Q&A
Discussion on tracking ineligibility for CityFHEPS vouchers
0:26:06
·
167 sec
Council Member Alexa Avilés questions the lack of tracking for client ineligibility in the CityFHEPS voucher program. Commissioner Molly Wasow Park explains the agency's approach to eligibility and shopping letters, emphasizing the iterative nature of the process and the goal of eventually providing shopping letters to all eligible households.
- The agency avoids labeling clients as 'ineligible' to keep options open for future assistance.
- As of January 20th, over 11,000 households in the shelter system had shopping letters.
- The focus is on working with households without shopping letters to help them become eligible.
Alexa Avilés
0:26:06
I wanted to I wanna go back to the, the question about, in a ineligibility.
0:26:16
I know you noted that, the process is iterative and can change on a daily basis.
0:26:22
But it's it's a little shocking to me that there is no way for you all to to note how many times a person or family, whatever a client is is tagged as ineligible, and what that cycle and where it's happening throughout the system.
0:26:43
I would expect the staff is inputting all this information.
0:26:47
Is this a technological problem, or is it that that's just not a metric we're interested in in following?
0:26:56
Yeah.
Diana Ayala
0:26:56
Or
Molly Wasow Park
0:26:56
both.
0:26:57
And and I understand where you're you're coming from certainly.
0:27:00
But for by deeming somebody ineligible, essentially, we're saying this is not an option for you.
0:27:08
And what we are instead saying for let's focus on families on on households in the shelter system just because as I say, it does look a little different outside.
0:27:21
But for families in the shelter system, you may not if you are ineligible for a shop you don't get a shopping letter today.
0:27:30
Our goal is that you are gonna get a shopping letter at some point in the near future.
0:27:35
Right?
0:27:35
So but I don't wanna qualify somebody as ineligible because that that feels to me like we're drawing a line under under what is and isn't part of their their planning process.
0:27:51
So we absolutely know how many which households have a shopping letter and which housing which households don't have a shopping letter.
0:28:00
And then our goal is to work with those who don't have a shopping letter to try and help them get into that shopping letter category.
0:28:10
As of January 20th, there were over 11,000 households in the shelter system with shopping letters.
0:28:19
So there's also, you know, a a big piece of of making the city FEPPS program work is thinking about housing supply.
0:28:26
We have a lot of people with vouchers who are struggling to find places to use them.
0:28:30
But, but then with the, remaining households that don't have a shopping letter.
0:28:35
Right?
0:28:36
I don't wanna I don't wanna label them as ineligible because that send to me sends the message and to the, you know, very diffuse groups of staff that we're working with that that that is we're crossing city FEPs off the list as a resource that that household has available to them when it's not the case.