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The letter Heather received a week before her appointment with the Department of Human Services (DHS) warned that not showing up for her scheduled appointment could seriously delay approval of her benefits. Having been recently laid off and in search of work, Heather made sure that she was not only a half hour early, but that her paperwork was in order.
Arriving at the DHS offices in Providence on Elmwood Avenue, she got into the line for those with appointments. The other line, for those without appointments, was longer and moved more slowly. Both lines stretched out of the waiting room.
Conditions in the waiting room, Heather told me, were “miserable.”
“People were standing in lines for hours,” said Heather. “A lot of people were turned away. A lot of them were single mothers. It was hot, and there was not a lot of room to sit. Children were running around, crying and screaming.” She said employees appeared to be overwhelmed and frustrated.
Optimally, DHS provides people in need with access to many services such as Medicaid, SNAP benefits, Rhode Island Works (RIW), Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), LTSS, General Public Assistance (GPA) and access to various energy assistance programs like HEAP, WAP and HSR.
The delays, Heather was told, were because of the new computer system the DHS was using to approve benefits. The new system was supposed to make things more efficient. Instead, workers at the office were facing too many cases and a new system being rolled out without adequate training.
At a press conference on Thursday, DHS director Melba Depeña Affignesaid that changes in staffing and the conversion to the new computer system would have “no impact on clients.” Michael DiBiase, director of the RI Department of Administrationcalled the issues that Heather and others have described as “unfortunate.”
After four hours, Heather got her EBT card and was able to leave the DHS offices by 4:45pm. The waiting room was no less full, most of those waiting would have to return the next day to continue the process.
The new computer system, which has no official name, was supposed to be online in July, and is now slated to be fully operational by mid September. The system is supposed to reduce the amount of time prospective clients spend with social workers and has been billed as an “incredible tool for our workforce” that will “enhance customer service.”
Heather disagrees. The system, she says, is “designed to make you feel like shit about yourself.”
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Mayor Jorge Elorza bikes to work everyday, and takes part in frequent night rides with community members. By all accounts the mayor is supportive of bicycling. However, Providence has made next to no progress on bike infrastructure during the two years the mayor has been in office. This needs to change.
Providence has seen the mayor step up on some issues, and his vocal leadership has had an effect. Just recently, Mayor Elorza spoke eloquently to the harm of liquefied natural gas (LNG) power plants, a move which put him in direct contradiction with Governor Raimondo. This move came after the Sierra Club of Rhode Island challenged the mayor to speak up clearly on the issue. I am making the same request.
Where is the bike infrastructure, Mayor Elorza?
We cannot expect mass cycling to take root in Rhode Island without our core cities establishing bike routes that are suitable for eight year olds, 80 year olds, and everyone in between. If we’re going to provide routes that are safe for people in wheelchairs and rascals, we need bike routes, like what the Dutch and Danish have. Doing this can help us make more efficient use of our school bus funding, our sidewalk funding, our parking, and improve business outcomes for small business.
The mayor has pushed some reform. The city’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission currently receives advanced notice of city street projects, and its review of those projects has brought piecemeal changes to sections of street as they’re repaved. Many project reviews include only tiny sections of street, and nothing has yet been accomplished beyond paint, either through door-zone bike lanes, or even worse, sharrows. But this is not enough. To be frank, if Providence is not going to become a charming patch of shallow ocean in the next century, we need concerted action now.
What do community members demand?
A demand is a challenge that comes as an honor only to those politicians who warrant it. Mayor Elorza has objectively not accomplished what needs to be accomplished in his first years of office, however, he has demonstrated himself to be someone who, with pressure, might accomplish those goals. Be honored, Mayor Elorza. You’re being called to the challenge.
The mayor must work to design a full network of protected bike lanes on the major arterials of the city. A starting point for this would be 50 miles of infrastructure, which we estimate would take only 3% of on-street parking to achieve.
The mayor must also work to create “bike boulevards”- routes that are low-traffic and low-speed, off of the major arterials. These are not substitutes for protected bike lanes, which are needed to reach jobs and shopping opportunities in commercial areas, but they are majorly important improvements to help make our neighborhoods safer for school children.
The mayor’s office has been supportive of remaking the 6/10 Connector as a boulevard, but as yet has not sought public conflict with RIDOT and the governor’s office about their intransigence to community needs. We need the mayor to pick this fight, in a direct way, just as he did on LNG. It’s understandable that the mayor wishes to advocate behind the scenes, but what will bring life to this issue is a top official speaking openly about the poor priorities RIDOT is putting forward. Without that, the 6/10 Connector continues to take a back-burner position in the news cycle. Speak up, mayor! Put the state government on notice!
These projects must be funded. The city’s $40 million bond includes transportation and non-transportation priorities, but among transportation priorities only 17% of funding is going to non-car priorities, mainly sidewalks. The city must spend in proportion to its population of non-car owners (22%), and it must make good use of those funds to make sure that biking is considered a high priority.
We’ve seen you act before, mayor. We have faith in you. Step it up! We need you to take action. The bike rides aren’t enough. We’re here to vote for you and to back you up when you are ready to do this.
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Melba Depeña Affigne, director of the RI Department of Human Services (DHS), was “surprised to hear [that clients] did not get service” at the Woonsocket DHS offices. The clients in question were referred from the Woonsocket offices to the DHS offices in Pawtucket, a four hour round trip by bus.
Michael DiBiase, director of the RI Department of Administration said, regarding the problems at the Woonsocket branch of the DHS that the “break in service was unfortunate” and will last “hopefully less than a month.”
DiBiase and Affigne were holding a press conference to explain the layoff of 70 DHS employees, mostly social workers, as part a major reorganization of the DHS and the launching of a new computerized eligibility system that is projected to save taxpayers millions.
The laid off social workers, said DiBiase, will have a chance to apply for one of the more than fifty job openings at DCYF (Department of Children, Youth and Families). The layoffs are required, said Affigne, because of a “new staffing model” that will allow DHS to make significant cuts. The new model is “task based” and will not require supervisors trained in social work to manage by “case load.”
I asked Sue Pearlmutter, dean of the Rhode Island College School of Social Work if this means that the DHS is moving away from social workers advocating on behalf of clients and towards data entry technicians assisting clients using the computers.
“That has been my impression,” said Pearlmutter. The DHS is moving towards “a very different kind of process. Social workers engage with the client and work with the client.” The application process DHS is instituting makes “people take responsibility for their application at a kiosk or in a library.”
Often, these are “people in crisis” at a time when “completing an application is a daunting process.” Some adults and young adults, says Pearlmutter, “may find the process overwhelming. Removing a level of staff may cause more problems for people facing crisis.”
As for the staff DHS is cutting, saying that there are openings at DCYF is disingenuous. Many of the staff losing their positions at DHS started at DCYF, said Pearlmutter. They took jobs at DHS “because the work at DCYF is so crisis oriented. It’s difficult and emotional work that many found they couldn’t do any more.”
Talking about the jobs at DCYF as being like the work at DHS “shows no understanding of the kind of work social work is,” says Pearlmutter.
The new computer system, which has no official name, it’s just the “New Integrated Eligibility System,” said Affigne, was supposed to be online in July, and is now slated to be operational in mid September. The system will reduce the amount of time prospective clients will spend with social workers. This is “by far the largest technology project that has ever been undertaken by the State of Rhode Island,” said DiBiase.
The new computer system, said Affigne, is an “incredible tool for our workforce” that will “enhance customer service.”
Lucie Burdick, president of Local 580 of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), disagrees. She told RI Future that “this extremely expensive computer system, if it even works correctly someday, will never provide the quality of service a trained, educated, experienced human being provides. The computer pilot program is failing miserably at this point and costs are rising rapidly. It could have been done better and cheaper. The displacement of staff and the cost of human suffering that it has exacted on the population we serve is unconscionable.
“This fiasco is the 38 Studios of human services. The taxpayers and advocates for the poor should be outraged.”
DHS provides people in need with access to many services such as Medicaid, SNAP benefits, Rhode Island Works (RIW), Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), LTSS, General Public Assistance (GPA) and access to various energy assistance programs like HEAP, WAP and HSR. Affigne said that about one in five Rhode Islanders use services offered at the DHS, and that they maintain six field offices, like the one in Woonsocket.
“What will be the impact on clients?” I asked.
Affigne replied, “There will be no impact on clients.”
Yet existing clients did not start receiving notifications of reduced services in Woonsocket until August 23, and the Woonsocket DHS began reduced services on the 19th. That’s two or thee days of people arriving at the Woonsocket offices and learning that they were in for a four hour bus ride to Pawtucket from a sign taped to the door.
As Bob Plain and I tried to ask questions to get to the heart of the issue of the actual impact that this transition will have on people trying to access needed state services, Kristin Gourlay, health care reporter for RIPR cut in.
“Presumably,” said Gourlay, “in September, when the system goes live, people won’t have to go to a field office, they can go to- if the have a computer at home they can use that, they could go to a public library and use a computer there or another social service agency…”
“Correct,” said Affigne.
This allowed DiBiase and Affigne to shrug off concerns about social workers and clients as mere “bumps” along the way towards an improved, (read: cheaper) system. Yet, at a time when poverty and income inequality are at all time highs, and the economy of Rhode Island is barely improving, “bumps” in the lives of the one in five Rhode Islanders applying for needed assistance can be catastrophic.
Here’s the video of RIFuture’s questions:
Here’s the video of the full press conference:
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