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What State and Local Welfare Agencies Can Do:
1. Increase the eligibility period for food stamp receipt to the six months permitted under federal regulations, in order to reduce the “hassles” associated with more frequent recertification.
2. Seek a federal waiver of the food stamp rules to adopt the quarterly reporting option for families with earnings (discussed below).
3. Stop terminating food stamp benefits when the cash case closes for failure to attend redetermination; instead, offer a temporary extension of food stamp eligibility, and notify clients that they may still be eligible for this benefit if they provide the necessary information.
4. Extend welfare office hours to accommodate the needs of working participants, as has been done in Cuyahoga and Philadelphia Counties, and make sure that recipients know about the extended hours.
5. Institute or expand home visits to conduct eligibility recertification/redermination for participants when an in-person meeting at the welfare office cannot be readily scheduled.
6. Experiment with permitting recipients to verify ongoing eligibility for food stamps and cash welfare by mail or by telephone, as is currently done in California for Medicaid. Allow documents to be transmitted to the welfare office via fax machine, as is common practice in Cuyahoga County.
8. Accept verbal statements about the amount a participant pays for rent and utilities, instead of requiring official documentation. California has relaxed food stamp eligibility verification requirements in this way, with positive results.
9. Where TANF workers and food stamp-only or Medicaid-only workers are not collocated, be sensitive to the possibility that cases will not be transferred smoothly from one group to the other, and establish procedures that facilitate such transfers.
10. Consider placing outstationed workers in hospitals, clinics, and other community settings — not only to accept initial applications for food stamps and Medicaid (as is currently done for Medicaid in Miami) but also to conduct redeterminations. Los Angeles mounted a successful campaign to enroll children in Medicaid by locating outreach stations in schools, churches, community service agencies, and other sites outside the welfare office.
11. Require workers to keep a log of all cases in which any benefit other than TANF is terminated.
12. Require written authorization from clients who request closing not only the cash case but also food stamps and Medicaid; require that staff inform such clients about their potential continued eligibility for these benefits.
13. Institute supervisory review of all cases in which food stamps and Medicaid are closed along with cash.
Steps to Improve the Information Flow:
1. Anticipate that the information will have to be repeated many times, and in many different ways.
2. Expect workers to provide the information in their first interactions with recipients.
3. Equip workers with a script to ensure that they cover the topic of eligibility in their meetings with recipients. Incorporate this script (or other prompts) as a screen in the computerized eligibility system.
4. Include mention of transitional Medicaid and possible continued food stamp eligibility in any “contract” or self-sufficiency plan the recipient is expected to sign; give the recipient a copy of the contract.
5. Back up the oral communication with printed materials that recipients can take with them.
6. Enlist the help of the media and community-based organizations in getting the word out.
7. Provide training on transitional benefits to staff of all the divisions of the welfare agency who work with recipients, and to staff of outside agencies that provide welfare- to-work services.
8. Inform staff at community agencies serving large numbers of welfare recipients, as well as at welfare advocacy organizations, about policies concerning continued eligibility for food stamps and Medicaid.
What the Food and Nutrition Service Can Do:
1. Take additional steps to promote information dissemination. To achieve this objective, we suggest that FNS:
a. Seek congressional authorization to increase the federal share of funding (now set by law at 50 percent) for continued outreach to TANF and working-poor families to inform them about their potential eligibility for food stamps.
b. Encourage states to experiment with innovative ways of publicizing information about benefit eligibility, and serve as a clearinghouse for such techniques.
2. Relax the food stamp quality control regulations. Accordingly, FNS may want to: a. Make quarterly reporting of income the norm rather than a waiver available to the states.
b. Seek congressional authorization to reduce the financial penalties imposed on states for overpayments made to working families.
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