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Gimme shelter
The governor’s office shifts fiscal crisis onto the disadvantaged
BY KRISTEN LOMBARDI

IN A LITTLE-NOTICED move made earlier this month, the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) enacted a new policy of charging homeless families a retroactive $100 nightly fee for staying in emergency shelters if they appealed moves to evict them — and they lost. The action, coupled with a series of other regulatory changes issued under the auspices of Governor Mitt Romney, goes a long way toward revealing the administration’s priorities in dealing with the state’s fiscal crisis: shifting the costs of health and human services onto the poor and vulnerable.

The new policy went into effect September 1, thereby altering departmental guidelines for shelter-benefit appeals. By law, families who lose their emergency-shelter benefits have the right to an appeal, and, while the appeal is pending, to remain in shelter. As of this month, however, the DTA will impose the $100-per-night fee on those families whose appeals are ultimately rejected. The department will try to collect its fee from "a deduction of welfare benefits, a lump sum payment, installment payments, a wage assignment, or a combination of these," as the policy states. However it’s done, it could make for a hefty price tag for shelter recipients. According to the DTA, as many as 660 families out of 852, or nearly 78 percent, lost their shelter-benefit-termination appeals in fiscal year (FY) 2003, which ended in June. Under the new rule, all 660 of them would owe the DTA $100 for each night that they stayed in shelter during the appeal. Given that the average appeal lasts from three to five weeks, that translates into $2100 to $3500 per family.

Reaction from homeless advocates has been swift. Kelly Turley, the benefits-policy coordinator at the Boston-based Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless (MCH), describes the shelter-appeal charge as "punitive and mean-spirited." As it stands, advocates argue, the new policy forces families who don’t even have a roof over their heads to make a grim choice: either abandon an appeal and live on the streets, or risk losing and having to pay the state a sum of money equal, in some cases, to a quarter of their annual income.

As deplorable as the new shelter-appeal policy seems, it’s just one of several under-the-radar regulatory moves that the Romney administration has made in its attempt to balance the state’s $22 billion budget for FY 2004. Take, for example, the fees it imposed in the Medical Security Program, which provides health insurance to unemployed workers who earn less than $36,800 annually to support a family of four. The program, which is funded by employer contributions, has seen its financing dwindle from $140 million in 2001 to an all-time low of $8.09 million last July. In short, it’s fast running out of money. But rather than boost employer contributions, the Romney administration has shifted the cost to the fund’s recipients. In August, it began charging $30 per week for coverage. The administration tried a similar tactic with its FY ’04 budget proposal to charge $50-per-bedroom rent for people who live in public housing. Instead, legislators hiked the rent for some public-housing tenants by two percent, although they exempted the elderly and disabled. Last month, however, the Romney administration got around that exemption by altering how rent is calculated for elderly and disabled tenants — thus, in effect, raising their rents, too.

And then, there was the proposed cut to the Emergency Assistance for the Elderly, Disabled, and Children program, which provides cash assistance to 17,000 indigent people who earn $3644 or less annually. On August 1, the Romney administration projected that the program’s funding would fall short by approximately $4.8 million before FY ’04 ends next June. In response, it announced its plan to cut monthly benefits from $303 to $268 — an 11.5 percent reduction. The action would have gone into effect September 1, were it not for a Massachusetts judge who halted the plan because the program has yet to run a deficit.

Taken together, these administrative efforts show a clear pattern: rather than raise taxes to preserve health and human services, Romney and his administration are relying on new fees and reduced benefits to shift the burden of the state’s fiscal crisis onto the poor and disadvantaged. Such maneuvers, says Steve Collins, director of the Massachusetts Human Services Coalition, "reflect an assault against the most vulnerable by nibbling around the edges of programs."

THE NEW DTA shelter-appeal policy has stunned advocates, particularly in light of Romney’s oft-touted commitment to protect the homeless. Since he assumed office last January, much has been made of his administration’s pledge to ease the homeless problem in Massachusetts. The governor softened proposed DTA regulations geared toward tightening eligibility requirements for emergency shelter (see "Ax Shelter," News and Features, January 23). He restored $2 million in supplemental funding to the family-shelter program, and established a special commission to identify ways to permanently house the homeless. Last February, he even donated $10,000 of his own money to help the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans, in Boston, pay off a $190,000 utility bill.

Yet the new DTA policy stands in stark contrast to this promise. It does nothing to end homelessness. If anything, it compounds the problem by imposing hefty fees on families who lose appeals — right when they need the money most. These are people who, by definition, are in the worst circumstances. To qualify for shelter, a family of three must earn no more than $15,260 per year, or $1272 per month. Not only that, but a family must prove it has nowhere else to go — indeed, the DTA contacts relatives to ensure as much. Observes Turley, of the MCH, "These families jump through so many hoops already that this policy places an unbearable burden on them."

When you consider some of the reasons why people may lose their emergency-shelter benefits, the policy’s unreasonableness becomes all the more clear. Some are deemed ineligible because a 25-cent-per-hour raise means they make too much money. Others get evicted for failing to sign up to use a shelter’s bathroom. Still others must leave for missing a job-training meeting or skipping shelter curfew. Dick Bauer, a housing attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS), says that families in the emergency-shelter system "are threatened with termination all the time." Sometimes, the DTA has legitimate cause for kicking them out on the street. But more often than not, he adds, "families have good cases" for challenging termination.

Last fall, for instance, Bauer represented a Boston-area woman who suffers from post-traumatic-stress disorder. She and her two children had been placed by the DTA in a Peabody motel. While there, says Bauer, she was in the throes of a "difficult pregnancy" — she had a history of miscarriages — and had made arrangements with Lynn health-care providers to deliver her baby. One day, though, the DTA moved her and her kids to a shelter in Marshfield, far away from her doctors, as well as from the father of her unborn child. Though the woman went to Marshfield, Bauer says, "She found it traumatic to be there." So much so that she returned to Boston to urge the DTA to relocate her. The department, Bauer says, acknowledged that her mental-health and medical issues made her South Shore placement inappropriate. Yet it ordered her to return to Marshfield while awaiting another shelter assignment. The woman stayed with an acquaintance of her boyfriend for a few days instead, prompting the DTA to cut off her benefits. When Bauer appealed, the department again recognized her special circumstances. Still, the hearing officer upheld the termination. Had the new policy been in effect, the woman — who was earning just $1200 per month — would have had to pay the DTA as much as $6000 for staying in a shelter during her two-month appeal.

A few months later, in late 2002, Bauer represented a woman who suffers from borderline-personality and anxiety disorders. She and her four children had been staying in a Peabody motel when the DTA gave her 24-hour notice to move to a Cambridge shelter. The woman, who worked as a hotel clerk, had let her teenage daughter baby-sit her three other children, the youngest of whom was seven. But the Cambridge shelter wouldn’t allow that. So the DTA moved the family again — this time, to a South Shore motel. Soon afterward, the woman missed a meeting with her DTA caseworker in Boston because, Bauer explains, "things became too overwhelming for her." The DTA cut off her benefits, even though it acknowledged that instability in her housing had aggravated her mental illness. The hearing officer, Bauer says, upheld the termination on the grounds that she hadn’t asked for permission to miss the meeting. Under the new rule, the woman — earning less than $1795 per month — would have owed the department $9000 for remaining in shelter during her three-month appeal. Concludes Bauer, "This forces people to take chances no matter how justified they are in opposing" loss of shelter benefits. He adds, "It’s grossly unreasonable."

DICK POWERS, the spokesperson for the DTA, defends the change in the shelter-appeal policy as a fair and necessary cost-saving measure. While the $75 million family-shelter program has yet to see a shortfall this budget cycle, things are undoubtedly tight. To date, as many as 1631 homeless families are receiving shelter assistance from the DTA. By comparison, only 1513 families had signed up for shelter aid in August 2002. The new regulation, according to Powers, will enable the department to stretch its limited funds, since the DTA won’t have to pay to temporarily house those who’re deemed ineligible. "This policy," he says, "will allow us to direct precious resources to only those who are eligible, because that’s for whom the money is intended."

Powers points out that the shelter-appeal policy merely reflects an extension of what the DTA currently does when aid recipients appeal the termination of such benefits as cash assistance and food stamps. In these instances, people whose aid is cut off — and who lose their appeals — have to pay back what they received. In other words, the department can recoup the cost of wrongfully providing these services. Now, it’s trying to do the same for shelter, which, Powers says, costs the DTA an average of $123 per night per family. In this sense, he states, "The shelter figure was estimated to be a fair figure. It’s $23 less than what it actually costs the DTA to provide the services."

To be sure, recipients who receive cash assistance or food stamps while appeals are pending do have to pay back those benefits. But these people, advocates argue, refund money that they actually received. With the shelter-appeal charge, however, the department is trying to recover the value of services, rather than cash or its equivalent (such as food stamps) that went directly into recipients’ pockets. As Ruth Bourquin, of the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute (MLRI), a Boston legal-services organization, says: "Talk about kicking someone when she’s down. This charge is imposed on homeless families at the very moment they’re being thrown out onto the streets."

Since the policy isn’t expected to generate much cash for the DTA — indeed, according to Powers, the department hasn’t even bothered to estimate how much it will save — advocates are convinced that it’s really designed to scare the homeless out of appealing lost benefits. Families — very poor ones, at that — must now run the risk of owing the state thousands of dollars. That’s a huge gamble for people who can’t scrounge up enough cash to rent an apartment. It’s a powerful disincentive for people to exercise their due-process rights. What the shelter-appeal charge comes down to, it seems, is a departmental effort to further whittle the shelter population. Notes Bauer, "The DTA, in general, has been trying to find ways to squeeze the emergency-shelter system. This is just one more way to keep people out of shelter."

If that’s not reason enough to oppose the measure, some advocates believe that it may even violate the law. The MLRI is weighing whether to sue the DTA under a state statute that requires the department to release any proposed regulatory changes to the public before finalizing them. In this instance, the DTA announced its new policy in an internal memo, without any opportunity for public comment. And a second statute specifies that the DTA has the power to recover the value of benefits provided to ineligible recipients — but only "overpayments of financial assistance." Simply put, the statute applies to cash assistance, not to shelter. "We’re certainly exploring whether to file litigation," Bourquin confirms, although she adds, "We haven’t filed anything yet."

WHATEVER THE LEGAL questions around the new DTA policy, opposition to it is mounting on Beacon Hill. Just last week, State Representative David Sullivan (D–Fall River) delivered to the governor’s office a two-page letter, signed by himself and 40 other legislators, that protests the shelter-appeal charge and the public-housing-rent increase for the elderly and disabled. In the September 4 letter, legislators decry both administrative moves as only exacerbating the Commonwealth’s homeless problem. They urge the governor to reconsider the policies and "return to your campaign promise to combat our growing problem of homelessness."

"It disturbs me to see populations like this burdened with financial debt," Sullivan explains. He can’t imagine homeless families managing to pay even a nominal fee for exercising their right to appeal, let alone an exorbitant one of $100 a night. If the administration is truly committed to addressing the ills of homelessness, he says, "This is a strange way of going about it." The legislators hope that Romney will rescind the new fee, but Sullivan suggests that they’re prepared to push the issue in other ways: "The fact that 41 legislators signed this letter indicates that there’s an interest up here in trying to protect the most vulnerable populations."

Whether the governor will heed the demand remains unclear. On one hand, the Romney administration has cast itself as a protector of social services. Earlier this month, the governor publicly denounced legislators for failing to pass an $11 million supplemental budget for FY ’03. Legislators, he has said, must authorize the spending plan by this week to prevent deep program cuts and employee layoffs at the Department of Youth Services, the Department of Social Services, and the Department of Mental Health. Otherwise, the administration will be forced to release 85 juvenile offenders, lay off 50 social workers, and evict 100 formerly homeless adults with mental illnesses from state-run housing. On the other hand, administrative officials have worked quietly to limit access to human services through regulatory changes. On the shelter-appeal fee, Romney has remained conspicuously silent; the governor’s press office declined to comment on the new DTA policy, deferring instead to the DTA’s Powers, who, according to Romney spokesperson Nicole St. Peter, "speaks in regard to the administration’s views on this issue." Powers, for his part, insists that the policy does not contradict the administration’s commitment to the homeless. "The administration," he says, "is committed to providing assistance to homeless people who are eligible for the program."

It’s a stance that has left advocates wondering about the sincerity of the governor’s promise to the homeless. It may be only a matter of time before the administration overturns the DTA shelter-appeal policy — after all, it would take the department years to collect thousands of dollars from people who don’t have any money. The mere fact that the policy was enacted, however, shows just how narrowly the Romney administration is defining the problem of homelessness; families who lose shelter benefits are still, in the end, without a home. As Turley, of the MCH, asks: "Is the goal really to eradicate family homelessness? Or is it to eliminate the use of family shelter?"

At this point, it’s hard to tell.

Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com


Issue Date: September 19 - 25, 2003
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