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• SERIES

Petra Rodriguez lost her welfare benefits when she injured her back and couldn't keep her welfare work assignment. A Legal Aid lawyer says situations like hers help explain why the rolls have dropped--people are just discouraged from applying.

Rodriquez did not return to her work assignment and the next month she knew something was wrong when her benefits didn't arrive.

Her social worker told her that she was sanctioned for not showing up for work and recommended that Rodriquez apply for federal Social Security disability benefits. Rodriquez was denied.

As a result of the accident and not being able to work, welfare authorities suggested her daughter take over her job as a way of restoring the family's benefits. Her daughter declined. That was the end of the benefits.

Each month 15,000 U.S. families lose welfare benefits due to this type of so-called family sanctions, Legal Momentum, a New York-based advocacy group, found in its 2009 report, "The Bitter Fruit of Welfare Reform: A Sharp Drop in the Percentage of Eligible Women and Children Receiving Welfare."

Rodriguez was still eligible to receive food stamps because her youngest son was only 8 years old. She could still babysit and her older son worked odd jobs and helped her when he could. So she was still able to cope.

But fast forward to 2005, when her daughter at age 20 had a baby and applied for public assistance. The similarity of names and addresses caused a mix up between the two cases. Rodriguez's case was closed and her daughter's established. Benefits came to the household, but only enough for her daughter and a new granddaughter.

Rodriguez said worsening health hindered her ability to straighten things out. She had developed a heart condition by then and a few months later suffered a stroke.

She has been hospitalized nine times between last year and this report. Unable to keep the appointments for recertifying the food stamps and cash assistance for which she and her youngest son, now 15, were eligible, she lost both. Missed appointments mean closed cases.

Awaiting a Decision

Now she is waiting for a decision from a recent hearing with the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, where she represented herself and handed in her hospital documents to be reviewed by an administrative law judge. Rodriquez is hoping to be seen as qualifying for Social Security income, as she has not been able to hold a job for more than a year.

"I've been through a lot," said Rodriguez. "I'm paranoid about going to the welfare office."

Stevens Stephens, the Legal Aid Society lawyer, said his group is pushing the state to be flexible in identifying participants as exempt or temporarily exempt from welfare work requirements so they may instead qualify for disability benefits under the Social Security Administration.

Stevens Stephens also said that people with disabilities such as Rodriguez face further hardships under a plan by the New York City Human Resources Administration to centralize job centers where applicants can meet with case workers.

Under the plan, only three of the 31 centers in New York City would service clients with disabilities; these centers are in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan. For disabled participants in other parts of the city, the plan would create new travel and scheduling hardships, which are being fought through pending litigation in New York State. In practical terms, that means a welfare applicant would need to spend up to two hours on public transportation and a minimum of $4.50 in fares to reach the center. In addition, many subways stations are not accessible to the physically handicapped, meaning many would have to rely on relatively slower and less frequent bus transport.

Lovely H. v. Eggleston, a federal class action lawsuit brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act, seeks to stop the city from discriminating against people with disabilities by transferring their cases to separate job center sites, without giving them an opportunity to decide to use those centers voluntarily. Presently, the Legal Aid Society is pushing the city to settle the case. The case has gone on for more than four years.

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Anna Limontas-Salisbury is a writer in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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