The IEL Policy Exchange compiled this Workbook to illustrate what a typical working family in San Diego would be faced with when they go to apply for a comprehensive package of services.
The 800+ page Workbook contains application materials for more than 15 federal, state and local programs-social services, income, health, job training, housing, school and tax.
These forms and other materials illustrate the complexity and interrelationships among federal, state and local programs that provide assistance to low-income families.
A special 25-page section highlights the various verification documents that the family might have to provide.
This Workbook is not an argument for or against block grants
or any other particular policy approach.
It does represent the reality
of what many low-income families must deal with
before they can get needed help.
Contents
| Introduction |
1 |
| The Hernandez Family, a Case Study |
5 |
| Sample Lists of Required Verification |
15 |
| Social Service Programs |
|
| I. Pre-Application Packet for AFDC, Medi-Cal (Medicaid) & Food Stamps |
33 |
| II. Application Packet for AFDC, Medi-Cal (Medicaid) & Food Stamps |
45 |
| III. General Relief |
153 |
| IV. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) |
181 |
| V. Child Care Programs |
235 |
| VI. Head Start |
255 |
| VII. Medi-Cal |
>335 |
| Health Programs |
|
| VIII. County Medical Services (CMS) |
379 |
| IX. California Children Services (CCS) |
407 |
| X. Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants & Children (WIC) |
441 |
| XI. Child Health & Disability Prevention Program (CHDP) |
465 |
| XII. Public Health Services (PHS) |
475 |
| Job Training Programs (Department of Social Services and Private Industry Council) |
|
| XIII. Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) |
517 |
| XIV. Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN) Program |
573 |
| Housing Programs |
|
| XV. Housing Programs |
691 |
| School |
|
| XVI. School Registration, including Applications & Forms for
Free & Reduced-Price School Meals & the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) |
755 |
| Tax |
|
| XVII. Earned Income Credit (EIC) |
825 |
Introduction
The IEL Policy Exchange originally compiled this Workbook for a hands-on exercise in program eligibility during a site visit to San Diego in 1994. The following pages include application materials for more than a dozen federal, state and local programs-social services, health, job training, housing, school and tax. We have updated these materials to replicate this exercise for a larger audience in Washington, DC.
This case study exercise involves the Hernandez family, a composite of a typical San Diego family living in the City Heights section of San Diego, California. Carlos, born in the U.S., works when he can as a gardener. Yolanda, born in Mexico, speaks little English, has a job as a housekeeper and is pregnant. Yolanda’s sister, Alicia, lives with the Hernandez family in a one-bedroom, $450 a month apartment and takes care of the children while Yolanda is at work. One-year-old Roberto is profoundly deaf. Nine-year old Jose is in third grade at Hamilton Elementary School and has recently been hitting other children, yelling and getting into fights. The family manages to get by day-to-day and has $140 in a savings account. The following section describes the Hernandez family in more detail.
The application packets included in this Workbook are programs through which Carlos or Yolanda Hernandez (or a member of their family) might receive aid, either now or at some future time if their circumstances changed slightly.
What you see on the following pages is what the Hernandez family would get. We asked the various San Diego agencies to provide us with the intake and application packets that the Hernandez family would receive and need to complete (sometimes with assistance from an agency employee). To make the experience as authentic as possible, the Policy Exchange duplicated the forms just as we received them from the San Diego agencies.
Where we could not reproduce the information exactly as it appeared in the actual application packet, we have added an explanatory note, highlighted by asterisks. For example, we reduced the many legal-size forms to letter-size and reproduced brochures as best we could.
It is not a printing error that some of the forms are upside down. This is how they appeared in the actual application packets. (The forms were designed to be secured at the top and flipped up.) In the actual application packets, most of these materials were stapled in the upper left-hand corner, so that what the client/customer saw was an upside-down page.
This Workbook contains a hefty set of information. However, the actual set of forms, instructions and other materials that a family (such as the Hernandez family) would confront could well be 600 or more pages longer than this Workbook. For example:
In many instances, duplicate copies of the same forms were included in the application packets. While we have noted where these duplicates, triplicates and quadruplicates occurred, we have not reproduced those forms a second, third or fourth time in this Workbook. Doing so would have added an estimated 150 pages to this Workbook.
We have included only the front page of some of the informational booklets included in the application materials. Including all of these booklets would add approximately 100 pages to this Workbook.
We have included only application materials for programs operated by the city of San Diego. We have not included application materials for housing programs operated by the county of San Diego, where the Hernandez family could also apply for housing assistance. Adding the county forms would add another 95 pages to the Workbook.
In the spirit of conservation and because the information is readily available, the instructions for the 1040A form (76 pages), the 1040EZ form (36 pages), the 1040 form (85 pages) and the Earned Income Credit form (40 pages) are not included in this packet of materials. If all of these sets of instructions were included, they would add 237 pages to the Workbook.
Adding the separate application for "Food Stamps only" would have added approximately another 50 pages. We did not include these since these forms were already included in the more comprehensive set of forms in section II.
Finally, some important programs are not included because they are not immediately applicable to the Hernandez family. For example, adding the application for the Pell Grant program (student financial aid) would add 16 pages (35 if the booklet on "In Search of Financial Aid" that the San Diego Community College District distributes were also included).
These forms and other materials on the following pages illustrate the complexity and interrelationships among federal, state and local programs aimed at providing assistance to low-income families. As you look through this Workbook, ask yourself:
What information is really necessary to determine eligibility and to be sure a program does what it is supposed to do?
Who decides-and who should decide-what information to collect and how to collect it? The Congress? Federal agencies? State agencies? Local governments?
Is there an intentional or unintentional system of rationing by complexity? And, if so, is that a reasonable way to decide who does-or does not-get services?
Whose fault is it that the current federal and state system of services is such a maze? Congress? The Administration? States? Communities? Carlos and Yolanda? All of the above? None of the above?
And, finally, if you were Yolanda and Carlos, in need of help and facing these forms and programs, what would you do?
Margaret Dunkle
Director
The IEL Policy Exchange
March 1995
To develop this packet of application forms, the IEL Policy Exchange worked closely with the county of San Diego and the city of San Diego. Our appreciation goes to the many people who provided valuable help. Special thanks go to Connie Roberts and Sabrena Marshall of the San Diego Department of Social Services, Kathleen Armogida of the Department of Health Services, and Jeanne Jehl, formerly of San Diego City Schools for their creative and patient assistance. Special thanks also go to Policy Exchange staff members Jane Dewey and Scott Gates who provided invaluable assistance in gathering, compiling and publishing these materials.
For ordering information, please see our Publications page.
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