Amendment #1385 to H4700

Improvements to Emergency Assistance for Children and Families

Ms. Decker of Cambridge moves to amend the bill in section 2, in line item 7004-0101, in line 5, by striking out the following: “115 per cent” and inserting in place thereof the following: “200 per cent”; and in said item in line 7, by striking out the following: “200 per cent” and inserting in place thereof the following: “285 per cent”; and in said item by adding to the end the following: “provided further, that there shall be established an ombudsperson unit within the executive office of housing and economic development to liaise between families and two programs located within the department of housing and community development; provided further, that ombudsperson unit shall be directed towards the emergency assistance shelter program and related short-term housing transition programs as provided in Chapter 4 of the Acts of 2009 and Chapter 23, and any successor programs; provided further, that the ombudsperson shall mediate between any applicant or participant and the department of housing and community development when conflicts or misunderstandings arise; provided further, that the ombudsperson shall advocate for any applicant or participant when such applicant or participant requests such services in order to review a denial or termination of services; provided further, that for applicants, the ombudsperson shall advocate in instances including but not limited to extraneous document requests, inability to contact the department by telephone, delays in placement, and denials; provided further, that the ombudsperson unit shall have access to all initiated, partially completed, and completed applications in order to assess applicants’ and participants’ requests; provided further the ombudsperson shall have access to all submitted documentation as well as case information in the All Service Integrated System Tracker (ASIST) database and any successor database as well as shelter provider notes, department of children and families and domestic violence assessments, and sub-contracted provider notes; provided further, that the ombudsperson unit shall annually develop a report describing: (1) the number of requests received in the preceding 12-month period; (2) the number of such requests that pertained to the emergency assistance program; (3) the number of such requests that pertained to the Massachusetts short-term housing transition program; (4) the number of such requests that pertained to issues arising during the application process; (5) the number of such requests that pertained to participants’ experiences at any time after initial entry into the program in question, broken down by program;  or issues that result as part of programmatic participation; (6) the nature of all such requests; (7) the resolution of all such requests; (8) the race and ethnicity of each requestor; and (9) the length of time to resolve requests for each program and identifies whether the request involved application issues or program participation issues; provided further, that this report shall be filed with the Clerks of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and shall be filed with the Joint Committee on Housing and the House and Senate Committees on Ways and Means, on or before the first of February of each year; provided further, that not more than twelve months after establishing the ombudsperson unit, and annually thereafter, the joint committee on ways and means and the joint committee on housing shall hold an oversight hearing to investigate, analyze and discuss the data collected and the efficacy of the ombudsperson unit in resolving requests;” and in said item, in line 42, by striking out the following: “provided further, that the department of housing and community development shall submit quarterly reports broken down by month to the house and senate committees on ways and means detailing expenditures under the preceding proviso, including: (1) the number of families who received emergency assistance under the preceding proviso; (2) the number of families entering the emergency assistance system after having already stayed in a place not meant for human habitation; (3) the number of families entering the emergency assistance system having stayed in a place not meant for human habitation after having requested services provided for in this item within the preceding 6 months and within the preceding week; (4) the number of families described under clause (3) who received a written denial of their request for services prior to staying in a place not meant for human habitation and the number who neither entered the emergency shelter system nor received a written denial on the day of their request; and (5) available data on the race and ethnicity of the families described under clauses (1) to (4) inclusive;” and inserting in place thereof the following: “provided further, that on or before the final day of each month, the department of housing and community development shall submit to the house and senate committees on ways and means reports, which shall simultaneously be posted publicly on the department’s website, detailing expenditures under the preceding proviso during the prior month, including: (1) the number of families who received emergency assistance under the preceding proviso; (2) the number of families entering the emergency assistance system after having already stayed in a place not meant for human habitation; (3) the number of families entering the emergency assistance system having stayed in a place not meant for human habitation after having requested services provided for in this item within the preceding 6 months; (4) the number of families entering the emergency assistance system having stayed in a place not meant for human habitation after having requested services provided for in this item within the preceding week; (5) the number of families described under clause (3) who received a written denial of their request for services prior to staying in a place not meant for human habitation; the number of families described under clause (4) who received a written denial of their request for services prior to staying in a place not meant for human habitation; (6) the number of families requesting services under this line item having stayed in a place not meant for human habitation after having requested services provided for in this item within the preceding 6 months who neither entered the emergency shelter system nor received a written denial on the day of their request; (7) the number of families requesting services under this line item having stayed in a place not meant for human habitation after having requested services provided for in this item within the preceding week who neither entered the emergency shelter system nor received a written denial on the day of their request; and (8) available data on the race and ethnicity of the families described under clauses (1) to (7) inclusive;” and in said item by striking out the following: “provided further, that the department shall submit quarterly reports to the house and senate committees on ways and means detailing: (a) emergency assistance system capacity; (b) entries and exits from the system, delineated by reason for entry or exit (c) applications and requests for services provided in this item and in item 7004-0108 that are denied and the bases of all such denials expressed as a percentage of the total;” and inserting in place thereof the following: “provided further, that on or before the last day of each month, the department shall submit to the house and senate committees on ways and means reports, which reports shall simultaneously be posted publicly on the department’s website, with data from the prior month, detailing: (a) emergency assistance system capacity; (b) applications for services provided for in this item and item 7004-0108; (c) requests for services under this item and item 7004-0108, with a request for services defined as any point at which the household seeking services provides information to the department as part of any enrollment, triage, or eligibility determination, regardless of whether a formal application is completed and regardless of whether the contact is by telephone, by office visit, or by other means; (d) front-door entries into the emergency assistance system, delineated by reason for entry; (e) applications and requests for services provided in this item and in item 7004-0108 that are denied and the bases of all such denials expressed as a percentage of the total; (f) applications and requests for services provided for in this item and in item 7004-0108 that do not result in a formal denial, a front-door entry into the emergency assistance system or verified diversion as a result of HomeBASE household assistance expressed as a percentage of the total; (g) the number of households submitting multiple applications or making multiple requests for services within the previous 1-month period and the previous 6- month period; (h) diversions as a result of HomeBASE household assistance;(i) exits from the emergency assistance system, delineated by reason for exit, including at-fault terminations, exits because the household is no longer income eligible, exits due to feasible alternative housing, exits through HomeBASE household assistance with no other subsidy and exits to another subsidized or otherwise assisted housing program; (j) the number of applications and requests that do not result in the household entering emergency assistance shelter within 48 hours; and for which such nonentry is attributable to each of the following grounds: written denial, pending documentation or verification, no imminent homelessness or household withdrawal of the application; (k) of those households described in the preceding clause for whom non-entry is attributable to pending documentation or verification or to no imminent homelessness, the number who intend to stay in each of the following situations after non-entry into the emergency shelter system: a place not meant for human habitation, a situation in which the household is reporting a concern related to domestic violence or to health and safety, a shelter situation funded by another government agency or non-profit, or head of household cannot identify a place to stay; (l) of those households described in clause (j) for whom non-entry is attributable to pending documentation or verification or to no imminent homelessness and who within six months contact the department again to request emergency assistance shelter or to follow up on their earlier request, the number who in the intervening period stayed at least one night in any of the following situations after their prior non-entry into the emergency shelter system: a place not meant for human habitation, a situation in which the household is reporting a concern related to domestic violence or to health and safety, a shelter situation funded by another government agency or non-profit, or head of household cannot identify a place to stay; (m) the number of families transitioned from shelter benefits to affordable, subsidized or otherwise assisted housing through this program; (n) the average, minimum and maximum cost per family of said housing assistance and of emergency assistance under this item; (o) the number of families served who requested further assistance under this item or under item 7004-0108 at a later date; (p) the type of assistance later requested and provided; (q) the total number of families receiving assistance under this item or item 7004-0108 that have received assistance under said items during each of the previous 3 years; (r) the number of children served under this item broken down by age; (s) the number of applications and requests from households that became homeless within 12 months of depleting their HomeBASE assistance under item 7004-0108; (t) the reasons for homelessness in the applications and requests received under clause (s) and the number of applications and requests received under said clause (s) that are denied; and (u) the average and maximum length of stay for families currently staying in an emergency assistance shelter placement; provided further, that said reports shall also include the following information from the department of children and families: (i) the number of families assessed for a health and safety risk in the previous quarter; (ii) the number of families determined to be at a substantial health and safety risk; (iii) the number of families receiving multiple health and safety assessments within the previous 6-month period; and (iv) the standards used to determine a substantial health and safety risk; provided further, that on or before the last day of each month, the department shall submit to the house and senate committees on ways and means reports, which reports shall simultaneously be posted on the department’s website, with data from the prior month on: (a) the number of families that applied for a transfer from their current shelter placement to a unit that can accommodate their disability-related needs, delineated by reason for the application; (b) the number of families whose applications for reasonable accommodation have been approved but that are waiting for transfer due to lack of available units able to accommodate their disability-related needs, delineated by category of accommodation including, but not limited to, access to cooking facilities, first-floor or elevator access, noncarpeted unit, physical modification to unit, scattered site unit, geographic proximity to service providers and wheelchair accessibility; (c) the number of families currently in shelter units located more than 20 miles away from their home community; (d) the number of families with at least 1 child who attends a school other than the child’s school of origin as a result of placement in a shelter unit outside of their home community; and (e) both the average and maximum number of days that families spend in placements under the circumstances described in clauses (b) to (d), inclusive, before being transferred to a shelter unit for which none of the circumstances in said clauses (b) to (d), inclusive, apply, including families who are still awaiting transfer as of the time of the report; (f) the percentage of applications for a transfer that were approved; and (g) the average number of days and the maximum number of days between the application submission and the approval"

Additional co-sponsor(s) added to Amendment #1385 to H4700

Improvements to Emergency Assistance for Children and Families