Amendment #1565 to H3900

Improvements to Emergency Assistance for Children and Families

Ms. Decker of Cambridge moves to amend the bill in section 2, in item 7004-0101, in line 153, 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 the department shall submit, on or before the final day of the month following the quarter, reports to the house and senate committees on ways and means with data from the prior quarter, including data on the race and ethnicity of all families where available and applicable expressed as a percentage of the total, 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; provided further, that such reports shall simultaneously be posted publicly on the department’s website; 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; provided further, that a person shall not be denied assistance under this section based wholly or in part on the amount of the person’s assets; provided, however, that any income generated by such assets may be treated as countable income; provided further, in order to promote privacy, dignity, and public health, that the department shall make every effort to provide each family placed in temporary shelter with their own room or rooms for sleeping, separated from other families by at least a door, and with the ability to control the lighting in their sleeping area;"

Additional co-sponsor(s) added to Amendment #1565 to H3900

Improvements to Emergency Assistance for Children and Families