This is a volume in the Institute for Research on Poverty Monograph Series A complete list of titles in this series appears at the end of this volume. LAST RESORTS Emergency Assistance and Special Needs Programs in Public Welfare JOEL F. HANDLER University of Wisconsin Law School and Institute for Research on Poverty University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, Wisconsin MICHAEL SOSIN Department of Social Work and Institute for Research on Poverty University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, Wisconsin ACADEMIC PRESS A Subsidiary of Harcourt Brace jovanovich, Publishers New York London Paris San Diego San Francisco Säo Paulo Sydney Tokyo Toronto This book is one of a series sponsored by the Institute for Research on Poverty of the University of Wisconsin pursuant to the provisions of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. Copyright © 1983 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System on behalf of the Institute for Research on Poverty All Rights Reserved No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form by print, microfilm, or any other means without permission from Academic Press ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. 111 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003 United Kingdom Edition published by ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. (LONDON) LTD. 24/28 Ova! Road, London NWl 7DX Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Handler, Joel F. Last resorts. (Institute for Research on Poverty monograph series) 1. Public welfare-Government policy-United States. 2. Supplemental security income program -United States. 3. Assistance in emergencies- United States. I. Sosin, Michael. II. Title. III. Series. HV95.H258 1983 361.6 83-6034 ISBN 0-12-322950-2 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 83 84 85 86 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Stephen, Adam, and Frances Handler j. H. To my parents M. S. The Institute for Research on Poverty is a national center for re- ES59 search established at the University of Wisconsin in 1966 by a grant Wmr from the Office of Economic Opportunity. Its primary objective is to I foster basic, multidisciplinary research into the nature and causes of poverty and means to combat it. In addition to increasing the basic knowledge from which policies aimed at the elimination of poverty can be shaped, the Institute strives to carry analysis beyond the formulation and testing of fundamental generalizations to the development and assessment of relevant policy alternatives. The Institute endeavors to bring together scholars of the highest caliber whose primary research efforts are focused on the problem of poverty, the distribution of income, and the analysis and evaluation of social policy, offering staff members wide opportunities for interchange of ideas, maximum freedom for research into basic questions about poverty and social policy, and dissemination of their findings. List of Tables 1.1 Six-Cell Stratified Sample of the 50 States 21 2.1 Special Needs Items Not Covered or Covered Minimally 29 2.2 Goals Listed on Executive Questionnaires and What They Measure 47 2.3 Welfare System Goals as Rated by State Welfare Executives 49 2.4 Welfare System Goals as Rated by County Welfare Executives 51 2.5 State Welfare Executives' Perceptions of Attitudes of Various Groups toward Specialized Programs 54 2.6 Local Executives' Perceptions of Attitudes of Various Groups toward Specialized Programs 56 3.1 Emergency Assistance and Special Needs Programs Provided by States 60 3.2 AFDC and AFDC-EA Caseload and Expenditures in One Year 63 3.3 General Assistance Data, February 1978 82 4.1 Correlation between AFDC Characteristics and Specialized Assistance 104 4.2 Correlation between Selected Goals and Specialized Assistance 107 4.3 Correlation between Selected Measures of Community Pressure and Specialized Assistance 111 5.1 State Mandates Concerning Informing Basic Grant Recipients about Emergency Assistance and Special Needs 121 5.2 State Requirements Concerning Exhausting Outside Resources before Receiving Assistance 122 XIII XIV List of Tables 5.3 State Requirements Concerning Verification of Applications 123 5.4 Coverage of Various Groups by State Specialized Programs 124 5.5 Items Constituting 81-100% of the Costs of State Specialized Programs 126 5.6 Circumstances Covered at Least in Part by State Specialized Programs 127 5.7 Forms of Specialized Aid Permitted in State Programs 129 5.8 Conditions of Specialized Aid Imposed by State Programs 130 5.9 Correlations of State Administrative Characteristics and Selected Measures of Emergency and Special Needs Program Size 134 5.10 Correlations of Measures of Public Welfare Policy and Administrative Characteristics in State Specialized Programs 139 6.1 County Rules and Procedures Concerning Informing Potential Recipients about Emergency Assistance and Special Needs 150 6.2 County Requirements Concerning Exhausting Outside Resources before Receiving Assistance 151 6.3 Items Usually Verified by County Programs 152 6.4 Coverage of Various Groups by Local Specialized Programs 153 6.5 Items Constituting 81-100% of the Costs of Local Specialized Programs 154 6.6 Circumstances Covered at Least in Part by County Specialized Programs 155 6.7 Forms of Specialized Aid Permitted in County Programs 155 6.8 Conditions of Specialized Aid Imposed by County Programs 156 6.9 Regression Model of County Program Costs Compared to AFDC Costs 161 6.10 Regression Model of Local Acceptance Rate of Applicants for Specialized Programs 163 7.1 Frequency of Various Types of Worker Behavior in Emergency Assistance Programs 171 7.2 Characteristics of State-County Communication 173 7.3 State Executives' Perceptions of Administrative Problems 174 7.4 County Executives' Perceptions of Administrative Problems 174 7.5 Designation by County Authorities of Problems with State Rules and Guidelines 175 7.6 Responses of State and County Administrators Concerning Adequacy of Specialized Assistance Coverage 177 7.7 Responses of State and Local Administrators Concerning Appropriate Coverage of Various Circumstances by Specialized Programs 179 7.8 County Administrative Response to Increased Demand for Specialized Assistance 184 8.1 Responses of Local Program Administrators Concerning Perceived Availability of Community Resources 192 8.2 Beliefs of Local Executives Concerning Action Taken in Absence of Public Specialized Aid Programs 194 List of Tables XV 8.3 Responses of Local Program Administrators Concerning Private Sources of Specialized Aid 195 8.4 Responses of Local Program Administrators Concerning Types of Clients Likely to Receive Specialized Aid from Private Sources 196 9.1 Supplementary Benefits: Composition of the Rolls, 1978 219 Foreword Across the broad front of governmental action, from the conduct of monetary policy to the administration of welfare benefits, the choice between uniform rules impersonally administered and individualized responses at an administrator's discretion is being debated yet again. Uniformity is in the ascendancy, at least rhetorically. This book examines how the welfare system now deals with emergencies and special needs in the U.S. system, which is vastly complicated by state and county administration, and where each juris- diction's pursuit of uniformity results in enormous system-wide variability. Niggardliness further presses each administrator to limit the focus of his or her beneficence to those few problems most urgent or most con- sistent with local mores. Variability is thereby further increased. Most of all, there is wide discretion because the life of welfare clients re- mains wildly unpredictable. Handler is a lawyer, Sosin a social worker. Both have long and strong backgrounds in research on discretion, organizational processes, and client services. Yet, what they see outrages them. No one state claims to have all of the existing emergency assistance or special needs programs, but looking at the states as a whole, we find an impressive number of programs. These, however, are programs on the books. XVII XVIII Foreword Within the limitations of the data, our general finding is that these programs are, in fact, small, variable, and discretionary in administration. Like weeds searching for cracks in a straight and unyielding concrete road, these programs struggle for existence against the dominant ideology of routinization and re- duction of cost, error, and fraud. Overall the many fragmentary provisions for emergency assistance and special needs give little aid to clients, leave large gaps in coverage, and possess great heterogeneity. The budgets are extremely small when compared to the amounts states spend on their regular income maintenance programs. Thus AFDC-EA, one of the most important spe- cialized programs, exists in less than half of the states, and the average expen- diture for AFDC—Ε A in those states is only 1.5% of the average AFDC expendi- ture. Minnesota, one of the most generous states, spends about 3% of its welfare budget on specialized aid. Not many weeds are poking through |pp. 238-239]. Improvement must come from a change in attitudes. According to Handler and Sosin, "Individualized treatment in public welfare is not a necessary evil, but a necessary good, and part of the evaluation of any public welfare system must depend upon its willingness and ability to meet those needs that cannot be covered by the standardized grant [p. 12]." Perhaps that turnabout will be initiated by this book. EUGENE SMOLENSKY Director institute for Research on Poverty