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National Disability Rights Network Checklist for UCP Affiliates Providing Disaster Relief

This document has been put together by TASC at NDRN staff based on information provided by P&A staff, as well as various coalition efforts both inside and outside of the disability community. It is intended to act as a checklist to assist you in your efforts to work with people coming into your states.

How is TASC at NDRN helping?

TASC at NDRN is working to coordinate the flow of information between states and across the country. We have assigned a staff person to each state who will be contacting your ED within the next 24 hours to discuss your particular needs and the key issues identified within your state.

If you identify individuals with these or other problems, please let the TASC/NDRN contact know the specifics so we can share this information with all involved policymakers to try and ensure adequate resources for key P&A activities.

In particular, we need numbers of individuals identified with disabilities in your states and any stories that you come across to help us make the case nationally that Katrina has had a dramatic impact on people with disabilities. There needs to be press coverage of the impact of Katrina and the evacuation on people with disabilities – children, adults, and families.

We have posted information on our website – including links to many of the government websites – at www.ndrn.org/katrinalinks.htm. We will update this information on an ongoing basis.

What do you need to do?

Outreach

1. Identify Shelters Housing Evacuees: those run by relief agencies such as the Red Cross and other groups, such as churches; schools; hotels/motels; military bases; nursing homes; homeless shelters; existing or closed institutions; disability service providers; etc. In some areas, “special needs” shelters may be set up specifically for people with disabilities. Many of those running the general shelters and even the “special needs” shelters will have no knowledge of the needs of individuals with mental illness, cognitive, or sensory disabilities.
2. Get your P&A on the resource/call list for shelters; local and state government; and all offices of state and Congressional representatives, should they get calls from people with disabilities in your state.
3. Send staff out to shelters to identify people with disabilities – in particular the newly disabled – and to offer the P&A as a resource for people with disabilities. Have some basic idea of the role you want to play before sending staff to the shelter.
   • What do they need? Can you help them reconstruct their records?
   • What can you help them with? What other resources are available in your community?
4. In your outreach efforts, be prepared to address the needs of individuals in the shelters whose primary language is something other than English.

Access to Shelters

1. Develop a letter explaining who you are, what services you offer and your access authority to provide to shelter officials, individuals within the shelters, and other agencies.
2. Notify NDRN about any issues or problems that arise.

Information and Referral

1. Develop a list of local resources that people with disabilities can be referred to on all the issues identified below. Consider sharing these resources with those running the shelters, other government agencies or organizations providing services to the evacuees.

Issues Identified

1. Medicaid
   • HHS has issued a policy statement allowing people to use their Medicaid cards in other states. HHS asked pharmacies to fill 30-day prescriptions without requiring a new prescription but with the empty prescription bottle.
   • The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) lifted its ban on reimbursing non-certified Medicaid providers, which includes some people that may have been decertified for good reason. For CMS policy statement see: www.cms.hhs.gov/katrina/.
2. FEMA Benefits
   • Every hurricane survivor should be encouraged to include information regarding disabilities or chronic health care needs on their FEMA applications in order to receive the full range of federal disaster relief assistance available to them. More information on applying for FEMA benefits can be found at www.fema.gov/about/process/.
   • FEMA officials appear to only be working in Red Cross shelters and not going to the many privately operated shelters in churches, etc. Thus people at other shelters cannot apply for FEMA assistance unless they go to the Red Cross shelter, which raises issues of transportation, etc. Some United Way volunteers are taking FEMA forms to other shelters.
   • FEMA’s applications for assistance ask for a permanent address to which checks and other information can be sent. Some states have set up PO boxes or drop boxes for evacuees to use.
3. Keeping families together and special needs shelters
   • A number of P&As are reporting that families are being split up. In areas with special need shelters or where people are being sent to hospitals or other institutions, family members are not always able to stay together.
4. Unemployment benefits
   • Each state administers its own Unemployment Insurance program and people who worked for long enough and lost their jobs as a result of Hurricane Katrina will usually be eligible for regular Unemployment Insurance or Disaster Unemployment Assistance.
   • The following is basic contact information for applying. All three states have internet filing. Alabama also had in place a telephone claim filing system before Hurricane Katrina. Louisiana and Mississippi had required internet or in person application filing but appear to have implemented telephone systems. IT IS NOT CLEAR IF THEY ARE TTY ACCESSIBLE.

     If the person worked as an employee,or was self-employed in AL, LA or MS and is still in AL, LA, or MS.

     In Alabama call 1-866-234-5382; TYY/TDD call 1-800-499-2035 to file a claim. For general questions about UI or DUA in Alabama call 1-800-361-4524. Alabama UI website: dir.alabama.gov/uc/.

     In Louisiana to file a UI or DUA claim they can use the Internet at www.LAWORKS.net or they may go to a One-Stop Career Center (use the service locator to find the Center nearest the individual's residence). An 800 number is being established for people who are filing as a direct result of Hurricane Katrina. The toll-free number is 1-800-818-7811. Call times will be expanded. All other customers can call 1-866-783-5567. Louisiana UI website: www.ldol.state.la.us.

     In Mississippi to file a UI or DUA claim they can go to a One-Stop Career Center or call 1-888-844-3577 between the hours of 7:00 am and 6:30 pm seven days a week. Mississippi UI website: mdes.ms.gov/wps/portal/#null

     Relocated residents of AL, LA or MS, worked as an employee, or were self-employed, in any one or more of the three states, and are calling from a different state:

     If they worked in Alabama: call 1-866-234-5382; TYY/TDD 1-800-499-2035 to file a claim. For general questions about UI or DUA in Alabama call 1-800-361-4524.

     If they worked or were self-employed in Louisiana or Mississippi they should contact the state where they are currently located. The state where the individual is at the time of the call will take an Interstate claim.

     Applicants can access ows.doleta.gov/unemploy/ which provides a map of state web sites providing information about how claims are taken in that state. This site also provides access to America's Service Locator which provides office locations based upon the applicant's current zip code.

     Individuals who need verification of their earnings for DUA claims can contact the IRS at 1-866-562-5227 from 7:00 a.m. through 10:00 p. m. EDT to request this information.

5. Food Stamps
   • Some States are giving reciprocity for food stamps.
6. Social Security
   • All offices are taking walk-ins however transportation remains a major. Some P&As are working with the shelter officials to get SSA to come to shelters.
   • SSA also appears to still be requiring a picture IDs, which many people do not have.
7. Durable Medical Equipment
   • People being separated from their wheelchairs.
   • We have heard of shelters not knowing what supplies are available and how to get them to the people who need them.
   • Work with disability organizations in your area to identify resources available. For instance, the Paralyzed Veterans of America (www.pva.org/aboutPVA/contactephone.htm) has wheelchairs available.
8. Public Housing and Section 8
   • HUD has sent guidance to Public Housing Authorities saying that HUD’s first priority is to help existing public housing and voucher (Section 8) tenants who were affected by Hurricane Katrina. After that need is met, HUD says PHA can help others who were not in public housing or had Section 8. PHAs are supposed to help families who had been in public housing or had Vouchers (Section 8) who arrive without documentation to verify they were prior PHA tenants or Voucher recipients through HUD databases (Real Estate Assessment Center- REAC).
   • This guidance does not have any discussion of disability-related issues, such as assignment to accessible units, Voucher extensions to allow people with disabilities longer to find accessible housing and the possibility of higher rent levels but there is older HUD guidance supporting these accommodations.
9. Other Housing Issues
   • Tenants in privately owned HUD subsidized housing. Persons who have been certified by FEMA as being displaced from their housing and are eligible for housing assistance under FEMA rules may be moved to the top of waiting lists for Section 221(d) and 236 subsidized housing projects. See, HUD PIH 04-22.
   • Low Income Tax Credit Properties – The Treasury Department and the IRS are waiving the low-income housing tax credit rules that prohibit owners of low-income housing from providing housing to victims of Hurricane Katrina who do not qualify as low-income. The action will expand the availability of housing for disaster victims and their families.
   • Rural Development Housing – Like HUD, USDA Rural Development has advised that existing tenants in uninhabitable Rural Development funded housing may apply at any Rural Development financed property as a “displaced tenant.” In accordance with 7 CFR 3560.154(g)(2)(ii) they will be placed, first come-first served on the waiting list. They would then be offered any vacant unit or the next available unit if no vacancies exist.
   • HUD had allowed Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) and subsidized housing providers to allocate certain properties for the elderly. P&As may want to approach their PHAs about suspending the allocation plans to make subsidized housing providers accept more people with disabilities (rather than only the elderly under current rules).
   • Homeowners should get mortgage payment relief.
   • Temporary housing in HUD-owned, single-family houses and multifamily housing should match people who need accessible housing to whatever accessible units there are. If HUD spends money to re-open closed units, Section 504 of Rehab Act requires that at least a minimal number of units be made accessible for people with disabilities. At least 5 percent – or at minimum one unit – accessible for mobility impaired and 2 percent – or at minimum one unit – for people with visual or hearing disabilities.
   • Long-term assistance is going to be needed in terms of transitioning to accessible and integrated environments, particularly when new building is involved.
10. Education
    • Insuring services for students with disabilities who enter new schools without copies of their IEPs. The U.S. Department of Education has put out some vague information stating that school systems will need to “relax their own standards a little bit.” However, to date, TASC/NDRN is not aware of any concrete guidance from the U.S. Department of Education regarding this issue. TASC/NDRN has contacted the Department for further information in this area and will update the Network as information is relayed to us. However, please check your State Department of Education website as some States are informing schools to provide special education services immediately based on information by the parents. Also see the website for the State Coordinators for Homeless Education at: www.serve.org/nche.
    • Getting services to children if they do not have a permanent address (or are living in temporary settings). Families displaced by Hurricane Katrina and attempting to register their children in the local school where they are staying may look to the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, for guidance. NDRN/TASC provided a Q&A on this issue in January 2004 that will be useful for those not familiar with the Act. The Q & A can be found on NDRN’s website at www.ndrn.org/pub/qa/edu_homeless.pdf.
    • IDEA 2004 specifically requires states to identify, evaluate, and provide special education and related services, as appropriate, to children who are homeless. The website for the National Center for Homeless Education has several useful documents for students with disabilities available to download. The site provides a letter and a form from the Louisiana State Department of Education that state coordinators of homeless children may use to seek school records of children. Also the site has memos from Alabama, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and the Virginia State Departments of Education explaining their mission to enroll students displaced by Hurricane Katrina. However, most states provide basic information and do not specifically address the needs of students with disabilities. The site also provides a link to a memo from the USDA regarding free lunches for displaced students, permitting schools to provide lunches to displaced students, including students now staying with fam ily members. The web site is: www.serve.org/nche/
    • The National Association of School Psychologists provides information on how to help children cope with the recent disaster. See: www.nasponline.org/NEAT/katrina.html.
    • Obtaining supplies for the number of students entering existing schools. The Department has developed a web link that lists various organizations willing to donate school supplies to needy institutions that experience an influx of students. The site is designed to allow schools to indicate what supplies are needed and search for what supplies companies have available. The link is: www.ed.gov/news/hurricane/index.html.
11. Coordination with Other Disability Groups
    • Are you in touch with other groups in the state so that they know when to contact you and so you can refer people to them, as appropriate?
12. State Legislative Needs
    • There are apparently issues with transferring Medicaid and other cases to other states since both Louisiana and Mississippi computer systems are down. Are there any statutory barriers in your state to allowing non-residents to receive services under Medicaid or other state programs?

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