fns would like to welcome cary lasheen, seniorstaff attorney at the national center for law on economic justice. miss lasheen willbe presenting our webinar today. the national center works across the country to ensurethat benefits programs for low-income individuals and families are administered fairly and incompliance with the law. as a disability rights lawyer at the national center, miss lasheenis one of the nation's foremost experts on the intersection of welfare and disabilitylaw. she has advised and worked with both advocates and welfare agencies in numerousstates on how to bring their welfare and other benefit programs into compliance with federaldisability rights laws. she has also been a major help to us at the snap federal officein gaining a deeper understanding on disability
right laws and snap. we're very lucky to haveher as our presenter today. but before we get underway with the presentation, i'd liketo go over some logistics of the webinar tool. first, conference captioning is provided bythe federal relay conference captioning service. it is provided in the live meeting clientunder the "more" menu item in the upper right. if captioning is not already being displayed,please use the event id currently being displayed. if you do not wish to view the caption throughlive meeting, you can close the "more" window by clicking the "x" in the upper right-handof the window. there will be a question-and-answer session following today's presentation. youmay ask a question at any time through the webinar tool by typing your question intothe q&a tab located at the top left-hand side
of your screen. handouts for today's sessioncan be found in the handout tab of the live meeting tool. the handout tab is on the topright-hand side of the screen and looks like three pieces of paper. by clicking on thetab you will see handouts available for you to download to your computer. there are severalhandouts available for today's webinar, including today's presentation and a handout co-authoredby miss lasheen and maximus, entitled "modernizing public benefits programs; what the law saysstate agencies must do to serve people with disabilities." today's webinar is being recordedand will be available for download in the near future. as a reminder, please disableyour computer video camera. streaming video will not be used for this webinar. with that,i would like to welcome cary lasheen again
and hand it over to her.thank you, michael, and thank you everybody. i'm really happy to have this opportunityto speak to all of you today about these issues. i think we can go to the agenda slide, michael.so what i'm going to talk about is, first i'm going to give somewhat of an overviewof ada 504 issues, some rules of thumb, and some of the key legal requirements. then i'mgoing to focus next on auxiliary aids and services and the obligation to provide effectivecommunication with people with disabilities, and then i'm going to talk a little bit snapaccess point; meaning local offices and phone systems and call centers. i should probablyadd just to be clear that i will not be discussing the obligations of snap agencies to job applicantsand employees with disabilities. that is,
you know, a separate topic and i know, often,agencies do separate training on that. so i'm ready for the next slide. so the americanswith disabilities act and section 504 of the rehabilitation act apply to local snap offices.they apply to agency websites and call centers and phone systems that are not in call centers,and they cover services that are provided through contract organizations. and we actuallydon't have a slide on this. i assumed people signing up for the webinar already knew, butgenerally the title ii of the americans with disabilities act applies to all state andlocal governments and their agencies and departments, the programs and services and activities ofthose government entities. and section 504 of the rehabilitation act applies to recipientsof federal financial assistance, which includes
the federal snap funds provided to statesand localities by usda. so first we're going to talk about some rules of thumb for adaand 504 compliance, and i want to be clear up front that some of these rules of thumbare concepts that are actually embedded in the laws and some are my observations andthings, and my opinions, having worked on these issues with benefits agencies and withadvocates for a long time. so the first rule of thumb is that compliance is not just abouttechnical standards and technology. i think there's a tendency to get hung up on and worryabout equipment, do we have the right equipment, do we have, you know, the right technologicalexpertise. and those issues are important, but a lot of the issues that come up reallyrelate to the policies and procedures that
the agency has and whether staff comply withthem. the second rule of thumb that i've listed here is one size does not fit all. that conceptis, i think, reflected in the disability rights laws in a number of different ways. the assumptionis that the accommodations that people will need are individualized, that people's abilitiesare individualized; that things people need for effective communication, that everybodydoesn't need the same thing. and then a corollary of that is that one exception does not fitall. not everyone who is speech and hearing impaired knows and uses american sign language.not everyone who is speech or hearing impaired has and uses a tty. so it's important to rememberthat even if you make sign language interpreters available, or even if you have a tty, thatthat's not the end of the discussion or the
end of the obligations in terms of providingaccess to programs and services to people who are speech and hearing impaired. the nextrule of thumb that i have is avoid assumptions. often you cannot tell what people can andcan't do and what they need or if they need anything at all by the way that they lookor by knowing what their diagnosis is. the accommodation process should be simple. themore complex it is the less likely people with disabilities are to get the accommodationsthey need and to get them when they need them. rsps and contracts are extremely important.when you are issuing an rfp you should require bidders in the rfp. in your rfp you shouldtell them to describe in detail what they will do to meet the ada 504 obligations thatyou have in administering whatever it is that
you've contracted to them, whether it's awebsite that's being designed or a call center that they're going to run. and what they sayin response should count towards the ultimate score that their bid gets, and you shouldalso ask about their knowledge and experience in doing the ada 504, you know, work, whateverit is, making a website, designing a website so that it's accessible. i note that sometimespeople say that there are not enough people out there that, say, do web design and doreally understand and know the accommodation obligations. you are in a very powerful positionto change that, because we've got a supply-and-demand situation, and if that's a part of the packageof what you're asking bidders to bid on and paying for, then i think contractors willdevelop that expertise if they don't have
it already, or they'll find people to workwith that have it. contracts should include details about what contractors will do tomeet their ada and 504 obligations. boilerplate language like "the contractor will complywith the ada and 504" in my observation does not result in compliance because it doesn'tspell out what you think ada 504 compliance means and what your expectations are of thecontractor. so i generally recommend that either the contract or documents incorporatedinto the contract have checklists or policies or something that is more detailed that explainswhat it is that you expect the contractor to do to meet its obligations. agencies needwritten ada 504 policies with operational details, and i should probably add that ina county-administered system, certainly the
county, the local agency is going to needa policy with operational details. the state needs a policy that spells out what they expectof the local agencies. and when i say "operational details," i really mean, you know, what itis that the agency has to do, who's responsibility it is to do it, when it has to be done, allof the nuts and bolts that if you were a staff front-line worker at the agency and you pickedup the policy what you would be looking for to tell you what was expected of you and howand when to do it. it is important that written policies contain broad concepts from the adaand 504 like equal access or equal opportunity to participate, but those broad concepts arenot enough, because they don't tell staff on the ground what to do. staff training isessential because good policy, good written
policies don't result in compliance unlessstaff know that the policy exists and know what it says. and i've done a lot of thesetrainings, not just for advocates but i've done them in for public benefits agencies,and in my experience, having some hypotheticals with a sort of answer key are incredibly useful,because people attending the training actually have to apply the concepts, you know, to comeup with an answer, and it really helps them. active learning i think it's called. compliancemonitoring is important. you can't assume that because you have a detailed written policythat staff are complying with it. you need to check. so who is protected by the ada and504? anyone with a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity.and the following slide provides examples
of major life activities that are right inthe statute that was actually amended in 2008. and if you look, you can see that there reallyare two different types of major life activities. the first are sensory functions and physicaland cognitive functions. the second is the operation of major bodily systems, includingbladder and bowel and/or digestive, because sometimes people have serious limitationsin those systems. it can either lead to discrimination or to a need for accommodations, but sometimesthose folks don't have one of the limitations that is in the column on the left. i alsojust want to point out, if you look at the column on the left, some of the major lifeactivities at the bottom of the screen, sleeping -- eating, taking care of one's self, learning,reading, concentrating, and thinking -- are
all activities that may well be limited inindividuals with mental health problems or cognitive disabilities. so the ada 504 definitionof disability is very broad, and congress amended the ada in 2008 to make clear justhow broad that definition is. the definition is much broader than the special provisionsin the snap law for people with disabilities. i know that there are some snap provisionsthat say if you qualify for or you're receiving some type of federal disability benefits thatyou're entitled to, you know, modifications of some of the snap rules.the ada and 504protect many people who don't qualify for or receive federal disability benefits, andthat's really important because oftentimes in an agency that is used to administeringa particular program when a word like disability
has a package of meanings already associatedwith it, staff may hear the word disability and think someone who gets disability benefits.and if someone says, "i need an accommodation, i have a disability," and the worker says,"but you don't get ssi, you're not disabled under, you know, the food stamp law, thatcould be problematic." so this is where having a written policy and doing training to explainthat the obligations are broader here; that many people are entitled to accommodationsand modifications that don't get or qualify for disability benefits. so essential adarequirements -- we're on the next slide here -- snap agencies must provide meaningful accessto the snap program and services and benefits and activities related to that program. andan example of a situation that might hinder
that access for some people with disabilitiesis having a policy that says "we only accept food stamp applications up until noon, andthen window closes in our office because we don't have enough staff to go around and wedo something else in the afternoon." even though that's a neutral rule it would denymeaningful access to some people with disabilities who could not get to the agency in the morningfor reasons related to their disability. they need a home attendant to get them up and outand that takes several hours; they take medication that affects sleep that makes it difficultto get up in the morning; they are limited and they need somebody to transport them becauseof their disability, and the person who will drive them is not available in the mornings.so in addition, agencies have to provide an
equal opportunity to participate and benefitfrom snap programs. and an example of a rule or a policy or practice that would deny thatequal opportunity is, say, a local snap agency saying "oh, you have a disability and needhelp filling out an application for benefits, well here is a list of local community-basedorganizations that may be able to help you." that is problematic for a number of reasons.it adds an additional burden to the person with a disability. they will have to contactand travel to that office. it adds delay, and, therefore, denies an equal opportunitybecause that delay results in submitting an application later than the person would otherwise.so another point is that having some accessible entry points in a program doesn't eliminatethe obligation to make other entry points
accessible, and this is sort of an extensionof the equal opportunity concept. even if you have an accessible application online,it doesn't mean that you don't have to help somebody fill out a form if they need thathelp because of a disability. some people with disabilities don't have and don't usecomputers, and, in fact, there's a lot of research quantifying that. the term in theresearch is "digital divide." if you're lower income or have a disability you're less likelyto have and know how to use a computer. so policies, practices, and procedures cannothave a discriminatory effect on people with disabilities, and i've listed some exampleshere of things that i've encountered in my work. requiring everybody to sign a form themselvesor there self, whatever the word is, you know,
would be problematic for people with disabilities,make it impossible for them to do that. requiring call center staff or permitting call centerstaff to speak only with the applicant and recipient and not making exceptions couldbe problematic, because some people with disabilities need somebody else to have that conversationfor them for a variety of reasons they may not use or may not have available via assistedtechnology that they use to use the phone and they may need a third person to call forthem. requiring people to apply only online or only by phone or only permitting interviewsto take place over the phone is a policy that would have a discriminatory effect, becausesome people with disabilities need in-person interaction to communicate effectively andto understand. and i just want to highlight,
there was a court decision last year in theindiana supreme court called "purdue versus garganera," where the court held that thefailure to help a person with a disability fill out an application in the office -- itwas actually a recertification packet -- violated the ada and 504. the individual had a hearingimpairment. the recerts were done over the phone. she said she asked, "can i do it inperson." she was told, "no." she showed up at an office anyway and asked for help anddidn't get it, so she did the best she could. but the court said that that was a violationof the ada and 504. oh, and the site for those that want it is 2012 indiana lexus 49. soour agencies obligations limitless under the ada 504? no. agencies do not have to do thingsthat would fundamentally alter the program
or be an undue or financial or administrativeburden. and, oops, did i skip over a slide? i did. i'm sorry. i've misnumbered my slideshere. can we go back? i'll get to fundamental alteration and undue burden. sorry. we'restill on essentially eligibility requirements. so you probably all know this. it's one ofthe most important requirements. agencies must make reasonable modifications of policies,practices, and procedures. and i've given some examples here: rescheduling appointmentswhen people need that for disability related reasons, mailing copies of notices to a relativeor case manager or someone else with the client's consent, of course; if the person needs someoneto remind them of an appointment or help them get there; procedures in waiting rooms, imean most things operate by first come first
serve, unless people have scheduled appointmenttimes or sometimes even if there are scheduled appointment times. that's a practice thatyou should be modified for individuals who can't wait for reasons related to a disability.assisting an applicant with a disability to complete an application, i guess we've alreadytouched on that. so agencies have to provide effective communication with individuals withdisabilities. i will talk more about that later but just want to flag it. requiringa person who is deaf to bring or pay for a sign language interpreter would be a failureto provide effective communication. so now we're back at the question of limitations,any limitations on agency's obligations. agencies are not required to do things that would fundamentallyalter the program or be a financial or administrative
burden; however, the burden of proof is onthe agency -- and we're on the next slide at this point -- to prove that something wouldbe a fundamental alteration and undue burden. saying it's too expensive is not sufficient,and there are many, many court cases where state and local governments have said that,and courts have said, "you haven't demonstrated it." in fact, in some cases courts have said,"you haven't even looked into it." so that's something to be aware of. many accommodations,particularly the accommodations that make it possible for people to get benefits, allthat's front-end stuff, helping people to fill out applications and so on and so forth,you know, are per se, reasonable. i mean there's just no way that they're going to meet, youknow, the fundamental alteration undue burden
standard. they're just a mechanism for peopleto access the same benefits that everybody else can access. and even if something wouldbe a fundamental alteration or undue burden, the agency has an obligation to do other thingsthat are effective that would not fundamentally alter the program or be burdensome. i'm readyto go to the next slide. so agencies with at least 15 employees are required to havea coordinator to oversee ada 504 compliance and to at least participate in the investigationof grievances or complaints. i have noticed that, often, the individual who is designatedas the ada or 504 or ada 504 coordinator at government agencies is often the same personthat does the equal employment opportunity stuff, because obviously it's some of thesame civil rights laws, and, you know, there's
a certain sense to that. but in my experience,if someone's initial knowledge and framework is employment discrimination, it's reallynot appropriate to assume that they also have knowledge and expertise on title ii of theada, the part that applies to the agencies' programs and services. the employment rulesunder the ada and 504 are different, and it does require some familiarity with the underlyingprograms being administered by the agency to understand, in some cases, whether a modificationwould be reasonable or not. and so i think it's a somewhat different knowledge set, ifnot skill set. in addition, agencies with at least 15 employees have to have a grievanceprocedure for prompt and fair resolution of complaint. and there isn't a lot of detailsin the regulations on this, but i will say
that i think that multi-step grievance proceduresare really not what these regulations had in mind, because anything of that nature isgoing to be less prompt, and i also will say that two-step processes tend to be rathercomplicated, and i think the idea of this was to do something that is fairly informaland prompt. i also think that, given the nature of the programs and services that snap agenciesprovide, that prompt may mean something different at a snap agency than it means at a differentkind of governmental agency or program that doesn't, for example, have, you know, an obligationto do expedited processing of some applications in seven days. information about the grievanceprocedure and ada title iv coordinator have to be made available to people. next slide.agencies must provide information to applicants,
recipients, and the public about the ada and504 as it applies to the snap program. this is the notice of ada 504 rights obligation.in my opinion, statements like "we do not discriminate on the basis of disability" don'ttell people what they most need to know, which is who the ada and 504 protects. a lot ofpeople don't know that; the fact that people with disabilities have a right to reasonableaccommodations and modified policies and practices if they need them, and some examples of accommodationsand modifications, which, of course, would include some of the things that with sensoryimpairments might need. if you're not a lawyer and you hear the term -- i'm sorry, oh, ijust heard an echo. sometimes people equate discriminate with intentional discrimination.if you're not a lawyer or, you know, administering
a program with civil rights obligations youmay not know that discriminate under the ada is defined to include the failure to providemodifications of policies, practices, and procedures. that's why i don't think we "donot discriminate" really isn't sufficient. i will say that it is possible to write ashort pithy notice which contains the information in the three bullets that i've listed here,and some states and county public benefits agencies have done so. some of the examplesthat come to mind are new jersey, virginia, and there are several counties in new yorkstate. those public benefits agencies have a pretty simple fits-on-one-page notice. soi think we're on to auxiliary aids and services. cary, i just want to stop for just a minuteand just remind everybody on the phone, if
they do have any questions that you don'twant to forget, you can go ahead and enter those in the q&a tab in the top part of thewebinar client and we'll get to those at the end of the presentation. great. thank you.so we're onto auxiliary aids and services. first of all, the broader requirement is theeffective communication requirement. snap agencies have an obligation to provide effectivecommunication with applicants, participants, members of republic, and the companions withdisabilities. and companion is defined to mean a family member, friend, or associateof the person seeking access to the program, service, or activity if the companion andthe other individual are the appropriate people with whom the agency should communicate. soi think this example is on the next slide.
i have an example of this. it's if a recipientrelies on her niece to handle her paperwork, she's elderly, she can't read that well, it'sall overwhelming, her niece is, you know, on the ball and works at a government agencyand knows how this stuff work, and the recipient relies on her niece to handle her snap issues,and the niece is deaf, the agency has to provide a sign language interpreter so that the niececan communicate with the agency on her aunt's behalf. so the effective communication obligationincludes the obligation to provide auxiliary aids and services when needed for effectivecommunication. and one of the big examples that i know comes up at snap agencies is signlanguage interpreters, which is why i have it here, sign language interpreters have tobe provided to applicants, recipients, companions
interacting with the agency, and members ofthe public interacting with the agency; for example, if someone is trying to get informationto figure out whether they should apply. so the next slide has a more complete list fromthe statutes and regulations of the examples of auxiliary agent services that individualswith hearing impairments and speech impairments may need. it is not at all an inclusive list.these lists always have the word "include," because more things can come along, and nobodycan think of everything that an individual might need. so on to the next slide. okay,so i've tried to come up with some examples of how this issue could arise at a snap agency,beyond the need for a sign language interpreter, which i'm assuming folks, you know, attendingthe webinar are already familiar with. so
an individual might need cart, which is real-timecaptioning, somebody who is typing spoken information into a computer where it can beread by someone who is deaf or hearing impaired. cart may be needed by a deaf applicant attendingsome kind of group orientation for snap applicants if a situation like that arises. assistivelistening devices may be needed by hard of hearing people to communicate with their workers.videos, if an agency runs informational videos in its waiting room, those videos should becaptioned so that people that can't hear can, you know, get the information. so the nextslide lists examples of auxiliary aids and services that individuals who are blind andvisually impaired might need. and i should probably point out that the definition inthe law for both types of auxiliary aids and
services says "and other effective methodsof making information available to those who are hearing impaired to those who are speechimpaired." that's the last bullet. so the law is clear that these are examples. so howwould the obligation to provide auxiliary aids and services come up at a snap agencyfor individuals with hearing impairments? print materials, snap notices and print materialsmust be provided in alternative formats that are effective for an individual who is blindor visually impaired. and the slide lists some examples of alternative formats. i shouldmention that several years ago, the social security administration was sued by blindand seriously visually impaired recipients because they were not getting notices in analternative format that was accessible to
them. the social security administration lostthe case and was ordered to provide notices in alternative formats. and if you go to thesocial security administration website, www.ssa.gov, and you type in "special notice," you willget to the paint that explains what's made available and how clients can access it. theycan basically request it online, or by calling the agency's (800) number you'll see thatthere are a range of materials available. in addition, the agency makes -- on a differentpage they list the information booklets and pamphlets that make available in a range ofalternative formats. so another way that this obligation to provide auxiliary aids and servicesmight come up at a snap agency is if the agency uses information kiosks in its waiting room.those would have to be accessible to blind
and visually impair users. so some of themore specific requirements that are in the law regarding the provision of auxiliary aidsand services are that the agency must give primary consideration to the format, the particularauxiliary aid or service, or alternative format that is requested by the individual. individualsdon't necessarily have the right to their first choice of format if there somethingelse that is available and that could be and will be provided is effective for them. that'snot always the case. but if a blind snap recipient reads braille but also uses a computer withscreen-reader software that reads the text out loud, you know, to her, the agency canprovide the recipient with an accessible electronic version of the document instead of convertingit into braille if that would be easier for
the agency, or something that could be donemore quickly or is more readily available. okay, aids and services must -- i'm sorry.the auxiliary aid or service that the snap agency must provide depends on the lengthand complexity of the communication. so the example that i typically use here is thatif someone who is deaf shows up at a snap office and needs to make an appointment orchange an appointment, it may be possible to communicate with that person by writingnotes. but if the person comes to the appointment and complicated issues with important implicationsabout rights and responsibilities are going to be discussed -- program rule sanctions,ipb, the list goes on and on -- writing notes is, you know, not going to be sufficient inthat situation. so, you know, it is situation
specific to some extent. so auxiliary aidsand services must be provided in a way that protects privacy and independence. it wouldnot protect privacy to use, say, anyone who wanted to volunteer with the snap agency toread documents to people for whom having a human reader would be an effective format,because that individual would be forced to share with the stranger on the street privateinformation, including, you know, information about their finances, maybe their case number,all sorts of things. reading documents to clients doesn't protect their independenceif the clients can read and access to information themselves if it were provided to them ina format that would enable them to do so. auxiliary aids and services also have to beprovided in a timely manner. and finally,
the effective communication requirements inthe law are not limited to individuals with sensory impairments. the laws say that agencieshave to provide effective communication with individuals with disabilities. so that raisesa question about whether that obligation might also apply to individuals with cognitive impairmentsand learning disabilities that might, for example, need materials to be developed ata lower reading level and might not be able to understand notices and informational materialsthat require a college or graduate school level of reading to be able to read and understand.i raise this question, partly as an excuse to tell you about a resource that i thinkis truly phenomenal that was developed with or for the center for medicare and medicaidservices at hhs. it is called "toolkit for
making written materials clear and effective."it is on the hhs website. and if you look at the resources listed at the end of theslides, we've given you a link to it. this lengthy publication, in its second edition,was initially designed, as i understand it, for states writing medicaid notices for clients.so there's a long discussion of readability and how to write documents that are easy toread and all the readability tests, some you can do with a paper and pencil, others areembedded into your word processing programs on your computers so that you can test, youknow, how much school somebody has to go to to be able to read and understand it so youknow whether you need to simplify it. it has a lot of other really useful information aboutlayout and fonts that are easier and more
difficult to read. i highly recommend it.so let's talk about some of the most specific rules in the ada. they deal with using peopleto interpret that are not a sign language interpreter provided by the agency. snap agenciescannot require an applicant or recipient or member of the public to bring someone withthem to interpret for a person who is deaf or speech or hearing impaired. agencies arealso not permitted to rely on an adult that accompanies the applicant or recipient ormember of the public to either interpret or facilitate communication, except in very limitedinstances. the first exception is it has to be an emergency involving an imminent threatto safety or welfare of an individual or the public where no interpreter is available.and my interpretation of that language is
that before you can invoke this exceptionyou would need to at least make an attempt to try to get an interpreter before you couldsay one isn't available. and the other exception is the individual with the disability asks,"well i've brought my brother, can he interpret." the brother agrees to do so, and relianceon the brother or other adult -- we're just talking about adults now -- is appropriate.and i think that last part is there because there are situations in which it would notbe appropriate for an accompanying adult to interpret based on the kinds of questionsthat you're going to be asking and the kinds of things that the client may need to talkabout. and you may have no idea, looking at that brother, who clearly knows sign language,what he knows about his brother's financial
situation or other personal details, so ithink that's an important qualifier that requires the agency to stop and, you know, think aboutthe nature of the communication that will be unfolding and whether there's a possibilitythat it would not be appropriate. okay, so the rule about using minor children to interpretor facilitate communication is that snap agencies cannot do it unless that same emergency languagesituation exists. it has to be an emergency involving an imminent threat to safety andwelfare of the individual and the public where no interpreter is available. i should probablysay here that in my experience working on this issue that one way to prepare to addressthis obligation, unless you are fortunate enough to have somebody on your staff whois available at all times and in all places
who is a qualified interpreter. the otherway to go is to enter into a contract with an interpreting service that, as i've revieweda number of these contracts, and usually the interpreting service does not say, "we promisethat we will deliver somebody to you to interpret within this amount of time," or "we promisewe will deliver someone whenever you call us and ask for it." but i know that what theydo is they obviously subcontract with a lot of individual interpreters, and they do triage.so if you were to call and say, "this is really an emergency, and here is why," they may pullone of their interpreters off of something else that is less of an emergency to addressthe need, and this is a complicated way of saying don't assume that if you have sucha contract that they could possibly produce
somebody on short notice without asking first,because they do do, as i understand it, that kind of triage. another issue i just wantto flag here is that the way i tend to think of this is that there really are two situationsin which this could come up. one is a scheduled appointment, scheduled in advance, with aclient that you already know is deaf or speech impaired and needs a sign language interpreter.and in that situation, obviously you have some flexibility in working around when theinterpreter is available or when the client is available, subject to, you know, otherdeadlines in your programs and deadlines that the clients have to meet. but there are, obviously,under the food stamp law, anybody has the right to show up at an office and say, "iwant to apply." and people who are deaf and
speech impaired have that right as well. soanother reason for having a contract is that you might be better prepared to address theunannounced walk-in situation, which neither you nor anybody else could have foreseen.and you don't have an obligation to foresee, but you do have an obligation to foresee thatsome people might need this. you are serving lots and lots of people and there are probablypeople with every disability in the population that is eligible for your services. so onto video remote interpreting, which is the next slide -- oh, which is already on thescreen. so the way this works is that the interpreter is at a remote location. you andthe client are at, you know, a food stamp office, and you can see and be seen by theinterpreter, and obviously you use video conferencing
or something that has similar functions. thisobviously has some advantages for agencies that are remotely located or in counties wherethere isn't a single sign language interpreter that lives in the county, and those countiesdo exist. the ada regulations have some fairly detailed requirements -- which i haven't includedhere, but i just want to flag them -- to ensure that there is a high-quality image and sound;that staff know how to use the equipment, because i think there have been a number ofproblems that have occurred where the image quality is poor or you can see the person'sface but you can't see their arms, and, of course, sign language involves big gestures,and it really matters. the other thing i will say is that i have seen settlements in civilrights complaint against benefit agencies,
at least one or two, that give the clientor the individual a choice. in other words, they require a sign language interpreter.if they say, "that's going to take some time," and you try to get it and it's not available,and the client wants to use video remote interpreting instead, they can, but they don't have to,and that's, i think because some people have had problems with it and have found that it's,you know, not always comparable to in-person communication. so i think that's it for thissegment. michael, is there anything you want to say before we move on to access points.no, i think that's good. again, if people have any questions, you know, feel free toenter them in the q&a tab, and we'll get those at the end of the presentation.okay. so let's talk about local offices, and
i guess the first question that needs it tobe addressed that when i started this work people wouldn't have thought to ask -- butnow, because of modernization efforts and programs, really is an issue -- is do youhave to have an office at all? can you just do everything by mail, online, and by phone?and i think the answer is that you don't necessarily have to have offices but you do have to havesome way of providing the face-to-face interaction for people with disabilities who need it toget their questions answered, to communicate with you, to get the help they need to fillout an application or whatever. and there are obviously a variety of ways in which thatcould take place in the absence of a brick and mortar office. so i do think it's importantconceptually to separate out the building
from the concept of in-person interaction,which i think some people with disabilities will need for disability-related reasons.so local offices, let's say you have a local office, in general, for existing facilities,the rule is that it's the snap program that has to be accessible to and usable by peoplewith disabilities, as opposed to the building itself. so if you really can provide -- ifyou have a building, it has some accessibility problems, but you have workarounds that reallyprovide service that's comparable and timely and easy to access and everything else, youmay not need to make the changes to the building. i mean obviously these are heavily fact-intensiveissues. new buildings and modifications to existing buildings have to meet very technicalaccessibility standards, and which set of
standards applies depends on who owns thebuilding and when certain things took place and when you're doing the work and everythingelse. so another issue that comes up at physical locations is service animals. and the adaregulations now have a definition of service animal. the regulations were revised a coupleof years ago, and initially they didn't have a definition. and the definition is a dogthat is trained to perform a task or do work for a person with a disability. so in thecontext of the snap program, it does have to be a dog, you know, no monkeys or parakeetsor whatever. there is a somewhat odd provision in the regulation that in the case that somepeople with disabilities use miniature horses as service animals and have trained them,and i guess there are programs and breeders
and trainers out there. and while they don'tdefine a service animal to include miniature horses, they basically say you have to allowthe miniature horse as well, if it's reasonable, and there's a balancing test that considersa lot of factors. i have never confronted the miniature horse situation, but maybe someof you who are in other states have. so this is also an area of the law where the regulationsare extremely detailed, and the reason that they're extremely detailed -- and it's thesame reason that the effective communications are extremely detailed -- is that in 20 years,after the ada went into effect, 20-some-odd years, there were hundreds, if not thousands,of civil rights complaints filed with the department of justice and other agencies onthese issues, and lawsuits, and the oj had
said a lot of things in interpretive guidancebut they were not in the regulations, so they moved some of the things that have long beentheir position into the regulations. so the regulations say you cannot require a licensefor the dog the a training certificate if the dog has been trained at an official serviceanimal training school. this protection is broader than some state laws. new york, forexample, defines service animals as, among other things, dogs that have gone to a formaltraining school, and i don't know what other states' laws say on this, but the federallaw applies to all of you and says that's not something that you can require or askfor. the law goes out of its way to make the point that service animals are used by peoplewith a wide range of disabilities, and they
list them, because there have been many situationsin which government agencies and businesses have said, "well you don't look disabled tome, so how can that be a service animal." so they mention autism and seizure disordersand things that are not visible. the law says that the dog must be on a harness or a leashor a tether, which suggests that -- i see there is a little service animal icon on thisslide. we may need to change that in light of the law -- unless, and this is the bigunless, it would limit the dog's ability to perform the work or the task. so if runningahead to answer the door or to fetch things or open a door or whatever is part of whatthe dog does, then the person wouldn't have to have the dog on a leash or a tether ora harness. so dos and don'ts, the obvious
one, you can't deny access to an individualwith a service animal. there are some situations in which you can exclude the dog if the dogis not under the owner's control, which includes situations where the dog is not house trained,but you can't exclude the person in that situation. you have to allow the person to access youroffices without the dog. if the dog is obviously a service animal, you can't ask questions,end of story. if it is not obvious that the dog is a service animal being used by a personwith a disability, there are only two questions that you can ask: "is the dog needed becauseof a disability," and, "what work or task is the dog trained to perform." i know i'veobserved and also been contacted about situations in which people have been grilled in publicsettings, "well what disability do you have
that would require you to use this dog?" thatquestion is not on the list of questions you're allowed to ask. so that is service animals,and i think now we're going to switch to phone systems, and i'll try to hurry it up, becausei think people might have questions. so phone systems and call centers, so the reason thatheading was chosen is the requirements don't justify to a call center, they also, obviously,apply to any phone system that the agency has that is directly, you know, availableto clients and the public. so it's phone systems wherever they may be located and whether they'reoperated by the snap agency or a contractor. you either have to have a tty or use relayservices to make outgoing and accept incoming calls with deaf and hearing impaired individuals.so notice the rule, you don't have to buy
any equipment, woo, what a relief. you dohave to train staff on what relay is. and it's not enough to say "dial 711 to make anout going call." additional information is required because people have to know how toaccept call and they have to make and accept calls when somebody uses video relay, wherethe operator is speaking in sign language and the caller is speaker in sign languageand then the operator is speaking to you over the phone. basically all you have to do ispick up the phone and talk to the operator, but you have to know you're not dialing theclient's number. if you're returning a call, you're calling the video relay service, butstaff need to know this stuff. in addition to equipment, policies and procedures haveto be revised. i touched on this earlier.
we have to speak to the applicant. that kindof rule, if exceptions are not made for people with disabilities who need it, has a discriminatoryeffect. and the other thing is that you need to treat the relay operator as invisible.i mean there are court cases that say that operator is not a third party. and operatorshave all sorts of ethical obligations, you know, requiring them to translate exactlywhat was said and to keep information confidential. if you want to learn about the different typesof relay, www.fcc.gov is a really good place to start. okay, so the ada regulations, whichwere revised a couple of years ago for state and local government, say that state and localgovernments and their agencies and departments that use automated phone systems of any kind-- automated answering systems, routing systems,
messaging systems -- must be set up in a waythat allows tty users and relay callers to use them just like everybody else. and, youknow, there are a variety of reasons why those systems might be problematic for a tty orrelay user, because there's not enough time to select options. there are a whole lot ofother things. the company that sets up your system needs to do it in a way that makesit accessible. i have noticed that people with disabilities increasingly use e-mailand texting, so those are also options for remote communication if your agency can developsome procedures about, you know, how long, you know, what's the timeframe for returningmessages and, you know, what does a worker need to do. website accessibility: the departmentof justice has said that state and local government
websites must be accessible to people withdisabilities. there are many ways to check website accessibilities. there are computerprograms like wave. there are probably a hundred of them that you can actually run on yourweb pages to check, but many people recommend that you not rely on those programs alone,that you also do, you know, bring in people, a couple of people with disabilities thatuses assistive technology and see whether they can navigate their way around. and, youknow, a computer program can only tell you so much. implementation procedures are key.every state, as i say a couple of slides forward, already has an accessible website, policy,or law, or an accessible technology, policy, or law that applies to the state snap agency.the issue is, i've found, that public benefits
agencies don't have a procedure for makingsure that when new information is posted that it's accessible, there's no spot checking.i've found problems with state public benefit agency websites that the agency itself -- imean anybody can make a mistake, but you need the corrective measures there so that problemsare picked up and corrected, and it's clear who has the responsibility to do that. i'velisted what accessibility means for websites. people who are vision impaired who use computerswith screen reader software or braille displays should be able to access the pages. that meansit has to be in a text-based format, image pdfs are not accessible, and non-text itemshave to be labeled. if there are charts and tables, those have to be labeled. there aremany other things. there are basically two
sets of accessibility standards; one, the508 standards that apply to federal agencies only but some states have adopted as well,and other entities have adopted, and then the world wide web consortium has developedweb content accessibility guidelines or wic/hag. their different 508 standards are being revised,and when the final revision is out, they will be far more similar to the wic/hag guidelines.most states have adopted either one or the or sort of a combination of both, so you needto look and see what your state's policy says. hewlett packard has a website -- and i givethe link to it in the resources -- that lists and links to every state's accessible technologyor accessible website statute, regulation, or policy. that list or website does not havea date on it so i don't know if it's up to
date, but it's probably a good starting placeif you want to know what other state policies say. i know we've got less than ten minutesleft, but if there are some questions, i'm happy to try to answer them. sure. so theresources page is up right now, but i'm going to move to the next slide to give you instructionson how to ask questions. but you can, of course, download this presentation on the documentstab in the right. so you can, again, type your question into the q&a. i'm also goingto put the session in question-and-answering mode, so hold on just a second. you'll hearsome instructions. your conference is now in q&a mode. to summon each question, press"1" then "0." each question will be asked in the order it was received. so cary oneof the first questions we have that were submitted
online -- let me see if i can pull it up realquick -- is "since state snap agencies are modernizing their operations, many are usingonline application systems and call centers. will you be addressing these new systems andtheir impact on services to persons with disabilities?" i think the answer to that was that we didcover that. that was my intention. i certainly hope the person that asked it, you know, feelslike i at least tried to do that. if there are specific questions relating to that thati didn't answer, then i can try to answer those. okay. so the next question is, "yousaid the grievance process should be informal and prompt. can you clarify what an informalprocess looks like, and what is the appropriate time standard for prompt?" well, as i mentioned,the regulations don't say. i know that some
of the department of justice settlement agreementswith states and localities in -- i don't know if anyone is familiar with project civic access,but if you go to the department of justice ada website you will see that they've enteredinto settlements with hundreds of counties and cities around ada issues. and i believethat the kind of standard grievance procedure that they get these government entities toadopt has a 30-day deadline in it. i personally think that's completely unreasonable in thecontext of a public benefits program where people can go hungry if they do without benefits.i don't think that would be considered prompt. so that's why i said i do think it's programspecific. five days, ten days, i mean the bottom line is that individuals can requestan accommodation, not get it or feel that
they haven't gotten it, and file a lawsuitor file a civil rights complaint with the office for civil rights at fns usda withoutdoing a grievance. so it seems to me that it's in the agency's interest to try to resolvethings quickly to have higher ups take a second look so that the agency, and not just a worker,is really signing off on this if you're saying no. so i think the longer your process takesthe less likely people are to use it. when i say "informal," i mean i see the informalityas really being related to the promptness. i think people should be able to file verbalgrievances over the phone. arguably certainly the disability rights laws would require thatfor anybody who needed there as an accommodation, so, in other words, to have somebody dictate.i do think a written denial with reasons is
useful for everybody, but the regulationsdon't say that. they don't specify that this needs to be a hearing, a face-to-face hearing.most agencies that i've dealt with don't have any kind of face-to-face procedures. it'sreally done on paper and calling people and interviewing them to find out what happened,and so on. so that's part of what i mean by informality. i hope that answered the question.great. the next question we have, and i think i can answer a little bit of this, and thiswas mentioned earlier, the question was "explain again how snap interprets ssi disability asbeing recognized disability under the ada," and to clarify snap regulations considerssomebody disabled for the purpose of determining snap eligibility and benefit levels basedon another agency's designation of that applicant
as being disabled, which is separate fromwhat we're talking about today, which is how the ada and 504 covers how the local officeinteracts and provides service for people with disabilities. the other question is,"if a service animal is used by someone, and that may allow them to be eligible for snapfor the animal, how would you define sa? would use the definition of; one, is animal needfor disability; and, two, task function trained to perform?" not a hundred-percent sure iunderstand that question. cary, i don't know if you do.i'm not sure i understand it either.is the person saying that in their state the animal can qualify for benefits as well undersnap? i know there are programs to help low-income people feed service animals. i wasn't awarethat those programs were within or a part
of snap. yeah, snap does not allow serviceanimals to receive benefits. but there are other programs out there that can help peoplein need with service animals. and those programs, i mean to try to answer the question, you'llhave to look to those programs to see how they define service animals. they may notdefine it at all. it may be the position of whoever administers the program that if theanimal qualifies as a service animal under the ada then it certainly qualifies for thisbenefit, but you will have to look to the particular program that assists in feedingservice animals. and to clarify, snap recipients and applicants can claim service animals andfood, service animals, i know for sure, as a medical deduction under snap. got it. okay.i'm going to try real quick to see if anybody
on the phone has a question. you have onequestion remaining. hi, you're on the line. what is your question?the question has to do with the snap application itself. i'm assuming, does that have to bemade available in alternate formats? well i certainly think so. okay. yeah, i mean rememberthat the language of the law is fairly general, and so some interpretation is required here.but if that is -- you know, if documents are needed in alternative formats in order tobe able to do all the things that other people can do in the program then the applicationswould have to be made accessible. and it's my understanding that, in terms of electronicaccessibility, that many or most -- am i correct, michael, that every state's application isposted online? they're supposed to. i'm remembering
that that might be a requirement or somethingthat fns had recommended at some point. yes, we have recommended, and states are supposedto post their application online. so, certainly, if you're posting an application online, theapplication should be accessible to people with disabilities who could access it, whohave computers, who are using assistive technology to access information on your website justlike everybody else. and if the application is posted and not accessible then you've gotdelay, which is the denial of an equal opportunity to participate, because if the person can'tapply online like everybody else, they may have to wait. they may have to travel to afood stamp office or wait until the food stamp office opens. i mean the thing about the internetis that it provides 24/7 accessibility, and
so if you're doing that for some people, peoplewith disabilities should have the ability to have that 24/7 access as well. okay, great.so i know it's past 4:00. i know you had to go to another call. yes. so there are a fewother questions, and what i'll do is i'll send them to cary or answer them, and we'llsend out the responses to everybody via e-mail. that sounds great. if you do have any questions-- i hope this was helpful. we do work with agencies and state advocates, you know, onthese issues collaboratively, so, you know, certainly you should get in touch if that'ssomething that you're interested in. great.thank you. and, again, if you have any additionalquestions, please e-mail me directly and i'll coordinate a response to that. cary, we thankyou so much for doing this. this is extremely
informative, and we look forward to workingwith you in the future for sure. thank you very much. great. thank you. thanks for havingme. bye-bye. thanks everybody.