There have long been issues of race and inequity in public benefits programs. See Race And The Politics Of Welfare Reform, Sanford F. Schram, Joe Soss, and Richard C. Fording. Editors, University of Michigan Press, 2003. Changing demographics, mandatory welfare-to-work requirements and, let’s face it, increased awareness among advocates, has shown serious problems in the ability of Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals in equally accessing and benefiting from Public Benefits programs.

Looking at the experience in California:

• In California, the initial group reaching the 60-month limit on TANF benefits was disproportionately LEP households. These were mostly two-parent households in which the father worked a low wage job, and neither parent received welfare-to-work services. Others were offered a limited range of services that did not prepare them for work.

• The state does not find civil rights violations when workers fail to follow language access requirements, though ordering corrective action. The bureau’s rationale is that there is no “proof” of discriminatory intent. So far, the agency has rejected that disparate impact is a basis for finding discrimination, despite regulations and case law in the larger civil rights context. The result is that workers do not “feel” any consequence of their failure to meet the requirements.

• A review of audits of county welfare departments shows that none fully complied with the civil rights language access requirements. Bureau capacity to ensure that corrective action plans are submitted and completed is limited, and enforcement is difficult.

• New automation systems are wreaking havoc on use of translated forms. Systems designed to handle multiple languages were sending materials in English despite the case language coding. When that was fixed, other problems cropped up, such as forms coming out partially in-language, and part in English. Automated mailing resulted in workers being unaware of the language of the notices. Larger computer issues made it impossible to reach workers, as calls went up in response.

On the positive side, California has been very open to working with advocates, in the full social services context, as well as sub-levels of Welfare-to-work, fair hearings, and civil rights. Advocates have been invited to help improve the program, and have worked to overhaul civil rights compliance processes and reporting, regulations, and best practices.

Significantly, this year California modified its hearing regulations to toll the time in which to request a hearing when language issues are involved. The time to appeal now is tolled when the county either sends out notices in English, instead of the client’s designated language, or if an LEP recipient contacts a worker within the time to appeal, when no state translation exists. In the latter situation, the recipient is not required to show whether an interpretation of the notice at issue occurred, just the contact. The last gap, when a recipient does not know to call the worker, because the county never provided information about access to interpretive services, will be closed through training notes to the Administrative Law Judges.

Language access advocacy can be key in ensuring that recipients have appropriate and timely benefits and services, especially time-limited access to self-sufficiency skill training.

Wednesday, November 7 there will be a special, all day meeting of the National Language Access Advocates Network on Ensuring Language Access. Learn about best practices for serving LEP clients, and effective models for language access advocacy. Meet other Language advocates! (This day will not duplicate the language access sessions during the NLADA annual conference.)

By Jodie Berger, Regional Counsel, Legal Services of Northern California