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Do you need help filling out the paperwork to receive Food Stamps? If so, contact IRC:

Guide to CalWORKs and TANF Public Benefits

CalWORKS Cash Assistance

CalWORKS Eligibility
Under TANF regulations many immigrants are not eligible for benefits unless they have become United States Citizens. This is not true for refugees. Refugees are eligible for TANF/CalWORKs benefits during the first seven years after arrival to the U.S.

If you have exceeded the 60-month time limited, and are receiving or applying for aid, you need to be U.S. Citizens or have worked a total of 40 quarters in the U.S. to be eligible for benefits under TANF/CalWORKs.

CalWORKS Time Limits
There are strict limits on how long you may receive cash assistance. There is a federally set 60-month lifetime limit on cash aid. In California, you may be eligible for 18 months of support services. If you are not employed by the end of the 18 month time limit, you will be placed into a government financed Community Service Job unless exempt.

Children (under 18 years of age) of recipients who exceed the 60-month time limit and are still not employed, can continue to receive cash assistance either in the form of cash or vouchers. Vouchers are direct cash payments to the landlord, utility company, etc. People who are dropped from the CalWORKs Program because they have exceeded 60-month time limited are not eligible for General Relief until all of their
children are 18 years of age.

Because of these strict time limits, eligible refugees should carefully consider other financial options before applying for TANF money and starting the 60-month clock. For example, the Matching Grant Program offered by many Volags, including IRC, and the Wilson/Fish CRC program offer an alternative avenue of support and assistance that preserves a refugee’s CalWORKs benefits for possible use later in life. Also, CalWORKs offers a Diversion Plan, which is a one time emergency grant to help to families currently employed or who have a verified job offer. This grant could be used to pay for a car repair or back rent which may be a barrier to maintaining a job or accepting a verified job offer.

CalWORKS Work Requirements

CalWORKs also has specific requirements. Mothers with newborns are exempted from work requirements only until the infant is 12 weeks old. The parent in a single parent recipient family will be required to participate in work related activities for a minimum of 32 hours per week. Two-parent recipient families will be required to participate 35 hours per week, and these hours may be split between the parents.

To insure that this is accomplished, prior to receiving cash aid, each recipient will be required to sign a “Welfare to Work Agreement”, which clearly outlines the your rights and responsibilities under CalWORKs. Some examples of work related activities are approved job training, education (basic math, reading or ESL) work-study, work experience, unsubsidized work and community service.

Failure to comply with the terms of the "Welfare to Work Agreement" could mean the termination of all benefits.


Other Requirements Under CalWORKS

To receive or maintain cash aid under the CalWORKs Program you must also:

• Cooperate with establishing paternity and enforcing child support.
• Parent(s) must prove that children have maintained proper immunizations.
• Parent(s) must insure that children of all ages maintain regular school attendance.

Grant levels will not be increased to cover children born after the parent(s) are on aid.

CalWORKS Fraud

There are serious penalties for applicants or recipients that are found guilty of fraud. This can include a lifetime disqualification from aid for any person found by a court or administrative hearing to have falsified documents or information in an attempt to receive or increase their aid under CalWORKS.

Food Stamps

The Food Stamp Program is administered by the United States Department of Agriculture and is the single most important program that fights against hunger. Refugees have been able to access food stamps as a method of supplementing their cash assistance grants under the Refugee Cash Assistance Program or the AFDC Program now known as TANF.

TANF Eligibility
Adult refugees, who arrived to the U.S. after 8-22-96, are eligible for food stamps during the first seven (7) years after admission to the United States. If you arrived after that, you need to have become a U.S. Citizen or have worked 40 quarters in the United States to remain eligible for food stamps. Refugee children, under 18 years of age, and adults over 65 years of age, who arrived prior to 8-22-96, are eligible for state-funded food stamps if they have been in the U.S. for more than 7 years, regardless of their citizenship.

TANF Work Requirements
Individuals who do not comply with their Welfare to Work Agreement under the CalWORKs Program can be sanctioned and lose their food stamp benefits. This includes persons who are physically fit, but who refuse, without good cause, to provide information about their work status or job availability. This also includes persons who voluntarily quit or reduce their work effort to less than 30 hours per week, without good cause.

Further, “able-bodied” adults between the ages of 18 and 50 without dependent children will be eligible for only 3 months of food stamp benefits in a 36 month period unless they are working half time or participating in a job program half time.

This would apply to those refugees that were receiving Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA) and had exceeded the 8-month eligibility period and were not fully employed.

Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT)
The County of San Diego  issues food stamps by means of a “credit card” called Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT).   A plastic card is issued to food stamp recipients with the eligibility information and monthly grant amount encoded on the card. Recipients provide the card at the checkout at an authorized store where the dollar amount for the purchase of only the approved food items will be deducted electronically. For each additional month of eligibility the card will be electronically re-encoded with the grant amount for that particular month.

MediCal
Medical benefits are provided through health plans. Under the managed health care program, clients must first choose a Primary Care Doctor who provides initial treatment. All referrals to specialists, for laboratory tests or X-rays, etc. must come from the Primary Care Doctor. The only exception is for Emergency Services.

Choosing a Plan
Every family should carefully consider their medical needs before choosing between the different health care plans and providers. Some things to consider are: how close is the health care provider to your home? Does the plan have all the medical services that you and your family need? Does the plan offer assistance in your native language? Before deciding, discuss these issues with your family, friends, and your doctor. Also, it is a good idea to contact the health plans and request them to provide you with written information about the benefits of their plans.

Changing Plans
If you are not satisfied with the plan that you chose; or were assigned to, it is possible to change to a different plan. You can institute a change in health care providers by completing and submitting another MediCal Choice Form to Health Care Options. This change can take between 15 and 45 days to complete. During that transition period you must receive your medical services from your current health care provider.
Currently most MediCal recipients receive dental care through a statewide program of dentists authorized to provide dental services to MediCal recipients. This plan is known as Denti-Cal. No enrollment is necessary and recipients can change dentists at any time. To choose, a recipient may ask a dentist he/she already knows if they accept Denti-Cal as reimbursement, or the recipient may contact the Denti-Cal Office for a referral. All Dental services to MediCal recipients are provided through Denti-Care.

If you have additional questions you should contact Health Care Options/Healthy San Diego at their toll free number 1-800-430-4263. Do not contact your eligibility worker has they can not provide you information on this subject. The current Health Plans with their phone numbers are shown below:

 Fact Sheets:                                                 

English

Somali

Vietnamese

  Links:                                                  

CalWorks

TANF (from the Federal Government)

TANF (from the State of California)