Companies try to connect welfare benefits, eligible

Companies have developed Internet software to make one-stop welfare benefits screening and applications available.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Celeste Molina needed some food stamps when she visited a Columbus food bank this summer. She ended up with more welfare benefits than she knew she could get.
Second Harvest Food Bank volunteers showed her a new Internet-based model called the Benefit Bank to help her apply for child care for her two children and to file her federal income taxes.
"I knew they had a food pantry, but then people learn they can get hooked up to Job and Family Services," said Molina, 24, who has since gone off food stamps and found a receptionist's job paying 7.25 an hour. "Suddenly, they're giving me information I didn't know."
Over the last three years, a handful of companies have developed secure-Internet software to make one-stop welfare benefits screening and applications available in at least a dozen states. Likened to Web-based tax-preparation services such as TurboTax, they are becoming trusted tools for charitable organizations and advocacy groups that serve the poor. The high-tech aids also are gaining some favor with several state and local governments.
Government agencies are still responsible for approving the applications. But armed with laptop computers and special Internet access codes, advocates and volunteers can take over the initial screening, data entry and clerical work that normally tie up public welfare offices and take time away from casework.
Multiple forms
Volunteers set up with their computers at food pantries, churches, health clinics and other places where low-income residents come for help and ask potential clients if they want to learn if they're eligible for benefits. If the process shows a participant is eligible, the computer program fills out multiple government forms automatically and prints them for the person to take to a state welfare office.
Some companies are in negotiations with state and county agencies to eventually file forms electronically, eliminating the need for participants to hand-deliver forms.
"We're seeing the beginnings of change in the way states and nonprofits do business," said Stacy Dean, director of Food Assistance Policy at the Washington think-tank the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "This is a growing approach to reaching the nonparticipating people."
Too many poor people don't collect the benefits they're eligible for, advocates say, often because of embarrassment over taking welfare, trouble getting information or a lack of time. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service reported that 40 percent of those eligible for food stamps don't receive them, and the rate is higher -- 49 percent -- among working poor, who must find time during business hours to register.
"There are a lot of dollars there," said Chauncy Lennon, vice president of the New York-based company Seedco, whose EarnBenefits program is available in Atlanta, Baltimore, Memphis and New York.
Low-wage workers can increase their income 25 percent to 30 percent with all the benefits they're eligible for, Lennon said, but he said the traditional, paper-based system makes it difficult for them to figure out all they're eligible for and complete several applications.
Pennsylvania
A few state-run Web portals, such as Pennsylvania's COMPASS site, have had success with their own online models. COMPASS cost the state about 500,000 to start in 2002 and 1.5 million annually to maintain. It received more than 15,000 applications in November alone.
But Mike Coulson, who's in charge of computer support at the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, said the state would like to have more community partners to reach those who don't have easy Internet access. To that end, Pennsylvania is in negotiations with the Benefit Bank to combine their two systems.
In 2006, the Benefit Bank has signed up more than 7,000 new beneficiaries, mostly in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, for nearly 4 million in federal tax refunds, almost 2 million in earned income tax credits and more than 500,000 in food stamps.
Boston-based nonprofit Community Catalyst started one of the first private online screening programs, RealBenefits, in 2003. It has connected about 100,000 New England and Illinois residents with 300 million in health care coverage, low-income heating assistance and food stamps.
The Benefit Bank has a number of contracts in place with local and state governments. It is seeking statewide contracts to cover the 1.6 million to 2 million it costs to produce software for a whole state and more than half a million dollars a year to maintain the service, said Robert Brand, president of Philadelphia-based Solutions for Progress Inc., which runs the Benefit Bank.
Skepticism
The service is appreciated but still viewed with skepticism at the government level, said Loretta Adams, executive director of the Ohio Job and Family Services Directors' Association.
"While we consider there's a real value for counties' operations, and to the recipients, we are concerned about accountability," Adams said. "We just believe the county department workers are trained to think along the lines of not making errors because we're under the gun at all times by the federal government to be very accurate."
Some states have used the tools to replace caseworkers, Dean said, leading to distrust of similar services across the country. Adams said Ohio welfare caseworkers would be wary if the Benefit Bank expanded services.
The Benefit Bank, RealBenefits and Seedco acknowledge that civil servants sometimes view them as privatizing job-takers. But Dean said more states and counties are beginning to accept them as partners offering time-saving help rather than competition.
Volunteers feel their personal touch is key as they walk the people they serve through the computer questionnaires.
"You see people who are generally displaced, they don't have the income or health insurance they used to have, they're not sure where to go or with whom to speak," said Margaret Murray, a lawyer who runs a chapter of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks. "But they already have a level of comfort with you and now you can help them."
For users, the computer access mainly offers a way around trips to state and county welfare offices. A USDA study found it takes an average of 2.4 visits to county or state offices and 6.1 hours to complete an application for food stamps. About 40 percent of those with a job had to miss work to apply, the study found.
"It's inconvenient or near impossible sometimes to cooperate and go through all the standards Jobs and Family has," Molina said. "Having that difference in time really matters."