Tattered TANF

One in three children in DC is in a household in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. That shocking statistic points to serious systemic problems, but it also demonstrates the great potential of TANF as a poverty-fighting program. Unfortunately, that potential may soon be squandered.

One of the budget cuts before the DC City Council right now is a reduction of $8 million in local funding for the TANF program. This represents two changes. First, it would reduce benefits by another 20% for nearly all families in the program more than 5 years. Benefits for a mom and two children would go from $428 at the start of the year to $257. Second, it would remove entire households from the TANF program if the parent doesn’t comply with the work requirement, rather than just sanction the adult and continue to provide benefits to the children.

We are in favor of transitioning more TANF recipients off the caseload, but we believe the approach chosen by Mayor Vince Gray would result in lasting harm to parents and children, rather than supporting TANF recipients in meeting their goals for education, stable employment at a living wage, and safe housing.

Currently, TANF recipients are not offered the support services or training they need to transition successfully off the program. The Income Maintenance Administration (IMA), the agency in charge of implementing TANF, is working to better assess the needs of TANF applicants so they can be matched to appropriate supports and to expand job readiness, training, and education to offer a spectrum of services. The Department of Human Services estimates it will take 18 months to do assessments of those who are already in the program for over 60 months. By this time, the TANF recipients most in need of help will have seen their checks whittled away to $107 a month, if they are even still in the caseload.

Again, 1 in 3 children is in the TANF program. Other states have small programs relative to the need because they have punitive policies that leave families disconnected and unsupported. DC’s TANF recipients may feel unsupported, but at the moment they are at least connected to the program. Every six months, they walk through the door to recertify. If the services were improved, that could be the perfect time for an intervention that connects TANF recipients to an array of services tailored to their needs.

Instead of investing in our economic future by focusing on the long-term potential of TANF recipients, the administration wants to cut roughly half the caseload from the program, starting with those who have been on TANF the longest and have the most barriers to work. It is an enormous missed opportunity to lose touch with these families. And it will end up costing the District more money in the long run, for expensive emergency services and remedial assistance for children growing up in poverty.

Why not give the intervention of assessments and better services a try and see what impact it has on the caseload? What if instead we use the opportunity of unemployment and the recession to invest in families that want good jobs but aren’t equipped for them right now?

If you oppose this budget cut, we need you to tell the Council. Join us Wednesday from 11:00 am - 1:00 pm at the Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Ave NW. We'll learn more about the cuts and their impact from the people who are using these programs to survive, and we'll engage the Council to ask them to make better choices. If you can’t come, please send an email to the Council now. Contact me for more information: 202-587-0524 or jpodschun@breadforthecity.org.

Eat, Learn, and Build a Better Budget With Us

Are you coming to our awesome action session, Winning a Better Budget, tomorrow evening? In case you haven’t signed up yet (or even if you have!) I want to share a few reasons why I’m excited about this event.

Three reasons this event is going to blow your mind:
1. You’ll get to learn and work alongside our staff and clients, some of the best and most passionate advocates I know.
2. Fantastic local campaigns will be showcasing their strategies, sharing their skills, and working together.
3. You can propose anything related to the DC budget and see if there are other people that want to build a project or talk through an issue with you.

I sat down with my intern Joei to hear what she thought about the proposal to reduce cash assistance and make it harder to get help through the TANF program. Among other things, she’s studying communications in college, raising two boys, and using Food Stamps to make ends meet. Here’s what she had to say about what these changes will mean and why the community needs to be involved in budget decisions.



Please join us tomorrow as we stand up for the services we need for healthy families and strong communities. Dinner is served at 5:30 pm and budget information and action will happen from 6:00 to 8:00. The event is at our Northwest Center, 1525 7th St NW, two blocks south of the Shaw/Howard Green Line Station; parking is available.

Whether or not you can come tomorrow, you can send an email to the Council now asking them to restore funding for safety net programs.

Tomorrow: A Dark Day for Low-Income Families

On April 1, thousands of DC families will wake up to a 20% reduction in their cash assistance. Benefits will be cut for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients that have been in the program more than five years and do not meet one of three very narrow exemptions. For a parent and two children, monthly benefits will be reduced from $428 to $342.

Regardless of their different timelines, needs, and goals, families need enough cash assistance to stay stable. Despite moves from the TANF agency to reform the program, DC still lacks strong support services and job training. These shortfalls combined with the lack of jobs due to the recession make this a terrible time to further cut life-saving assistance.

As these harsh cuts go into affect, we wanted to take an opportunity to share a story about the daily realities of TANF recipients.

Bread client Patty Anne has worked to overcome homelessness, health issues, an abusive partner, and lots of housing drama, all while trying to find a job and navigate the system to get help for her and her daughter. She shared her story on Beyond Bread and with the Mayor when the decision to reduce TANF benefits was made as part of the budget gap-closing last December. Her words are worth repeating:

It’s hard to make ends meet on a fixed income, even though I’m careful with my budget. My daughter hasn't had a new coat for three years, and right now we’re wearing our coats in the house because I can't turn the heat on. I don't want to run the bills up and then have my utilities cut off. That's grounds to lose my housing voucher, and I can’t take that chance.

It’s clear that they give you the help that they want to give you, not what you need to pick yourself up. It’s not like I’ve been asking for a million dollars, or for people to move mountains or part seas. I just want a stable home for me and my daughter. I want somebody to step up and help me do better for myself, so I can do better for her. I don't want her to live in a constant state of trial and tribulation. If I had the tools that I needed, I would be able to make it.

Read Patty Anne's complete post now or watch her speak advocate directly with the Mayor in this video from Empower DC:

City Divests from Supports for Low-Income Families and the Local Economy

The Income Maintenance Administration announced yesterday that TANF cash assistance will be cut by 20% for most households that have received TANF for at least five years. This benefit reduction, which impacts about half of the 16,000 households on TANF, was decided at the last moment as part of the budget shortfall decisions by the City Council in December. It goes into effect April 1.

The TANF program is the primary source of support for women who are raising children and struggling to get and keep good jobs. One in three children in DC is raised with a parent in the TANF program. Beyond Bread blogger Patty Anne wrote about the shortsightedness of removing supports for TANF recipients, and Save Our Safety Net added that the decision was made even as high-income households -- those who have suffered the least in the recession -- were not asked to invest in a strong safety net.

Families face many different situations -- waiting for job training, dealing with a domestic violence situation, recovering from a health problem, looking for work, etc. Regardless of their different timelines, needs, and goals, families need enough cash assistance to stay stable. At an event last month, TANF recipient and Academy of Hope student Ernestine McSwain said, “It helps you to buy food and puts clothes on your children’s back.” Given all the expenses these families face, nearly every penny leads to even more local economic activity. This reduction will put assistance at $342 for families that have been in the program more than five years and do not meet one of three very narrow exemptions. (The benefit is currently set at $428 for a family of three.)

The notice from IMA about the reduction says, “We want to help you find a job so you can leave TANF. If you got a letter to go to a work program, you should go to the program.” Unfortunately, TANF is not set up to support women as they work toward their goals. Program administrators, TANF recipients, and advocates have pushed for better assessments to determine the appropriate mix of education, job training, and support services (like mental health treatment) for each recipient. There’s also an education and job training capacity issue. While additional funding for training was put in the budget voted on last fall, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute reports that “even if every new adult training slot went to a long-term TANF recipient — which is not required under the current plan — only one of eight affected families could participate.”

Suggestions for how the District could better provide opportunity and stability to TANF recipients were identified by TANF recipients themselves in a 2009 report that I authored along with the DC Fiscal Policy Institute. While the administration has been receptive to the changes we suggested, very little has been implemented. Why punish TANF recipients for the District’s shortcomings? Instead, our city should invest greater oversight and funding for these programs to ensure we can emerge from the recession with healthy families and a strong local workforce.

Restoration at Service Centers: Ideas from the Grassroots

The TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) program is designed to do big things: improve education levels, help people get the training they need to become employed, refer people to domestic violence services, and teach budgeting, among other things. There is a great deal of potential in the program, but it’s goals are not being realized. As a TANF recipient off and on the last few years, I know that people like me see the daily problems and we also see where changes can be made.

Beyond Bread has covered the need for better job training and education options, and making sure the cash assistance is enough to make ends meet. Those are costly changes. There are also many small changes that the Income Maintenance Administration (IMA) could make to improve the program, starting with providing people with information on how the program works. When you’re organized, all other things fall into place. There are inexpensive solutions that would both improve TANF recipients’ experiences in the program and allow the city to pinpoint what areas are ineffective.

The area I live in places me at the Anacostia Service Center on 2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave SE. Like other IMA Service Centers, they use a number system to try to maintain order. When you come in, you get a number and then wait to see whichever staff person is available for that day. It doesn’t matter if you need to ask a simple question, drop off a copy of your birth certificate, tell someone of a domestic violence situation, recertify, apply for a child care voucher, or update your address. Everyone gets a number and waits to be seen, and sometimes the lines are so long that people have to go home and come back the next day.

What I recommend as a solution for becoming more organized is a number + color system, to apply a different color for different categories. Example: blue for medical, tan for new clients, red for termination (sanction), orange for food stamps, green for cash, yellow for recertification. For miscellaneous paperwork, those documents could be black and white. This could be as easy as changing the background color of the forms.

To start this change, IMA should review how documents are processed, the time spent on each case, how the recipients provide proper documentation, and the time period for processing cases. All these things should be measured against what’s best for the client, because this is who it’s about.

Here’s another idea: Place one to two computers within the service centers for clients to use for personal updates, copying documents, and recertification. This will relieve the staff of some responsibilities and give the recipients the opportunity to regain their self-respect.

Please listen to these great ideas about how IMA centers can genuinely help us meet our goals. If more TANF recipients were given adequate information and asked our opinions, we could improve the system.

DC Council chooses cuts instead of progressive revenue.

The DC City Council votes a second time tomorrow on the city’s revised budget. On the first vote, December 7th, the Council chose the approach of spending cuts instead of progressive revenue. Instead of investing in our city, the Council cut funding for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), disability services, child care subsidies, affordable housing, mental health services, and other essential programs. While we celebrate the partial restorations that were made -- to Access to Justice, Energy Assistance, HIV/AIDS services, Grandparent Caregiver Subsidy, Adult Job Training, and others -- we are dismayed that the Council didn’t make the bold, smart choice to create new tax brackets.

This video from Empower DC offers a good recap and features Bread for the City client blogger Patty Anne asking Mayor-Elect Vince Gray to not make cuts to the TANF program:



Despite the disappointment of the cuts and ultimate defeat of progressive revenue proposals, five Councilmembers again provided leadership in introducing progressive revenue: Michael Brown (At-Large), Jim Graham (Ward 1), Harry Thomas (Ward 5), Tommy Wells (Ward 6), and Marion Barry (Ward 8). Each supported income tax reform and designated the money that would have been raised to fund safety net programs. Please take a moment to email a thank-you to our Safety Net Superheroes.

Gray’s proposal included even harsher cuts to the TANF program. Just today, advocates learned that the latest proposal is to cut TANF cash assistance for all families by 12% and to implement full family sanctions, a policy change that completely cuts off any household that is not complying with the work requirement.

It’s too late to raise taxes, but it’s not too late to stop this harmful policy change. Please call the At-Large Councilmembers and your Ward Councilmember today or tomorrow morning, and ask them to implement improvements to the TANF program that will get people back to work before removing financial support. Consider saying something like this:

“I am calling to ask _________ to oppose full family sanctions and reducing TANF benefits in the Budget Support Act. I believe the City Council needs to slow down and approach this issue in a thoughtful manner. Rushing TANF reform puts families at risk and does not address the underlying problems preventing families from moving to work. We need time to plan and develop good TANF policies that promote work and protect children.”

Chair Vincent C. Gray, vgray@dccouncil.us, (202) 724-8032
At-large David Catania, dcatania@dccouncil.us, 724-7772
At-large Michael Brown, mbrown@dccouncil.us, 724-8105
At-large Phil Mendelson, pmendelson@dccouncil.us, 724-8064
At-large Kwame R. Brown, kbrown@dccouncil.us, 724-8174
Ward 1 Jim Graham, jgraham@dccouncil.us, 724-8181
Ward 2 Jack Evans, jackevans@dccouncil.us, 724-8058
Ward 3 Mary Cheh, mcheh@dccouncil.us, 724-8062
Ward 4 Muriel Bowser, mbowser@dccouncil.us, 724-8052
Ward 5 Harry "Tommy" Thomas Jr., hthomas@dccouncil.us, 724-8028
Ward 6 Tommy Wells, twells@dccouncil.us, 724-8072
Ward 7 Yvette Alexander, yalexander@dccouncil.us, 724-8068
Ward 8 Marion Barry, mbarry@dccouncil.us, 724-8045
Councilmember listserv membersonly@dccouncil.us

We Need City Council to Take Action, Make the Better Choice

Mayor Fenty has proposed another round of cuts as part of this year’s city budget. Utility assistance, child care, TANF, job training, disability assistance, affordable housing, legal services, and more are on the chopping block. I’ve been through my share of hard times: an abusive relationship, losing my home, getting harassed by landlords, and health issues. I want to speak out and share my story to help prevent other people from having to go through what I did.

I've already blogged about being on the TANF program to provide for my daughter during the seven years that I was unable to work and waiting to get approved for Social Security Income. I know that they don’t give you the skills you need to get a job that pays the bills, and now they're taking away more of what people need to survive.

It’s hard to make ends meet on a fixed income, even though I’m careful with my budget. My daughter hasn't had a new coat for three years, and right now we’re wearing our coats in the house because I can't turn the heat on. I don't want to run the bills up and then have my utilities cut off. That's grounds to lose my housing voucher, and I can’t take that chance. My utility assistance appointment isn’t until April, so I know I’m not the only one who’s cold. Now they’re making more cuts to utility assistance!

It’s clear that they give you the help that they want to give you, not what you need to pick yourself up. It’s not like I’ve been asking for a million dollars, or for people to move mountains or part seas. I just want a stable home for me and my daughter. I want somebody to step up and help me do better for myself, so I can do better for her. I don't want her to live in a constant state of trial and tribulation. If I had the tools that I needed, I would be able to make it.

But they just keep taking, until they take away your hope. When you take away someone's hope, you take away their way of taking care of themselves, to push forward and survive. Councilmembers don’t see it, because it doesn’t affect them. We need action, and all we’re getting is talk. Talk doesn’t help you when you’re hurting.

I have a saying, though - it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. If I had sat silent through all of this, I wouldn’t be here now. My daughter wouldn’t be here now. You have to know your rights and fight for them. That’s why I’ll be speaking at the People’s Hearing on Tuesday, December 7 at 9:00 am in front of the Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Ave NW (Federal Triangle, Metro Center, 30 buses). I want others in this situation to have hope that they can make it, but I also want city leaders to learn from our experiences and make the better choice.

I say to Mayor-Elect Vince Gray - give to me what I need to help myself. Don’t keep stripping things away until you break me. Let him know what you think he should do now.

DC needs smart solutions to close the budget gap.

This post is adapted from testimony delivered today by Bread for the City's Advocacy Coordinator, Joni Podschun, to City Council's Committee of the Whole. (You can follow a live discussion of the budget hearing on Twitter under the #gapclosing tag; follow Bread for the City's tweets here.)

The health and prosperity of our city depend on public investments that expand economic opportunity and support families. In these difficult economic times, careful planning is needed to make sure we can continue to meet these goals.

Last week Mayor Adrian Fenty released his long-awaited FY2011 Budget Gap-Closing Proposal. Yesterday, the DC Fiscal Policy Institute published analysis of the proposal, listing cuts to programs like affordable housing, TANF, job training, Access to Justice, Interim Disability Assistance (IDA), mental health services, and LIHEAP utility assistance.

We've blogged about the critical importance of these programs many times.

One of the proposals is to reduce TANF benefits by 20% for households that have been in the program over five years. When I read that proposal, I thought about Tameka, who I first met three years ago when she was receiving training through the Center for Employment Training. At the time, she was just barely making ends meet on $428 a month provided by the TANF program for her and her two boys, even though she was among the 1/3 of TANF recipients fortunate enough to live in subsidized housing. She now has a good job with a career path, after graduating from the program, but she has received TANF for over five years. But what happens if she has an emergency and needs to quit her job? What if her position is eliminated due to the recession? If she needed TANF again, her benefit would be cut by $85. For her and other women like her, 20% of their already meager household income would be gone.

This is just one example of a larger trend to cut services that low-income and middle-income residents depend on. Low-income DC residents in particular face long lines at IMA service centers, harried staff at non-profits, reduced hours at libraries, a growing wait list for IDA (a program designed to tide people over while they are waiting for federal disability benefits), and limited capacity at TANF job readiness vendors, among other things.

According to DCFPI, 39% of the cuts in the gap-closing plan we consider today are to human services programs, even though they only make up 26% of the total budget. And there is just $1 in proposed revenue for every $40 in spending cuts.

The alternative is to ask more of households in the top 5%. These families have suffered the least in the recession, pay a smaller share of their income in combined taxes than middle-income households, and have continued to receive city services largely unchanged. By creating a new tax bracket of 9.5%, an individual earning $300,000 would contribute about $85 a month, only 0.3% of their income. This proposal would generate approximately $75 million in new revenue.

If we are going to ask District residents to take a hit, shouldn’t the $85 a month come from those for whom it will be only 0.3% of their income, not households barely making it on $428 a month, for whom it is one-fifth their total budget? After the new brackets, a household at $300,000 will still have income net of taxes at $24,915 each month.

It is the role of government to provide a basic level of support and to reinforce the positive steps that people are taking to meet their goals. That is more important during an economic downturn than ever. With a limited job market, we should invest in education and intensive hard skills, retooling District residents for the 21st century and ensuring they can compete for jobs. Housing costs are down, the perfect time for the preservation and creation of affordable housing. These are just two examples of costly programs that yield huge benefits down the road.

We need to make smart, targeted investments in the local economic infrastructure, to help our city rebound from the recession. Investments that keep families out of costly emergency and remedial services, that bring dollars into the local economy. Let’s have a conversation about priorities, about what we can build with progressive revenue. What kind of housing do we need to keep our workers in DC? What types of job training should we provide? How can we support entrepreneurship and small businesses that employ DC residents? When DC residents consider what their tax dollars can buy, they will be excited to contribute to a thriving, diverse, healthy city.

In the immediate, we need better choices and bold leadership. Tell the City Council to stop the trend of asking more of those with limited resources, struggling to survive. Create new tax brackets of 1% higher on income above $200,000, to invest in an economic recovery that includes everyone.

Pitfalls and Potential of DC’s TANF Program

This post brought to you by Patty Anne, a member of Bread's Consumer Advisory Board and resident of Ward 8. Welcome to the blogosphere, Patty Anne!

I joined the TANF program in 1997, just after welfare reform. Last week, I learned about a bill to create a five-year time limit to the program, and it seemed like a good time to share my story. When I was training to become a firefighter and EMT in 1989, I was hit by a car and seriously injured. I worked odd jobs off and on but continued to have health problems. In 1997, I left an abusive relationship when I learned I was pregnant. I went on TANF to provide for my daughter. The year she was born, we became homeless because of a house fire.

In almost every other state, they tried 5-year-limits for TANF back when Clinton was in office. It didn’t work then for the same reason it wouldn’t work now -- they didn’t give people the tools that they needed to go to work. It was a mess. They called it "Welfare to Work," but they didn’t have enough job training sites and they didn’t help people gain skills. They’d be pushing you out there to get a job, when a lot of people don’t know how to work.

They need to teach people to be self-sufficient, how to be successful off of TANF. For a lot of people, their grandmother might have been on TANF, their mother and aunties and cousins might be on TANF – that might be all they know. But have to open them up to options to better and improve themselves. You can’t be telling them to go out there and work without any training. They don’t even know how to work a job, keep a schedule, or even just communicate. People need life skills training, financial budgeting. You have to figure out what skills they’re best at. You have to give them hope, instead of take all their hope away.

They tell you in the program, “If you get a job, you’ll be happy. Your family will be happy. You’ll be wonderful.” They don’t tell you if you get a job they’ll take your Medicaid and your Food Stamps, and if you don’t have a job that has health benefits, you are stuck. They don’t see that.

I joined the Welfare to Work program and got a job. But then I passed out on the job because of my multiple sclerosis and fibromyalgia, and my supervisor said I couldn't come back. Eventually, my doctor made sure that I got a medical exception so that I didn’t get sanctioned for not working, but it took me 7 years to get Supplemental Security Income.* I don’t want to be on TANF or SSI. I wish I could have a good job, so I can make good money, so I can take care of my daughter. I don’t want to live in a constant state of trial and tribulation, fighting for my disability benefits, for good housing I can afford, for enough Food Stamps to feed my family.

Give TANF participants the tools they need to survive. Give them a chance to learn new skills and get good jobs. Let’s see what they can do to meet their goals.

For more recommendations for DC's TANF program, see Voices for Change, a report co-authored by Bread's Advocacy Coordinator, Joni Podschun.

*Edited for accuracy.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

In my conversations with people trying to make ends meet with public benefits like Food Stamps and TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), I often hear the old saying, “One step forward and two steps back.” There are a lot of reasons why using the safety net can feel that way. One is that people spend time in transit between different service providers, only to wait in long lines for assistance, as you saw in our post last week about utility assistance. Another comes from eligibility requirements that suddenly remove people from programs as their income increases. Imagine making another 50 cents an hour and suddenly losing your health insurance and having to pay out of pocket. There are also programs that aren’t meeting the goals and needs of participants.

This month, the City Council is entertaining two bills that would reform the District’s TANF program. TANF is the primary safety net for single mothers who have exhausted all other means of support. It can also be a gateway to education, job training, affordable child care, substance abuse treatment, and health care. One of the two bills would take our city a step forward, and one would take us way, way back -- to 1996, the year of Welfare Reform.

The TANF Educational Opportunities and Accountability Act of 2010, introduced by Councilmembers Tommy Wells (Ward 6) and Michael Brown (At-Large), would accomplish a few things we’ve blogged about here at Beyond Bread:
- Expand the range of job training and education services that TANF recipients can utilize,
- Assess each recipient’s barriers to work, interests, and goals; and make referrals to both support services and meaningful job training and education opportunities, and
- Require DC’s Income Maintenance Administration to track both referrals to the above programs and outcome measures such as employment and income at 12 months after leaving TANF.

These changes would put TANF recipients on the right path to meeting their goals for employment.

And here’s how we would backslide: the District of Columbia Public Assistance Amendment Act, introduced by Councilmembers Marion Barry (Ward 8) and Yvette Alexander (Ward 7). If passed, this legislation would limit TANF recipients to 60 months (5 years) of TANF benefits. Even worse, the current language would make families ineligible for all public benefits - no Medicaid, no child care, no food stamps, no homeless shelter.

Research has shown that these harsh tactics are not effective at encouraging work. They are likely to result in higher rates of child poverty, with many families disconnected from any form of support. With our progressive programs and policies, DC has mostly bucked the national trend that’s reduced the number of eligible families served by TANF from 84 to 40%. That’s right: Nationally, sixty percent of families in deep poverty who could be on the program are not.

Our city has chosen not to go down this path for good reason. These harmful policies harm families, take dollars out of the local economy, and create costs in other parts of the city’s budget such as child welfare, homeless services, and education.

The timing of this bill is disturbing. It couldn’t come at a worse time. Job opportunities have yet to rebound from the recession and the city is on the cusp of meaningful reforms.

We encourage Councilmembers Alexander and Barry to take the long view on helping their constituents. What programs and policies can help people be ready to respond to the return of the recession, poised to take advantage of sustainable jobs connected to a career path? And, in the meantime while they are still on the program, what supports do they need to maintain their housing and provide for their children?

Let’s consider how we can invest in these families, so our whole city can take steps forward together.

Want to get involved?
- Email Monica Bell (mbell@legalaiddc.org) to sign your organization on to this letter.
- Contact your Councilmembers to let them know your views on these two pieces of legislation. Tell them: “Vote yes on Bill 18-1007 and no on Bill 18-1061.”
- Testify at the hearing on the Barry/Alexander bill -- November 15 at 11:00 a.m. at 1350 Pennsylvania Ave NW. Email Vivian McCarter (vmccarter@dccouncil.us) to sign up to testify.

Log-Jammed at IMA

[Cross-posted to the DC Food For All.]

Imagine lining up at dawn to enter a room where you are not allowed to eat or drink anything. If you leave to go to the bathroom, you risk being sent to the back of the line. Imagine waiting for eight hours, only to be told that you cannot be helped and need to return for more of the same tomorrow.

As described in today’s Washington Post, this situation is common at the District’s Income Maintenance Administration (IMA) service centers, where people go to apply for and resolve problems with benefits like Food Stamps, medical insurance, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. Two of the seven service centers were closed last spring, and the remaining five are struggling with reduced staff and increasing caseloads.

The impact of this situation goes far beyond inconvenience.

Take for example a woman who called Bread for the City last month for help applying for benefits. She is disabled, and sitting or standing for long periods of time is very painful. During her long wait at the service center, she said she frequently asked IMA employees if she could submit her application and come back another day for an interview, or if she could be moved up in the line. Hours later she gave up; she told us she'd become so ill from waiting that she had to go straight to the emergency room. Her application was ultimately accepted – but at the cost of her health, her time, and the expensive medical care she received.

I’ve also seen it with my own eyes. I recently accompanied Mr. E to an IMA service center, because he had been unsuccessful in previous attempts to apply for medical assistance and food stamps. As a result, Mr. E’s painful toothache kept him from sleeping, his one-year-old son missed checkups, and they relied on relatives to help pay for food and transportation to Mr. E’s job and his son’s day care. I learned all this during the six hours that Mr. E and I waited to be seen. Our meeting was largely successful, although Mr. E had to return the following week and waited several hours to hand in one document he had forgotten. Mr. E and his son should soon get the benefits for which they qualify, plus back benefits for the months in which his application was improperly rejected. However, spending multiple days at the IMA service center required Mr. E to lose wages—and lose favor in the eyes of his boss.

This is an aspect that I think is especially worth highlighting: many people seeking food stamps and other public benefits are employed, or searching for employment, or in school. Waiting for hours or days to apply for benefits, or even just to update their documents, seriously interferes with their ability to keep a job or obtain one.

To be clear, the responsibility doesn’t lie entirely at the feet of the IMA service centers. Even as food stamp enrollment has increased by 22%, the city has cut IMA’s eligibility staff by 99 employees in the last two years. The Washington Post article quotes an anonymous staffer saying: "The community is suffering, the staff is overwhelmed and the people are getting angry. We have staff who have to go upstairs and cry. . . . We do the best we can."

Bread for the City is advocating for the city to increase funding for IMA, to hire more staff members and better train and supervise the ones they currently employ (among other needed improvements). Our clients cannot prepare for, seek, and maintain employment when it is a full-time job just to get the assistance they need to survive.

Food Stamp Benefits Needed for Families Moving from Welfare to Work

[This is authored by Katie Vinopal, Nutrition Associate at DC Hunger Solutions, and cross-posted from the DC Food For All.]

A new report by So Others Might Eat (SOME Inc.) and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute finds that Temporary Assistance for Needy Familes (TANF) is not providing adequate support for the 16,000 low-income families in the District's program. TANF is designed to provide job training, supportive services, and cash assistance, with the goal of helping adults who are able to work find jobs.

Others have written about the findings of the report and its innovative methods. What hasn't yet been discussed is cash assistance, and in particular the supports available as families transition from TANF to employment.

At D.C. Hunger Solutions, we’ve often heard that cash assistance and food stamps rarely last the full month, leaving people without enough money to buy food. This report comes to the same conclusion, pointing out that the benefits TANF families receive ($428 a month for a family of three) are not enough to make ends meet. These families often face one or more weeks at the end of the month without enough money to buy food.

Research has consistently shown that even a temporary increase in food insecurity can have a long-lasting and serious impact on the well-being and health of families.

While the report recommends the District government increase cash assistance, something Fair Budget Coalition and others have pushed for, there's another immediate step the District can take to improve food security for TANF families: adopting transitional food stamp benefits, a policy option that will help families moving from TANF to paid employment.

Adopting this policy makes sense for D.C. families. There is a reduction in public benefits that accompanies an increase in earnings which makes transitioning from TANF to work that much more difficult. According to the report, a family of three that works for $9 an hour at their job (well below the living wage at $12.10), will lose $4,512 in food stamp benefits annually. Even worse, many families drop out of the food stamp program altogether when they leave TANF, unaware that they may still be eligible for benefits.

As one TANF recipient says in the report, "It's more than you get with TANF but when you look at it, if you take that job, they're going to take all your benefits from you once you get that job, so that means you have no help with food."

Under the transitional food stamps policy option, a family leaving TANF can continue to receive the same food stamp benefit, adjusted for the loss of TANF income, without any additional interviewing, processing, or reporting requirements, for up to five months. And the payment is 100% federally funded. Nineteen states, including Maryland and Virginia, have already adopted this option.

During this difficult transition from TANF to employment, the District must ensure that families do not go hungry. Adopting transitional food stamp benefits for these families is one important way of providing this support and moving families toward stability

Katie Vinopal, Nutrition Associate at DC Hunger Solutions

Strengthening TANF: SOME's Report

So Others Might Eat has a major new report about the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, set to release on Thursday of this week. Bread for the City clients and staff helped with the research and feedback for the report.

SOME's Joni Podschun, friend of Bread, passes along this notice about the event. This is important stuff about the ways our city is (or isn't) supporting its struggling families, and SOME has lined up an all-star panel to discuss the implications of its findings.

Voices for Change: Perspectives on Strengthening Welfare-to-Work From DC TANF Recipients

Thursday, November 12
9:30 am - 11:00 am
12th Floor of Gewirz Student Center, Georgetown Law Center, 120 F Street NW

16,000 DC families — including one of three children in the city — rely on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) for cash assistance, job readiness training, and support services. A successful TANF program is critical to DC’s future. Yet too often, DC’s TANF families say they do not get the support they need to move from welfare to work.

Please join us to hear the key findings and recommendations from a new report by SOME, Inc. (So Others Might Eat) and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute about improving services for TANF families. The release will feature a short video of DC TANF recipients discussing their experiences with the program and a panel discussion including:

Councilmember Tommy Wells (Ward 6), Chair of the Committee on Human Services
Clarence Carter, Director, DC Department of Human Services (invited)
Peter Edelman, Georgetown Law School
Donna Pavetti, national welfare expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Please RSVP to Tina Marshall at marshall@cbpp.org or 202-408-1080. Light refreshments will be served at 9:00 a.m. All are welcome – consumers, advocates, service providers, case workers, researchers, students.

This event is co-sponsored by the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy.

As unemployment rises, so does TANF

Just three months ago, I reported on this blog the troubling news that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) caseloads were declining in states across the country "despite a great rise in need." (Reasons for that included an array of barriers that prevent needy families from accessing the program.) Well, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday that this trend is at least partially reversing: the TANF program has increased enrollment in 23 of the 30 most populous states.

Here in DC, I can report that we’ve seen a 9% increase in TANF cases, from 14,665 in April 2008 to 16,017 in April 2009. So, more people are getting help through the welfare program. Unfortunately, it’s too soon to congratulate ourselves on a strong safety net, for two reasons.

First, these new numbers do not tell us whether the gap between need and enrollment is shrinking. A new study by Legal Momentum raises serious concerns about the failure of TANF to reach millions of families struggling with poverty. On the Huffington Post, Legal Momentum President Irasema Garza shares this telling fact:

“At its inception in 1996, TANF served 84 percent of eligible families; now, the program only reaches 40 percent of these very vulnerable women, children and families.”

This chart from their study (PDF here) illustrates the gap:

The second concern is unemployment. New estimates predict double-digit unemployment going into next year and in her Op-Ed in the NY Times, Barbara Ehrenreich pointed out the disproportionate loss of jobs for blue collar workers. Most states are faced with the perfect storm of rising caseloads and unemployment, coupled with decreased state spending (i.e. fewer staff).

It is more important than ever to make sure TANF recipients are engaged with efficient, effective programs with proven long-term impacts. As I pointed out here, more recipients should be connected to hard-skills training, subsidized employment, and education opportunities to help them get a good job (when the time comes when good jobs are plentifully available again).

Growing Unemployment: A "Game Changer" for TANF?

[We're delighted to have another post about TANF by Joni Podschun from SOME. Word on the street is that SOME and Joni are on Twitter! - ed]

Facing a major budget crisis, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently suggested his troubled state eliminate CalWORKS, California's version of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). This proposal was labeled both "bad economics" and heartless. Indeed, it seems incredibly shortsighted to cut safety net programs (and forfeit federal money) even as people are falling out of work and struggling to survive.

Surely enough, the California legislature's special committee on the budget has just voted to reject the Governor's proposal. For now, the program lives on.

And yet, most policy makers, social workers, and advocates would agree that TANF is not meeting its objectives. As I explained here before, caseloads are stagnant at best, and in many cases falling, even as unemployment claims and Food Stamp participation skyrocket. Nationally, the share of families eligible for TANF that are receiving assistance has gone from 85% in the mid-90s to 40% now.

There are many factors behind this trend. For starters, let's consider one of the primary principles behind the Clinton-era Welfare Reform that created TANF: "Work First." Work First presupposes that TANF participants can quickly find employment in the job market and thereby reduce dependence on public assistance. TANF was originally devised under the assumption that it just would take a little help for most TANF recipients to find and keep a job (if only a low-wage entry level job).

That principle has been debated ever since, but in this economic climate it presents a glaring disconnect that is hard to avoid: these days, finding and keeping a job is hard for everyone, everywhere. 5.7 million jobs have been lost since the recession began in December 2007 and the rate of loss is only just now beginning to slow.



This graph from the Center for American Progress (CAP) shows the severity of the jobs lost compared to recent recessions. Meanwhile, the stimulus package passed a few months ago promises to preserve or create only about half of the jobs we have lost so far.

At a recent poverty conference I attended, Heather Boushey, an economist with CAP, called the economic crisis a “game changer” for TANF. The New York Times article on the conference quotes Dr. Timothy Smeeding, who says, "We're really in a pickle."

The cold hard truth that they're getting at is that the workforce doesn't really have room for TANF recipients -- and it won't for quite some time.

So, does this mean that the Governator is actually right to move to cut TANF? If TANF is meant to put people to work, but there's no work out there, should TANF get scrapped?

Not at all. At least in DC, the TANF program could be adapted to effectively help needy families even in this economic climate. So far, the program has not been responsive to the "changing game." But the potential is there.

The first step would be rebalancing TANF services to go beyond Work First.

Currently, TANF-funded employment services focus primarily on soft skills: how to dress, how to interview, how to conduct yourself in the workplace. In theory, that's enough to get people into basic labor. But it doesn't actually equip people with the hard skills and education needed to be a truly valuable member of the work force.

Programs that focus on hard skills already exist within the current TANF structure in DC. TANF recipients can receive tuition assistance towards a college degree, for instance; they can also engage in subsidized employment and on-the-job training. If they know who to ask, TANF recipients are usually able to get permission to go to GED classes or hard skills training like SOME's Center for Employment Training.

But the process for finding out about these programs is inadequate. In a study that SOME will release next month with the DC Fiscal Policy Institute called "Voices for Change: Perspectives on Strengthening Welfare-to-Work from DC TANF Recipients," we find that service providers and recipients don't know about their options for training, support services, and education. As a result, these alternatives to Work First are vastly underutilized (the final numbers will come out in our report).

More effort is needed to make the most of these programs. Part of the solution is simple enough: better procedures for assessment, screening, and orientation.

There should also be shift in funding priorities. These programs are a bigger investment, in terms of both public dollars and participants' time. But they are also a better investment. With the contracting job market unlikely to absorb TANF participants anyway, more long-term programs would actually be an optimal use of available resources, rather than leaving so many people to cycle back through the program. And when the economy rebounds, participants will be able to get better jobs that allow them to provide for their families.

In the meantime, however, there's another pressing need: greater income support. Even with more effective job training programs, TANF recipients are facing a long stretch of unemployment as our country winds through the Great Recession. During that time, we need to ensure that these needy families have adequate income, as we've discussed before. (Currently, the TANF benefit for a family of three is just $428 per month. That's intended to cover housing, transportation, utilities, household expenses, etc.)

We applaud DC Councilmembers, led by Jim Graham, who voted last week to increase the TANF benefit in the fiscal year 2010 budget. We should take the next step and look at what families really need to be healthy and stable.

Budget Update! Funding Found for Critical Programs

We are in the home stretch with the City budget! Each Committee has had hearings for the agencies within their purview and, as of the end of last week, all of the Committees have voted on their Mark-Up Reports.

A number of good things came out of the Committee mark-ups -- overall, it was an encouraging process for the sake of critical safety net programs, especially given the scale of the budget crisis. Last week, Beyond Bread posted about the Judiciary Committee's approval of funding for civil legal services to the poor.

Now, we find out that some other things SOME and BFC care about—access to food, housing, homeless services, and income supports—have support for needed funding as well.

Most notably, the Public Works and Transportation Committee, chaired by Councilmember Jim Graham, moved to generate revenue that would prop up quite a few programs that are essential to the health of low-income communities. (Graham has been working hard at this recently: after budget cuts last fall, he fought successfully for increases to parking meter pricing; but those funds were ultimately redirected to general funding, as opposed to specific social service programs.) This time he put forth another proposal that would generate revenue from DC's Street Sweeper Cam Initiative. The initiative calls for mounting cameras on street sweepers and photographing the license plates of illegally parked cars. Tickets would generate an estimated $6.8 million of revenue for Fiscal Year 2010.

A slew of new $40 parking tickets isn't likely to warm the heart, but look at what the generated revenue would go to fund:

• $2 million to the Local Rent Supplement Program
• $1.5 million to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)
• $750,000 to the Housing First Fund
• $750,000 to the Home Purchase Assistance Program.

The committee also identified $2.9 million in additional revenue through a previously unnoticed accounting error, and recommends using this money to restore the cost of living adjustment to the standard income tax deduction, since the loss of a cost of living adjustment would be in effect a regressive tax measure. This is another smart, just move that was advocated by the Coalition for Community Investment (in which Bread for the City and SOME are both active members).

We extend a big thank-you to Councilmember Graham for truly diligent work in finding this funding, all of which will help the entire District of Columbia to weather the economic crisis and stay poised for a quick recovery.

These increases are crucial, but they barely scratch the surface of need. Homeless families can tell you that – and it’s not hard to find them, since this year has seen a 25% increase of homeless families in DC.

And, of course, the Committee process so far has only offered forth budget recommendations; now, it's up to City Council to act on them. And it's up to us to hold them accountable. The first vote on the budget by the Committee of the Whole is next week, on May 12th. Express your support for these recommendations by emailing City Council at dccouncil@dccouncil.us.

You can also use SOME’s Action Tool to write to City Councilmembers to tell them that additional funding is needed. And the Fair Budget Coalition will rally outside of City Council (1350 Pennsylvania Ave. NW) in support of affordable housing, TANF, and homeless services, this Wednesday at noon 12-1. It's during lunchtime, and a great opportunity to help out your low-income and homeless neighbors.

Stay tuned for more details as things unfold this week. (And for a more detailed description of the budget calendar, see the DCFPI Budget Toolkit.)

Councilmember Jim Graham, stepping up big-time.

Birthday Bash Roundup: Information & Education

Weekly Volunteer Jim Frank helps in the NW Food Pantry.*

Our birthday bash continues! I plan to celebrate this momentous day with an extra cup of coffee and a trip to Busboys & Poets to support Book Fruits, an organization that teaches creative writing to children in DCPS. Tonight, authors 8-16 years of age will be reading their work.

Looking back through the year, our archives are littered with in-depth analysis on poverty issues. One of the goals of this blog is to give our readers an insight into why, exactly, issues like TANF, housing, and mental health are so important to us. This means presenting the issues to our readers in an accessible way without diluting the arguments. Though the information below is nowhere close to exhaustive, it does give an impression of the myriad factors that can contribute to perpetual poverty.

Of all of our topics, there is no more complex and misunderstood one than housing. Whether merely defining terms, discussing the Section 8 wait list and the New Communities Initiative, getting the opinions of experts like Jim Knight of Jubilee Housing or BFC's own Margie Sollinger, or (most recently) covering Legal Clinic Director Vytas V. Vergeer's work with the tenants of Marbury Plaza, Beyond Bread covered a lot of material.  And yet we're nowhere near documenting everything there is to know about affordable housing in DC. 

Recently, staff member Valentine Breitbarth (graduating this month with a Master of Public Health) started our coverage of what will continue to be a big story in the upcoming year--the shift in role for the DC Department of Mental Health. Though the transition has been discussed for some time, DMH began the implementation of a plan to switch from providing direct mental health services to an indirect oversight role. Bread for the City's Representative Payee Program will be directly impacted by the DMH shift, so we will have no choice but to monitor the situation closely. 

One of our longest-standing partners is So Other's Might Eat, and one of their Advocacy Associates, Joni Podschun, has been contributing to this blog almost from the beginning. Lately she's been combing through DC's TANF legislation--digging into the nuances of its implementation, comparing our TANF program to those of other states, and exploring the ways TANF helps people.

Bread for the City also advocated vociforously for the expansion of food stamps, the passage of the so-called "Bag Bill" that will help clean the Anacostia River of harmful contaminants, and a more open budget process.  Whew! Expect more information in all of these areas in year two.

*see more pictures of our volunteers here!

Beyond Bread: Healthcare, Hate Crimes, and Housing

~A couple weeks ago we ran a story about Audra, a woman who lost her job and had her savings ravaged by the costs of medication when her employee-provided health insurance ran out. The National Women’s Law Center saw this story as a lightning rod for the healthcare debate, and with our permission used it as the foundation for a story that was picked up by the Huffington Post. The NWLC is a great policy organization, and they share a number of our values. One of our next steps in advocacy is TANF legislation, an issues that NWLC cares about a great deal.

~The Washington Post is reporting that Maryland is on the verge of adding “the homeless” to the groups protected by hate crimes legislation. Senator Mooney said he started taking the issue seriously when he saw a video clip of a group of homeless individuals beaten to death with baseball bats. Indeed, just a few months ago there was some media attention when a homeless man was beaten to death in Columbia Heights and no one stopped to help him. The DC Council is said to be considering similar hate crimes legislation.

~DCFPI’s blog reports that DC is cutting funding for affordable housing by a third for FY10, despite the rising demand (right now there are almost 26,000 people on the housing wait list).

~A big “hey, thanks!” to our friends at FART in DC, a group of young professionals dedicated to the art of faux athletics. All of the proceeds from their events are given to local charities, and recently they chose Bread for the City to be one of their beneficiaries. Their next conquest: blow up float racing!!

Expanding food stamp assistance in DC

Today the DC City Council will hear testimony on the Food Stamp Expansion Bill, of which we are very much in approval.

The Food Stamp bill raises the qualifying bar for food stamps from 130% to 200% of the Federal Poverty Line, by linking SNAP assistance with participation in TANF-funded programs. It removes the cap on assets, so that those low income families who do have savings won't have to spend those savings down before becoming eligible. And in a crafty move, the bill implements a "heat and eat" benefit: the city provides households with a nominal utility assistance benefit (through a program called Low-Income Heat and Energy Assistance, or LIHEAP), which in turn increases the amount of food stamps for which they qualify.

The expansions would happen just as President Obama's stimulus package gives a major boost to the amount of food stamps that participating families can receive through the SNAP program.

So take all these programs -- SNAP, LIHEAP, TANF -- and think of the X-Men. Individually, the X-Men and X-Women are all pretty rad. But it's when they all gang up that some bad guy heinie really starts getting kicked.

Altogether, it's estimated that this food stamp bill will bring an estimated 4600 to 4800 new families into the program, and $13 to 19 million of federal funding to hungry families in DC. (Moreover, DC Hunger Solutions claims that the administration of “Heat and Eat” will also streamline the in-take process and decrease error rates.)

When it comes to participation among people who are eligible for food stamps, our city already has one of the highest rates of participation in the country. In this way, DC is primed to make the most of the stimulus package - and on the long road to economic recovery, this will not just help hungry families, but indeed will benefit the entire city.

So big ups to all those who are really pushing this legislation, including DC Hunger Solutions and Councilmembers Michael Brown and Tommy Wells.

In the meantime, advocates can now look to the next opportunity to expand public support for the hungry. So, hey, advocates? This harried blogger probably won't scrape together the wherewithal needed to digest this 59 page government report about the range of food assistance policy options available to states, or this database of successful local nutrition-related policy initiatives. Who can tell us what the next-lowest-hanging fruit will be? The winner of this contest will be presented with a copy of the 2009 Food Stamp Expansion Bill signed by YOUR FAVORITE X-MAN!

Domestic Violence and TANF

[UPDATE: The Washington Post editorialized today on the Inspector General’s report on the Banita Jacks case. Their recommendation for “a system that would allow various parts of the social support network to share information” is a good addition to the ideas below. --ed]

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and sadly, domestic violence has been prominent in recent news. Unfortunately, these heartbreaking stories are just the tip of the iceberg.

Mayor Fenty had this to say: "There is really a need for more education and more involvement regarding the issue of domestic violence on the police level, the social service level and the community level." Indeed.

Domestic violence affects all communities and all kinds of people, but victims/survivors who have low incomes also have limited options. Financial resources can enable people to cut all ties to the abuser, removing themselves and their children from any locations—home, school, work, place of worship, etc.—where they could be stalked. Those without financial resources must rely on family, and if not family then the shelter system and other safety net programs; lack of housing options and inadequate income make it very difficult to escape a violent situation.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a critical source of support for low-income mothers fleeing domestic violence. DC’s TANF intake process includes a screening for domestic violence, so that people at risk can be connected to domestic violence counseling. TANF work participation requirements can also be waived to give recipients enough time to go to court and counseling, and get a new job.

SOME and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute are in the process of publishing research that shows, unfortunately, that TANF recipients are not taking advantage of these opportunities. We know from a survey by the Urban Institute that 21 percent of DC TANF recipients reported experiencing threats or physical violence in the last year (and 42 percent in their lifetimes). Applied to current enrollment, this amounts to about 2,650 people. But only 81 people received domestic violence services in FY 2008, and only one TANF recipient was granted an exemption for work activities. Out of 2,650.

So, what can the city do?

• One problem is that people simply don’t know that the services exist. A stronger assessment and referral process would help connect people with the services that they need on the front end—substance abuse treatment, mental health counseling, domestic violence services, educational opportunities, etc.


• As Greg wrote last week, TANF recipients need sufficient income to be healthy and safe. Benefits should increase to keep pace with the cost of living.


• Housing is obviously a critical issue. A new nonprofit, the District Alliance for Safe Housing (DASH), has done some great research on housing for survivors and gotten city funding for programs to respond to the need.

In many ways we have a head start in DC: we have progressive programs and policies, and an attentive executive, agency, and Council. It will take all of us working together to make sure TANF recipients have the support and tools they need to stay on the path to safety.