Jennifer Mezey, Supervising Attorney

Ed Lazere, Executive Director of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute

A recent story in the Washington Examiner intended to highlight changes the District is making to its welfare-to-work program (formally known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF) opened with the following misleading sentence: 

In a city where nearly half of residents receive some kind of government handout, District officials are working to find ways to get residents off public assistance.

This statistic and its use in this context are highly misleading if not outright deceptive, and we thought it would be worth spending a moment to explain why. 

The term “nearly half” unnecessarily overstates the actual numbers, and the term “handout” is unnecessarily provocative.  As the article goes on to say, actually, 40 percent of District residents receive TANF, Food Stamps and/or Medicaid.  These are very different programs, and to group them all together as “handouts” is loaded and irresponsible.  

The largest share of the 40 percent figure reflects Medicaid coverage, because DC has a program that covers many lower-income working families who get little or no health insurance from their job.  The District has the second lowest rate of uninsured adults (only Massachusetts’ rate is lower) and the lowest rate of uninsured children.  This is something to be proud of, not criticized.   Food stamps provide nutrition assistance to low-income households, from the elderly to the working poor.  Our food stamp participation closely matches the city’s poverty rate, so there’s no surprise there. 

Beyond that, these programs are intended to expand as the economy worsens.  DC’s current unemployment rate continues to grow three years into a recession.  In Ward 8, for instance, the unemployment rate is upwards of 30 percent.  With unemployment at the highest level in 30 years, we have many more residents without health insurance and who need assistance feeding their families.  

Finally, just eight percent of the District’s population receives TANF.  Let’s remember that these TANF recipients are among the youngest and most vulnerable District residents – poor children and their parents or other caretakers who often face many serious barriers to employment, including disability, domestic violence and limited education.  And as the District itself acknowledges, the TANF program has not adequately met the needs of the families it serves.  The city is rolling out new efforts to better identify employment barriers and provide education and training.  We are hopeful this will lead to the response we all want – TANF caseloads falling not because vulnerable families are kicked off but because they are ready to work.  Early results from the program show that families are eager to get the skills needed to get off welfare. 

Mayor Gray’s administration is trying to turn this around by offering better comprehensive and individualized services to families.  These efforts are important and should be supported.  But the justification for them should not be some vague sense that too many individuals and families rely on government “handouts.”

Monica Bell, Liman Fellow

The D.C. Council held its first vote on the Fiscal Year 2012 budget on May 24, 2011. (For more on the process, see the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute’s FY 2012 Budget Toolkit.) The Council’s budget makes several changes to the Mayor’s proposal that affect both revenue-raising measures and expenditures on safety net programs. 

Perhaps the most notable change in revenue enhancement measures was the Council’s decision to abandon Mayor Gray’s proposed 0.4% income tax increase on individuals earning more than $200,000 per year. The Council decided instead to adopt a measure that Legal Aid has endorsed on multiple occasions: eliminating DC’s exemption on interest collected from out-of-state bonds. At the beginning of this budget season, only D.C. and Indiana exempted interest earned on out-of-state municipal bonds from taxation.  The Indiana Legislature voted to end their exemption in early May, and the D.C. Council followed suit on May 24.  Although this measure raises less revenue than the proposed income tax, it (along with other changes to the revenue distribution scheme explained here) allowed the Council to give some support back to the hardest-hit safety net programs. 

TANF:  The Council voted to restore $4.9 million to TANF, which would avoid additional time-limited cuts for FY 2012. The Budget Support Act, the subject of the second vote on June 14, still includes benefits cut to begin in FY 2013.

Homeless Services:  The Council voted to restore roughly $17 million to the budget for Homeless Services. 

Interim Disability Assistance (IDA): The Council added $1.5 million to preserve IDA. The District is currently reimbursed about 40% of the money it spends on IDA – a high percentage relative to other states, but an amount that has come under the Mayor’s attack.  Under the May 24 budget, the Department of Human Services must review the IDA program to see if there are ways to increase IDA’s reimbursement rate. Although the Council has allocated some money to IDA, it is only enough to serve about 500 residents – less than one-half of the current IDA recipients. The Council voted to add additional funding to IDA if revenues in DC increase above the currently projected amount. 

Even with these restorations, a significant amount of the District’s budget cuts still fall on the most vulnerable communities. In addition, there are lingering indicators – such as the review of IDA and the continued enthusiasm for a time limited approach to the broken TANF program – that safety-net advocacy will remain vitally important during the next budget cycle. Nonetheless, the Council should be commended for its efforts to preserve and improve the safety net, and for its commitment to strengthen some safety net programs with additional revenues. If the Council were to restore the modest income tax increase and include the elimination of the bond exemption, the social safety net would be in far better shape. 

The final budget vote, which will solidify legislative changes through the District’s Budget Support Act, will be held on Tuesday, June 14.  At this point, the amount of money available in the budget is finalized, but the allocations of funds can still change. Thus, we urge you to reach out to your Council Members and encourage them to consider restoring the modest tax increase and do all they can to maintain the restorations to safety net services that are critically important to our client community.

For more information about the first budget vote, see:

D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute – The DC Budget Vote: So What Happened?

Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless – Shelter System Crisis – Averted!

DCist – 2012 Budget Passes Council on First Vote

Washington Post – Upper-income residents in D.C. won’t face higher tax rate

Related Making Justice Real  blog posts:

Legal Aid Expresses Profound Concern about Disproportionate Budget Cuts

TANF Time Limit Would Put Survivors of Domestic Violence at Risk

Proposed Change to D.C. Healthcare Alliance Would Erect High Barriers to Health Coverage

D.C. Budget Would Suspend Interim Disability Assistance

Mayor Gray’s Proposed Budget Cuts Would Hit Legal Aid Clients Hard

Join Legal Aid and Other Organizations in Urging the Mayor to “Invest in DC”

Eric Angel, Executive Director

I testified before the D.C. Council on Monday, May 9, 2011, about the 2012 Budget Support Act.  My oral testimony focused generally on poverty in the District and proposed changes to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and the D.C. Healthcare Alliance.  My written testimony focused on both of those issues along with Interim Disability Assistance and the importance of retaining the proposed revenue enhancements.

Click here to read Legal Aid’s full testimony.

Click here to see the hearing including my oral testimony, which begins at approximately 03:11:19.

Other Making Justice Real posts on the FY 2012 Budget:

TANF Time Limit Would Put Survivors of Domestic Violence at Risk

Proposed Change to D.C. Healthcare Alliance Would Erect High Barriers to Health Coverage

D.C. Budget Would Suspend Interim Disability Assistance

Mayor Gray’s Proposed Budget Cuts Would Hit Legal Aid Clients Hard

Julia Lee, Senior Staff Attorney

As a cost-cutting measure, the Mayor’s office has proposed dramatic changes to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (or “TANF,” the District’s cash assistance program for very low-income families.)  One feature of Mayor Gray’s budget is a time-triggered cutoff for people who have received TANF benefits for longer than sixty months over the course of their lifetime.  Benefit reductions have already been instituted.  We are concerned that Mayor Gray’s time limit proposal would be seriously detrimental to survivors of domestic violence and their families. (The vast majority of the clients Legal Aid helps to secure domestic violence protective orders are TANF recipients.) 

D.C. law waives the TANF work participation requirement for recipients who are noncompliant because of family violence, or because fulfilling the requirement would impair the recipients’ ability to escape domestic violence or put recipients at risk of further violence.  See D.C. Mun. Reg. 29-5823.  This carve-out recognizes that when survivors are struggling to remove themselves from abusive situations, the TANF work program can be too much to handle and can place survivors and their families in real danger.  Most states have similar policies. 

Currently, the Income Maintenance Administration (IMA), which administers TANF, does a poor job of identifying recipients who have been affected by domestic violence.  Only 1 TANF recipient was receiving the waiver in late 2010 even though the Urban Institute has estimated that approximately 1 in 5 D.C. TANF recipients are domestic violence survivorsand more than 1 in 7 have suffered severe domestic violence within the most recent year.  The process for receiving the waiver is confusing and convoluted, so many domestic violence survivors now are receiving sanctions (having their benefits reduced) because their family situations preclude them from being able to meet the extensive work activity requirements.  Changes underway at IMA might help the agency do a better job of identifying survivors to connect them with services and help them avoid sanctions, but those changes will not take effect for several months at the earliest. 

If the proposed time limit is enacted as is, recipients will be cut off even if they are receiving the domestic violence waiver.  For example, a survivor of domestic violence who would be in danger if her abuser found out her location and who, for that reason, never received job training or was delayed in being trained would still be cut off TANF once her time was up.  IMA could say to these survivors, on one day, “You’re fine; you don’t have to worry about going to job training if it will put your or your children’s safety at risk,” but on the next day, “You’ve been on too long; you’re cut off.”   

The potential effect of the TANF time limit on domestic violence survivors is yet another piece of evidence that the Mayor’s office has not considered the full consequences of its rush to cut TANF and other human services programs.  If a TANF time limit is enacted, the policy should be crafted in a way that would not penalize survivors of domestic violence for circumstances that are beyond their control.  More broadly, any time limit should be constructed so that it more closely mirrors time limits in other states: it should be prospective, not retroactive; it should include extensions and extensions for people who are complying with work requirements and people who cannot meet work requirements; and it should be narrowly tailored so that it causes the least amount of harm possible to low-income children and families.  The current proposal meets none of those criteria. 

The fate of TANF, and our clients who rely on it for the most basic subsistence, is now in the hands of the D.C. Council.  Please contact Councilmember Jim Graham, Chair of the Committee on Human Services, and ask him to stop the current TANF time limit proposal.  You can reach Councilmember Graham at (202) 724-8181 or jim@grahamwone.com.

Recent Making Justice Real posts on TANF:

Mayor Gray’s Proposed Budget Cuts Would Hit Legal Aid Clients Hard

TANF benefits to be cut for some families as of April 1, 2011. 

Bad Direction for TANF in the District of Columbia

Legal Aid opinion piece published in Washington Post

Legal Aid’s Thanksgiving Message

Monica Bell, Liman Fellow

Mayor Gray released his proposed Fiscal Year 2012 budget on
April 1.  The budget takes a more balanced approach overall than recent budgets by calling for several means of revenue enhancement, including raising the marginal tax rate on families with taxable income of over $200,000 per year by 0.4%, establishing combined reporting for multistate corporations, increasing the parking tax from 12% to 18% to make it more similar to other large cities’ parking taxes, and increasing the alcohol tax, among others.   However, 67.2% — 2 of every 3 dollars – of the cuts proposed by the Mayor are directed toward the already ailing health, housing, and human services budgets, even though the budgets for those services only make up about one-fifth of the District’s current expenditures. The proposed budget would weaken several programs, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Interim Disability Assistance (IDA), Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), the DC Healthcare Alliance, Housing Vouchers, and Homeless Services, which keep many of our clients here at Legal Aid from suffering the very worst consequences of poverty.

TANF:  The proposal would, over the next three fiscal years, cut cash assistance to almost 7,000 families who have been on the program longer than 60 months.  As we have explained in previous posts, the FY 2011 budget already cut benefits to this same group, many of whom have the most barriers to working. To illustrate, a family of three who was receiving $428 per month (the maximum benefit) before April 1, 2011 is now receiving $342 per month; this amount would drop to $257 per month beginning October 1, 2011, to $150 per month by October 1, 2012, and would be eliminated completely by October 1, 2013.  The Mayor believes that this cut would help end the alleged “cycle of poverty” and incentivize people to work.  There are many problems with his approach.  First, research overwhelmingly indicates that while time limits certainly lower welfare rolls, they are not an effective employment tool.  Second, the current D.C. TANF program fails at several critical aspects of a successful welfare-to-work program, including assessment, connection with supportive services, job training, and job location.  Time limits in places with strong welfare-to-work programs are problematic enough; time limits in a jurisdiction with a deficient welfare-to-work program are both unproductive and cruel.  

IDA:  The funding for IDA, which offers benefits to individuals with disabilities while their applications for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are pending, would be cut by up to 75% under the Mayor’s proposal.  The program – which gives recipients just $247 per month — currently serves 1500 District residents and has a waiting list of over 600 people; the program caseload would be cut to about 600 by the end of FY 2012 if this massive budget cut is approved.  The budget would essentially eliminate IDA over time. 

DC Healthcare Alliance:  The proposal would cut funding for the Alliance by $11.7 million. The CFO anticipates that the Alliance would save this money through a measure in the Budget Support Act that would increase the frequency that people on the Alliance must recertify their eligibility.  Currently, Alliance members must recertify once per year.  The proposed Act would require face-to-face recertification every six months. This change would likely lead to inaccurate disqualification of District residents who are eligible for Alliance benefits. 

ERAP:  The proposed budget would slash funding for ERAP by $5 million, to just $2.7 million for FY 12.  In contrast, the FY 2009 ERAP budget was $8 million.  This cut will likely increase homelessness and the problems that tend to accompany it, such as truancy and crime. ERAP is often the last resort for families who are at risk of being evicted from their housing, and this massive cut will mean that fewer families will be able to remain in housing. 

Homeless Services:  Even as the District’s largest shelter has had to start turning away homeless families due to lack of funding, and even as the problem of homelessness is likely to increase because of cuts to TANF, IDA, and ERAP, the Mayor is proposing that the budget for services to the homeless population be decreased.  The proposed budget would cut the already cash-strapped homeless services budget by approximately $11 million. 

In addition to the above-mentioned cuts, Legal Aid is also concerned about cuts and shifts in budget priorities with respect to housing vouchers, affordable housing development, and mental health services for children in foster care, among others. 

As a member of the Invest in DC coalition, Legal Aid is pleased that the Mayor proposed at least a small set of revenue enhancements.  We recognize that this is a tough budget season in which difficult choices must be made.  However, the proposed budget would undermine – and, in some cases, destroy – programs that ensure the economic security of the most vulnerable District families.  That is not an acceptable choice.  We call on Mayor Gray and the Council to think more creatively about how to protect the safety net, such as by adopting the Invest in DC coalition’s recommendation to end DC’s tax exemption for interest paid on out-of-state bonds and by subjecting more nonessential services like pet grooming and health club membership to the sales tax. 

The Council is currently holding hearings regarding each agency’s budget; the hearings started on April 7 and will continue through May 6.  The hearing before the Committee of the Whole is on May 7.  The final vote for the Budget Request Act will take place on May 24, and the final vote on the Budget Support Act is on June 7.  Please testify at hearings and reach out to Council members in this timeframe to let them know that you support the preservation of critical safety net programs. 

For more information on the District’s FY 2012 budget, see:

• Official website for the Mayor’s FY 2012 budget (you can download the budget books here)
• Budget Request Act
• Budget Support Act
• Schedule of agency budget hearings
• DC Fiscal Policy Institute, Mayor’s Proposed FY 2012 Budget Takes a Balanced Approach on Revenue, but Not on Budget Cuts: Budget Cuts Disproportionately Fall on Programs that Help Keep Families Stable and Healthy

Jennifer Mezey, Supervising Attorney

As of April 1, 2011, thousands of TANF recipients who have received benefits for 60 months or more will experience a 20 percent cut in their benefits as a result of DC Council actions taken earlier this year.  If you work with this client community, we are writing to ask you to spread the word to TANF recipients that if their benefits are cut or they think their benefits have been cut, legal advice and assistance is available.

TANF recipients can contact any of the organizations listed on the attached flyer or call the Legal Aid TANF hotline at (202) 887-4170.  They can speak to a lawyer who can determine if (and why) their benefits have been cut and whether they might qualify for an exemption.  Service providers can also call to learn more about the benefit cuts and how they will affect their clients.

The attached flyer provides more details about how to get help.  We would really appreciate it if you could circulate to your networks and post in your offices.  (Spanish translation to be available soon.)

Background on the cuts

In December, the DC Council adopted a $4.5 million cut to the District’s TANF program.  On April 1, 2011, the District will implement this reduction through a 20 percent benefit cut for TANF households who have received benefits for 60 months or more counting from March 1997.

Any month in which the TANF household met any one of the following criteria will NOT count towards the 60 month limit;

1. A TANF household was headed by a grandparent or other relative whose needs were not included in the grant – a “child only” household;
2. A TANF household that was headed by a parent(s) receiving SSI while the children received TANF;
3. A TANF household that was receiving benefit through the POWER program (for individuals whose physical or mental disabilities make them unable to work or participate in work activities).

The impact of these cuts

TANF advocates are very concerned about the impact that these cuts will have on these vulnerable families.  Even a full TANF grant puts a family at less than 30 percent of the federal poverty level.  As we all know, TANF families have difficulty meeting their most basic needs even with Food Stamps and Medicaid as well.

Unfortunately, this benefit cut will have the largest impact on the District’s most vulnerable TANF recipients.  Studies of states that have implemented these kinds of cuts show that families who have been on TANF for five years or more likely face multiple work barriers including disability and domestic violence.  Losing a portion of their grant will only make these families more vulnerable.

Help spread the word

Please help us reach as many TANF recipients as possible to let them know that help is available.

• We want to make sure that families whose benefits are cut really received TANF for 60 months or more.
• We want to make sure that all TANF recipients who qualify (or should qualify) for exemptions receive them.  This is particularly important for individuals with disabilities.  We know that there are significant numbers of TANF recipients who struggle with mental and physical disabilities.  However, there are only a few hundred families enrolled in the POWER program, due, in large part, to the District’s failure to adequately assess and refer individuals with disabilities to services.   We want to make sure that individuals with disabilities that qualify them for POWER get the services they need and are protected from any future benefit cuts.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact:

Jennifer Mezey or Andrew Patterson at Legal Aid (jmezey@legalaiddc.<orgmailto:jmezey@legalaiddc.org> or apatterson@legalaiddc.<orgmailto:apatterson@legalaiddc.org>)

Marta Beresin or Becky O’Brien at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless (marta@legalclinic.<orgmailto:marta@legalclinic.org> or becky@legalclinic.<orgmailto:becky@legalclinic.org>) or

Stacy Braverman or Allison Miles-Lee at Bread for the City (sbraverman@BreadFortheCity.<orgmailto:sbraverman@BreadFortheCity.org> or amiles-lee@BreadFortheCity.org )

__________________

TANF Hotline Flyer Final

Eric Angel, Acting Executive Director

In recent days, we reached out to the Legal Aid community regarding the disturbing budget cuts proposed by Mayor Fenty in his Gap Closing Plan for FY2011.  Among other things, the plan proposed to cut the Access to Justice Grant Program – which supports civil legal services for indigent District residents and the Community Legal Interpreter Bank – by more than 50% of the level appropriated by the Council this spring.  It also proposed reducing funding for the Loan Repayment Assistance Program, which helps legal services lawyers to manage otherwise crushing educational debt.  I testified before the Council regarding this issue. In an extraordinary show of support, Chief Judge Eric Washington of the D.C. Court of Appeals, Chief Judge Lee Satterfield of the Superior Court, D.C. Bar President Ron Flagg, and the head of the Access to Justice Commission, Peter Edelman, all came down personally to the Council to oppose the cut.  Many Legal Aid Board members and friends of Legal Aid reached out to the Council via email or telephone.

These extraordinary efforts paid off:  in a day otherwise marred by deep cuts to social services in the District, the Council voted to restore most of the cuts the Mayor had proposed to Access to Justice funding.  Specifically, it appears that Access to Justice grant’s level was restored to $2.951 million and LRAP was fully restored to $221,000.  This represents a 10% cut to the Access to Justice grants program, as opposed to the over 50% cut that was proposed.

Legal Aid has also been heavily involved in advocacy regarding the spending cuts proposed that affect our client community directly, including a misguided cut to the TANF payments.  Our Liman Public Policy Fellow Monica Bell testified before the Council.  Here, our advocacy efforts were very challenging (and vastly less successful).  On Tuesday, December 7, the D.C. Council significantly altered the District’s welfare policy by essentially adopting a time limit for TANF receipt.  By February 2011, the District will reduce benefits to families who have received TANF for more than 5 years by 20%.  The benefit reduction will increase by 20% each following fiscal year until they are no longer receiving any cash assistance.  That means that a family of three now receiving $428 per month in cash assistance will receive $342 per month in FY2012, $257 per month in FY2013, $171 per month in FY 2014, and just $86 per month in FY2015. The FY2011 change will affect over 7,000 District families.  Unlike other jurisdictions with welfare time limits, the District does not exempt especially vulnerable populations, such as survivors of domestic violence, those caring for disabled family members, or recipients over the age of 60.  Half of the predicted savings will be reinvested in D.C.’s job training programs.  We are very concerned about the real, practical effects of these cuts and will be working on responses in the coming days, weeks, and months.

On Sunday, November 28, 2010, the Washington Post published an opinion piece, “A distraction of the road to a better welfare system,” by Legal Aid’s Monica C. Bell and Jennifer Mezey. 

• Legal Aid Endorses “Better Choices” and Urges a Balanced Approach to the Budget Crisis
• Legal Aid’s Thanksgiving Message

Jennifer Mezey, Supervising Attorney

Legal Aid is one of more than a dozen blogs participating in this year’s Thanksgiving Blog Blitz. Since we often criticize the way the government serves our client community, it is imperative to remember the things we are thankful for about the way the DC government has systems in place to help the most vulnerable among us.

I, for one, am thankful that the District has a TANF program so that there is a safety net for the District’s most vulnerable families with children. When parents lose their jobs and can’t qualify for unemployment insurance, when a woman is fleeing her abuser and when a father is waiting for his SSI application to be approved, there is a program that will make sure that their family is not utterly destitute. The program should be improved so that it can better help parents who can work become employable and provide better linkages to supports for parents who cannot work. We have clients at Legal Aid who are pursuing education and training opportunities and need the TANF program to better support them as they work to improve their skills. And we have clients who are struggling with disabilities that have not been acknowledged and accommodated by the TANF program. But the District is working to improve these aspects of the program, and we will hopefully see better outcomes for children and families as these changes are implemented. The bottom line is that TANF is an important part of the safety net for the District’s families and it must remain intact for the families who need it.

The DC Council will decide in the coming weeks how to fix a $175 million budget shortfall. Rather than relying solely on more cuts, it is time for a balanced approach that includes progressive revenue streams. Right now DC’s top tax rate (8.5%) starts at $40,000 a year. City leaders should create a new top tax bracket (of 1% more than the current rate) for income over $200,000. The revenue raised can help preserve the programs we are thankful for.

Please look at the Save our Safety Net website for more information . 

Other Blog Blitz Participants:
Beyond Bread

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.