BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
AB 683 (Ammiano) - Homelessness: housing status data.
Amended: August 6, 2012 Policy Vote: Human Services 4-2
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: August 16, 2012
Consultant: Jolie Onodera
SUSPENSE FILE.
Bill Summary: AB 683 would require the Department of Health Care
Services (DHCS) to inquire in both paper and electronic
applications into the housing status of persons who apply for
Medi-Cal benefits, and would require the Department of Social
Services (DSS) to inquire in both paper and electronic
applications into the housing status of persons who apply for
CalFresh benefits, to determine whether or not an applicant is
homeless, as defined pursuant to specified federal regulations.
This bill would require the DSS to seek any necessary federal
waivers to align the CalFresh definition of a person who is
homeless with the specified federal regulations. This bill would
require application forms to be revised only when there is
another reason to revise the applications, and subsequent to the
application revisions, would require the collected data to be
included in relevant reports to the Legislature.
Fiscal Impact:
One-time costs, likely minor, to the DHCS and DSS to revise
the Medi-Cal and CalFresh written and electronic application
forms to include specified questions on housing status.
Significant costs potentially in excess of several hundred
thousand dollars (General Fund) to the DHCS and DSS to collect
the relevant data to the extent programming changes to the
Medi-Cal Eligibility Data System (MEDS), the three county
statewide automated welfare systems (SAWS), and CalHEERS would
be required.
Ongoing minor costs to include the relevant collected data in
annual reports to the Legislature.
Background: Under existing law, multiple federal and state
entities provide homelessness assistance through programs
targeted to those experiencing homelessness or through
mainstream programs that broadly assist low-income populations.
AB 683 (Ammiano)
Page 1
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO)
report, Homelessness: A Common Vocabulary Could Help Agencies
Collaborate and Collect More Consistent Data (June 2010), there
is not a consistent definition of "homelessness" across federal
programs, with program definitions ranging from including
primarily people in homeless shelters or on the street to also
including those living with others because of economic hardship.
Likewise at the state level, there is not a consistent
definition of homelessness.
In 2005, the state launched the Chronic Homeless Initiative,
which included the creation of an Interagency Council comprised
of the leaders of eleven agencies and departments with
responsibility for housing and services for citizens who are at
risk of or already chronically homeless. The Interagency Council
initiated the process of a collaboratively developed Ten Year
Chronic Homelessness Action Plan, which was released in 2010.
The first goal of the plan is to establish as a statewide
priority the prevention and significant reduction of chronic
homelessness through the enactment of state level policy to
support solutions to chronic homelessness; advocacy for federal
policy and funding to support state efforts; public education to
generate broad-based support for this effort; and data
collection and analysis to guide policy and program efforts and
identify best practice interventions.
Proposed Law: This bill states the Legislature's intent to
gather accurate and consistent data about Californians who lack
housing stability, and how these persons use health and social
services. Specifically, this bill:
Requires the DHCS to inquire into the housing status of persons
who apply for Medi-Cal benefits, as follows:
Requires both paper and electronic application forms for
Medi-Cal benefits to include questions to determine whether
the applicant is homeless, as defined in Section 582.5 of
Title 24 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR).
Requires the questions included in the applications to
be drafted so that an applicant is able to identify easily
with specific options offered as alternative responses, and
shall at a minimum address the permanency and condition of
the applicant's housing.
Provides that providing answers to housing status shall
be optional for Medi-Cal applicants and shall not be
AB 683 (Ammiano)
Page 2
required in order for an application form to be considered
complete or for the submission of an electronic
application.
Requires the Medi-Cal application to be refined to be
consistent with the definition previously referenced only
when there is another reason to revise an application for
benefits.
At the end of the first fiscal year following the
application changes required, this bill requires the DHCS
to begin including in its relevant reports to the budget
committees of the Legislature the number of Medi-Cal
beneficiaries who are homeless, and the number of those
beneficiaries who indicated being homeless for longer than
one year.
Requires the DSS to inquire into the housing status of persons
who apply for CalFresh benefits, as follows:
Requires the DSS to seek any necessary federal waivers
to align the CalFresh definition of a person who is
homeless with the definition of homeless in Section 582.5
of Title 24 of the CRF.
Upon approval of any necessary waivers, and at the next
scheduled revision of the paper and online CalFresh
application, requires the DSS to refine the CalFresh
application to be consistent with the definition previously
referenced.
Requires both paper and electronic application forms for
CalFresh benefits to include questions to determine whether
the applicant is homeless, as defined.
Requires questions included in the applications to be
drafted so that an applicant is able to identify easily
with specific options offered as alternative responses and
shall at a minimum address the permanency and condition of
the applicant's housing.
At the end of the first fiscal year following the
application changes required, this bill requires the DSS to
begin including in its relevant reports to the budget
committees of the Legislature the number of CalFresh
households that are homeless, the number of CalFresh
households that have been homeless for longer than one
year, and the number of CalWORKs households that have
requested homeless assistance.
Related Legislation:
AB 683 (Ammiano)
Page 3
AB 2547 (Blumenfield) 2012 establishes the Statewide Office of
the Homeless Youth Advocate to coordinate services, facilitate
interagency collaboration to remove barriers and improve access
to, and share, information related to homeless youth. This bill
is scheduled to be heard in this Committee today.
AB 1167 (Fong) 2011 would create the California Interagency
Council on Homelessness consisting of representatives from
multiple jurisdictions to coordinate a statewide approach in
responding to homelessness and to identify and apply for federal
funding. This bill is currently on the Suspense File of this
Committee.
AB 1177 (Fong) 2010 was similar to AB 1167 and was held on the
Suspense File of this Committee.
SB 123 (Liu) 2011 would have required the CalEMA, subject to the
availability of adequate resources, to develop a statewide plan
for runaway, homeless, and exploited youth in collaboration with
the Senate Office of Research and various stakeholders. This
bill was held on the Suspense File of this Committee.
Staff Comments: This bill requires both Medi-Cal and CalFresh
application forms to be revised to inquire into the housing
status of applicants to determine if they are homeless, as
defined in Section 582.5 of Title 24 of the CFR, which is the
definition established for federal Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) homeless assistance programs. Pursuant to 24 CFR 582.5,
"Homeless" means:
(1) An individual or family who lacks a fixed, regular, and
adequate nighttime residence, as specified.
(2) An individual or family who will imminently lose their
primary nighttime residence provided that: (i) The primary
nighttime residence will be lost within 14 days of the date of
application for homeless assistance;(ii) No subsequent residence
has been identified; and (iii) The individual or family lacks
the resources or support networks, e.g., family, friends,
faith-based or other social networks, needed to obtain other
permanent housing;
(3) Unaccompanied youth under 25 years of age, or families with
children and youth, who do not otherwise qualify as homeless
AB 683 (Ammiano)
Page 4
under this definition, but who: (i) Are defined as homeless
under section 387 of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, section
637 of the Head Start Act, section 41403 of the Violence Against
Women Act of 1994, section 330(h) of the Public Health Service
Act, section 3 of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, section
17(b) of the Child Nutrition Act of 1966, or section 725 of the
McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act; (ii) Have not had a
lease, ownership interest, or occupancy agreement in permanent
housing at any time during the 60 days immediately preceding the
date of application for homeless assistance; (iii) Have
experienced persistent instability as measured by two moves or
more during the 60-day period immediately preceding the date of
applying for homeless assistance; and (iv) Can be expected to
continue in such status for an extended period of time because
of chronic disabilities; chronic physical health or mental
health conditions; substance addiction; histories of domestic
violence or childhood abuse (including neglect); the presence of
a child or youth with a disability; or two or more barriers to
employment, which include the lack of a high school degree or
General Education Development (GED), illiteracy, low English
proficiency, a history of incarceration or detention for
criminal activity, and a history of unstable employment; or
(4) Any individual or family who: (i) Is fleeing, or is
attempting to flee, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual
assault, stalking, or other dangerous or life-threatening
conditions that relate to violence against the individual or a
family member, including a child, that has either taken place
within the individual's or family's primary nighttime residence
or has made the individual or family afraid to return to their
primary nighttime residence;(ii) Has no other residence; and
(iii) Lacks the resources or support networks, e.g., family,
friends, and faith-based or other social networks, to obtain
other permanent housing.
This bill states that providing answers to the questions
regarding housing status are to be optional for Medi-Cal
applicants and will not be required in order for an application
to be considered complete or for the submission of an electronic
application. To the extent some portion of Medi-Cal applicants
choose not to respond to the questions on housing status could
lead to incomplete data results. Moreover, to the extent data
collection is for prospective applicants only, collected data
would not be reflective of the housing status of the existing
AB 683 (Ammiano)
Page 5
caseload of over 7 million Medi-Cal recipients.
This bill requires the DHCS and the DSS to revise both the paper
and electronic application forms for Medi-Cal and CalFresh when
there is another reason to revise the applications. Costs to
revise the applications are estimated to be minimal if completed
simultaneously with other necessary changes. However, collecting
the relevant data would likely require changes to MEDS, the
three county SAWS systems, and CalHEERS, the information
technology system that will be used to support eligibility,
enrollment, and retention for the California Health Benefit
Exchange and Medi-Cal. The DHCS has indicated programming
changes to MEDS and SAWS are typically costly and time
consuming. At this time, estimated costs are unknown, but could
be significant and likely in excess of several hundred thousand
dollars (General Fund) across all systems.
Once the applications are revised and the data is collected, the
ongoing costs to include the relevant data in the reports to the
Legislature are estimated to be minor. This estimate assumes no
additional analysis will be required coupled with the data
reporting. Should analysis of the data be required, additional
costs to the DHCS and DSS could be incurred.
This bill requires the DSS to seek any necessary federal waivers
to align the CalFresh definition of a person who is homeless
with the definition of homeless in Section 582.5 of Title 24 of
the CFR, and upon approval of any necessary waivers, the DSS is
required to revise the CalFresh application. Should a federal
waiver be required but not approved, however, the bill as
currently drafted would still require the DSS to inquire into
the housing status of persons who apply for CalFresh benefits.
It is unclear in what manner the DSS would do so, as the bill
does not specify an alternative process for inquiry, but it
could be assumed the data currently collected in CalFresh
applications pursuant to the specific question on housing status
would be used. Under this scenario, data collected across the
CalFresh and Medi-Cal Program would be inconsistent and
difficult to use for comparison, compilation, and analysis.
To the extent a federal waiver is approved, the DSS would revise
the CalFresh applications and begin reporting collected
information to the budget committees of the Legislature.
Currently, the bill does not specifically state that the
AB 683 (Ammiano)
Page 6
responses to the questions on housing status would be optional
for CalFresh applicants (as specified for Medi-Cal applicants)
in order to submit an application as complete, although it is
noted that a response to the question on housing status included
on the existing CalFresh application is not mandatory.
In addition to the data on the housing status of CalFresh
applicants, this bill requires the DSS to report on the number
of CalWORKs households that have requested homeless assistance.
The DSS has indicated this information is already being
collected. As a result, there would be minimal impact to DSS
associated with this added requirement. Nearly 15,000 California
families were receiving funds through the CalWORKs Homeless
Assistance Program in April 2012.