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Deal would save cash assistance but cut 1,200
After weeks of negotiations on proposals that were far apart, the House and Senate have crafted a compromise bill to save the $339-a-month cash grant and medical coverage that the temporarily disabled receive through the state’s General Assistance-Unemployable program.
The compromise comes at a cost, however: Roughly 1,200 people are expected to be cut from GAU’s rolls on Sept. 1.
Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-Seattle), chair of the House Human Services Committee, says she has reached an agreement with Sen. Jim Hargrove (D-Hoquiam) on the Security Lifeline Act, legislation that Dickerson originally introduced as House Bill 2782. The bill sought to reform the $188 million program, in part, by renaming it the Disability Lifeline and stepping up the state’s process for determining which recipients are eligible for federal Supplemental Security Income benefits for the disabled and poor.
In the Senate, Hargrove, chair of Human Services & Corrections, amended the bill to turn the $339 monthly grant into a housing voucher, or partial rent payment. Under that proposal, recipients would have gotten only $50 cash per month to live on, plus food stamps.
Dickerson expected to introduce the revised bill in the House late Tuesday, March 16, after she and Hargrove go over the bill with the governor, who had proposed cutting GAU back to $250 a month and imposing a lifetime benefit limit of six months to help close the state’s $2.8 billion budget gap. Human services advocates are hoping the governor will sign off on the legislation, which, at press time, included cutting $24 million from the renamed Disability Lifeline program and imposing a 24-month lifetime limit on benefits.
The 24-month limit is retroactive and is expected to immediately cut 1,200 people from the Disability Lifeline rolls as of Sept. 1, according to Robin Zukoski, a GAU advocate with Columbia Legal Services. Zukoski and others call it a good compromise, however, because the bill would maintain full benefits for the program’s remaining 17,000 recipients.
The compromise bill also includes language to step up the state’s transitioning of people from GAU to General Assistance-Expected (Disability Lifeline-Expedited in the future), a category of SSI applicants-in-waiting. Unlike GAU, which is paid for entirely by the state, the health coverage for GAX recipients is provided by the federal Medicaid program. Once GAX recipients get SSI, the federal government reimburses the state for the monthly cash assistance it paid out.
The legislation also incorporates Hargrove’s idea of a creating a new state housing voucher for all new GAU applicants who are homeless and chemically dependent or mentally ill.
Comments
It’s shocking that DSHS has never dedicated staff to helping people apply for Social Security Disability and made sure they got their medical evaluations to get them off GAU. Theoretically, this “reform” will shorten the two to three years that it normally takes to get SSI benefits and Medicaid. This also depends on Obama’s keeping his campaign pledge to staff up Social Security and shorten the time frame. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, if I were the city and county I would find some way to track the people that are cut off of GAU when they show up at Harborview, the jail, homeless shelters, community health clinics, and other social services without stipends or medical coupons. It’s not a savings, just a transfer of costs. This tracking is a task that the Committee on Homelessness is equipped to undertake.
Sarajane Siegfriedt is incorrect in her comment above. The State HAS dedicated specially-trained social workers to help people qualify for SSI and Social Security Disability benefits since 1990 - their working title is “SSI Facilitators” (or “SSIFs”) and Washington State has been one of a handful of states that has actually done this. The history of the SSI Facilitation program has had its ups and downs, depending on budget and staffing issues, but it has had excellent success at all times with whatever staff that have truly been dedicated to this sometimes complicated and labor-intensive task. Our state’s SSIF program has been documented as a national best practice on several occasions. Dedicated staffing is needed for this effort - and expecting DSHS to move people off GAU and onto federal disability benefits without providing adequate staffing is yet another “magic bullet” theory that will not get results. DSHS, in my experience, has often been handed such responsibilities, without adequate resources to actually DO the job. Here’s hoping the legislature will take a realistic view of what is actually needed.
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