Editor’s note: In September, the Caledonian-Record published an exclusive series by AP award-winning writer Bethany Knight of Glover on poverty and cash welfare benefits in the Northeast Kingdom. The Caledonian-Record and Knight have generously allowed VTDigger to republish an edited version of the series.
You’re over 18 and you don’t have children, a home or a job. What you probably have is a rugged history of substance abuse, mental or physical illness and empty pockets. And a criminal record.
For the truly down-and-out, Vermont offers General Assistance — welfare to help individuals and families pay for temporary housing, utilities and food. About 100 Northeast Kingdom folks live on a monthly General Assistance check that never exceeds $434 and includes $2 a day for personal needs, $198 a month for rent or room and board (higher in Chittenden County), and $150 for fuel and utilities.
Funds can be used to pay a relative who provides shelter. The program costs $6.5 million, is administed through the Agency of Human Service’s Department of Families and Children, and is funded exclusively by Vermont taxes.
Benefits are paid through the state’s Vermont Express EBT or debit card. In addition to the General Assistance benefits, recipients receive food stamps and health insurance through Medicaid.
Because Vermont welfare programs don’t impose term limits, General Assistance can support people in emergencies that go on for years. The program is administered as a short-term fix, however, with recipients required to reapply every 28 days, documenting their destitute state.
“People may not report the odd things they do to make money, like selling scrap metal or cleaning for their landlords,” a worker says.
In the Northeast Kingdom, General Assistance applications are processed at Northeast Kingdom Community Action (NEKCA). Applicants who have a dependent child are directed to Reach Up, but because pregnant women are prohibited from receiving Reach Up funds until the last 30 days of their pregnancy, they are temporarily shuttled into General Assistance.
Fraud is monitored by state General Assistance workers.
“People may not report the odd things they do to make money, like selling scrap metal or cleaning for their landlords,” a worker says.
General Assistance recipients must review their monthly expenses with a case manager. “If anything goes through their hands, it must be reported,” she says. General Assistance workers don’t do home visits, but do verify addresses with town clerks, and check with area colleges if individuals are students. Only students who have been in school less than six months in the past five years can apply.
One of the four programs managed out of the Economic Services Division (ESD), in the Department of Children and Families, General Assistance has historically been the last resort, offering no case management, support services or vocational services, functioning merely as a dispenser of dollars.
In 2008, with more than 1,200 Vermonters in a cash crisis and receiving General Assistance, state bureaucrats asked why people were living five or more years on state programs, and what was keeping them from finding work.
The ESD determined consumers were overwhelmed by a myriad of roadblocks to employment: less than an eighth grade education, illiteracy, homelessness, older than 55, mental and physical disabilities sometimes undiagnosed and often untreated.
Collaboration with voke rehab a success story
Grounded in this awareness, in February 2011 Vermont created a General Assistance pilot with the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation.
It’s “designed to assist individuals who receive General Assistance benefits to move through the program as appropriately and expeditiously as possible through employment, disability benefits or a combination of the two,” says Diane Delmasse, director of Vocational Rehabilitation, “while respecting one’s right to choice and self-determination.”
Essentially, the Vocational Rehabilitation General Assistance program helps clients successfully apply for and receive government disability benefits, known as SSI and SSDI, get a job or a combination of both. Officials discovered the SSI/SSDI application process was just too daunting for many General Assistance beneficiaries; documentation wasn’t completed and they were denied Social Security.
In the new program, case managers help clients build their case for the lifetime benefit.
“We meet with people weekly, and are able to document their condition, if they are unfit to work, for example,” a General Assistance worker says. Once found eligible for SSI or SSDI, the individual leaves the state’s arms and falls into the lap of the federal government. Benefits vary, averaging around $700 a month. Fuel assistance and food stamps round out the tax payer supported package.
At the end of the 12-month pilot, in February 2012, the General Assistance Vocational Rehabilitation program had exceeded all its goals.
Of the 1,330 General Assistance applicants processed, 674 individuals left the program:
• 333 secured SSI or SSDI benefits
• 163 found jobs
• 217 went back to prison, moved out of the area or found help through other programs, such as Veterans Affairs and unemployment compensation.
“Retirement in the Northeast Kingdom”
Today, roughly 700 Vermonters depend on General Assistance statewide, 14 percent living in the Northeast Kingdom’s three-county region.
Referred to on the streets as “retirement in the Northeast Kingdom,” SSI and SSDI benefits are decided upon by the state office of disability determination services. Among the 50 state determination units, Vermont’s is ranked highest in accuracy of initial determination, at 99.2 percent. Perhaps this accuracy is one of the reasons more Vermonters between the ages of 18 and 64 receive SSI than the national average; a full 13 percent more.
“A lot of people in Reach Up probably should be on disability, but there is a stigma, so they don’t apply,” says Jan Rossier of NEKCA.
When a General Assistance recipient starts the disability application process, Vermont requires they reimburse the state their General Assistance benefits if they win SSA retroactively. If a General Assistance recipient learns in October that she has been awarded SSI, effective Jan. 1, 2012, she must pay back 10 months of General Assistance benefits to the state of Vermont.
Betsy Choquette, General Assistance program coordinator, says the state collected more than $300,000 in recoupment the program’s first year, higher than prior recoupment averages of about $120,000 a year.
“We have a team of people working in our project who are called Social Security specialists. Their role is to work with ongoing General Assistance recipients to assist them in the application process, help with filing an appeal, with a denial and connecting to an attorney if their claim needs to go before an administrative law judge for SSA,” says Choquette. “The Social Security specialist team works hand in hand with our VR General Assistance staff to ensure the right form is filed at the right time in order to maximize recoupment.”
Vermont’s Social Security specialists also assist recipients of other benefits programs apply for Social Security benefits, including individuals associated with Vocational Rehabilitation, Reach Up and Corrections.
Jan Rossier, director of NEKCA’s Lincoln School Center, encourages welfare parents to apply for Social Security benefits, but says, “A lot of people in Reach Up probably should be on disability, but there is a stigma, so they don’t apply.” Pointing to their obvious employment deficits, she adds, “They can’t even show up on time.”
VABIR project helps with transition to work
General Assistance case managers credit Creative Workforce Solutions, a project of the Vermont Association of Business, Industry and Rehabilitation (VABIR), a Vocational Rehabilitation spinoff, for offering, “progressive employment options,” which gradually introduce General Assistance recipients to a worksite.
Choquette tells the story of Jillian, a client with, “a mental health diagnosis, a priority of maintaining sobriety but also family struggles and a criminal record to navigate.” Working with the Vocational Rehabilitation General Assistance program, “It was evident that it would be important for Jillian to focus on recovery and stabilization before she could be successful at maintaining a job.”
A group of state employees and outside professionals surrounds Jillian, including doctors, job coaches and private business operators.
“Jillian worked with her employment team to develop a resume, practiced interview skills and participated in an interview with a local employer and was able to confidently sell her skills and assets she could offer their company,” Choquette says.
Assigned to an alternative work placement with the employer for the first couple of weeks, Jillian and the employer will determine whether it is a good fit. “From there Jillian will become a paid employee,” says Choquette, “meeting her vocational goal of working in customer service and become gainfully employed and no longer in need of her monthly General Assistance benefit.”
Bethany Knight of Glover is a former newspaper reporter, magazine editor, college journalism instructor, gubernatorial speech writer and health care executive. She co-authored five reports on Vermont issues produced by the Ethan Allen Institute. A licensed nursing home administrator, Knight’s books for caregivers are sold by Hartman Publishing. Her first novel, “On the Edge of Tickle,” can be found at http://vtdigger.org/2012/12/21/part-1-kingdom-to-king-dump/.
