See the flyer for detailed contact information to set up an appointment.

Not Convenient? Here’s Another Option

Telephone application assistance is also available from the Project Bread FoodSource Hotline. Call Project Bread’s FoodSource Hotline at 1-800-645-8333 to start an application over the phone.

-Adapted from SNAP Enrollment Assistance e-mail, Manuel M. Pires, Catholic Charities Greater Boston,June 26, 2017.

NeighborGood connects chronically ill and disabled individuals with neighbors for home help and companionship. NeighborGood was inspired by “our team members' personal experiences with chronic illnesses and disability. Living with these conditions is oftentimes extremely challenging and isolating. Hence, our team saw an opportunity to create a cycle of care, where neighbors care for neighbors.”  At this time, NeighborGood serves Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, and Medford.

NeighborGood operates in different communities than the similar (and similarly named) Neighbor Brigade program, but an additional significant distinction is that Neighbor Brigade assists in temporary crises while NeighborGood also assists those with chronic conditions and permanent disabilities.

FAQs (Excerpted from the https://neighborgoodus.com/ website)

Who can NeighborGood help?

• People coping with a chronic illness or long-term condition – e.g., autoimmune disease, depression, stroke, COPD, cancer, dementia
• People with physical disabilities
• People with learning disabilities who want to maximize their independence
• Caregivers
• Sons or daughters worried about aging parents
• Older couples who look after each other
• Parents looking after children with disabilities or long-term conditions
• People recovering from an illness or operation

How does NeighborGood protect participant safety?

• We screen all participants via a background check. For volunteers, we use the MA CORI background check. For those receiving help, we use a third-party service called Onfido, which conducts a Document Check (like a notary), National Criminal Check, Sex Offender Check, and Watchlist Check. We reserve the right to decline participation from individuals flagged by these checks.
• We conduct a video or phone conversation with participants before they are matched.
• We provide online training materials to educate and prepare participants in advance of their first match.
• We collect ratings and reviews after every match.

For more information: https://neighborgoodus.com/  or see the brochure.

“Some of these kids, they don't have much. Some of these kids are eating cereal for lunch. Some of these households are really struggling.”
— Desmond Symonette, summer meals site manager, Miami

When school is not in session, kids who participate in the school lunch/breakfast programs are at risk for hunger. The Summer Food Program allows day camps and recreational sites to provide lunch during these months.

Now No Kid Hungry, with the USDA, has developed an easy way to find local participating free summer meals programs. Just text “food” to 877-877 (or “comida” for a reply in Spanish).

“Open” sites will serve all children under 18 (no ID required). Unfortunately, by regulation, the Summer Food Program cannot serve anyone over 18, including accompanying parents.

-Thanks to Melanie Cohn-Hopwood for forwarding.

DisabilityInfo.org, the website of the Massachusetts Network of Information Providers for People with Disabilities, offers a online database and a library of resource-related fact sheets. They recently highlighted employment resources for people with disabilities in their periodic resource newsletter. Here are the highlights.

Jobs Without Limits – Specifically for job seekers with disabilities seeking to work and advance their careers in Massachusetts. The employers that post job opportunities on Jobs Without Limits have job openings in Massachusetts and are interested and committed to hiring individuals with disabilities to work for their companies. MA phone: 508-856-2774 (voice) info@jobswithoutlimits.org

Work Without Limits  – Provides resources and information on employment for many audiences, including people with disabilities, family members, employment service providers, and employers. This comprehensive website provides resources that help in the job search process, including information on local service providers, transportation assistance, benefits planning and more. Individuals and families can explore job and career options.

Finding a Job That is Right for You  – Job Accommodation Network has suggestions for looking for jobs that fit, job search help, job interview and resume tips, and post hiring tips.

Accessible Technology in the Workplace  – has a mission to promote full and unrestricted participation in business and society by persons with disabilities through the use of electronic information technology that is universally accessible. Check out their discussions and webinars on why it makes good business sense for firms to hire people with disabilities.

MNIP also has created two related fact sheets, a Job Resources Fact Sheet and a Job Support Services / Benefit Programs Fact Sheet.

-Adapted from Job Resources, MNIP News, info@disabilityinfo.org, June 22, 2017.

Illicit activity and constant loitering at the crossroads of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard in Boston, a growing problem in the three years since the city moved many of its social services from Long Island to this gritty area, has reached a breaking point, city officials said this month.

Under pressure from frustrated residents, workers, and business owners in the area to address the problem, officials are planning to build a new kind of shelter, providing the homeless, drug addicts, and others who congregate in the neighborhood a place to get off the streets.

 “We have a problem, and so we’re trying something new,” Mayor Martin J. Walsh said in an interview.

Over the next month, city officials plan to transform the paved backyard of the Southampton Street Shelter, one of the new social service institutions born out of the closure of Long Island, into an “engagement space,” a kind of way station that would help steer the homeless into treatment while improving the area’s quality of life.

The city plans to spend as much as $1 million a year to furnish a barracks-like tent with air conditioning, televisions, and comfortable places to sit. Free coffee and snacks will be served throughout the day. Outside, there will be picnic tables and benches, planters with flowers, and, ultimately, a lawn.

Rules will be limited, allowing the inebriated to remain, and few will be barred. Outreach workers will mingle in hopes of persuading people to enter city programs that could help them find homes or overcome their addictions.

 “This is about getting people off the streets, and creating a safe space,” Walsh said. “We want to make it a warm, welcoming place.”

The shelter, slated to open in late July, is the latest in a series of steps that city officials have taken to address the vagrancy and drug dealing in the area known as Methadone Mile that includes about a dozen drug-treatment programs, shelters, and other service providers. They have extended the hours of police bike patrols in the area, added outreach workers, and collaborated with Boston University to help keep the area clean.

City officials have been working with residents for months on the plan.

Loitering has always been an issue in the area, but the problems in the neighborhood took a significant turn for the worse in 2015, when city officials spent $10 million to renovate a transportation building into the city’s newest homeless shelter on Southampton Street. Other services, including clinics to treat heroin addicts, opened nearby.

A year earlier, the city had condemned an old bridge leading to Long Island, closing a host of shelters and treatment facilities there.

Nine months after the Southampton Street Shelter opened, police found that violent crime in the area had risen 30 percent, drug violations had jumped 55 percent, and aggravated assaults were up 47 percent. Citywide, such crimes declined over the same period.

-See the full The Boston Globe article.

If you are eligible for Medicare, but not currently receiving Social Security retirement benefits or railroad retirement benefits, there are three different time periods during which you can enroll in Medicare Parts A and B.

1. Initial Enrollment Period (IEP). You can enroll in Medicare at anytime during this seven-month period, which includes the three months before, the month of, and the three months following your 65th birthday. The date when your Medicare coverage begins depends on when you sign up.
2. General Enrollment Period (GEP). If you did not enroll in Medicare when you originally became eligible for it, you can sign up during the GEP, which is from January 1st through March 31st of every year. Your coverage will begin July 1st of the year you sign up. You will have to pay a Part B premium penalty for every year you delayed enrolling in Medicare Part B.
3. Special Enrollment Period (SEP). You can delay enrollment in Part B without penalty if you were covered by employer health insurance through your or your spouse’s current job when you first become eligible for Medicare. You can enroll in Medicare without penalty at any time while you have group health coverage and for eight months after you lose your group health coverage or you (or your spouse) stop working, whichever comes first. Medicare coverage begins the first month after you enroll.

Visit Medicare Interactive to learn more about when to enroll in Medicare.
 
-From BENES Act Reintroduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, Medicare Watch, June 01, 2017

Each state runs different Medicaid programs for various groups of people. One type of Medicaid is for individuals who are aged, blind, or disabled. This is often called aged, blind, or disabled (ABD) Medicaid.

Generally, an individual needs to apply for Medicaid with their local Medicaid office. Some people automatically qualify for Medicaid because they are receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or because of other Social Security programs.

All state Medicaid programs are required to cover the following benefits at a minimum. These are known as mandatory benefits, and include:

• Inpatient and outpatient hospital services
• Nursing facility services
• Home health services
• Physicians’ services, laboratory services, and x-rays
• Rural health clinic services
• Transportation to medical services
• Family planning services, nurse midwife services, tobacco cessation counseling for pregnant people, state-licensed freestanding birth centers
• Pediatric and certified family nurse practitioner services  

Note that Medicaid covers inpatient and outpatient hospital services, home health care, and physician services, which are also covered by Medicare.

The following Medicaid benefits are optional, and may not be available in all states:

• Prescription drugs
• Physical, occupational, and speech therapy
• Dental services and dentures
• Prosthetics
• Optometry and eyeglasses
• Chiropractic services
• Personal care
• Case management
• Hospice care
• Podiatry
• Private duty nursing   

Coverage is different from state to state.

You can learn more about your state Medicaid program by contacting your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP). Visit www.shiptacenter.org or call 877-839-2675.

-From What is Medicaid?, Dear Marci, Medicare Rights Center, June 12, 2017.

Republican Gov. Charlie Baker's administration recently offered up a revamped proposal to overhaul the state's Medicaid program, known as MassHealth.

In a letter to the Democratic heads of the powerful House and Senate Ways and Means committees, Massachusetts Secretary of Administration and Finance Kristen Lepore said the administration's recent efforts to rein in health care spending have helped slow spending, but that more needs to be done. The proposal is in addition a previously announced plan that is currently in motion that transforms much of MassHealth into “accountable care organizations.” ACOs aim to focus hospitals, physicians, and other providers on improving population health, care integration, and efficiency. 

The new proposal would bar non-disabled adults with access to affordable health insurance plans offered by their employer from being eligible for MassHealth. That and other efforts to encourage individuals to take advantage of employer-offered insurance plans could save more than $76 million in the 2018 fiscal year that begins July 1.

The plan also would impose a five-year moratorium on new insurance mandates, make changes to the MassHealth pharmacy benefit to help lower drug prices and improve rebates, and make changes that would let the state take advantage of federal subsidies — including moving about 140,000 non-disabled adults with incomes over 100 percent of the federal poverty level from MassHealth to the state's ConnectorCare program, which offers health plans with low monthly premiums and no deductibles.

Another part of the plan would create a temporary employer contribution to help ease the cost of public coverage for workers. The plan calls for a two-tiered approach that builds off of the existing employer medical assistance contribution and would help bring in $200 million in new revenue during the 2018 fiscal year.

Many of the proposals in Baker's plan would require changes in state law. Some would also require federal approval before they could take effect.

Advocates Respond

In response to the proposal, Mass Law Reform released a fact sheet of advocates’ concerns.

Many parents and other non-disabled adults with access to employer sponsored insurance (ESI) will no longer be eligible for MassHealth and are likely to become uninsured

• The proposal precludes non-disabled adults with access to ESI from being eligible for MassHealth if the employee share of the ESI premium is less than 9.69% of family income (2017). They will be disqualified from all MassHealth coverage, including Premium Assistance.
• Under the proposal, this will affect low income parents as well as childless adults with income under the poverty level ($16,240 for a family of two). The Administration has not reported how many will lose MassHealth, but most are likely to be parents.
• At MassHealth income levels (133% of poverty currently, and 100% of poverty proposed), no premium contribution is considered affordable, much less premiums of 9.69% of income.
• In addition, the private ESI coverage almost always includes substantial deductibles and co-pays. MassHealth members have no deductibles, and minimal copays.
• As far as we know, no other state Medicaid program has proposed a restriction of this kind for the core Medicaid population of low income working parents.
• There is a better way to promote ESI and support work: MassHealth Premium Assistance. Premium Assistance enables the working poor to afford ESI and still have MassHealth protections, and saves the state money by making MassHealth secondary to the private coverage.

100,000 low income parents and 40,000 childless adults will lose MassHealth if the upper income limit is reduced from 133% to 100% of the poverty level

• The Baker Administration describes this as a transition from MassHealth to ConnectorCare, but not all of those losing MassHealth will qualify for ConnectorCare because of its rules about tax filing status and what it considers other available coverage (like being enrolled in the VA health system).
• For those who do transition to ConnectorCare, its coverage is less comprehensive and more costly than MassHealth. ConnectorCare has no dental benefits or long term services and supports, and it has much higher copays than MassHealth.
• Currently, ConnectorCare offers at least one option with no premium contribution for those under 133% of poverty, but no state law or regulation prevents it from assessing a premium in future.
• At 100% of poverty, a parent of one child working full time at a minimum wage job will no longer qualify for MassHealth. In ConnectorCare, she loses out on work incentive programs like Transitional Medicaid and work supports like Premium Assistance if she gets a job with higher pay or access to ESI.
• Given the current efforts to repeal and replace the ACA, no one can know what ConnectorCare will look like --or whether it will even exist—tomorrow.
• No savings are expected in FY 2018 from this change; it is premature to make this change now.

EOHHS will have broad authority to terminate many current MassHealth benefits affecting the elderly and people with disabilities

• Since 2006, the legislature has required EOHHS (Executive Office of Health and Human Services) to obtain legislative approval before it eliminates “optional” MassHealth benefits like prescription drugs, dental, vision, and home and community based supports.
• Under the proposal, EOHHS will be free to restructure prescription drug benefits and will have additional temporary authority to restructure of terminate any and all other optional benefits.
• Reducing benefits will harm not just non-disabled adults but all MassHealth members including children, people with disabilities, and the elderly. More safeguards are needed to protect access to care.

230,000 low income parents will lose MassHealth Standard and receive the less-generous CarePlus coverage intended for childless adults

• The ACA allowed states that expanded Medicaid to childless adults to offer fewer benefits than the benefits in traditional Medicaid provided to pregnant women, children, the elderly, people with disabilities and low income parents.
• In the CarePlus program for childless adults, parents will lose access to important benefits unless they can establish a medical condition that entitles them to regain MassHealth Standard.
• Parents will also be at risk of more benefit cuts in CarePlus than in MassHealth Standard. Under proposals to repeal and reform the ACA, state “alternative benefit programs” for childless adults may not even have to cover essential benefits like mental health and substance abuse services in the future, and medical transportation would be an easy target.

-See the full Bellingham Herald article and the MLRI Fact Sheet.

Leaked Executive Order Would Include Health Care and Other Non-Cash Benefits for “Public Charge” Risk

The Washington Post has posted a leaked draft of an Executive Order that would dramatically broaden the types of benefits that would count as a “Public Charge” risk for immigrants.

The executive order proposes to chill access to critical programs that can help taxpaying immigrants and their families gain access to health care, food, and other essential needs. The order seeks to vastly expand the definition of what constitutes a “public charge” under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Under long-standing federal policy, receiving cash assistance can be taken into account as one of many factors determining whether a non-citizen seeking entry or lawful permanent residence will be able to support themselves in the future. However, this new order would potentially reverse nearly a century of policy guidelines and expand “public charge” to include basic non-cash programs that have been excluded, such as nutrition programs (such as WIC, school lunch, Meals on Wheels), fuel assistance, health care coverage (MassHealth Limited, MassHealth for pregnant women), disaster relief, and immunizations.

Social Service staff can learn more about Public Charge on our website.

-From Important update on Senate health bill & Trump's public benefits comment, Matthew Lopas, National Immigration Law Center, June 22, 2017.

The Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed legislation Thursday mandating protections for pregnant workers, an effort that came up short on Beacon Hill last session but now appears poised to become law.

The Senate passed the so-called Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (S. 2093) filed by Sen. Joan Lovely by a 38-0 vote after about half an hour of debate.

"This legislation represents a shared commitment by both workers and businesses to support equal opportunities for pregnant women in the workplace," Lovely said in her introduction of the bill on the Senate floor. She added, "Pregnant women who need income but are not granted accommodations are often forced to continue working in hazardous conditions, risking their own health and the health of their pregnancy. By ensuring reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers, we can help keep these women in their jobs and earning a paycheck, providing stability for countless families across the commonwealth."

Lovely said three-quarters of women in America will become pregnant at some point during their working lives, and in Massachusetts, more than half of all pregnant women and new mothers are in the workforce.

The bill offers pregnant women reasonable accommodations, including "more frequent or longer paid or unpaid breaks, time off to recover from childbirth with or without pay, acquisition or modification of equipment, seating, temporary transfer to a less strenuous or hazardous position, job restructuring, light duty, break time and private non-bathroom space for expressing breast milk, assistance with manual labor, or modified work schedules." The accommodations come with a caveat as the bill requires them as long as they "would not impose undue hardship on the employer."

It also prohibits employers from refusing to hire a pregnant woman solely because she requires a reasonable accommodation. Employers would not be permitted to force pregnant employees to accept an accommodation that she does not want or to take leave if another reasonable accommodation could be provided.

There appears to be very little in the way of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act becoming law in Massachusetts. A similar bill cleared the House unanimously in May and Gov. Charlie Baker, who is sometimes reluctant to discuss pending legislation, indicated he would sign the legislation if it reaches his desk.

"We'll see if it needs any type of conference committee oversight [to reconcile the two bills], we're not really sure at this point," Linda O'Connell, acting executive director of MotherWoman,  an advocacy group that has led the lobbying charge, told reporters. "The bills are so close."

-See the full WBUR story.

The US Supreme Court, in a careful attempt to balance competing interests, this week only allowed the Trump administration’s travel ban to be applied to foreign nationals from the six majority Muslim countries who lack “any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”

For individuals, the Court ruled, a “close familial relationship” is required. For entities, the relationship must be “formal, documented, and formed in the ordinary course,” such as a student’s admission to a U.S. university, an offer of employment, or an invitation to give a lecture.

All other citizens of the six designated countries – Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan and Yemen – may be barred from entering the U.S. for 90 days.

The Court also upheld a 120-day suspension of the U.S. refugee resettlement program, and a reduction of the annual cap from 110,000, as former President Obama had planned, to 50,000. In fiscal 2016, the U.S. admitted 85,000 refugees.

After the ruling the Trump administration set new criteria for visa applicants from these nations and all refugees that require a ‘‘close’’ family or business tie to the United States.

Visas that have already been approved will not be revoked, but instructions issued by the State Department Wednesday said that new applicants from Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iran and Yemen must prove a relationship with a parent, spouse, child, adult son or daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law or sibling already in the United States to be eligible. The same requirement, with some exceptions, holds for would-be refugees from all nations that are still awaiting approval for admission to the U.S.

Grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, fiancees or other extended family members are not considered to be close relationships, according to the guidelines that were issued in a cable sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates late on Wednesday. The new rules took effect at 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday June 29, according to the cable, which was obtained by The Associated Press. This limited definition of "close familial relationships" is being challenged in federal court.

As far as business or professional links are concerned, the State Department said a legitimate relationship must be ‘‘formal, documented and formed in the ordinary course rather than for the purpose of evading’’ the ban. Journalists, students, workers or lecturers who have valid invitations or employment contracts in the U.S. would be exempt from the ban. The exemption does not apply to those who seek a relationship with an American business or educational institution purely for the purpose of avoiding the rules, the cable said. A hotel reservation or car rental contract, even if it was pre-paid, would also not count, it said.

Consular officers may grant other exemptions to applicants from the six nations if they have ‘‘previously established significant contacts with the United States;’’ “significant business or professional obligations’’ in the U.S.; if they are an infant, adopted child or in need of urgent medical care; if they are traveling for business with a recognized international organization or the U.S. government or if they are a legal resident of Canada who applies for a visa in Canada, according to the cable.

Yet another important provision of today’s Supreme Court ruling is that it provides for any refugee who meets the “bona fide relationship” standards to be admitted to the United States even if the 50,000 annual cap has already been met.

In 2016, Massachusetts resettled a total of 2,433 refugees, including 232 from Somalia, 209 from Syria, 26 from Iran, 22 from Sudan, 4 from Yemen, and 1 from Libya.

The new guidance will remain in place until the Supreme Court issues a final ruling on the matter. Arguments before the justices will not be held until at least October, so the interim rules will remain in place at least until the fall.

Diversity Lottery Affected

Under the new rules, would-be immigrants from the six countries who won a coveted visa in the government’s diversity lottery — a program that randomly awards 50,000 green cards annually to people from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States — will also have to prove they have a ‘‘bona fide relationship’’ within the U.S. or are eligible for another waiver or face being banned for at least 90 days. That hurdle may be a difficult one for those immigrants to overcome, as many visa lottery winners don’t have relatives in the U.S. or jobs in advance of arriving in the country.

Generally, winners in the diversity lottery only need prove they were born in an eligible county and have completed high school or have at least two years of work experience in an occupation that requires at least two other years of training or experience.

Sources

• Partial US travel restrictions go into effect today, Associated Press
• What the Supreme Court’s ruling on Trump’s travel ban means, The Boston Globe
• Decision on travel ban spares family members, students and workers e-mail, MIRA Coalition, June 26, 2017.

In recent months federal immigration agents have been positioning themselves in and around state, local, and juvenile courthouses in Massachusetts to arrest unauthorized immigrants who face even minor criminal charges, defense lawyers and prosecutors say.

In April alone, more than 40 people were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who approached them on courthouse steps, as they got out of their cars, and inside courtrooms, according to the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), which oversees the state’s 500 public defenders. There has been such an increase that state court officials recently reached out to ICE to talk about the arrests.

The unusually aggressive tactics are part of a sweeping crackdown on undocumented immigrants by the Trump administration, which has expanded who can be targeted for deportation. In the first two months of Donald Trump’s presidency, the number of federal arrests in Boston of unauthorized immigrants more than doubled to 444 compared with the same time period last year under President Barack Obama.

Defense lawyers say that many of their clients who are arrested are unable to get to court to fight the criminal charges against them.

Prosecutors say the presence of immigration agents in courthouses could frighten away witnesses and victims involved in ongoing court cases who are in the country illegally.

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said prosecutors in her office are worried the arrests will make unauthorized immigrants reluctant to report crimes and testify in court.

 “We’ve already seen reports that sexual assault and domestic violence reporting are down,” Healey said in a statement. “This is why we think the Trump administration’s approach is ultimately ineffective, because it undercuts local law enforcement’s ability to develop the critical trust needed to keep communities safe.”

CPCS and other defense attorneys said those arrested often faced charges as minor as unlawful operation of a vehicle. In all cases, the charges were not serious enough to warrant state custody, lawyers said. Some were teenagers, and many had no prior criminal record, said Wendy Wayne, director of the Immigration Impact Unit at CPCS.

None of the defendants had been convicted before they were detained, lawyers said, meaning that they were taken into federal custody without a chance to argue their case.

Defense attorneys said ICE’s maneuvers could have dire consequences for immigrants who may be eligible for permanent residency or some type of relief from deportation. An open criminal case will likely prevent them from gaining legal status, and will hurt their chances of returning to the United States legally if they are deported.

Julio, a Salvadoran immigrant who asked to be identified only by his first name, said ICE agents went to his sister’s house one week after he went to a Middlesex County district court for a pretrial hearing in his case, an assault charge that arose from a fight with two other men. Julio, who has pleaded not guilty to the charge, was not at his sister’s house when ICE came and has so far avoided arrest.

Julio said he came to the United States three years ago after gangs threatened to kill him and his younger brother. After crossing the border illegally into New Mexico, they were detained by immigration agents, but allowed to remain in the country pending their claims for asylum.

Meanwhile, he was issued a work permit that has been renewed every year.

Since then, Julio, who — according to his lawyer — had no criminal record before his arrest this past winter, said he has attended all of his immigration hearings. He needs to resolve his criminal case or run the risk of losing his petition for asylum, but now is afraid he will be taken in by ICE before he has a chance to fight the charges against him.

“I never thought they’d come looking for me like that,” he said in Spanish. “I want to be here. I’ve been doing what I’m supposed to.”

Julio’s lawyer, Eduardo Masferrer, said that since President Trump took office, more than six of his clients have been taken into federal custody as they fight their cases. Others have even chosen not to post bail so they can be held in jails by the state, shielding them from ICE apprehension and ensuring they will get to court, since defendants held on state criminal charges are transported by county sheriff’s officers, not federal officials.

Neudauer said that if a county prosecutor wants to pursue a criminal case against someone who has been detained, ICE will transport defendants to state court to fight their charges. But defense lawyers said some of their clients have missed hearings because ICE failed to bring them, even when a judge issued an order that they be transported to court at the request of the defense.

“I’ve had multiple clients who have wanted to be brought in to fight their charges who were not brought in by ICE,” said M. Barusch, a criminal defense attorney based in Boston.

In April, Barusch said he saw ICE agents arrest a man in his 20s outside East Boston District Court. The man was there to answer charges of unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, a charge that does not carry jail time. But Barusch said he never made it to the courtroom, and was ultimately found in default.

-See the full Boston Globe article.

Trump’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget aims to cut nearly $1 billion per year from SSI recipients’ benefits by creating a sliding scale for multi-recipient SSI families.
Justice in Aging’s new issue brief Cuts to Multi-Recipient Households Push Older Adults & Their Families Deeper into Poverty outlines who’s most affected and discusses how these cuts would discourage families with older adults and people with disabilities from helping one another out by sharing their homes. The cuts would push already poor families deeper into poverty, force people onto the streets or into institutions, and result in costly administrative burdens for the Social Security Administration (SSA).

Excerpts:

• SSI’s modest benefits average only about $540 per month, or $18 per day, and are the only personal income for over half of adult recipients. The maximum federal SSI payment for an individual ($735 per month in 2017)  is less than 75 percent of the federal poverty guideline for a single person.

•  This proposal would reduce benefits for the almost 1 million households where more than one family member receives SSI
• Housing is a major challenge for SSI recipients who live in the community; the average SSI benefit is far less than typical rents. In 2014, on average nationally, an individual receiving SSI needed to pay 104% of their monthly benefit to rent a one-bedroom apartment on the open market. Analysis of SSA data shows that only 28% of all adult SSI recipients live alone. There are various reasons why SSI recipients may decide to live together, including to decrease isolation and to provide love and supportive care for one another. Economic factors also result in SSI recipients choosing to live together, in order to pool resources to share rent and other household expenses such as utilities or food. As with all families, those receiving SSI benefit from being able to set up their households in the way that makes the most sense for their unique situations. Many SSI recipients are able to keep a roof over their head only because of shared living arrangements, and should not be penalized for living together.

 Read and share the brief.

SNAP Cut Proposal

U.S. Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) delivered a speech on the House floor this month slamming President Trump for proposing a budget that proposes devastating cuts to essential anti-poverty programs that help millions of families in need every day. Here are some highlights of Congressman McGovern’s speech:

The Trump Budget decimates the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – known as SNAP – our nation’s first line of defense against hunger. It cuts the program by $193 billion dollars over 10 years – that’s a 25 percent reduction. President Trump makes these ruthless cuts by cutting eligibility and reducing benefits. He also adds a new requirement that states pay 25 percent of the cost of the benefits. 

Estimates suggest that in any given month, this proposal would restrict access to SNAP for up to one million Americans struggling to find work. 

Kicking people off of SNAP doesn’t help them find a job – it only makes them hungrier, weaker, and even less likely to qualify for work. It’s simply a rotten thing to do. 

With a modest food assistance benefit of about $1.40 per person, per meal, SNAP alleviates hunger and reduces poverty. It supplements the food budgets of families and helps them make ends meet.  And innovations in the program have helped to spur the consumption of healthier foods. 

If we want to talk about reforming SNAP – or about how the program should look in the future – we need to focus on how to make the program even better.  We need to make sure anyone who needs modest food assistance benefits has access to them. We need to support and expand innovative programs that help increase the purchasing power of SNAP. And we need to increase SNAP benefits so families who are helped by the program can access more nutritious food that lasts through the month.

View Congressman McGovern’s Speech or read the full text.

Sources

• Issue Brief: Cuts to SSI in Trump Budget Push Older Adults into Poverty, Justice in Aging, June 21, 2017 with excerpts from Cuts to Multi-Recipient Households Push Older Adults & Their Families Deeper into Poverty.
• McGovern: Trump Budget Hurts Families Struggling with Hunger, Press Release, forwarded by Our new issue brief Cuts to Multi-Recipient Households Patricia Baker, Mass Law Reform Institute.

Advocates want to close loopholes in a law, intended to protect victims of domestic violence, that may unintentionally give rapists the ability to seek parental rights over children conceived during a sexual assault.

In 2014, Gov. Deval Patrick signed a bill that expanded the definition of sexual assault, lengthened the waiting period before bail could be set for alleged rapists, and required employers to provide up to 15 days of time off for assault victims.

A provision of the law limits the parental rights of convicted rapists over children conceived during a sexual assault, but it also gives offenders the ability to challenge the statute if a judge "makes an independent determination that visitation is in the best interest of the child.”

Advocates say that could result in a rape victims being forced to face their attackers over custody rights.

Even if a judge denies visitation, the law implies that rapists are entitled to due process in family court, including cross-examination of the victim, advocates say.

 “This statute empowers rapists with legal authority they can then assert over victims and use to control and abuse them years after the crime,” said Wendy Murphy, an attorney and director of the Women’s and Children’s Advocacy Project at the Boston-based Center for Law and Social Responsibility, during a recent hearing.

Lawmakers are weighing several bills that would clear up the ambiguity.

One proposal — backed by 37 lawmakers including Sen. Joan Lovely, D-Salem — would prevent judges from granting visitation or custody rights to a parent convicted of rape. A similar proposal would block rapists from getting custody or parental rights over a child.

Both proposals would still require rapists to provide child support if a judge orders it.

'Forcing unwanted relationships'

Rep. Michelle DuBois, D-Brockton, who filed one of the bills, told the panel that the law allows rapists to petition for custody until a child turns 18.

“This is an undue infringement on the rape victim’s rights to move on with her life, without fear that her rapist will resurface and force an unwanted relationship with her and her child,” she said.

Murphy said many proposals don’t go far enough to protect victims because, among other concerns, they require a rapist’s conviction.

She’s written a bill, filed by Sen. William Brownsberger, D-Belmont, that bans family and probate court judges from even considering the issue of parental rights from the birth of the child until a rapist is convicted or exonerated.
“This will prevent the absurd result of having rape-created children forced into harmful relationships with rapists after birth and before conviction,” Murphy said.

Massachusetts is one of two dozen states that require a criminal conviction to block most parental rights, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Other states deny parental rights if there's “clear and convincing evidence” that an individual carried out a sexual assault that resulted in the conception of the child.

Nationally only 36 percent of rapes are reported, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and just 12 percent of sexual assaults result in the arrest of a perpetrator.

-See the full Salem News article.

The 13-story tower in Jamaica Plain was pitched as one small part of the solution to Boston’s housing crunch, adding 195 apartments to a market that needs all the units it can get.

Yet with one signature last month, 24 of those apartments were taken off the table, snapped up by a corporate-housing giant that will install couches and beds, stock the cabinets with dishes, and rent the spaces — probably for $200 or more a night — to traveling business people and visiting doctors in town for a few weeks or months.

The deal between Churchill Corporate Services and Brookline-based Longwood Group is one of the biggest yet in Boston for a growing — and some say worrisome — niche in the city’s drum-tight rental market: corporate housing.

For property owners, it can be a good deal, especially when they’re seeking to fill large new buildings, which can take a year or more. Third-party operators such as Churchill and the industry giant Oakwood Worldwide will pay full freight for apartments that might otherwise sit empty for months.

But some housing advocates worry that could crowd out everyday renters, sidelining much-needed apartments to serve short-timers who can afford far higher rents.

“This is scary,” said Rich Giordano, an organizer at Fenway Community Development Corporation. “These are all units that should be rental apartments, and they’re basically being used as hotels.”

Temporary furnished apartments have long been a piece of Boston’s housing market, catering to relocating executives, doctors, and academics and typically tucked into high-end apartment buildings. Now, amid the demand from growing companies such as General Electric and from international patients at Boston’s hospitals, the market is expanding.

There are no comprehensive data on the corporate-rental industry, and it’s not clear how many temporary units exist in Boston; there’s no definitive database or registration requirement.

Corporate rental firms lease units for a year or more and then rent them to relocation firms or individuals — usually for at least one month at a time — at a significant premium. For example, a Kendall Square apartment that rents for $3,048 a month on the open market is listed at $219 a night by Oakwood. That’s $6,570 for 30 days.

Now lawmakers in Boston are trying to figure out how to regulate the industry, as they work on new rules for more tourist-oriented short-term rentals such as the apartments found on Airbnb. Officials in Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s administration say they see the need for corporate housing, but the mayor has made adding housing a top priority. The city doesn’t want to lose long-term units to the more lucrative corporate market.

“On one hand, these apartments are being used and providing a place for people to stay. On the other, they could have been set aside for a long-term lease for someone,” said Chris English, a policy analyst for the city who’s working on the issue. “That’s the rub.”

Complicating matters, developers don’t typically share their corporate housing plans when they’re seeking city permits, which often happens two or more years before a building is ready for occupancy. That makes it difficult to know how much of the space will be used as temporary housing.

 (Editor’s note: Churchill Living, Northeast Suites and Oakwood are all listed in the Short Term Apartments section of our Overnight Accommodations list).

-See the full Boston Globe article.

Tucked inside the Better Care Reconciliation Act is a plan would go far beyond repealing the Affordable Care Act to permanently restructure Medicaid from an entitlement program to one with per capita caps or block grants, a dramatic change that has been on the conservative wish list for years. While the vote on the bill has been delayed, it is important for the public to understand the impact if it ultimately were to pass without changes.

 “This is the most consequential change in 50 years for low-income people’s health care,” said Joan Alker, the executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University. “This is a massive change that has hardly been discussed.”

Since its founding, Medicaid has operated as a partnership between the federal government and the states. Each pays a share of patients’ medical bills, with no overall limit on spending. The House plan, the American Health Care Act, would try to slim down the federal share of that spending, by limiting how much the federal government would pay for each person enrolled in the program. The Senate version of the legislation would make the payments still leaner in later years.

The results, according to independent analyses, would be major reductions in federal spending on Medicaid over time. States would be left deciding whether to raise more money to make up the difference, or to cut back on medical coverage for people using the program. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the changes would lead to a reduction in spending on Medicaid of more than $800 billion over a decade. (That figure also includes additional cuts to the Obamacare Medicaid expansion.)

Medicaid’s reach is broad: About half of all births in the country are covered by Medicaid, and nearly 40 percent of children are covered through the program. Medicaid covers the long-term care costs of two-thirds of Americans living in nursing homes, many of them middle-class Americans who spent all of their savings on care before becoming eligible.

It covers children and adults with disabilities who require services that most commercial health insurance doesn’t include. It covers poor women who are pregnant or raising young children. Those populations were all included in the program before Obamacare became law.
It also provides insurance for poor adult Americans, and recent evidence shows that its expansion under Obamacare has given more poor people access to health care services and reduced their exposure to financial shocks.

The Republican approach would set a formula for determining a maximum payment for each person in the program. Then that cap would grow by a set rate each year. The gap would be left for states to fill — or cut.

The growth in medical spending tends to be uneven year over year, which means states might hit the caps in one year and fall under them in another, even without any program changes. Researchers at the Brookings Institution recently looked back at historical Medicaid spending to see what would have happened under a cap. They found that random variation was substantial.

Medicaid advocates worry particularly that a fixed growth rate doesn’t account for this varying pattern of health expenditures, which might shoot up in a year where there’s an epidemic or an important new treatment. Many Medicaid budgets increased in recent years after the introduction of expensive but effective medications for hepatitis C, for example. States had to pay more for the drug, but federal spending also increased to match it.

Advocates for the structural change point to inefficiencies and waste in the current program. There is some evidence that Medicaid programs enroll some people who are not eligible and sometimes cover some services that are not medically necessary. James Capretta, a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said that the current system, where the federal government matches all state spending, discourages efficiency.

Most researchers who study the program closely say that it is already quite lean. Major savings, they say, will be hard to achieve without reducing medical benefits or cutting higher-cost patients from the program.

Trump administration officials and Republican members of Congress have argued that the Medicaid changes won’t cause anyone to lose insurance coverage directly. That statement is true in only the narrowest sense.

Because the funding cuts would fall to states, it is state officials who would decide whether to save money by raising taxes, reducing payments to nursing homes or eliminating benefits like home-based care for disabled beneficiaries, a few available options under the law.

-This section adapted from The New York Times. See the full article.

What Else is in the Bill?

Here are some other “highlights” of the bill as currently drafted.

States will have more authority to reimpose lifetime and annual benefit caps and eliminate essential health benefits. This may be the most insidious provision of the repeal bill, and certainly is the most deeply hidden.

It’s buried in changes made to the ACA’s so-called Section 1332 waivers, which are designed to allow states to try innovative approaches to healthcare, especially through their Medicaid programs. Under the ACA, states can only seek waivers under certain conditions. The “innovative” changes can’t lead to fewer people insured, or subject them to higher out-of-pocket expenses.

The Senate bill repeals those limitations - and removes the flexibility of the Secretary of Health and Human Services to approve them. Under the measure, the secretary “must” approve a waiver request as long as it won’t increase the federal deficit. As a result, states would be able to eliminate the essential health benefits that all health plans must provide under the ACA - including hospitalization, prescription coverage, maternity care and substance abuse and mental health treatment. Since only essential health benefits are subject to the ban on lifetime and annual benefit limits, high-cost patients such as cancer victims and sufferers from chronic diseases could permanently lose their benefits in the course of their treatment.

Would states roll back these protections? By some reckonings, they’d have no choice. The overall impact of the Senate bill would be to shrink the individual health insurance market and leave sicker customers in the insurance pool, says Jeanne Lambrew of the Century Foundation, in part because the measure eliminates the individual mandate that keeps younger and healthier buyers in the market. As a result, she says, insurers will put enormous pressure on state governments to loosen their regulations to lower the insurance companies’ risk.

States would also be authorized to waive rules requiring that almost all customers be charged the same premium. That’s an invitation to preferential pricing that would effectively remove protections for people with preexisting conditions - they could be priced out of the individual market in a return to the dysfunctional system that denied them insurance in the pre-ACA era.

Under the repeal bill, waivers would be in place at least for eight years, compared with five under the ACA. That means that the rollbacks of consumer protections would be inoculated against repeals by new state or federal administrations.

Protection for people with preexisting conditions is destroyed. Senate Republicans claim in their talking points that the measure protects people with preexisting conditions from being denied coverage or priced out of the market. Don’t believe them. As Gene Sperling, a former economist for the Clinton and Obama administrations, and Michael Shapiro observe, “the Republican plan may not allow insurers to discriminate … through the front door, but they’ve created a backdoor way in.”

The key is that same Secton 1332 waiver provision. If states allow insurers to offer plans without those essential health benefits, they’ll offer “skinny” plans that don’t serve the needs of those with serious conditions. Plans that don’t cover cancer drugs or hospitalization, perhaps. Those patients will have no choice but to opt for more comprehensive plans, which will end up with an overabundance of expensive enrollees and therefore much higher premiums.

“The Senate bill will open the door to states forcing people with preexisting conditions into segregated markets that will lead them to pay far, far higher costs than everyone else,” Sperling and Shapiro say. “This bill will bring the country back to a system in which insurance only works for the healthy, and the sick can’t afford the coverage they need.”

Older Americans would get socked with much higher premiums and costs. The Senate bill changes the ACA’s premium subsidies in ways that severely hurt older customers. The bill expands the permissible range of premiums for older buyers compared to younger from a ratio of 3 to 1 in the ACA to 5 to 1. In other words, older buyers could be charged much more. It reduces subsidies for older buyers in other ways. The ACA’s subsidies are based entirely on income, and are provided to households with income up to 400% of the federal poverty line. The Senate bill cuts the maximum income to be eligible for subsidies to 350% of the poverty line - $42,210 for an individual. The measure also pegs subsidies partially to age, with older buyers entitled to smaller subsidies. In other words, an insurance buyer today earning $48,240 would pay a maximum premium of $4,583; anything over that would be paid by the government. Under the Senate plan, a 60-year-old earning up to $42,210 would pay a maximum premium of $6,838. And anyone earning more than $42,210 would have to pay whatever the insurer charged, with no subsidy.

The fight against opioid addiction is crippled. Opioid addiction has emerged as perhaps the worst public health crisis in America. But as much as 40% of the cost of treatment of addicts has been paid by Medicaid. The harsh cuts in that program imposed by the Senate bill would force more of that expense onto states that simply can’t afford it. Meanwhile, the projected loss of medical coverage by as many as 23 million Americans under repeal will keep many victims of the epidemic from finding treatment.

The Senate measure substitutes a frayed Band-Aid to cover that loss. Despite estimates of as much as $183 billion over 10 years to fight the epidemic and treat its victims — and a request from GOP Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia that $45 billion be added to the Senate measure for the purpose — the bill offers only a risible one-year appropriation of $2 billion.

The Senate Health Bill Excludes Many Lawfully Present Immigrants from Subsidies and Even Purchasing Coverage

The bill would restrict access to tax credits and to enrollment in a plan on an ACA-created marketplace, limiting it to qualified immigrants instead of the broader lawfully present immigrants. This would take away coverage from, for example:

• Survivors of serious crimes who are cooperating with law enforcement to prosecute the perpetrators;
• Individuals who have fled torture or persecution, or otherwise can’t return to their home countries, who are authorized to live and work lawfully in the US, but don’t have or don’t yet have one of the “qualified” statuses, such as those applying for asylum or a green card; and
• Immediate family members of US citizens who are authorized to live and work in the US but don’t yet have their green card.

It’s not clear how many people this would affect- there aren’t any estimates of how many people in the US count as “qualified aliens” under the 1996 law, and how many noncitizens participate in the exchanges - but many of those affected would end up unable to buy insurance at all. Lawfully present immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid and would no longer be able to purchase plans through the insurance exchanges. And for some immigrants — those who live in Washington, DC, for example, where there’s no access to health insurance outside the exchanges — there will simply be no way to buy health insurance at all.

-See the full Vox.com article (additional material from e-mail correspondence from Matthew Lopas, National Immigration Law Center, June 22, 2017).

Early last month, US House Republicans rammed through the American Health Care Act,  that, among other flaws, would be disastrous for pandemic planning and preparedness. The bill eliminates funding for the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which was created under the 2010 Affordable Care Act to invest in vaccination programs, electronic laboratory reporting of infectious diseases, and infection-prevention programs. Vaccines are an important preventive strategy against deadly pandemics, while electronic lab reporting facilitates a rapid response to disease. In other words, these are precisely the funds that will be needed to prevent the next Ebola or Zika virus from turning into a national catastrophe.

Even if the Senate bill currently circulating is ultimately defeated, we can be sure the Republican’s fight will continue, and that has important national security implications even beyond slashing emergency-planning funds (which, by the way, Trump’s proposed federal budget also does).

Cutting the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which deals directly with planning for bioterror attacks and pandemics, was only the most obvious way in which the House bill attempted to undermine American security. Over the long term, there is also a movement afoot to put basic health care out of reach of many Americans. Simply making healthcare unaffordable may seem less dramatic than slashing an emergency-preparedness budget, but doing so also undermines national security.

Uninsured people delay seeking health care. Once they seek it, often in a busy emergency room, they are typically given less attention than people with insurance. This failure to get care becomes a danger not only for the individual but for the public at large when the problem is a deadly infectious disease. We saw this scenario play out in Dallas during the Ebola crisis of 2014 and 2015. A poor Liberian man, infected with the virus, presented himself to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital with severe abdominal pain and a high fever. He was examined and sent home with a bottle of antibiotics. Amazingly, he did not set off an Ebola outbreak in his community, though the risk that he could have was significant and the wider public shouldn’t count on being so lucky next time. Before dying, he infected two nurses who had received inadequate training and equipment to protect themselves.

During the anthrax crisis of 2001, in which spores of the deadly disease were sent through the US mail, many people infected were federal employees with health insurance. If these postal workers hadn’t had easy access to health care, the death toll might have been higher than only five; 17 more were infected but survived thanks to timely medical attention. Anthrax spores do not spread from person to person, but it’s no stretch to imagine a different scenario: Suppose a future attack involves smallpox, a highly communicable virus, and that the initial victims are uninsured childcare workers or food handlers. The initial signs of smallpox include fever, chills, and headache. Uninsured victims would likely delay trying to get care, hoping for the symptoms to pass. By waiting they would certainly expose others to the virus, potentially setting of a pandemic.

Countries like Canada, which has universal health coverage and a well-funded public health infrastructure, are much better prepared to handle deadly epidemics. In 2003, Canada confronted Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which originated in China. A physician from Guangdong province inadvertently infected a number of tourists with the SARS virus, setting off a global pandemic after everyone returned to their home countries. Among the infected travelers was an elderly Canadian woman who returned to Toronto after a 10-day vacation in Hong Kong.

Over the course of about four months, the Canadian health system worked hard to contain the virus, treating 400 people who became ill and quarantining 25,000 Toronto residents who may have been exposed. Ultimately, 44 people died from the disease in Canada, but the result would have been much worse without a quick and well-organized response.

-See the full The Bulletin opinion piece.