programs less effective at lifting children out of extreme poverty. In the 1980s and early 1990s, before many of these policy changes were implemented, about 80 percent of families nationwide who were eligible for AFDC (the precursor to TANF) were enrolled in the program. In 2005, only 40 percent of eligible families were receiving TANF.[3] If these changes are implemented in DC, many families could be diverted or removed from the TANF caseload and left without any form of assistance.

Instead of pursuing increased sanctions, we implore you to instead strengthen the TANF program by improving its assessments, job training, and supportive services. A full description of these recommendations can be found in a recent report published by SOME, Inc. and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute.   We urge you and your staff to work with TANF recipients, policy experts, and advocates to redesign the TANF program to provide services that truly help recipients gain the skills needed to leave welfare for work.

We thank you for considering this matter.

Executive Director

Civil Right to Counsel:    The Empire Justice Center, a civil legal services program in New York has called on the State to create a pilot civil Gideon program along the lines recently implemented in California.    If this is a trend, it is very good news.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Tom Perez gives a 60 day report to the American Constitution Society.   After 8 years of turmoil, a strong civil rights advocate now heads the Civil Rights Division at justice.   Read about the efforts to rebuild the Division and plans for federal enforcement of the civil rights laws.  In addition to being a civil rights leader, Tom has always been a friend of the anti-poverty movement.

Legal Momentum Finds that TANF Case Loads Decreased During the Recession.  In a recent report, Legal Momentum found that TANF case loads decreased in 22 states between December 2007 and March 2009.   In the District 300 fewer families – a decline of 2.6%  — were on TANF at the end of the time period, despite significant increases in poverty and unemployment.   These results, while not explained in the report, are disturbing.  

The Constitutionality of Health Care Reform.   Conservative opponents of health care reform have argued that requiring those who can afford insurance to purchase it is unconstitutional.  The American Constitution Society has published an issues brief that thoroughly debunks these claims.   

The Recovery Act has had an Impact on Poverty:   Despite concerns expressed by anti-poverty advocates (including in this blog), there is evidence that the Recovery Act has made a difference for people who are struggling to survive at the bottom of the economic scale.  The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities found that more than 6 million people moved above the federal poverty line and the poverty of 32 million was made less severe by the Recovery Act.   (It is important to note that the federal poverty line is a poor measure for adequate income to meet basic needs.   Millions of families are not “poor” for guidelines purposes, but cannot afford adequate housing, food or other basics.)   It remains true that Wall Street bankers did very well by stimulus, but it is comforting to see that it has helped those who need it most as well.

Supervising Attorney

During a time of budget uncertainty in which funding for programs that serve vulnerable individuals and families is jeopardized, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI) and So Others Might Eat (SOME) recently released a report entitled “Voices for Change: Perspectives on Strengthening Welfare-to-Work From DC TANF Recipients.”   The authors of this report, Katie Kerstetter of DCFPI and Joni Podschun of SOME, document the strengths and weaknesses of the District’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program through interviews and focus groups with TANF recipients and service providers throughout the City.   The authors conclude that “the progressive components of the District’s [TANF] program have not lived up to their promise because of inadequate implementation.” 

 Background on TANF

 The District’s TANF program provides benefits to impoverished families with children.  In order to qualify for benefits, recipients must work or participate in work activities and cooperate with the District’s efforts to establish and enforce child support enforcement orders.  The law recognizes and provides exemptions for individuals who, through no fault of their own, cannot cooperate with these requirements.

 Legal Aid’s work on TANF

Legal Aid represents TANF recipients who have been denied benefits or whose benefits have been terminated.  We also represent individuals who are challenging sanctions that have been wrongfully imposed on them.  We have several clients and former clients with proven disabilities who were sanctioned even though the TANF agency – or the third party contractors who provide employment and training services to recipients — had knowledge of their disabilities.    

In order to more effectively reach out to TANF recipients, Legal Aid, in partnership with the law firm of Akin, Gump, Hauer and Strauss, has set up a hotline for TANF recipients to call to get advice and representation to challenge their TANF sanctions.  That number is: (202) 887-4170.

The findings of the DCFPI/SOME report are consistent with the experiences of Legal Aid and our clients.

The DCFPI/SOME report provides convincing support for three major flaws of the District’s TANF program that Legal Aid has observed among our client population: (1) TANF recipients who could work or participate in work activities are ill-served by a “one-size fits all” approach that pushes people into the first job they can get regardless of its suitability and ability to enable the family to become self-sufficient; (2) TANF recipients with barriers to work – such as domestic violence or disabilities – are not receiving appropriate services; and (3) the TANF grant is too low to allow TANF families to meet their basic needs.  Importantly, these critiques are offered by the TANF recipients who the program is supposed to be serving and too often fails.

Kerstetter and Podschun offer concrete proposals to remedy these flaws.  In order to help those who can work become more employable and those who can’t work address their challenges, the District must take a more individualized approach.  The TANF agency should improve their assessment processes and refer applicants to better and more appropriate supportive services to address barriers to work.  Those who can work should be able to access better quality education and training opportunities.  And for all TANF recipients, the grant must increase because $428 a month is just not enough money for a family of three, even with other supports such as housing assistance (which only one-third of TANF recipients receive), Food Stamps and Medicaid.

Unfortunately, in its July proposal to fill gaps in the Fiscal Year 2010 budget, the Fenty Administration endorsed policies that would punish TANF recipients for the program’s flaws.  The Administration asked the City Council to give it the authority to impose full family sanctions for families who did not (or in some cases could not) comply with work requirements.  In other words, a family would lose all of its cash assistance if the parent did not work.  Studies have shown that such policies hurt those families who face the most serious barriers to work and harm children.  The City Council listened to TANF advocates, including Legal Aid, and many other concerned District residents and denied the Administration this authority. 

However, this victory could be short-lived.  As the District continues to face economic trouble, the Administration could again propose such draconian policies in the next budget season. 

Full family sanctions would harm the one in three children in DC who receive TANF benefits, increase the hardship of already struggling families and ignore the lessons that this report tries to teach us.  The 16,000 families who depend on TANF need individualized attention, comprehensive services and adequate financial support so that they can address or overcome their barriers and achieve better outcomes for themselves and their children.  That is surely a goal that we can all agree is worth pursuing.