September 21, 2007
DOE V. DOAR RESTORES SSI FOR THOUSANDS
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SSI invisbility will give some poor families the money they are owed |
In a victory for New York's families, more than 27,000 households will receive subsistence benefits previously denied to them after a Monroe County Supreme Court Justice signed a final judgment in their favor last Thursday. As part of the judgment, state welfare officials agreed to a remedial plan to restore the benefits quickly and completely.
The victory in the Doe v. Doar case means State and City welfare officials can no longer count SSI payments to disabled family members as available family income when calculating public assistance benefits for most— but not all—low-income families. The favorable outcome was pushed along by a landmark Housing Works victory in the case of Melendez v. Doar earlier this year.
"The decisions in Doe and Melendez send an important message to those who would try to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and vulnerable," said Susan Antos, a staff attorney for the Empire Justice Center which brought the Doe case. "New York's Social Services Law provides real economic protection to individuals with disabilities and children."
"It's a shame it had to get to the point of litigation, and in the future, I hope we see concern to providing income support to disabled children and their families," said Richard Blum, staff attorney with The Legal Aid Society. "But the bottom line is the courts have booted this morally outrageous and illegal regulation."
This victory, while a relief, was not a surprise. Last June, the New York Court of Appeals issued a clear and powerful decision in the case of Melendez v. Doar, brought on behalf of Bronx resident Zoraida Melendez, who is living with AIDS. The unanimous ruling in that case stated that state law required welfare officials to treat a family member's SSI payments as "invisible" when calculating household budgets for public assistance benefits for (most) families. This policy is supposed to allow disabled family members to keep their federal disability payments, which are meant to specifically alleviate some of the expenses related to their disabling conditions.
Sadly, low-income households receiving SSI that include a person living with AIDS are the only poor families in New York not protected under the Doe and Melendez rulings—but that will change soon. AIDS families were hit hard by a cruel move by ex-Governor George Pataki, who in 2006 forced a paragraph of technical language into State Appropriations Law to annul the victory of Melendez and her disabled child in the intermediate appellate court and deny benefits to thousands of poor families struggling with disabled children, homelessness and HIV/AIDS.
The Spitzer administration has agreed that the offending language will be stricken from the Governor's budget submission next January, restoring benefits to thousands of families by next April. And legislative and executive staff are negotiating passage of interim legislation that would get benefits to the families starting November 1—but restoration is dependent on a three-way agreement, which has been tough to accomplish on any issue in the poisonous political atmosphere of Albany after the "Troopergate" scandals
"Ironically, and quite egregiously, families wrestling with AIDS are the only families that need legislation to reverse this unjust standard so that all indigent New Yorkers are able to benefit from the wonderful victory in Melendez—and they need it as quickly as possible," said Armen Merjian, Senior Staff Attorney at Housing Works, and counsel for Melendez.
For everyone else, relief is coming soon. State welfare officials this week issued Download file">rules for proper budgeting for new applicants and families currently receiving benefits will be rebudgeted in the next two months. But New York City families may get help faster than those upstate. "New York City did something wonderful and coded their Doe cases, so it will make it easier," said Susan Antos of Empire Justice. "In the rest of New York State, they did not, so it will take longer for everything to be sorted out."
Retroactive payments to families illegally denied benefits will total in the tens of millions of dollars. Eligible families will start to receive notices of underpayment in coming months, and checks should be sent out in New York City within about six months — again upstate will take longer. Households that no longer qualify for SSI benefits, like those where previously-eligible children have grown up or left the home, will not receive retroactive payments. "The sad thing is that a lot of people who are affected by this have children who have aged out," Antos said. "That was the one area where, for whatever reason, the courts ruled against us. But overall, this was a huge victory..."