The Hurdles Are High for Homeless Who Try to Get General Relief

In its quest to find more housing for the homeless, the City of Los Angeles has pointed its finger at Los Angeles County, saying--accurately enough, as far as it goes--that the county is required by law to “relieve and support indigent people” and should take over the task of providing shelter to more than 25,000 homeless people.

The county has answered that it spends an enormous amount of money in discharging its legal obligation by providing general relief, which just about every homeless person who does not already have an income should qualify for. Indeed, a few months ago Supervisor Deane Dana castigated the city for letting homeless people sleep in City Hall rather than “working within the system.” “My way of thinking,” he said, “is that (the city) should say, ‘You people should go to welfare offices and apply for vouchers.’ ”

As a welfare advocate, I work every day with homeless people who do try to “work within the system” by applying for general relief. What I see is a seemingly endless row of hurdles that prevent people from getting the aid that they need. Virtually every one of my clients is homeless, penniless and a U.S. citizen. Here are just 10 of the many stumbling blocks that I see keeping them sleeping out on the sidewalks of Los Angeles:

--The application form is 36 to 42 pages long and written at the 12th-grade reading level. Usually there is no one to help people fill it out.

--The general-relief offices have more than 200 people waiting all day in smoky rooms with inadequate seating. Armed, uniformed security guards are the only staff members in the room. It is hard on anyone’s nerves; if you have a touch of paranoia or are depleted from hunger and lack of sleep, it may be more than you can take.

--Based on my observation, the average wait for transactions in general-relief offices is about seven hours.

--If the homeless new applicant does not have certain documentary identification, he or she has to see the “welfare fraud investigator,” who calls the person into a back room, flashes a badge, fingerprints and photographs the applicant and calls relatives to identify him or her. Often people are not told that they are not actually being investigated for welfare fraud.

--To apply for general relief you have to make three or four other trips to other agencies, usually on foot, to gather eligibility information. If you do not have your Social Security card, for example, you have to go to a Social Security office to secure a receipt saying that you applied for a replacement, even though that replacement will arrive weeks after it is of any use to the general-relief program. And, of course, you cannot just drop that receipt off; you have to wait to put it into your caseworker’s hand.

--Applicants are yelled at, lied to and insulted by harried general-relief personnel. This is hard on anybody, but particularly on mentally ill people.

--Fully 10% of the checks that are issued each month get “lost” in the system, often because of incorrect data entry. Once a check is lost, it takes a minimum of 10 days to replace it, and generally two more office visits.

--Able-bodied general-relief applicants have to complete job-search requirements. These consist of getting a worthless pink card from the Employment Development Department and filling out a monthly job-search form. The form asks the person on general relief to record the addresses, telephone numbers and signatures of people at 20 businesses where they have sought jobs. In five years I have never known anyone to get a job this way. Yet if the pink cards and job-search forms are late or incomplete--if even a single digit of a telephone number is wrong--the applicant is cut off all aid, now including food stamps, for two months.

--You have to turn in a monthly form that reports any address or income change. If the form is late, your case is closed.

--Finally, even if a homeless person can get through all these hoops, the general-relief grant is $280 per month for individuals living alone. This is supposed to represent a budget of $175 for housing, $90 for food and $15 for personal-care items. The most miserable flophouse room on Skid Row costs upwards of $220 a month, and, citywide, the least expensive studio apartments start at about $300 a month. So the $280 either buys you a month in an infested room without a bathroom or a kitchen and no food, no soap, no toilet paper, no deodorant, nothing--or it buys you two weeks in the same flophouse room and some burgers and shampoo. And two weeks on the sidewalk.

I ask people every day why they are not on general relief. Every day I hear the same two answers: either, “They closed my case,” or, more and more often lately, “Why bother?”