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January 30, 2006
Re: Harmful TANF provisions affecting people with disabilities included in the Omnibus Deficit Reduction Act
Dear Representative:
The undersigned organizations urge the U.S. House of Representatives to vote in opposition to the Omnibus Deficit Reduction Act (S. 1932). It is essential that Congress protect people with disabilities and reauthorize TANF outside of the budget reconciliation process. A final TANF reauthorization bill should include provisions that protect families that include a person with a disability such as the provisions that were incorporated in the Senate Finance Committee TANF reauthorization bill. The Finance Committee bill provided states the flexibility to design their programs to assist these families to move to greater independence with the supports and services they will need to succeed. The TANF provisions included in S. 1932 do not protect people with disabilities, instead they jeopardize progress many states have made in ensuring these families are accessing the services and supports they require to achieve greater self-sufficiency. The undersigned organizations join together to urge you to vote in opposition to S. 1932 in part due to our shared concern over the impact of the TANF provisions on the lives of people with disabilities.
TANF and people with disabilities
Provisions in S. 1932 jeopardize states’ capacity to provide assistance to families that include a person with a disability. They increase the likelihood that these families will lose access to cash assistance and supportive services through the imposition of sanctions.
The record is replete with studies, including two from the Government Accountability Office, which find that there are many people with disabilities — both parents and children — receiving TANF. Studies show that some families with a parent with a disability or a child with a disability end up being sanctioned rather than assisted in addressing their needs through TANF, because they are unable to comply with or do not understand the various rules that apply to them. In many instances, the family member’s disability is not severe enough to permit them to qualify for the SSI program. However, many of these families will need additional support and flexibility in order to successfully transition into the workforce. Indeed, there are programs across the nation that have shown that, with appropriate services and supports, people with disabilities can successfully move from TANF to greater independence. It is essential that TANF reauthorization include options for states that allow them to continue to identify and implement the best ways to assist families with a parent or child with a disability to succeed.
Unfortunately, S. 1932 does not include provisions that will help states to assist people with disabilities. Instead, it reduces the very flexibility that has allowed states to assist these families. Increased work participation rates, subjecting state maintenance of effort dollars to federal TANF work requirements, and developing a standardized set of approved work activities without ensuring states have the flexibility to meet the needs of families that include a person with a disability all increase the risk that these vulnerable families will lose the services and supports they need, not access them. Many people with disabilities will be unable to meet the ascribed number of work hours nor benefit from a standardized set of work participation activities. Ultimately, without provisions such as those included in the Senate Finance Committee’s TANF legislation, these changes will translate into people with disabilities not receiving the services and supports they need in order to successfully attempt to work, further sanctions for failure to comply with requirements they cannot meet, and more families with disabilities living without even the very limited income that TANF provides.
The undersigned organizations believe that TANF reauthorization should include provisions that help parents with disabilities, including substance abuse problems, obtain the help they need – for as long as state and local agencies working together determine they need it – to help them successfully move from welfare to work. We are quite concerned that many of the families who are unable to obtain the services they need will end up in the child welfare system. It is the most disadvantaged families, those with barriers such as mental or physical disabilities or problems with substance abuse, that are at greatest risk of making the transition into the child welfare system. Neither families nor states can afford an inflexible and ineffective approach to addressing barriers in the TANF program. Such an inflexible approach will be prescribed under the TANF reauthorization provisions included in S. 1932.
The Senate had taken steps to provide states flexibility to assist parents with disabilities and parents caring for children with disabilities to move to greater independence.
The Senate budget reconciliation bill did not include TANF provisions. While not a part of the budget reconciliation bill, the Senate TANF reauthorization bill, marked up by the Finance Committee, includes three important provisions that address the needs of people with disabilities in TANF and will help to ensure that they too have the opportunity to move to greater independence. A final TANF reauthorization bill should include these three provisions, all of which have substantial bipartisan support:
- State option to receive work participation rate credit for an individual whose plan specifies that s/he has a continuing need for rehabilitative services in order to engage in direct work activities.
- State option to count the time a parent cares for a child with a disability or other household member with a disability as work activity.
- Before a state can sanction a family for noncompliance with TANF requirements, the state must make a reasonable effort to contact the family and determine whether any barriers to compliance exist.
The time since initial passage of the budget reconciliation bill provides Members with an opportunity to re-visit some of the choices that were included and to better understand their impact upon populations the programs included in the bill are intended to serve. We urge you to vote against the bill as it is currently written because it includes ill-advised TANF provisions that will harm people with disabilities. Please vote against S. 1932 and work toward passage of a separate TANF reauthorization bill that helps all families on the path to greater self sufficiency.
Thank you for considering our recommendations. For further information, please contact Julie Ward, The Arc and UCP Disability Policy Collaboration at (202) 783-2229 or Sharon McDonald, National Alliance to End Homelessness at (202) 638-1526 x 109, co-chairs of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities TANF Task Force.
Sincerely,
American Association of People with Disabilities
American Counseling Association
American Dance Therapy Association
American Music Therapy Association
Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs
Association of University Centers on Disabilities
Autism Society of America
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Catholic Charities USA
Child Welfare League of America
Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation
Easter Seals
Helen Keller National Center
I-NABIR
LDA, Leaning Disabilities Association of America
Legal Action Center
National Alliance to End Homelessness
National Association for the Mentally Ill
National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors
National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities
National Disability Rights Network
National Association of State Head Injury Administrators
National Coalition on Deaf-Blindness
National Rehabilitation Association
School Social Work Association of America
State Associations of Addiction Services
The Arc of the United States
United Cerebral Palsy
United Spinal Association
World Institute on Disability
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