Poor See New Indignity in Welfare Fraud War

By KIMBERLY J. McLARIN
Published: April 21, 1995

Mildred Williams sat nervously in a room with blue walls early Wednesday, waiting for her name to be called. She had come to the welfare office at 330 Jay Street in Brooklyn seeking public assistance. It was the second time in two months.

Ms. Williams said she came first in mid-February, filled out an application, answered some questions and left. The next day, she said, she went looking for work.

“An investigator stopped by the house while I was gone, and because I wasn’t there, I have to go through this process again,” she said. “They said the people who answered the door were uncooperative. What’s uncooperative? Was it because this person was not invited in because I was not home?”

Ms. Williams is among the more than 10,000 childless adults who applied for welfare in New York City in the first three months of this year and were rejected as a tough, new screening process was instituted for the city’s Home Relief program for childless, able-bodied adults. Most of them, said Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, tried to cheat the system by giving false addresses or Social Security numbers or failed to disclose other sources of income.

But advocates for the poor as well as many people who were interviewed at welfare offices and soup kitchens criticized the way the new program is being carried out, and they said some applicants were turned down because of inadequacies in the way fraud investigators checked out where the applicants lived.

Too often, investigators made only minimal attempts to verify addresses, said Liz Krueger, associate director of the Community Food Resource Center, who works closely with many Home Relief recipients. She pointed out that many poor people often live doubled up in apartments or shifting between relatives — undocumented, unstable and unconnected to the anchors of middle-class life.

“They may have been unable to document your residence, but it doesn’t mean you lied about it,” she said. “It means they couldn’t find the house or they rang the doorbell twice and you weren’t there, or the manager didn’t know you because you weren’t on the lease.”

Ms. Krueger and other advocates have also complained that the Giuliani administration has created a veritable obstacle course for poor people wanting to apply for benefits by forcing people to go to several offices over a 45-day period to fill out forms and to be interviewed.

Administration officials defend the new crackdown and say that jobless people have enough time on their hands to go through the application and interview process.

And some of the poor and homeless people interviewed in recent days confirm the administration’s position that there is plenty of fraud to be found.

Over all, nearly 250,000 New Yorkers receive benefits through Home Relief. Since January all new applicants were required to submit to interviews to determine their identity, assets and living situations. Once accepted, the new recipients have to agree to work for the city. The rules do not apply to the broader Federal welfare program, Aid to Families With Dependent Children.

Some applicants said they were not told why their applications were rejected. Johnny Howell, who was back in line at the welfare office at 260 West 30th Street in Manhattan yesterday, said he first applied for public assistance on April 4.

With a a black leather jacket and a green Philadelphia Eagles baseball cap turned backward on his head, Mr. Howell said he was sent to the Jay Street office in Brooklyn, where he was interviewed by a welfare worker wearing a badge.

“The dude asked me a lot of personal questions, like how did you become homeless and how do you clean yourself,” he said.

Mr. Howell, 34, said he was given a letter to bring back to the welfare office on 30th Street. There, a worker told him that his application was denied, but did not give a reason.

Mr. Howell said he moved to New York from Philadelphia three years ago, one step ahead of drug-dealing enemies he had made in his hometown. He said he quickly began selling drugs in New York, then became addicted and lost his apartment. He said he has been drug-free for six months, and homeless since he left a drug rehabilitation program in March.

“I’ve got to get some kind of income,” he said. “I have urges to go in a store and shoplift, but I’m not trying to end up in jail. I’m trying to do things right for a change. I’ve got a conscience now, plus I’m tired of living like that.”

Mr. Howell said he has been looking for work at the grocery stores and fast-food restaurants in midtown Manhattan. But employers always want to know about the gap between his last job as a maintenance man in 1990 and now.

“I can’t say I was selling drugs,” he said. “Then too, if I tell them I’m a recovering addict, they might get funny.”

Fred Cain said he also was not told why his application was rejected in March. Mr. Cain, who was interviewed while standing in line at the Holy Apostle Church soup kitchen on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan on Tuesday, said the rejection came after he was interviewed in Brooklyn and returned to the welfare office on 30th Street in Manhattan.

“She told me I’m not eligible,” he said. “That was it.”

In a handful of cases, officials and advocates say, the applicants have successfully appealed the rejections. Ben Wizner, an advocate with the Legal Action Center for the Homeless, said one of his clients, a man in his 50′s who has lived at a single-room-occupancy hotel on the Bowery since 1991, was rejected for public assistance in March because fraud investigators could not confirm his address.

Mr. Wizner said his client never found out why the investigators decided he did not live at the hotel. But at a hearing, the man was able to present enough documents and personal testimony from hotel employees and other residents that the decision was overturned.

Richard Schwartz, a senior aide to the Mayor and the main architect of the screening program, strongly defended the home visits, saying investigators make every effort to confirm the addresses of applicants. Investigators visit the listed address within days after the person has made an application, he said. If the person is not at home, investigators interview other people in the building and even neighbors.

If those approaches cannot confirm that the applicant lives there, he said, the investigator leaves a letter telling the person to contact the welfare office. “This program was put together very carefully with a lot of sensitivity and a lot of thought,” he said. “It was put together with a great deal of care so it would be fair.”

And despite the stories of people saying they were wrongly rejected, Mr. Schwartz said only nine of the rejected cases have been appealed for hearings. “Those numbers speak for themselves,” he said.

Mr. Schwartz and the Mayor said that in the first three months of the crackdown, investigators rejected 57 percent of the applications, compared with 20 percent in the same period last year. The rejections included those people who successfully made it through the screening process but failed to report for their work assignment.

Mr. Wizner and other advocates question whether the intensive screening would have long-lasting effects. Many applicants, he said, will reapply and learn from their previous mistakes. “My guess is that the vast majority of these people who were denied reapplied right away and are still in the system,” he said.

The city’s program was modeled after one in Westchester County, but by combining the intensive screening process with the workfare requirement, the city was able to make bigger reductions faster.

But for people like Ms. Williams, who lives in the Marlboro Houses on Coney Island, the program seems to need a lesson in human dignity and understanding.

“They asked me all kinds of demeaning questions,” said Ms. Williams, who was dismissed from her job as a nanny about a year ago. “They asked if I would work, what I’ve been doing for the last 12 months, how I’ve been supporting myself, do I have any children, who lives in the house with me and what are their ages,” she said. “These are all quesions that I’ve answered before. They’re just repeating themselves.”

Yesterday, a woman who answered the telephone at Ms. Williams’s residence said Ms. Williams was out looking for work. She said a city investigator had already phoned.

Chart: “STEP BY STEP: Applying for Welfare” New York’s tough new screening process, along with requirements that recipients work for benefits, has reduced the number of people on Home Relief, the welfare program serving mainly single, childless adults. Below are the steps applicants must take as well as a reporter’s observations about the process. STEP 1. Applications are filled out at income maintenance centers that serve certain zip codes. Applicants are assigned a counselor and told to return in a week; if in need of emergency assistance, they must also return the next morning. WHAT TO EXPECT: It takes about five hours to be assigned a counselor. Rooms are poorly ventilated with few chairs. Workers tend to be unresponsive to questions. Frequently the office runs out of either English or Spanish forms, and there is no translator available. STEP 2. If seeking emergency assistance, an applicant returns the next morning. A counselor fills out forms for a photo I.D. At another window, papers are processed for the I.D. The applicant then must go to an office at 109 East 16th Street in Manhattan for the card. The applicant returns to the original center to get the emergency check. WHAT TO EXPECT: It takes two to three hours to get a card at the I.D. center. Tempers are short, with frequent outbursts by disgruntled applicants. Back at the income center, it takes about an hour to get the check, usually for about $29. STEP 3. A week later, applicants return to the income maintenance center for an interview. The applicant fills out a form, listing assets, sources of income and providing proof of residency, like a lease or utility bill. If homeless, applicants can give the address of a shelter or the General Post Office in midtown Manhattan. An appointment is made for an eligibility verification review — the new investigation into eligibility — at 330 Jay Street in Brooklyn. WHAT TO EXPECT: Many applicants do not know they need to bring residency documents. If they don’t bring them, they must return again. STEP 4. Applicants go to the Office of Employment Services at 98 Flatbush in Brooklyn for a talk on job hunting. Before the Giuliani administration began intensive screening, applicants attended the seminar only after being approved for welfare. Also new, applicants are given a logbook in which they must record the names of places they look for employment. Step 5. Applicants attend an eligibility verification review. According to the Mayor’s office, the review consists of: Computer comparisons of wage reporting, unemployment benefits, disability benefits, Social Security number, address, motor vehicle registration. Credit check to try to turn up information on possible assets. Unannounced home visits. WHAT TO EXPECT: Meetings often last less than an hour. In one recent review, eligibility specialists did not know the applicant was on parole and had listed different addresses on his welfare application and with his parole officer. They also failed in a number of cases to detect that applicants owned property outside New York. STEP 6. Applicants deliver sealed envelopes, given to them by eligibility specialists, to their counselors verifying that they attended the eligibility review. STEP 7. Applicants look for work, recording efforts in the logbook. They must apply for at least 40 jobs before being approved. STEP 8. At some point, an investigator makes an unannounced visit to verify residency. Applicants can be dropped for giving a false address. WHAT TO EXPECT: If no one is home to talk to investigators, or if neighbors, roomates or landlords do not cooperate, officials may question whether the applicant lives there. STEP 9. If 45 days after applying, applicants have not found jobs, they return to the income maintenance center to learn whether they have been accepted. If accepted and deemed able to participate, recipients are told to report the next day for part-time workfare assignments, which include cleaning graffiti and picking up trash in public places. If recipients fail to report for work, they are dropped from the rolls. STEP 10. Benefits, from $313 to $352 a month, are distributed through designated check-cashing companies. ESTHER B. FEIN (pg. B3)

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/21/nyregion/poor-see-new-indignity-in-welfare-fraud-war.html?scp=70&sq=workfare&st=nyt&pagewanted=1

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