Outreach-or Dependency?
Paige, Sean
Outreach-or Dependency? by Sean Paige PERHAPS NO FEDERAL PROGR AM PRO VIDES more damning testimony of the law of unintended consequences, and the grotesque mockery that can be made of our best...
...Louis, Ill., flushing potential SSI beneficiaries out with bullhorns, also proved vexing...
...According to the report, the $170,000 project foundered because "infighting between Tenants Associations made it impossible for the tenants of one housing project to go into another project to conduct outreach efforts...
...What is surprising is the $33 million the federal government has spent trying to recruit even more beneficiaries to SSI's already exploding rolls...
...Then there was this problem: At least 60 percent of Cambodian households already have one or more members on SSI...
...As a result, the grantee had some difficulties in getting tribal members to attend meetings to discuss the outreach...
...It's not at all surprising to learn that a program carrying an $8 billion annual price tag in 1980 today tops out at more than $25 billion and claims more than 6 million beneficiaries...
...They objected to anyone other than qualified professionals like themselves taking SSI applications...
...The Social Security Administration "has continually tried to increase the rate of participation," according to a nearly 1,000-page review of the projects, "and to overcome those factors that might prevent or discourage participation...
...Grambling State University, backed by a $175,000 outreach grant, succeeded in signing up only four people for SSI-which works out to roughly $43,750 per sign-up...
...What began in 1973 as a modest effort to aid the aged, blind, and physically disabled has today become the Pandora's box of federal bureaucracies...
...Drug gangs menaced door-to-door canvassers, and sloppy translations meant culturally-correct printed materials were six months late in arriving...
...much better than the 30 percent batting average of the local Social Security office...
...Hurricane Andrew intervened in another star-crossed outreach effort, this one to sign up people with AIDS, blowing away the houses of two project staffers and scattering potential beneficiaries to the wind...
...And there was, as well, the appalling incompetence with which grantees went about their work...
...Plans to drive an SSI mobile unit through rough neighborhoods around East St...
...Among applicants and awardees throughout the nation during the project period, the outreach projects contributed only 0.30 percent and 0.27 percent respectively," according to the study...
...Tens of thousands of county and city prisoners may be receiving their SSI checks behind bars right now...
...In 1990, the government began funding "Outreach Demonstration Projects"-crusades to "maximize the rate of participation among those eligible to receive benefits...
...Officials at the Social Security Administration reported having trouble reaching the project director, who, it turns out, "had been terminated from the University" and was "facing criminal charges for misappropriating University and grant funds...
...Each look inside releases a new apparition: 250,000 drug addicts and alcoholics have used it to feed their habits, and more than 770,000 children qualify because they can't participate in "age-appropriate activities...
...Grantees had greater difficulties dealing with American Indians in New Mexico...
...A drive to recruit the homeless in the Northeast went awry over the question of whether substance abuse alone could serve as grounds for a disability, or if a second condition (like cirrhosis of the liver or crackinduced psychosis) was required...
...The van was later sold, a smaller transport vehicle leased, and the proceeds from the sale used to lengthen the outreach...
...To that end, organizations that were awarded outreach grants spent tax dollars on mass mailings, billboards, handouts, radio and television spots, newspaper ads, "Benefit Fairs," mobile SSI sign-up units, door-to-door canvassing, booths at state fairs and Native American gatherings, and even an SSI rap song...
...culture," says the report...
...People don't worry about such things as clocks and calendars, making appointments, reading mail when it comes, or following through on things within any set timeframe...
...One South Dakota grantee who had scant success signing up new beneficiaries bemoaned the attitudes of those with whom he came into contact: "One major barrier to the success of the program appears to have been 'Midwest Pride'-the belief in the importance of earning one's own keep and looking down upon financial assistance . . . which seems to have been a large factor in the immunity of Bon Homme County residents, in particular, to outreach efforts...
...Just when that issue was resolved-no second condition was necessary- the project was hit with an Unfair Labor Practices grievance filed by workers at the local Social Security field office...
...In addition, because "peer counselors" on the project were all required to be HIV-positive, the grantee got bogged down continually replacing and retraining the staff as it fell ill...
...by Sean Paige PERHAPS NO FEDERAL PROGR AM PRO VIDES more damning testimony of the law of unintended consequences, and the grotesque mockery that can be made of our best intentions, than the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program...
...Middlemen have an 80 percent success rate at winning SSI awards...
...Despite their efforts, outreach staff reported being unable to dissuade beliefs that SSI is a welfare program...
...Besides encountering resistance from tribal elders, who wanted to "deal directly with the federal government, as one nation to another, rather than through the grantee," SSI out-reachers ran into another barrier-"Navajo time...
...The conditions inside the van proved uncomfortable for taking more than one application at a time, and even then the circumstances were less than ideal," says the report...
...One doesn't know whether to be saddened or relieved...
...In Arizona, obviously ineligible Native Americans were processed nonetheless because outreach workers "did not want them to hear 'no' from the 'white man' once again...
...Attempts by a California grantee to troll for beneficiaries in Orange County's Cambodian and Vietnamese communities were foiled by shady middlemen (sometimes euphemistically called "community helpers") who get a tidy sum signing immigrants up for benefits, serving as translators, and coaching immigrants on how to fake disabilities...
...But giving money away isn't as easy as it sounds, particularly when the government is involved...
...Sean Paige is editor of Government WasteWatch, published by Citizens Against Government Waste...
...Two canvassers for a government grantee in New Orleans were shot-neither fatally-and others were shunned by residents fearful they were rent-hiking spies of the local housing authority...
...Navajo time lacks the sense of urgency that characterizes the mainstream U.S...
...Among the barriers SSI's emissaries had to overcome were "the stigma of receiving public assistance," a "mistrust of government programs," and "a reluctance to admit or accept disability as a permanent condition...
...And successfully, too...
...When all was said and done-and $33 million spent-these crusades had a negligible effect on SSI rolls...
Vol. 1 • December 1995 • No. 14
