LWVMA 

Where We Stand 

Content:

Introduction

Program in Brief

Government

Natural Resources

Social Policy

LWVMA 

WHERE WE STAND

Social Policy: Meeting Basic Human Needs

Goal:
Support programs and policies to prevent or reduce poverty and to promote self-sufficiency for individuals and families. (LWVUS) (revised 1989)

In order to prevent or reduce poverty, the LWVUS supports policies and programs designed to:

• increase job opportunities
• increase access to health insurance
• provide support services such as child care and transportation
• provide opportunities and/or incentives for basic or remedial education and job training
• decrease teen pregnancy
• ensure that non-custodial parents contribute to the support of their children

League action

Employment
Day care
Day care centers for disadvantaged preschool children should be available so that parents have an opportunity for employment.

Education
The League believes that programs in basic education, occupational education and retraining, when needed, should be made available at any point in an individual's working career. Expanded opportunities in apprenticeship and on-the-job training programs are equally important.

Jobs Training and Partnership Act
The Jobs Training and Partnership Act (which superseded the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) was passed by Congress in 1982 and implemented on the local level in 1983. The program is designed to provide training for economically disadvantaged people. It retains some elements of its predecessor CETA, but explicitly excludes public service employment. The Service Delivery Areas are determined by the governor, and local decision making regarding programs is shared by local governments and a Private Industry Council established in each area. When the act was first implemented, Leagues monitored the composition of these councils to determine whether women, client groups, minorities and public interest groups were represented. The League also checked the training plans to ensure that they allow for upward mobility, rather than dead-end jobs.

Youth
LWVMA works for programs that address unemployment programs for the neediest youths.

Recognizing that racial discrimination has been a major barrier to employment opportunities, the League has worked for a variety of antidiscrimination programs, as described in the Equality of Opportunity section.

Housing
Massachusetts has some of the nation's best housing laws, including a statewide building code, to construct and rehabilitate housing for people with low or moderate incomes and to provide rental assistance. Each year the League has supported legislation to fund these programs adequately and has pressed the Executive Office of Communities and Development to develop stronger implementation and delivery of services.

The League supports programs, policies and regulations to address the housing needs of low- and moderate-income families and individuals, which should include (2008):

Anti-Snob Zoning Law
The League supported the initiation and passage of Ch. 774 of the Acts of 1969. This landmark legislation permits developers to apply for a one-stop comprehensive permit to build subsidized housing for people with low or moderate incomes. The law states that the state's Housing Board of Appeals can overrule decisions of local zoning boards of appeals that deny permission to build subsidized housing for low- and moderate-income people without sufficient cause. Ch. 774 was upheld by the Supreme Judicial Court in March 1973. The League has worked for adequate funding to make this legislation work expeditiously and to inform communities of the benefits of its comprehensive permit provision. Leagues continue to be involved in supporting subsidized housing in their communities after weighing local housing needs and the environmental impact.

Areawide housing opportunities
A state housing needs report, first published in 1974 by the Executive Office of Communities and Development and adopted by the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the state's 13 Regional Planning Agencies (RPAs), was the basis for allocating housing resources more equitably and over a wider geographical area. An updated 1984 document is a resource for RPA Areawide Housing Opportunity Plans, a cooperative effort between an RPA, its member communities, and the Executive Office of Communities and Development. An Areawide Housing Opportunity Plan (AHOP) assesses regional housing needs and establishes three-year housing goals for assisted housing in each community. Accepted AHOP targets increase a community's eligibility for additional federal rental assistance (Section 8) funds and state development funds. Local Leagues have been encouraged to persuade their communities to accept AHOP targets to implement housing goals.

Community Development Block Grant Program
The federal special revenue sharing program presents a mixed bag of housing, civil rights and citizen participation opportunities. Revenue sharing programs may have shifted power from Washington to the local level, but they have not succeeded in bringing government closer to the people. HUD has administered its programs with little oversight. This fact, combined with local government autonomy in the public housing field, has made it easy for communities to ignore the need for housing and employment opportunities for people with low or moderate incomes or members of minority groups.

The Community Development Block Grant program is directed primarily toward the interests of people with low or moderate incomes. Leagues have been particularly active in speaking out for local housing needs through the citizen participation component by insisting that funds be spent in low- or moderate-income areas.

With the elimination of most federal housing programs, housing resources have shifted to the state. Leagues have established municipal area-wide housing authorities, organized non-profit housing groups, been members of housing authorities, and worked to remove obstacles to housing, such as discriminatory mortgage practices and restrictive or exclusionary zoning ordinances.

Executive Order #215
This order directs all state agencies to withhold development assistance funding from communities that have been unreasonably restrictive of housing growth. Special consideration is to be given to the development of housing for families with low and moderate incomes. This order, issued in 1982, was an expansion of the Self Help and Open Space Program and was supported by the League.

Filed sub-bid law
The Commonwealth's complicated and costly public filed sub-bidding procedure caused the League, in 1973-74, to support, unsuccessfully, a state turnkey housing program which would have lowered public housing construction costs and opened access to construction jobs to minorities. The special Commission Concerning State and County Buildings' recommendation in 1980 to repeal the filed sub-bid law caused the League to support an improved public bidding procedure by changing to the bid-listing system.

Homelessness Act
Failure of grants to keep pace with inflation, lack of affordable and available housing for families and individuals with low incomes, and redefined federal and state policies resulted in greatly increased and widespread homelessness and hunger. In the early 1980s there was a dramatic increase in the number of people needing emergency shelter and food. Two emergency shelters existed in 1982; in 1986 that number had risen to over 40. The League lobbied with other advocates to educate the public and the legislature about the reasons for homelessness and the needs of homeless people. These efforts culminated in the successful passage of Ch. 450 of the Acts of 1983, the Homelessness Act. One of the most important provisions of this legislation allowed that people who met both categorical and financial eligibility requirements for the General Relief program could not be denied benefits solely because they lacked a permanent address. In an attempt to prevent homelessness, the act broadened the Emergency Assistance program. The League also published a statewide list of soup kitchens, pantries and food banks as a means of educating the public to the needs of destitute people and the magnitude of the problem.

The lack of available and affordable living space for working-poor and welfare recipients increased dramatically during the 1980s. Ch. 450 broadened Emergency Assistance coverage of housing-related problems and was used in FY85 by about 879 families per month, compared to 85 families per month in FY83. The number of families needing coverage of rent owed increased from 285 in 1983 to 515 in 1985. As shelter needs increased, many welfare families were placed in motels or hotels. In 1985 there were over 500 such families. Because only about 25-30 percent of AFDC families live in public or subsidized housing, with an even lower percentage for General Relief recipients, LWVMA joined other advocates to push for monthly rent allowances for AFDC recipients, and incentives for landlords to rent to such recipients.

Housing supply criteria
By 1969, LWVUS had broadened its fair housing position to include support for an adequate supply of housing for people with low or moderate incomes. A 1970 checklist for local, state and national implementation outlined such criteria as:

• achieving national and state housing goals
• income (rental) assistance and/or subsidized housing
• uniform building codes
• tenants' rights
• citizen participation in developing publicly assisted housing programs
• economic integration
• regional and metropolitan planning
• sound land use policies

Local housing authorities and local action
League action in housing has promoted and supported the formation and monitoring of local housing authorities. The League supports proposals by nonprofit or limited dividend developers for subsidized housing in their communities. Leagues, with other groups, press for an increased supply of low- and moderate-income housing using different approaches-supporting increased allocation of federal Section 8 rental assistance funds, state rental assistance, code enforcement, housing rehabilitation programs, building conversion, abolition of local restrictive zoning and building code requirements.

Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency
The Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency, a League-supported state agency founded in 1966, provides loans to private, nonprofit sponsors or limited dividend developers to build housing or rehabilitate existing buildings to house people with low or moderate incomes. By law, at least 25 percent of the units of each development must be for low-income people.

Self-help and open space programs
In 1976, the League concentrated its efforts on achieving the fair and equitable distribution of the state's self-help and Open Space Conservation funds. Representatives from civil rights, housing, environmental and conservation groups joined the League and the secretary of environmental affairs to develop criteria for the allocation of these funds. In 1978 the funding of all state and federal environmental programs to municipalities became contingent on each community's effort to meet its low- and moderate-income housing needs. Local Leagues have been encouraged to educate their communities that open space acquisition should be balanced by an adequate supply of low- and moderate-income housing.

Tenants' rights
In its desire to give public housing tenants a greater voice in decisions affecting their lives, LWVMA participated in designing the state's rules and regulations governing the management of public housing, and the League has kept an ongoing interest to assure that tenant's rights are preserved. The legislature has enacted League-supported legislation that would protect public housing tenants and ensure that they are well-housed at a fair rate. The Baby Brooke amendment, which sets rents in public housing at 25 percent of income, was a League agenda item. The state public housing modernization program, modeled on the federal program, renovates and modernizes older public housing developments and at the same time permits tenants opportunities to participate in management and set renovation priorities of their housing. It encompasses several League positions.

Income assistance
Federal government responsibility
The League believes the federal government bears the responsibility for financing basic programs of income assistance for all persons in the United States who are unable to work, whose earnings are inadequate, or for whom jobs are not available, and for setting income and eligibility standards for these programs. Supervising the administration of assistance is the responsibility of the federal government, but administrative offices should be near the people participating in the program.

Sufficient benefit levels, special needs, eligibility
League members agreed on a number of criteria for income assistance. Benefit levels should be sufficient to provide decent, adequate standards for food, clothing and shelter. Minimum income standards should be adjusted for regional differences in the cost of living and should be revised periodically to take into account changes in the purchasing value of the dollar. Massachusetts League members further agreed that current welfare allowances were insufficient. Until there are adequate allowances, the League agreed that there should be increasing emphasis on cash assistance, but in-kind assistance (e.g., food stamps, housing subsidies, medical aid) should be continued to help assure that these needs are met. Until a federal welfare program achieves an adequate level of benefits, some states will need to supplement federal payments. Participants should not receive lesser benefits under a revised program than they are now receiving.

Eligibility of all low-income individuals for assistance should be based on need. Eligibility should be established through simplified procedures such as a declaration of need, spot-checked in a manner similar to that used in checking the validity of income tax returns. Nationally, the League was concerned that privacy of participants be protected. All administrative procedures should be conducted with respect for the rights and dignity of the individual.

Supplemental Security Income program (SSI)
In 1974 the federal government took over responsibility for providing a basic income to needy people who are elderly, blind or disabled. Under this program, the federal government pays the larger amount, Massachusetts supplements it, and the Social Security Administration, which administers the program, issues the checks. Federal SSI benefits are automatically adjusted for inflation.

National Welfare Reform
In 1988 national welfare reform became a reality under the Family Support Act passed by Congress and signed by the President. This legislation met most of the criteria for which the League had worked since 1977. The most important exception was making work compulsory for recipients of welfare. The League supports employment and teaching programs that are voluntary.

Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and General Relief (GR)
AFDC is an income assistance program supported jointly by federal and state funds. AFDC benefits are not automatically adjusted for inflation; the Massachusetts legislature must vote yearly increases. General Relief is an income assistance program funded only by the state. The recipients are mostly single or married people with no children. Some two-parent families, however, receive General Relief.

Cost-of-living increase
To avoid an annual budget fight, the League in a 1974 coalition filed cost-of-living legislation. Rather than including a fixed percentage, the bill was tied to annual changes in the U.S. Consumer Price Index and covered payments to recipients of AFDC, GR and Veterans' Benefits.

Legislation similar to that of the coalition was enacted into law, effective July 1, 1975. Ch. 623 of the Acts of 1974 provides that the total budget of AFDC and GR recipients and the basic budget of recipients of Veterans' Benefits, before taking into consideration any available income and resources, will be increased on July 1 every year by a percentage rise in the United States Consumer Price Index for the preceding calendar year, subject to appropriation.

Since 1975, welfare recipients have received uneven increases to their benefits depending on the economic conditions in effect that year. Some years saw no cost-of-living increases coupled with reductions in services such as medical assistance. Other years, recipients received cost-of-living increases ranging from 3 to 6.5 percent. LWVMA lobbied against cuts to welfare programs and also urged tax increases to pay for essential services.

Federal budget cuts
Programs for low income individuals and families were targeted for reduction in the federal budgets of the 1980s. A 1983 study by the Congressional Budget Office showed that programs aimed primarily at the poor were cut $57 billion from FY82 through FY85 (after adjustment for inflation and unemployment). Overall, low-income programs bore nearly one-third of all cuts made anywhere in the federal government even though they constituted less than one-tenth of the budget. From 1970 until 1983 benefits in the AFDC program fell 36 percent after adjusting for inflation. The result was that the purchasing power of AFDC benefits was reduced more than one-third since 1970, while the proportion of children living in poverty rose from 13.8 percent in 1969 to 22.2 percent in 1983. No other segment of U.S. society lost as heavily during this period.

Specifically, the implementation of the federal Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) in 1981 made the working poor ineligible for AFDC benefits. It limited eligibility to people with annual incomes below 150 percent of the standard of need-only $7,168 a year for a family of three. The impact of this act was to reduce the caseload in Massachusetts by 30,000 cases. The act also reduced the federal reimbursement rate to the states for federal and state human service programs from 53.56 percent to 50.13 percent.

The 1984 Deficit Reduction Act (DRA) softened a number of the act's harsher aspects. DRA dealt with four basic categories: eligibility, countable income resources, work programs and program administration.

Massachusetts' response to cuts
At the time when OBRA went into effect, state and federal sources were reporting an alarming rise in poverty in the Commonwealth, especially among female heads of household. According to the 1980 census, 6 out of every 11 poor families across the state were headed by a female, and nearly two-thirds of of all female-headed households with children under six were living in poverty. In 1970, the AFDC grant for a family of four exceeded the poverty line by about $500, including food stamps. In FY85, the AFDC grant combined with food stamps was more than $2000 less than the official poverty line. Between FY76 and FY85, the cost of living as measured by the Boston Consumer Price Index rose 86 percent while maximum AFDC payment standards rose only 28 percent. Maximum General Relief benefits rose only 51 percent.

Unlike the Supplemental Security Income program, which received the same automatic increase granted Social Security recipients, AFDC and GR recipients depended on annual appropriations to keep pace with inflation. In 1985, recipients received a 4 percent increase for the first time in several years. In 1985, the League joined a coalition in a long-term campaign to bring welfare grants for both AFDC and GR recipients from 40 percent below the poverty line to over the poverty line.

The result of the campaign's first year was a 9 percent cost-of-living increase. The League was also behind legislation to establish parity between AFDC families and GR families of similar size. A family on GR received benefits 25 percent lower than a comparable AFDC family. The League believed that creating parity and increasing grant levels would alleviate some of the serious consequences of grant underfunding such as hunger, malnutrition, inadequate housing and increased danger of homelessness and destitution. Almost 90 percent of AFDC families and more than 95 percent of GR families depend on their welfare grant as their only source of income.

In 1987 the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that under the Massachusetts constitution, the Department of Public Welfare has the duty to review annually the adequacy of its standard budgets of assistance to AFDC recipients and that the amounts should be sufficient to enable AFDC parents to raise children properly in their own homes. The League joined with others in lobbying the legislature to implement this ruling.

Employment and Training
Since 1977, the League has taken action against attempts to implement a Massachusetts workfare program under which AFDC recipients with children over age six must work without pay in governmental and non-profit agencies in exchange for their grants.

The League believes that recipients want to work if there are positive incentives, and it joined other advocates to plan an employment and training program that would address the needs of welfare recipients. This included professional assessment, training, job placement with adequate pay and benefits, educational components, considerations for transportation and day care. The Employment and Training Program (ET) was instituted in 1983.

LWVMA continues to monitor and seek improvements in this program; involvement was broadened to include the General Relief ET program instituted in 1984.

Background

• 1969: LWVMA voted to study the Commonwealth's public welfare system. The first year of the study focused on the people and the second year on the state's services to them.
• 1971: After studies in Massachusetts and at the national level, the League reached consensus on the need for welfare reform and began a national campaign for a more rational public assistance program based on need.
• 1986: The LWVUS convention adopted a two-year study: Meeting Basic Human Needs. In January 1989 the LWVUS board approved a reorganization of the League's national Social Policy positions designed to integrate the new Meeting Basic Human Needs position.