Street roots
5
CY
June 10, 2011
Despite steep cuts, TANF retains 5-year lim it fo r services
BY AMANDA WALDROUPE
S T A FF W R IT E R
J T M i e 60-month time Umit to the
Temporary Assistance for Needy'
-A. Families (TANF) program will not be
cut by the Oregon Legislature, as many
advocates for low-income and impoverished
families feared. The proposal on the table
was to slash the lifetime time limit to 18
months, giving Oregonians the lowest time
limit in the nation.
The Joint Ways and Means Subcommittee
on Human Services, which writes the
budgets for the state’s human services
programs, approved TANF’s budget and
program changes during committee
meetings this week, including funding to
preserve the 60-month time limit, as well as
some programs and services. The vote caps
off months of campaigning by people in
poverty and their advocates to prevent
people from losing their housing and
children as a result of the cuts.
“We’re happy,” said Patti Whitney-Wise,
the executive director of the Oregon Hunger
Relief Task Force and the advocate leading
the charge to protect TANF from budget
cuts. “We’re pleased that some of the
biggest hbles were (filled).”
Added back to the program were $12.6
million to preserve the 60-month time limit
that families can receive the program’s
monthly cash grant. That grant tops out at
$506 per month for a family of four or more.
Gov. John Kitzhaber’s recommended
budget called for reducing TANF’s budget by
$67 million and reducing the time limit to
18 months, which would have affected 7,000
Oregon families.
“That was extremely bad public policy,”
says Rep. Tina Kotek (D-Portland), who has
championed TANF’s preservation.
dramatically reduce TANF, advocates
immediately decried the recommendation,
saying it would cause impoverished,
unemployed and vulnerable families with
dependent children to become homeless.
They quickly formed an alliance and
strenuously lobbied legislators to restore
the program’s funding. “We did quite a bit of
running around,” Whitney-Wise says.
Two million dollars were restored to
TANF’s Family Supports and Connections
program, which helps parents acquire better
parenting and life skills, and $10 million was
restored to serve clients of the Jobs "
Opportunity and Basic Skills (JOBS)
program who are considered “Tier II”
clients, people who are not quite ready to
enter the workforce.
May’s revenue (precast projected, that
Oregon would have an additional $129
million in its general fund for the 2011-2013
bienhium. $105 million was used to reduce
cuts to human services programs, including
TANF. “There were a lot of severe cuts,”
Whitney-Wise says.
Twenty-six million dollar were also taken
from the Department of Human Services’
Employment Related Day Care program by
reducing the number of caseloads in the
program from 11,000 to 9,000. That too is
an unfortunate cut, Whitney-Wise says, but
Gov. Kitzhaber is said to be looking fot
additional funding for the program.
The changes to TANF will be in effect for .
the upcoming biennium, July 2011 to July
2013.
But steep cuts were made, and there are |
program and services that will be eliminated
for the biennium: a benefit for people
applying to receive Social Security Disability
insurance is being eliminated, as is the post-
TANF payment of $50 per month for
families who left the TANF program as a
result of finding work.
Support services to people participating
in the JOBS program are also being severely
cut, and people who are not considered
immediately able to enter the work force
will no longer be able to access support
services such as child care, mental health >
treatment, parenting and life skills training,
etc.
“All the preventive and tailored programs
less services people get, they more they
risk losing their children,” to the foster care
system, she says.
TANF is a program reserved for the
poorest of Oregon’s poor. It provides a cash
benefit for individuals or couples with
dependent children to help cover their basic
needs while they participate in job training
programs, educational programs, and other
programs to help them re-enter the work
"All the preventive and tailored programs to meet fam ilies at
their individual needs won't be there. "It's more of a one-size-
fits-all program ."
REP. TINA KOTEK
D -P O R T L A N D
to meet families at their individual needs
won’t be there,” Kotek says. “It’s more of a
one-size-fits-all program.”
The impacts on families will be huge,” she
says, calling the support programs essential
to making TANF work, “There are families
in financial crisis. And there are families in
financial, emotional and other crises,” Kotek
says.
Whitney-Wise says the lack of support
sendees will profoundly effect parents’
abilities- to not only be good parents to their
children, but also to reduce the barriers
stopping them from entering the workforce.
“They’ire not going to get the services to
get rid of those barriers,” Whitney Wise
says.
Whitney-Wise says the changes make
TANF a “very stripped down program” and
she fears that people will stay on TANF
longer.
r _ “T h e bigyefit c o n c e rn ,\ye ftaye is t h a t th e
force and become self-sufficient. TANF
clients stay in the program for an average of
,24 months.
The number of two-parent families in
TANF has increased dramatically since the
start of the recession, at 330 percent since
2007. Overall demand has increased by 57.3
percent.
The TANF budget’s next step is to the
full Joint Ways and Means Committee before
i t can go to the House and Senate floors for
a vote. “The TANF budget is still very
fragile,” Kotek warns.
This coming week, a notice from the
Department of Human Services about
changes to the the Jobs Opportunity and
Basic Skills (JOBS) program will be sent to-
families on TANF detailing the cuts
becoming effective on June 30.
“It will tell them what they’re not
getting,” Kotek says. “It will be very
Homeless figures across Oregon jum p nearly 30 percent
BY ALISON MCINTOSH
C O N T R IB U T I N G W R IT E R
omelessness has increased in
Oregon again. The State of Oregon
Department of Housing and
Community Services released the annual
Point In Time Counts in late May, showing
homelessness has increased 29 percent
since the count was conducted in 2009,
despite federal stimulus funds designed to
prevent increases in homelessness due to
the récession. ;
The report is a compilation of a couht
conducted each year across the United
States, required by the Ü.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development. The
report counts families, children and
individual^ staying in shelters, on the street,
in cars and other places which aren’t
providing a safe or stable place to call home.
“In Oregon, we believe everyone needs a
place to call home. As wé work together to
solve the current budget crisis, the
Législature needs to prioritize providing
basic needs to those most impacted by the
H
ongoing recession and should consider an
increase to the Emergency Housing
Account,” said Janet Byrd, chair of the
Housing Alliance, “The ongoing recession,
high unemployment and continued wave of
foreclosures in Oregon continues to make it
more difficult for hard working Oregonians
to find a safe, decent and affordable place to
call home. Far too many of our friends,
neighbors and children are experiencing
homelessness today in Oregon.”
As the recession continues, more and
more Oregon families find themselves
homeless for the first time.
“We saw increases in homelessness
despite an infusion of federal stimulus funds
designed to prevent this very situation,” said
Sharon Miller, executive director of
Neighbor Impact in Redmond.
“Hardworking people Should be able to
afford housing and still have enough money
for groceries and other basic necessities,”
said Jackie Schad, executive director of
ACCESS, Inc in Jackson County. “Too many
families across the state can’t afford a safe,
::: l
LOOKING FOR AN
AFFORDABLE PLACE TO RENT?
Your online housing search just got easier.
stable place to call . home. We’re calling on
the State Legislature to increase funds for
emergency rent assistance to help protect
families and children affected by the
recession.”
In 2009, as part of the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Oregon
received $15 million to be spent between
2009 and 2011. These funds were to be used
to help people either prevent or end their
homelessness through short-term rental
assistance. The money was quickly and -
effectively used in Oregon for this purpose,
but despite these additional funds, the need
far Outweighed the availability of these
funds. Oregon has a similar fund, the
Emergency Housing Account, wjiich is
slated to receive $5.8 million in general
funds according to the governor’s requested
budget. Increases to the Emergency
Housing Account would go directly towards
preventing and ending homelessness
throughout Oregon.
Note: Street Roots asked the city for
comment on the recent report. Here’s what
spokesperson for the Portland Housing
Bureau had to say: “The Portland Housing
Bureau and the Multnomah County
Department of County Human Services
coordinated the work of hundreds of local
agencies and volunteers who conducted th e '
local 2011 one night count of people
experiencing homelessness. Though we
submitted our preliminary results to OHGS'
tocontribute to this statewide data, we are
carefully analyzing our data to better
understand our local picture of
homelessness. We expect to issue a detailed
report by the end of June.”
An earlier report released by the Housing
Alliance and the National Low Income
Housing Coalition showed that the cost of
renting an apartment in Oregon has
continued to increase. The average fair
market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in
Oregon is $822 — a number that has
increased 35 percent since 2000.
Alison McIntosh is a Policy Manager with
Neighborhood Partnerships.