Title
Receive an oral report from the Department of Social Services on outreach efforts to increase enrollment of potentially eligible individuals and families in the declining CalFresh and Medi-Cal public assistance programs, which have experienced a steady decline in enrollments since 2016.
Presenters: Cindy Cassinelli, Interim Deputy Director and Jerry Kulper, Management Analyst III
Report
RECOMMENDATION:
It is recommended that the Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee receive an oral report from the Department of Social Services (DSS) on outreach efforts to increase enrollment of potentially eligible individuals and families in the CalFresh and Medi-Cal public assistance programs, which have experienced a steady decline in enrollments since 2016.
Presenters: Cindy Cassinelli, Interim Deputy Director and Jerry Kulper, Management Analyst III
SUMMARY/DISCUSSION:
Applications for the CalFresh and Medi-Cal public assistance programs have steadily declined over the last few years. Eligibility staff has also experienced an unprecedented number of customers requesting withdrawal of their application, requesting termination of benefits, or failing to renew their CalFresh benefits which contributed to a CalFresh caseload decline of approximately 4.84% since March 2017 with June 2018 having the highest number of voluntary discontinuance requests (259 cases) as compared to the prior two years (83 for June 2017 and 63 for June 2016).
DSS is tracking data on the number of applicants, including non-citizens, that are requesting termination of benefits. The charts and statistics (see Attachment #1) provide the percent of caseload for citizen and non-citizen families that have voluntarily requested discontinuance of CalFresh and Medi-Cal programs for 2016, 2017, and 2018. The data shows that there has been an increase in customers requesting discontinuance of their CalFresh benefits beginning in March 2017 (40 CalFresh) with the highest number of discontinuance...
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