Thursday, December 25, 2003

By Steve Levin, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvania joined more than 30 other states this week in restoring eligibility for cash assistance and food stamps for recovering drug addicts.

Advocacy organizations and drug treatment providers praised the Legislature's passage of House Bill 44 for removing some of the obstacles that impede recovering addicts' return to the workforce.

Federal law permanently bars anyone with a drug-related felony conviction committed after August 1996 from qualifying for federal welfare cash assistance, but states may opt out of the lifetime ban.

Between 400 and 1,000 Pennsylvanians, mostly single women with children or pregnant women in rehab, will benefit from the bipartisan bill, which was signed Tuesday by Gov. Ed Rendell.

But Rosa Davis, director of POWER, a local program that provides a continuum of drug and alcohol treatment for women, said the bill will benefit many more people.

"Think of all the lives that are attached to that number," she said. "Children, family members who serve as day-care providers; the systems are impacted in so many ways. It's not just the 1,000 [people], it's all the people they touch."

A person must either be pregnant or a custodial parent, and be in a drug or alcohol recovery program in order to receive food stamps and cash assistance, known as TANF, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

The bill does not create extra eligibility or benefits for recipients, who must maintain a treatment program to receive benefits. Recipients are required to meet all other TANF eligibility requirements. Benefits for individuals receiving TANF are limited to a lifetime maximum of five years.

It is not a lot of money. Amy Hirsch, supervising staff attorney for Community Legal Services, which provides legal aid for low-income people in civil matters, estimates that cash assistance benefits for a mother and child will be about $300 a month while food stamps are the equivalent of about 75 cents per person per meal.

But Hirsch, who authored the 1999 report "Some Days Are Harder Than Hard" about the benefit ban, said that any financial help is better than nothing.

"When you have absolutely nothing, it's literally the difference between being back on the streets," she said. "It's something to me how much difference just a little bit of assistance can make."

Deb Beck, president of the Drug and Alcohol Service Providers Organization of Pennsylvania, an advocacy group for the state's drug and alcohol prevention and treatment programs, said the bill will enable women in residential treatment to accrue funds for shelter, food and clothing for their families, the first step in their transition back to work and a tax-paying life.

"It's become terribly important to use carrots and sticks," she said. "As a society, we use sticks but it's good to use carrots."

Davis agreed.

"When people are in treatment, obviously they can't work," she said. "As they transition and go back out into the community, the support is really needed.

"Not having financial assistance is a real trigger for relapsing because you feel hopeless again."

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