D: Managing the Key Transition Period

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Outline
Introduction
Policy Statements:
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Additional Resources

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3: State officials often have discretion in how they apply the 1996 welfare law and can opt out of the ban completely.

In this chapter:

Overview

Recommendations:

A. Ensure interagency collaboration to effectively screen inmates for eligibility for TANF, Medicaid, supplemental security income, food stamps, and other benefits, and to facilitate successful prerelease application for these benefits.
B. Assess individuals in prison or jail for eligibility for veterans' benefits and services, and ensure access to those benefits for eligible individuals.
C. Help inmates identify and apply for appropriate benefits and identification as part of their transition plan.
D. Ensure that documents issued by departments of corrections are accepted as valid identification by other agencies.
E. Improve collaboration among agencies serving individuals re-entering the community.
F. Ensure timely access to Medicaid after release for eligible individuals by suspending, instead of terminating, Medicaid benefits during incarceration.
G. Facilitate access to "nonrecurrent" TANF benefits by individuals with criminal records who are re-entering the community.
H. Adopt a narrow definition of "in violation of a condition of parole/probation" for the purposes of TANF, food stamps, SSI & public housing.
I. Adopt balanced admission and eviction policies for public housing that consider individual circumstances.
J. Ensure continued Medicaid coverage for TANF families with parents who are released from prison or jail.

Research Highlights:

/Report/PartII/ChapterII-D/PolicyStatement24/ResearchHighlight24-3

States can opt out of the welfare ban completely or narrow it, but only through legislation. Otherwise, the ban is permanent and continues regardless of a person's successful job history, participation in drug treatment, abstinence from drug use, or avoidance of recidivism. Seventeen states are enforcing the ban and denying TANF assistance and food stamps to all individuals with felony drug convictions. ^[1] Twenty-one states have enacted legislation to make individuals with felony drug convictions eligible for some or all TANF and food stamp benefits. For example, individuals who have completed treatment or who are currently in treatment remain eligible in Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Nevada, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Twelve states (Idaho, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Vermont) and the District of Columbia place no restrictions on TANF eligibility for individuals with felony drug convictions.

Legal Action Center, After Prison: Roadblocks to Reentry, A Report on State Legal Barriers Facing People with Criminal Records (New York, NY: Legal Action Center) .
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Reentry Policy Council

D: Managing the Key Transition Period

3: State officials often have discretion in how they apply the 1996 welfare law and can opt out of the ban completely.

In this chapter: