Sen. Jim Hargrove during this week's debate on compromise GA-U bill.

The Senate passed a “compromise” on General Assistance for the Unemployable (GA-U) in a 28-16 vote Monday afternoon, a program that social service advocates fought to save all session as the budget shortfall (and pledges from Governor Gregoire to find efficiencies in GA-U) threatened funding.

Last week the chambers were at odds about what to do with the GA-U program, which provides people with medical benefits, housing and a monthly stipend who are unemployable due to a mental or physical disability. Major dissonance between the chambers stemmed from how much funding the program would receive, where that funding would come from, and how benefits would be dispersed.

Housing advocates preferred the House plan. The House wanted to provide $339 grants for living expenses—including housing—plus medical benefits. It would have funded the program with $90 million ($71 million of which depended on Obama’s health care reform bill passing ... an idea we'd gotten in the habit of making fun of, but, HELLO.)

Although (and supporters acknowledged as much) even if Obamacare passed, the House plan still relied on a waiver from federal timing rules to get the money right away.

The Senate initially wanted to cut $90 million and wanted GA-U recipients to participate in a housing program or use a housing voucher in exchange for a $50 stipend to cover living expenses. In addition to the fantasy that someone can survive on $50, there was a big problem: They didn't identify any funding for the voucher program.



The chambers met halfway on Monday, with the Senate proposal—renaming the program the "Disability Lifeline"—by allocating $42 million to the new plan. But, because the plan purports to feature a more efficient processes for getting people out of GA-U and into other, mostly federal, programs, Sen. Jim Hargrove (D-24, Clallam and Jefferson County and parts of Grays Harbor) claims they've lowered the cost of the program by $32 million.

Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-36, Seattle), who orchestrated the compromise with Sen. Hargrove, said “some changes (to the program) are reform, some are necessary to keep it alive."

A major change, and one designed to make the program sustainable in a cost-cutting environment, is a new retroactive 24-month limit on how long someone can draw from the program within a 60-month time period. This means that three to four thousand people will soon lose their GA-U benefits, but the ramped-up process for transitioning someone to the beefier federal Supplemental Security Income program (SSI), could mean several thousand would be off the state's dime and on the federal government.

Advocates who fought to keep GA-U funded during regular session don't like this new limit, said Michele Thomas, policy director at the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance. Nick Federici, government affairs consultant for the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance, agreed.

"The time limit is a great concern," he said. "Especially in terms of those (GA-U) recipients who are most in need."

Because the time limit is retroactive, anyone who's already approaching his or her 24-month limit will be reviewed for termination of their GA-U benefits in July and transfer to SSI that offers many of the same benefits as GA-U.

The compromise was met with tempered relief by advocates, however. The 24-month limit is much better than a suggested 6-month lifetime limit the governor had previously recommended, they say, but it's still a concern.

"It's not like people can say: 'Oh, OK, I'm going to turn my mental illness off because I've exceeded my benefits,'" said Federici.

Another aspect of the compromise that advocates have mixed feelings about is the requirement that homeless participants with a chemical dependency or mental condition accept housing vouchers in order to get a $50 stipend, and if they don't, all benefits except for medical are forfeited.

But leveraging housing vouchers—which Sen. Hargrove pushed for—is unrealistic, said Lee and Thomas, especially in King and Pierce Counties. There simply isn't enough subsidized housing to cover GA-U recipients, and even if someone could find a rental within their $339 limit in the private market (an unlikelihood in itself), many landlords are apt to discriminate against potential tenants with vouchers and GA-U participants, generally.

People with chemical dependencies who refuse treatment are also ineligible.

Along the same line, the chemical dependency and mental illness treatment requirements would likely strain an already crammed market, Lee said.

"We have mixed feelings about it (the treatment requirements) because, on the one hand, we want people to receive treatment, on the other hand, we don’t want to cut people off," he said. "All in all it’s the best we could get under these circumstances, the House was looking for some reforms that wouldn’t effect tons and tons of people, and I think this will help some, and hurt some."

Also, someone who refuses to participate in vocational rehabilitation (through programs of the state’s choice) after the state has determined that they need it, would be ineligible.

These changes reflect the Sen. Hargrove's opinion that the program, as it stands now, is being taken advantage of by people with chemical dependencies, or homeless people, who refuse to seek housing or treatment.

“To sum up,” said Sen. Hargrove, “maybe we should do more, and maybe we shouldn’t have a sunset. But this will make people who are taking advantage of our help get help rather than just taking a cash grant.”

But Federici thinks it's a mistake to place restrictions on the approximately 72.000 people who have received GA-U benefits in the past biennium based on what he says is a small percentage of that group.

"If you start cutting people off, the folks who are going to get hit are the people who have been chronically homeless and who have severe mental illness, disability, no health insurance, and no eligibility for another program."

Some good news in all of this: Lee said it's nearly a sure thing that, thanks to Obama's health care reform, Washington will receive a federal match on GA-U funding.

Governor Gregoire called it “real progress” toward reform of the program.

Even Sen. Val Stevens (R-39), a member of the states’ rights conservatives, said this bill was an “improvement” and “very comprehensive.”

Sen. Joseph Zarelli (R-18) didn’t think this compromise went far enough to ensure this social safety net for the future, however. “Unfortunately, this is reform on a temporary basis,” he said. “The problem is not temporary.”