HOMELESS ACTION CENTER
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Policy Recommendations for Improving SSI Advocacy Efforts

Based on eighteen years of institutional expertise in homeless legal services and SSI advocacy, the Alameda County Homeless Action Center ("HAC") makes the following recommendations to reduce homelessness and improve the health and quality of life of poor people in our community.
  1. Work with Federal and State legislators to increase the SSI payment level. Rationale: The SSI payment level is inadequte to afford housing without a subsidy. The monthly payment amount for SSI recipients is $870. The HUD fair market rent for a studio apartment in Oakland is $874.
  2. Work with Social Security Administration regional offices to implement a presumptive eligibility project for Alameda County. Rationale: Most of the chronically homeless people applying for SSI benefits would be found presumptively eligible for benefits within 30 days of applying. The reduction of wait times would enable people to move into housing as soon as possible.
  3. Create performance measures in service delivery to homeless people that actually track how many people have been approved for SSI benefits. Rationale: Many homeless people languish for years before applying for SSI benefits. If every funder of homeless services required a performance measure to track SSI applications and awards, the number of people who have simply never applied would be dramatically reduced in our community.
  4. Create presumptive eligibility for MediCal for every chronically homeless person in Alameda County. Rationale: For someone homeless for longer than one year or who has experienced four episodes of homelessness in the past three years, MediCal can create access to the kind of treatment that helps people get approved for SSI benefits. Without MediCal benefits, people with mental illness in Alameda County, especially in Oakland, cannot access ongoing mental health treatment. With MediCal, they are eligible for a range of treatment options, medication management, and a continuity of care unavailable to the uninsured.