Let's Get It Right! Families with Multiple Barriers to Work Slipping Through TANF Safety Net in Illinois

Recipients of cash assistance through the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program are restricted to a 60-month lifetime limit for receiving aid. In accordance with federal law, the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) has adopted policies and procedures whereby clients might qualify for an exception to the 60-month limit. Nevertheless, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law and the Public Benefits Hotline of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago are receiving complaints that families on cash assistance are hitting their 60-month limit and having their cash benefits stopped, despite their eligibility for one or more of the exceptions discussed below.

A client who has received 60 months of TANF may qualify for an exception and continue to receive benefits as though there were no time limit. (Policy Manual 03-06-05.) A client may be granted an exception if she has a Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Disability application pending and the IDHS Client Assessment Unit (CAU) determines that the client is probably eligible for SSI. (PM 03-06-05a.) CAU may also approve an exception for a client who is probably not eligible for SSI but who is unable to work full-time due to a medical condition. (PM 03-06-05a.) If CAU determines that the adult is needed in the home full-time due to the medical condition of a spouse or minor child, this merits an exception as well. (PM 03-06-05a.) A parent who cares for a disabled child may qualify for an exception through the Home and Community-Based Care Program waiver, but only if the child is severely disabled. (PM 03-06-05a.) If a client is participating in an intensive program for a barrier that prevents full-time work, such as programs to address domestic violence, substance abuse, and mental health problems, she may be eligible for an exception as well. (PM 03-06-05a.) Finally, clients who are engaged in an approved education or training activity that they are expected to complete within six months may also receive an exception to the 60-month time limit. (PM 03-06-05a.)

One former recipient of cash assistance recently contacted the Public Benefits Hotline after her benefits were terminated. CAU had already found this mother of several children exempt from the TANF work activity requirement due to her own medical condition. In fact, she had a home health worker to attend to her health and personal care through the Division of Rehabilitative Services. Although her caseworker at the Southeast Local Office was aware of her medical barriers to employment, she never encouraged her to apply for an exception to the 60-month limit. As her case approached the 60-month limit, her medical exemption from work activities was denied and her cash benefits were terminated. Only after the Legal Assistance Foundation successfully pursued SSI on her behalf did IDHS agree to restore retroactively her household’s cash benefits.

IDHS has policies and procedures that are intended to help clients such as the woman described above with serious barriers to self-sufficiency long before their 60 months on TANF have expired. For example, the intensive case review is designed to identify barriers to independence, supply appropriate referrals, and develop a Responsibility and Services Plan to assist the client toward self-sufficiency in the limited time remaining on TANF. An intensive case review may be completed at any time, but no later than when the client’s TANF counter reaches 24 months. If the client remains on TANF, another intensive case review is required no later than when the client’s counter reaches 36 months. (PM 19-02-07.) Some clients go through this process and continue to participate in all required activities but still exhaust their 60 months without reaching self-sufficiency. If TANF is meant to be a safety net for families with severe barriers to self-sufficiency, IDHS should take another look at every case that reaches 57 months in order to identify those individuals who should be exempted from the 60-month lifetime limit. An intensive case review at this point could document existing barriers and assist the client in applying for an exception to the 60-month limit.

It is IDHS practice to refer SSI-eligible clients in Cook County to the SSI Advocacy Project at the Legal Assistance Foundation to help them apply for SSI. The staff at IDHS do not, however, always take the next logical step of helping clients whom they have referred to the SSI Advocacy Project apply for an exception to the 60-month limit based on the “probably eligible for SSI” exception, even though doing so would ensure that such clients continue to receive cash assistance while their SSI applications are pending. For example, the Public Benefits Hotline recently assisted a client whose benefits were terminated while her case was at the Western Local Office despite IDHS having referred the client to the SSI Advocacy Project and exempted her from the TANF work activity requirement on the basis of her medical condition. No one at the Western Local Office discussed with this client the possibility of applying for an exception to the 60-month limit on the basis of her pending SSI application. When the Hotline staff contacted the Western office to ask why a client with a pending SSI application was cut off cash assistance, they were told that IDHS did not believe that there was a pending SSI application. Only after the Hotline staff produced documentation of a pending SSI appeal were the benefits of the client and her household retroactively restored.

All TANF recipients are supposed to receive a notice, Form 4690C, which is centrally sent by IDHS to people in their 57th month of countable TANF benefits. (PM 03-06-05b.) People who apply for TANF with a counter of 57 months or higher are given the 4691 exception notice and request form when they apply for assistance. (PM 03-06-05b.) In addition to explaining that the household will soon be ineligible for cash assistance, Form 4690C also contains an explanation of the exceptions to the 60-month limit and an application for an exception. As these cases demonstrate, a centrally sent notice is an inadequate means of sending full information to clients whose overall functioning may be impeded by serious barriers (e.g., disability, physical or mental illness, domestic violence, low literacy). Too many families with multiple barriers to employment are finding themselves cut off vital cash assistance when they hit the five-year time limit. Rather than helping these clients apply for exceptions to keep their income supports, IDHS is allowing some of the neediest families in Illinois to slip through the safety net entirely.