Senate, House At Odds Over Disability Program

More than 18,000 disabled people who live on $339 a month from the state’s General Assistance-Unemployable program could see their monthly grant reduced to $50 starting in September under a bill amended last week in the state Senate.

In place of the $339 grant, the amended Security Lifeline Act – Second Substitute House Bill 2782, which is currently awaiting a vote by the Senate Ways & Means Committee – would provide a housing voucher to pay for a person’s rent, with the $50 stipend and food stamps expected to cover other household needs.

That’s one component of a striker amendment made to the bill Feb. 25 by Sen. Jim Hargrove (D-Hoquiam) and approved by the Senate Human Services & Corrections Committee, which he chairs.

Among others, Hargrove’s amendment would require GAU recipients — people who cannot work due to a temporary disability and are often homeless — to participate in a housing program or use a voucher. If they don’t, they would not get the $50 stipend. Recipients who do not participate in drug and alcohol treatment or a vocational rehabilitation program recommended by GAU’s administrator, the Department of Social and Health Services, would also lose the $50. All recipients, however, would still receive the medical coverage offered by the $188 million program, which the state pays for from its general fund without any federal matching funds.

The bill maintains proposals made by its House sponsor, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-Seattle), to rename GAU the Disability Lifeline and speed up the process of helping eligible recipients apply for federal disability benefits. But the original legislation would have left the monthly $339 grant intact, except for those participating in a housing pilot that was replaced by Hargrove’s amendment.

The amendment mirrors a $90 million cut to the program that the Senate approved over the weekend in its operating budget. More than $55 million of those savings are expected to come as 5,400 people are cut off GAU medical coverage by a new benefit limit that the Senate sets of 12 months in any two-year period — something that would also start in September, a DSHS official says, and immediately drop those at or past the limit.

Hargrove is trying to help the homeless and make the most of limited resources, housing advocates say, by turning GAU’s cash grant into a direct housing benefit — a concept similar to a San Francisco program called Care Not Cash that provides rooms to its participants.

But the problem, says Rachael Myers, executive director of the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, is that there aren’t enough homeless housing programs and very little market-rate housing to be had in the state for $339 a month. In its capital budget, the House has proposed setting aside $5 million of the $100 million it has allocated for the state’s Housing Trust Fund to develop housing for GAU recipients, but without a lot more resources, Myers says, people cannot be housed for $339 a month.

“You can’t require housing, because it doesn’t exist,” she says. “I’ve heard someone describe the thinking in the Senate as magical thinking – you can’t expect a better outcome from this program without putting significantly greater resources into it.”

Dickerson has strong backing on full GAU funding from House Speaker Frank Chopp (D-Seattle) and says she’s meeting and will continue to meet with Hargrove to work on aligning their versions of the Security Lifeline bill. But, with the legislative session scheduled to end March 11, funding for program could come down to a last-minute budget battle on the floor.

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