Travis County Commissioners Court
December 15, 2009,
Item 4
4.
receive briefing from health and human services and veterans service department on the impact of the economic downturn on emergency assistance programs and take appropriate action.
>> good morning, sherri flemming, executive manager for health and human services.
and veterans service.
this morning, we have for you a report on the performance of the family support services division and I want to turn it over to the division director for that area, bussey, I also want to start off for the benefit of those who might be watching, the family support services subdivision of health and human services is responsible for the implementation of Travis County chapter 72, which is your emergency assistance policies.
they are also responsible for the implementation of chapter 73, which is the indigent burial policies.
this performance report outlines significant increases in the number of residents that were served by the family support services division, particularly over this previous year.
and so our interest today is to give you an update on that performance.
and -- and present you with some information showing the impact of the economic downturn on the services provided by this program.
so with that I will turn you over to andrea culunga bussey.
>> I'm with the family services support division.
today we are going to be presenting to you a briefing, an overview of our emergency assistance program trends.
i'm going to be sharing with you the economic downturn in the national, state and local context.
jane is going to continue with the family support services demand trends, actual service that's we've been providing, sherri is going to discuss some options to addressing our increased demands that we've been experience at our seven community centers throughout Travis County.
this slide is basically what the Commissioners court approved for us to implement as far as our assistance levels in January of '09.
we'll be going into detail a little bit more about the actual services that we provide during jane's portion of the presentation.
this slide -- well, to begin with the presentation, we want to paint a picture of the community in very broad strokes by summarizing a handful of community characteristics around income, poverty, employment and public assistance demands.
the median income.
this slide shows the county's actual reported median income over the past decade as well as the median income visited for inflation and -- adjusted for inflation.
although it has risen overall since 1999, which is the dark blue line on the chart, once it's adjusted for inflation, which is the orange line on the chart, the actual value of Travis County's median income was almost $5,000 lower in 2008 than in 1999.
poverty.
this slide shows the entire population of the county, broken down by their ratio to the poverty threshold.
we commonly talk about people living at or below the "poverty line, which is shown in the box on the left side of the slide.
the most recent census bureau data tells us that in 2008 an estimated 144,336 individuals in Travis County, which is 15% of the Travis County population, lived in households with incomes below the poverty threshold.
many people living within 200% of the poverty threshold are also considered at-risk of poverty.
nearly one-third, 32% of Travis County residents or an estimated 311,000 individuals live at or below the 200% of the poverty threshold.
on this slide, what we have done is we have broken down the counties in or near poverty population in three categories.
that closely aligned the family support services programs.
eligibility guidelines.
household that's have income under 50% of the poverty threshold and come under 125% and then those that have income over 200% of the poverty guideline.
the next slide discusses unemployment.
from April, 2008, until July, 2009, unemployment rose steadily at the local state and national levels.
that has leveled off over the past three months.
Travis County's unemployment rate remains lower than the state and national rates.
september '09 figures show that Travis County's unemployment rate is about 7%, the Texas unemployment rate is 8.3% and overall the united states unemployment rate is 9%.
since the beginning of 2009, the number of people employed in Travis County rose 3%, the number of unemployed rose 17%.
by this metric, Travis County fared worse in 2008 with unemployment growing only 1% and unemployment rising 30%.
economic downturn indicators of increased need.
public benefits.
the snap program, which is the relatively new name for the food stamp program, has increased 58% since January of 2008 with the significant peak in the fall of 2008.
the chip program also shows up ward enrollment trends and increase 49% during this same period.
local indicators.
the total population has grown 21% from 2000 to 2008.
the capital area food bank provided over 2 million pounds of food to Travis County agencies in October, which is a 35% increase since January of 2008.
and the medical assistance program, the m.a.p.
enrollment, also has increased steadily in enrollment totaled 14,322 in September, which is a 38%, 38% greater than January of 2008.
this year has been really unique in that we've seen.
and my over 27 years of experience with the department and the division, this has been a very unique year with a number of folks that have presented requesting assistance and a need.
and just kind of the accumulation of things that have occurred this past summer as you are aware, we had a heat wave, which relate understand higher consumption usage, which resulted in higher utility bills.
that has an overall negative impact on households that are at or near the poverty level as well.
i would like to take just a moment before I pass it on to jane who is going to discuss the family support services division specific trends to thank all of the family support services staff for their tremendous work that they have done as well as the entire staff at hhs and all of our partners in the county and our partner agencies as well.
it's been a very challenging year.
thank you.
>> I'm going to take over and start talking about the specific services that family support services has provided in the last fiscal year.
i'm jane prince mcclain the case management coordinator for family support services.
i would like to show you an overview side, go into specific detail about the specific assistance that the family support services department of health and human services and family support services has provided during fiscal year '08 and fiscal year '09.
what you are seeing on this chart is the total number of individuals provided family support services assistance for rents or mortgage for food voucher assistance, prescription assistance and utility assistance during fiscal year '08 and fiscal year '09.
this also shows the number of denials or people who we evaluated for service but weren't eligible for them during that same time period.
you will note in January of '09 was when our chapter 27 revisions became effective.
the number served and denied has been relatively stable from October of '07 to April '08 with a slight upward trend.
but beginning in may of 2008 you will see a spike in the number of individuals served.
i want to also kind of look into the detail of those.
on the next slide, you will see that the monthly numbers of individuals provided the assistance.
if you break them out into our four categories, utilities, funded by Travis County, utilities funded by other sources, the grants that we have, and our vendor partners, county funded rent or mortgage assistance and county funded food voucher assistance and county founded prescription assistance.
you will see the same trend line by each category.
there's a noticeable increasing trend during fiscal year of '09, it's particularly evident in the other funded utilities, which is the red line on the bottom chart.
and as -- as the table below shows, all four categories have seen significant growth during that same time period.
i just want to highlight that percent change from fiscal year '08 to '09 for our county funded utilities it's a 96% increase.
for county food and prescription assistance -- county food voucher and prescription assistance over 100% increase.
for county rents and mortgage, it was a 67% increase and for our other funded utility sources it was an 81% increase.
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> I want to show this on the next slide I want to show that same time period and same service categories and looking instead -- looking at the individual that's we served, this is looking at the dollars of service we provided.
and so this is in terms of expenditures.
and, again, the most obvious increase again is in our other funded utilities, the red line on the bottom chart, during fiscal year '09.
there's also available growth in our county rents and mortgage on the chart.
again, this is again the increase increase very apparent if you look at it in dollars amount of assistance as well.
we are serving more people.
we are seeing more people present for services.
and I'm going to turn this over to our executive manager, to kind of discuss the next slide that shows the basic needs budget and the implications.
>> okay.
great.
and as jane mentioned, you see there on the slide, the -- the adopted budget for the family support services division versus the revised budget for the last -- for the previous two years.
certainly in '08 we were pretty close to the approved budget.
we saw a significant increase in what we needed to add to that budget and once again we are -- we're still talking about funding, however that is within the -- the health and human services budget.
so we're talking about the shifting of resources within the health and human services budget.
and then for fiscal year 2010 we are budgeted at 1.6 million approximately, which represents about a $32,000 increase to that budget for fy '10.
so how do we manage these costs in fiscal year '09?
certainly we moved money around within the health and human services budget.
we had that opportunity because of salary savings, because of other programs that might have been sluggish in their performance, not many of those, but there are oftentimes one or two that have a slower start-up than others, which permit us from one-time savings that we can move around to programs that are performing at a higher rate.
we worked closely with p.b.o.
and transferred the salary savings that we experienced in other hhs revenue to support the activity of the family support services division.
we also prioritized the spending of grant funded utility assistance.
you may recall that we received over $3 million in utility assistance from the state this year.
those funds were -- came in at mid year because of some contracting issues and so again the staff is to be commended because they sent about 2.5 million in about six months.
spent.
the performance of the staff but also the incredible need that was presenting allowed us to -- to move those funds very quickly.
>> was that state money or federal money?
>> that is federal money that is passed through the state department of housing and community affairs.
>> if it's state money we want to give the state credit, but otherwise --
>> yes, sir.
>> we also -- intentionally or unintentionally managed capacity in that there are a finite number of appointments that are available.
and then those appointments are impacted by staff turnover, staff vac indication time, training -- vacation time, training days, those things, it's important to note, too, as we focus on the grants we received, we are limited then in the amount of general fund dollars that we focused on.
so one of the -- one of the byproducts of an uptick in the grant funds is that we do have to sort of have staff prioritize the spending of those grant funds, which can help us to -- to limit some of the capacity within the spending of county dollars.
so certainly in managing the costs, we certainly look at the funding within the hhs s budget in order to supplement this program.
it's also important to note that -- that in fy '09, the court budgeted some new funding, about $450,000 that we in '09 allocated for one-time costs to non-profit agencies.
hhs s and p.b.o.
together supported a recommendation that we reserve those funds, they are within the hhs s budget, but in reserve, so that we have an opportunity to look at how our performance is trending for fy '10 and have the court have the opportunity to make some decisions about that funding in early 2010.
so that funding does fit in the hhs s budget.
so certainly adding money is an option.
that one was the one that we were able to do last year and we were able to maintain the program and serve those folks that we could get in with our current capacity without exceeding the approved hhs budget, we are really proud of that fact.
we certainly recognize we don't have a blank check.
we wanted to put out for discussion at this point, what would be some ways that you would manage the capacity and spending in a program like this?
we expect that the recovery may be slow.
resident needs may continue to remain high, so what are some potential management option that's we can start to think about?
we certainly could prioritize access and we could certainly talk in more detail about what that would look like.
raising eligibility standards, which is basically a closing of the spigot so to speak, making fewer people eligible by income or by the number of times that they can receive assistance and then of course a program expenditure cap have been -- are all things that -- that can be looked at to manage the spending in a program like this.
now, the impact of those types of changes certainly mean that fewer clients would be assisted, it would shift the demand to other service providers and certainly the safety net for residents would shrink.
none of those things we see it necessary to recommend to you at this time.
we are -- you may remember on one of the slides we showed you earlier, that we sort of have a normal -- a natural decline in the first quarter of the fiscal year and we attribute that to a lot of factors.
the decline in the amount of utility assistance that we have available through grant programs, we're getting to -- most of those grants are on a calendar year, so the amount of funds that are available causes that decline.
in addition, there are increased resources that present with kids going back to school with -- with the onset of the holidays that allow people to -- to receive different kinds of assistance that may free them up to be able to make their rent and utilities.
so we have those -- those -- that influx of resources around the holiday season that actually plays out in a -- in a -- in a decline in our service delivery for the first quarter.
if you look back at some of the numbers that you have seen, though, certainly after the first of the year, was when the significant spikes in our services went forward and that is the reason why we felt it was prudent to hold back on the $450,000 in our budget, so that we can look during the time when we know that we have already experienced a spike in those numbers.
so our intent today was to highlight the performance of this division and present you with -- with information that we will continue to provide, within probably the next quarter of this fiscal year.
so that you can continue to be aware of not only the impact of the economy on your constituents, bulls how your programs are responding in accordance with that.
>> sherri?
>> yes, sir.
>> can you kind of remind me of what programs an individual that qualifies would get one-time assistance per calendar year, per event.
i'm trying to remember there are one-times and others as far as -- can you tell me what the one-times are, just remind me.
>> folks who are not disabled and who are not considered elderly, which would be 60 or below.
>> right.
>> can receive one-time assistance for rental, for rental assistance, which is general fund, funded by the general fund.
>> okay.
>> they may, depending on -- they may qualify for more than one time assistance in utility, whether it's grants or -- or county funded assistance.
elderly or disabled, can have a higher income at 125% that change was made by this Commissioners court a couple of years ago.
>> couple years, right.
>> they may seek assistance from us twice a year.
>> exactly.
and I guess at one time what we were -- what we were also trying to do, I'm going to be brief, to try to see -- if there was a possibility to connect, you know, a type of situation with the service provider that we contract with.
of course with -- with us, the hhs to see if we had a duplication of services that's being provided to same persons over and over again as they go through the service providers.
and we were attempting to try to track that at one time.
what happened with that effort?
>> well, there's certainly not a one to one comparison.
but we have the Commissioners court and city of Austin has funded the basic needs coalition, that's single source program, which provides a higher level of assistance coupled with case management, and the service providers, including Travis County who we've actually funded our participation in that program from the existing hhs budget.
but we have worked together to ensure that the services provided by that program are not duplicative.
so there is a centralized database, if you will, that shows which persons are served by that program.
and the intent of that was to ensure that we could provide a reasonable level of assistance at a location where people were receiving other services.
so, for example, if you have a child with chronic -- with a chronic health problem, rather than having to seek out the services of an organization like any baby can and then coming over to the county, you could receive basic needs assistance at any baby can in addition to any other health services that you might be receiving.
so that program is continuing to be funded by you and operated in the community and we have high hopes for -- for, you know, where it's appropriate to transition that type of service delivery where possible.
you know, the fact remains, though, that the family that's we work with are all very unique and have unique and special needs.
and so no one program can serve all of the needs of all of your constituents.
>> right.
it's really good that -- that you are tracking that because we have a lot of folks out there that are in -- in desire straits.
they are in need.
of course we're going to do -- do as much as possible to assist them.
now, there was a wrap around attempt that we looked at, also, because what we also intended to do was try to make the persons whole.
i know she brought up the unemployment rate, things like that.
and there are -- I think we still need to focus on trying to make persons whole, whatever that need is.
and I guess that's being still assessed out there as far as maybe getting persons -- the proper training, the proper contacts as far as job training, employment opportunities and things like that same time period maybe can assist in crisis situation.
because we are -- we are in dire straits out there as far as providing some needs, so I just want to make sure that's stilting.
still -- still continuing.
>> we continue to have relationships with goodwill and other employment providers so those persons who receive services at our community centers receive those referrals and in some cases hard referrals.
what I mean by a hard referral is actually we make those calls, we make those contacts or we ensure that the resident has the information to be able to make those contacts.
and we have -- we have had representatives from goodwill on site so that folks while attending to their emergency assistance needs could also speak with goodwill representatives about some of their transitional programs, particularly.
>> thank you.
>> just to share with you, Commissioner, all of our case workers and social workers are very well versed on resources in the community.
as a standards practice make referral and also refer to our internal social workers for folks that are willing and able at that moment in their life to work more intensely on their issues.
>> okay.
>> mr.
pena?
>> yes, judge.
gus pena.
sherri, I have a question for y'all.
whoever wants to answer it.
once an individual is found eligible for assistance for rent or utilities, what kind of payment do you all make to the appropriate entity?
>> it depends on the size of the unit.
if a person, if it's an individual with a unit for one bedroom, approximately $343.
two bedrooms, 418, three bedrooms, 569, four plus bedrooms $658.
>> I guess I should be more specific as to my question.
what is the specific payment that you all make to the entity, cash, check or what?
>> there's a check that is issued to the -- to the landlord.
the landlord is contacted once the -- once the resident gives us permission to make that contact and is approved for assistance.
we -- we speak directly with the landlord who agrees to -- to -- to not make any -- any movement toward eviction for 30 days should they -- should the county make a payment toward their rent.
>> and how long will it take for the payment to be -- to take effect?
for example, if I were to go ask for assistance today, and I -- I am found eligible and qualified, how long would it take the payment to be presented to the landlord?
>> it -- jane, do you want to take that?
>> I can walk through the time line.
when a member of the community comes in and applies for rental assistance, they have an eligibility determination appointment one of our case workers.
at that time, if the eligibility has been determined, they will -- then they will -- permission has been granted by the applicant, the case worker contacts the landlord.
and the -- and the landlord has a certain period of time to respond.
but the payment processing takes -- andrea is reminding me that there are several forms we have to be able to obtain from the landlord in order to make a payment legally, such as a w-9 and a signed notice of their acceptance of our payment.
our payment processing period is -- is 30 day period.
>> okay.
the reason that I mention that, judge and Commissioners, I have heard horror stories from applicants and people in need of help that some of the landlords won't accept it because it's a 30 day payment or reimbursement process and -- disbursement process.
not acceptable to many of the landlords.
but anyway, also, I would like to echo what -- what Commissioner Davis said and y'all know it, I don't have to tell you it, the need is greater, growing, going to be greater.
and because I send people to various agencies and one -- I will mention this, I will not mention the agency, judge Biscoe, but I will tell you one -- and this is somewhere we send homeless people, the director or c.e.o.
or whatever her title is, I will say her, made a -- this statement to a homeless individual, said: you have been at this quite some time.
well, that's disrespectful.
inappropriate.
and down right count inventory what we should be treating a human being.
that person left without trying to get any kind of assistance.
you are going to see a -- a greater amount of people.
this presentation does truly reflect the need out there.
there's a lot of people that have pride, a lot of people are embarrassed, a lots of people's landlord won't accept this time frame and payment.
but I do appreciate your division, your agency, ms.
flemming because they're doing a good job.
they are the last hope for a lot of people.
a lot of -- I will say the catholic portion, a lot at saint vincent depaul's, no available to help for prescription assistance or the food pantry.
so this is where -- where the people's last gasp is at, if I could put it that way.
anyway, judge, thank you for allowing me to make this statement.
but there's a lot of need out there.
could be better.
>> mr.
reeferseed.
>> thank you, judge.
i just wanted to applaud you all on the program.
and I agree with -- with mr.
pena about the obvious increase in need.
on a personal level, a question for not only me but I guess I'm a little ignorant.
is -- I'm wondering, how and when is it appropriate to apply for any of these funds?
and is it only -- has to do for people who are renters?
>> good question.
actually, a resident of Travis County can apply at any of our seven community centers, regardless of where they live.
as long as they live in Travis County.
as far as when to apply, you do not have to be a renter.
we do assist with mortgage.
you can apply 14 days before your rent is due.
or any time after that.
and as far as utility assistance, you can apply at any time that you have utility needs.
we do have a waiting list for utility assistance because we have a lot of need out in the community.
as sherri was describing, there's only so much capacity for appointments.
but we -- we see clients, customers all day long at all seven of our centers.
>> just a follow-up question on that.
is that -- it's there a phone number for -- for people to -- to call on that kind of information?
>> like I said, we have seven different community centers.
and I know if I only -- the main number for our palm square office is 854-4100 and they can direct you to the site that you prefer to go to.
>> that's great.
thanks for your --
>> absolutely, thank you.
>> we could expect a follow-up report first part of next year?
>> yes.
>> at that time it will be appropriate for the court to take some action.
>> we hope our follow-up report will demonstrate that we are managing.
but, yes, at that time we will have some recommended options for the court.
>> okay.
>> thanks for the update.
>> thank you all.
>> you are doing a great job.
>> is there a place, as far as the backup is concerned, is there a place where this resides where the general public can get ahold of it.
it's just chockablock for good information to happen.
>> we can suggest it be attached to the hhs website for folks to look at it in more detail.
>> it's really excellent, excellent backup, the graphs and charts are really informative, it really tells the story.
>> uh-huh.
>> those kudos go to our research and planning division, so hopefully they are watching and heard you say that.
>> special shootout to rachel koth for putting that together.
>> shout out.
>> the added items were not on my agenda this morning.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, December 15, 2009 2:30 PM
