Statement of Jeremy Rosen

Statement of Jeremy Rosen, Staff Attorney,
National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to submit testimony to the Committee. I am Jeremy Rosen, Staff Attorney for the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, a not for profit organization based in Washington, D.C. The National Law Center does not receive any federal funding. The Law Center advocates for programs and policies that address the underlying causes of homelessness. Toward this end, the Law Center monitors implementation of federal programs that assist homeless persons, and works with non-profit organizations from all over the United States to advocate on behalf of homeless and poor Americans.

Over the past twelve years, the Law Center has devoted significant resources to studying the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, and its impact on homeless people. Throughout that time, the Law Center has focused on two areas: 1) increasing access to the SSI program, so that more eligible homeless persons are able to apply for benefits; and 2) improving SSI eligibility rules, so that more homeless SSI applicants are approved for benefits.

Today, this Committee will be discussing the challenges and opportunities facing the Social Security Administration’s (SSA’s) disability programs. I welcome the opportunity to provide the Committee with some brief comments on this topic, as it pertains to America’s homeless population.

Numerous studies have shown that over 30% of homeless persons are unable to work due to one or more disabilities. However, a December, 1999 study by the Interagency Council on the Homeless found that only 11% of homeless people receive SSI in any given month. This means that at least two thirds of the homeless individuals who are potentially eligible for SSI are not receiving benefits. My testimony today will explain the reasons for this enrollment gap, and suggest ways in which SSA can act to eliminate it.

This gap is particularly tragic because the SSI program serves as a critical income support. With disability benefits, homeless persons can receive health insurance through Medicaid, and can access supportive housing or other federally funded public or subsidized housing. Without benefits, the same individuals are likely to be trapped on the street or in a homeless shelter.

Over the past decade, SSA has made one significant effort to increase access to SSI benefits for homeless people. During fiscal years 1990-96, SSA conducted a series of SSI outreach demonstration programs. Under the programs, SSA awarded funds to local non-profit groups, to conduct outreach to specific SSI eligible populations. These projects were designed to allow SSA to evaluate whether increased outreach would result in an increased number of SSI beneficiaries. More than one third of the outreach programs focused on homeless people.

SSA hired the Sociometrics Corporation, a private contractor, to evaluate the outreach programs. SSA field offices which worked with outreach program sites reported that SSI applications increased by 20% under those programs, while award rates jumped by 10%. Clearly, the programs were successful. These positive statistics prompted Sociometrics to recommend that SSA "make a strong organizational commitment to promoting outreach through third-party agencies."

However, instead of continuing to fund outreach to eligible homeless persons, SSA ignored the findings of the Sociometrics reports. There is no evidence that any permanent change was made, to any aspect of the SSI program, as a result of the success demonstrated by the outreach demonstration projects. In addition, SSA did not publicize the Sociometrics program evaluation reports.

The Law Center believes that SSA should implement the "best practices" from these outreach demonstration programs. To that end, the remainder of this testimony will identify twelve specific measures, many of which were proven to be successful by the outreach projects, that SSA should adopt. If these twelve steps were implemented, many additional qualified homeless persons would receive the SSI benefits to which they are entitled by law.

SSA should authorize the use of and appropriate a portion of its Research Account funds to support grants to entities that work in partnership with SSA field offices to develop or expand Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) outreach, application, and re-determination services specifically for people experiencing homelessness.

Funds should be distributed to state or local public or nonprofit organizations through a competitive process. Applicants should be required to demonstrate a commitment to apply the effective practices identified through SSA’s homeless outreach and enrollment demonstration projects.

SSA should reform the representative payee system.

Homeless clients are unlikely to have a friend or relative available to serve as a representative payee. Currently, there are an insufficient number of well-qualified non-profit agencies that are willing to serve as representative payees. Since, in many cases, no benefits can be paid without a payee, many homeless persons are faced with no choice but to select an unqualified representative payee who may mismanage their benefits.

To fix this problem, SSA should work to increase the number of qualified representative payees. In addition, SSA must accept liability for the replacement of benefits that are stolen or misused by unscrupulous representative payees. This will prevent needy beneficiaries from being adversely affected by payees who abuse their fiduciary duties.

SSA should extend presumptive eligibility for SSI to people experiencing homelessness whose primary health care provider alleges that they are eligible for SSI.

The Mental Health Advocacy Project, in Baltimore, MD., reached an agreement with their local SSA field office to process presumptive eligibility cases in this manner. Over the course of that agreement, more than 95% of the clients initially given presumptive eligibility were permanently approved for SSI benefits.

SSA field offices and state DDS agencies should establish special homeless claims units.

This would ensure partnership building with homeless advocates and homeless service providers, targeted outreach to people experiencing homelessness, targeted information about applicant rights at all stages of the application, appeals, and re-determination processes, expedited review of applications, planning and system change within SSA and DDS systems, ombudsperson functions within SSA and DDS on behalf of people experiencing homelessness, and outcome and performance measurement.

When creating homeless claims units, SSA should be required to shorten case processing times for homeless persons.

Homeless clients suffer a disproportionate impact from inflated case processing times. While it is important to maintain a high rate of decisional accuracy, homeless clients who may be living on the street cannot afford to wait up to two years for a final decision on their claim. To speed up decisions for homeless claimants, their applications should be flagged and sent to dedicated caseworkers in the state disability determination service (DDS) agencies. This procedure, already being followed in Massachusetts, would result in reduced waiting times for a population that is typically in desperate need of SSI benefits.

SSA staff should be required to assist homeless claimants in obtaining basic verifications, such as proof of identity, immigration status, or assets.

In order to file an application for SSI, all claimants must meet these standard verification requirements. Unfortunately, many homeless persons have lost the documentation necessary to do so. In addition, they are unlikely to have sufficient funds to obtain replacement documentation. All too often, busy SSA caseworkers turn these people away, telling them to come back and apply when they have the proper documents. This should not continue. Instead, SSA representatives should work with homeless clients to help them obtain this information, through inquiries (via computer match or U.S. Mail) with state vital records agencies and/or INS.

Homeless persons should be given extra assistance in completing SSI application forms.

Often, SSA caseworkers seek to complete each application as quickly as possible. In their haste, many important details can be overlooked. Unfortunately, homeless clients cannot easily be reached, to correct mistakes or discrepancies in their applications. Accordingly, extra care should be taken to ensure that the initial application is completed in a thorough manner. This will result in a greater percentage of decisions that are both accurate and timely.

SSA should follow current rules regarding the receipt of SSI benefits while in a public institution, and simplify the rules which permit the resumption of benefits after release from an institution.

Currently, many homeless clients are improperly cut off from benefits when they enter public, emergency homeless shelters. When SSI benefits are properly suspended due to residence in a public institution, SSA must simplify the rules regarding the prompt resumption of benefits after a claimant has been released from that institution. This will help prevent homelessness by more quickly providing released individuals with a stable income and with Medicaid.

SSA should ensure that State DDS staff make every effort to obtain all medical records of homeless claimants, prior to scheduling consultative examinations (CE’s).

If insufficient records are available, thus necessitating that a CE take place, DDS staff must, under current law, give preference to scheduling those examinations with the claimant’s treating physician. If the claimant does not have a treating physician, CE’s should be scheduled with independent physicians, who are compensated at their standard hourly rate. This will prevent claimants from being sent to CE "mills," where doctors prepare incomplete CE reports after examining patients for no more than a minute or two.

The SSA Commissioner should be required to prepare and submit to Congress and the President, by September 30, 2002, a report that describes current policy and practice barriers to access and utilization of SSI and SSDI programs by people experiencing homelessness and recommendations for removing those impediments.

In establishing the plan, the Commissioner should consult with people experiencing homelessness, nonprofit organizations advocating for people experiencing homelessness, and representatives of State, local, and tribal government. This will provide SSA with clear guidance regarding how to better serve homeless persons.

The SSA Commissioner should also be required to establish a permanent Advisory Committee on Homelessness, with responsibility for conducting ongoing reviews of policy and practice barriers to access and utilization of SSI and SSDI programs by people experiencing homelessness, and making recommendations for removing those impediments.

SSA should restore SSI eligibility for people whose primary qualifying disability is substance abuse.

An April, 1999 study, performed by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, indicated that as a direct result of losing their SSI due to this restriction, 76% of persons (who were paying for their own housing) lost that housing and became homeless. Restoring SSI to these individuals would dramatically increase the number of homeless persons eligible for SSI. This, in turn, would result in many more homeless people obtaining housing and Medicaid coverage.

The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty would be glad to provide the Committee with any additional information. We would welcome the opportunity to meet with you further, to discuss these critically important issues. Thank you for your consideration of this testimony.