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In the Spring months of 1998, as I have done for nearly ten years in two different states, I assigned my Introductory Sociology students and my Social Stratification students the task of visiting a welfare office where they were to ask for an application, read the application, ask themselves whether they could fill it out accurately and provide proof of their answers if asked to do so, and finally, they were to take field notes on what they observed while there.

Rationale for the research The purpose of the exercise has always been to 1) give students a vicarious experience of what it would be like to have to go to the welfare office, 2) reduce their myths about the ease of getting welfare by having them obtain and read an application, and 3) reduce their myths about welfare clients by having them observe and take field notes on the people they see while at the welfare office. Their field notes are read by me and commented on, including the provision of any possible alternative explanations of what they saw at the welfare office. In this way, students learn the extent to which they assume a great deal more than is in evidence when observing the poor and this allows us to better discuss North American attitudes and ideology about poverty and welfare. My students have usually had a prior field assignment in a public space, such as a park or mall, and so they have experience in taking field notes to apply to the welfare assignment.

As Samford University has recently begun an initiative to introduce Problem-based Learning (PBL) into the curriculum in Freshman courses, and as a Social Science coordinator for PBL, I felt that continuing to provide this active learning exercise about poverty and the social safety net was important, and I used this year's assignment as an opportunity to improve upon previous use of the exercise. In addition, because the results of my students' field visits in 1997 were confusing, with some students getting applications but most students unable to get applications, I was curious as to whether there was a specific policy being carried out in a systematic way, or if there was varying policy, depending on the worker on duty at the time a student asked for the application. Because I understood it to be a legal right to obtain an application upon request, I felt that my previous students must have erred in what they requested and /or in their reports to me on what had happened when they made requests. In talking with a manager in Jefferson County's DHR office the previous year, I was told that my students were mistaken when they said they had been treated rudely and denied applications. For those reasons, I decided to make the field experience more systematic in 1998 and made plans to gather data from it. As Executive Director of the Alabama Poverty Project, I had also received requests for information on how the welfare reform is being administered, and I did not have reliable data to give to the persons requesting it. So, I was interested in determining if the assignment would yield usable data in addition to the learning experience I hoped my students would receive.

Methodology In 1997, I discovered that students had difficulty finding the welfare office because: 1) they did not know the name of the agency that handles this, 2) they did not know if it is a county or state function and so did not know where in the blue pages of the phone book to look, and 3) most of my students had not left the suburbs to go into the city and so had little familiarity with the city streets. I also knew that, without my intervention, students would tend to go to the welfare office in groups, in order to feel more comfortable, and this would make them conspicuous. Because I did not want them making clients uncomfortable by their presence, nor did I want their presence to be intrusive to the point of drastically changing what they would be observing, I instituted a process to spread the student observers out over time and space. I numbered the attendance sheet for my larger Introduction to Sociology class (n=42), and told students to note the numbers by their names. The numbers indicated the welfare office they would be assigned to visit and the day of the week they were assigned to do it. Students were assigned to visit one of three offices, one in Shelby County and two in Jefferson County. The numbering system allowed me to randomly distribute Intro students across days and offices. Students were allowed to choose the time of day they would do the observation since they would have to fit it in around classes, jobs, etc. Three of the students were each allowed to do their research simultaneously with another student, as they would not have transportation to get to the welfare office otherwise. In spite of my own planning, I knew the urge to go in groups would be strong and so students were cautioned about attempting to go there in groups. Those who had to go in dyads were told that this was less problematic, as some clients do take a friend along to pass the time while they wait at the welfare office, or are accompanied by someone providing them with a ride there. I provided students with the addresses of the offices at which they were to observe, because students would otherwise tend to wait until the last moment and then discover they didn't know where to begin to find information about the name and address of the offices. I did not give explicit directions or landmarks that might help them find it, as I wanted them to go through the process real clients do to find the welfare office.

Students varied how they dressed for the visits, according to their own assumptions about appropriate dress, and I gave no advice on this, as I saw it as a part of the field experience that provides self-learning. Students actually do think ahead to how to dress and what to carry with them, and put these considerations in their notes, as well as their assumptions about what they might see at the welfare office. They then compare their own biases to what they actually see, and we debrief on these as a group in class, after the assignment is over. The Intro class performed their observations over a two and a half week period. The stratification class of eight students did their assignment over one and a half weeks. Stratification class members were given their own choice of Jefferson County DHR offices and of days of the week. In the end, only one of them went to the Bessemer DHR office.

In total, thirteen students observed at the Shelby County DHR, ten at the Jefferson County Bessemer offices, and twenty-three at the Jefferson County -Hill Bldg. Office. (Some Intro students never did the assignment and so the distribution of Intro students was not even; all stratification students did the assignment, boosting the number of students going to the Hill Bldg.) A total of 46 sets of field notes were gathered, graded and copied before returning them to the students.

Because students in the previous year had encountered barriers to getting an application, I discussed with the students the possibility that they might be asked some questions before they could get an application. We discussed scenarios and some students felt that they did not want to create a cover story that was untrue in order to get an application. Others were comfortable with creating a role play that might aid them in getting an application. Some students questioned me about their legal rights, and I told them that, in theory, they each had a legal right to an application, but that I could not predict how they might be treated or questioned, given the experiences of students the previous year. Students using cover stories invented a dependent child that would make them eligible for family assistance. Other students decided they would be comfortable asking for an application "for an old lady who needs it and can't come today," with the idea that I was the old lady who needed it, so that they could feel that they were not telling a lie.

The purpose of getting an application was two-fold: 1) they would be able then to see the kinds of things they would have to know and the information they would have to provide, if they were applying for aid, and 2) having an application to fill out gives them a reason for staying in the waiting room and, under the guise of reading and filling the application, they could be taking unobtrusive field notes. Based on the problems reported by the previous year's students, it was of interest that the students at least ask for an application for family assistance, in order to determine if there was a process in place that constituted a barrier to application, as previous students had suggested to me.
Data
Shelby County Observations (Or: "How Can I help you, sweetie?")

Thirteen students visited the Shelby County DHR offices. They had relatively little difficulty finding it, given that they had the address provided to them. They also described it as a quiet, clean and pleasant space, much more so than they had expected. Of these thirteen students, twelve received applications, regardless of what they told the receptionist. Two of the twelve asked for applications to be filled out by someone that could not come on that day; of these two, one was given the application and a stamped envelope with which to return it. The other student was denied an application, and told that the applicant would have to come in herself to get the forms. Of the eleven who asked for forms for their own use, all received forms, and were assured that they could fill them out there or take them home to fill out later, and mail them in the stamped addressed envelopes provided. Some of the students were asked if they needed other applications in addition to family assistance and food stamp applications. The standard litany was: "May I help you?" followed by another question if the student/applicant had not made clear which forms s/he wanted. Personal questions were not asked, nor were forms of identification asked for at that time. Two students could not remember the name of the family assistance program and so only asked for food stamps applications, out of confusion and embarrassment, and they received these without problem or questioning.

Eleven of the thirteen students felt that they had been treated with courtesy and kindness by the persons working at the Shelby County DHR Office. One of the students was offended by the slow, careful way a worker explained the process to him, but it is not clear from his notes that offense was intended. It may be that he was over-reacting to behavior meant as a kindness, given that the welfare office visit is humbling in a way my students are unaccustomed to, even under the best conditions. One other student remarked in her notes that the worker was curt in addressing her, but she was still given all the forms she needed without being pressed by personal questions. As indicated earlier, only one student was denied an application form under the reasoning that the would-be applicant should come get it herself.

The application packets for Family Assistance given out by Shelby County DHR employees included the following (see appendix to this reports for copies):

1. A cover page that lists the kinds of documents a prospective client will need to bring with them to an intake interview appointment,
2. The two page Family Assistance form,
3. "Family Assistance Program Summarized Eligibility Requirements,"
4. "Medicaid for Low Income Families Summarized Eligibility Requirements,"
5. "Application for Aid To Families with Dependent Children" - this describes again the types of documents required and explains the face-to-face interview process that will begin once an applicant turns in the initial application forms in the packet;
6. "Alabama Department of Human Resources Outline of Family Responsibilities" which describes the responsibilities put on someone who receives AFDC in Alabama, and,
7. An addressed, stamped return envelope to be used to return the application, upon completing it.

Students also found interesting and informative brochures displayed at the Shelby offices on other programs and information that would potentially be useful to a poor person.

I attempted to validate the students' notes by calling the Shelby County DHR offices to inquire about the application procedure. Even though I introduced myself as a professor at Samford who wanted to know about the AFDC application process, the worker who answered the phone treated it as a standard request and said to me, "Well sweetie, just give me your name and address, and we will mail you the forms. Then you just fill them out and mail them back in the envelope provided, and we will get you started." I gave her my name and work address; and 24 hours later, I had the application in hand. In sum, I would say that there are very few barriers to application for aid created by the way the Shelby County DHR workers perform their jobs. The main barriers there would more often be the barriers potential clients carry with them: fear and shame over applying for aid, and a lack of knowledge about potential programs and eligibility requirements. Given the generally helpful responses my students received from Shelby DHR workers, these barriers would tend to be reduced by the behavior of the workers.

Jefferson County Observations (Or: "We don't just give them out!")

Twenty female and thirteen male students were sent to the two Jefferson County DHR offices to attempt to get an application and do field observation there. Of the 33 students, four never asked for a family assistance application due to confusion over the difference between Food Stamps applications and Family Assistance and/or because they felt too intimidated to ask. In one office, food stamps applications were available for the taking, so one of these four students mistakenly grabbed these applications, relieved by his belief that he had the application needed. One student, relieved that her friend had gotten an application, did not attempt to ask for one herself, as she clearly was intimidated by being in the welfare office. The two remaining students found themselves unable to remember the name of the program application (Family Assistance or AFDC) for which they were to ask. They did stand at the Family Assistance window, and because they could not remember the acronym "AFDC," they simply asked for an application. In these two cases, the workers asked them, "For what?" even though they were clearly standing in the Family Assistance line, and then used the students' confusion to send them to the Food Stamps window line and/or to a pile of Food Stamps applications. In these two cases, the students were unable to say if getting a family assistance application was possible, but their cases do show a tendency to encourage Food Stamps application over Family Assistance application. Other students to whom the "For what" question was posed were able to say either AFDC or Family assistance, using the sign on the window as their cue, and so were then able to see more of the process of Family Assistance application.

Of the 29 remaining students, one student never asked for an application because she saw one of her friends being denied, and so thought it was futile to try. Of the 28 students who specifically asked for the Family Assistance application, one student admitted she did not have a child, when questioned, and so was told she was ineligible for family assistance. This leaves 27 students who could have potentially gotten applications.

Of the remaining 27 students, three students asked for applications to take to a disabled/sick/absent friend who needed it and were told, "We don't just give those out!" They were also told that the absent person would "just have to come in and get it herself." An additional six students were told that "We don't give out applications after 2:30" or that they could not get an application after 3PM, depending on the individual interaction. Sometimes they were told that this limitation existed because the workers couldn't schedule appointments after that time of day for new clients. Because applicants are not given an appointment on the same day as their initial application, it is therefore unclear why applications cannot be given out until the office closes. Among the students denied applications due to the time of day, it was interesting that two were questioned publicly about their personal affairs, something that was unnecessary under the circumstances. (One was questioned before, and one after being told it was too late in the day to give out applications.)

Among the 20 remaining students, six were denied applications because they could not produce a valid social security card for their (fictitious) child, and another student was told he would have to bring the card and child with him before he would get an application. One other student admitted to having a part-time job, in the process of being publicly questioned, and so she was also denied the right to an application. The worker told her she was ineligible if she had a job, without asking her for her hours and pay rate, data that would actually determine her eligibility. Of the students denied applications on any of the aforementioned pretexts, six asked to be given applications anyway, and were denied. This also happened to another six students who refused the "3rd degree" and asserted their presumed right to an application, without publicly answering all of the extensive questions; all were denied applications.

Six students did get Family Assistance applications, when all of the thirty-three students should have been able to do so. The pathways to getting an application for each were unique, yet these processes sometimes matched the processes students who were denied applications had gone through, suggesting that getting an application is actually an arbitrarily conditioned event. Among those getting applications in Jefferson County, one consistent thing they shared was being told they could not leave and fill out the application elsewhere, but rather must fill it out there. (In one case, a student who was told to return with his child's social security number before getting an application, was also told that the DHR worker would then have to watch him make the application out!) One student successfully answered all the questions asked and was given an application, and told to sit down and fill it out there, after which he would be given an appointment, and then he would have to return for "a 4 hour interview with a panel of social workers who will determine if you are eligible. Then you have to watch a video..." The workers were sufficiently vigilant about people leaving with an application in hand that one student, who was denied an application, was chased into the parking area by a worker who had confused her with someone who had gotten an application. The worker apologized, saying that she thought my student was leaving the office with an application.

One student was questioned closely, first she was told she could have aid if she only worked part-time, then told that she could not have aid if she worked at all; then she was told that they did not give out applications at that particular office. (The last two responses are not true.) She asserted her right to an application, and was interviewed by a supervisor who explained the pre-screening process as being needed under the welfare reform "to ensure that the money we are allotted goes to those who really need it." This does not explain why this redundant, oral "pre-screening "process has been added to the initial application screening process and the actual intake process that would follow.

This student mentioned above and another student both received applications by admitting they were students, and did not really need them. Their "breaking their cover stories" however did not materially change the ways other students were treated at the welfare offices. Each student provided the dates and times they did their assignments and the timing of their visits had no effect on who received or did not receive applications, among my students who did the assignment. Rather, where the students were sent (Jefferson as opposed to Shelby County) was the strongest predictor of success or failure in getting an application.

The four other students who obtained applications did so in spite of being unable to produce their respective fictional children's social security cards or numbers, we suspect, out of the kindness of the specific worker's heart, given that more than four students were denied applications when they could not produce a social security card for their fictional child. All who obtained applications survived the questioning process despite inadequacies in their responses that had resulted in others being denied. One thing that sticks out in most of these cases is that it appears to have been busier in the DHR offices at those times, which also may account for why some of these students managed to smuggle their applications out of the building, in spite of being told not to do that. Some of the students did not attempt to take the applications with them; rather, they sat down, pretended to fill out the applications, and then acted frustrated and left the building, a behavior they borrowed from the clients they observed while in the office.

Analysis
There are real barriers to applying for aid anywhere in the United States. Potential clients carry with them the barrier of culturally conditioned stigma attached to the kinds of aid that agencies such as Alabama's DHR provides. While no one would be ashamed to apply for worker's compensation, unemployment compensation or social security pensions (aid to the "deserving" that is a right "earned" by having been in the labor force), most Americans think of AFDC, Food Stamps, Medicaid, WIC, and General Assistance as "welfare," or aid to the undeserving poor. As a result, most Americans resist applying for such aid until they have run out of alternatives to it.

A second barrier, in addition to welfare's stigma is knowledge. We all know which agency deals with Social Security pensions, and can readily look it up in the telephone book and get the address. We also have general knowledge about eligibility requirements for the program as well, and so we know if we are likely to be eligible which empowers individuals in the application process. Conversely, agencies in each state that deal with aid programs to the "undeserving" poor have no uniform name that is readily identifiable to all. Thus, there is the problem of identifying and locating the agency in one's state that supplies welfare programs as a second barrier of an informational nature. A third barrier, also informational in its nature, is knowing the names of programs one can apply for and knowing something about eligibility requirements. Most Americans have little to knowledge about eligibility and since some of these requirements vary from state to state, it is difficult to know if one is potentially eligible. As a result, many of the eligible poor never attempt to apply for aid under the assumption that they are not eligible.

The field data acquired by my students suggest that there are real systemic barriers to application for Family Assistance in Jefferson County that do not exist currently for Food Stamps applicants, nor do they exist for applicants in Shelby County, as indicated earlier in this paper. Students identified several barriers that existed, in addition to the "normal" barriers to getting aid in the United States.

 First, the Birmingham DHR office, where Family Assistance applications are taken, has no clearly marked street numbers on it, nor does it have a sign that indicates it is a DHR office. In spite of being given the name and address of the office, all students assigned to this office had difficulty finding it. They often drove by it several times, until they realized, through process of elimination, that this had to be the place. As they approached the doors, the only hint of the building's function is a Xeroxed sign about food stamps posted on the door or window by the entrance. Several students noted that they saw other applicants hesitate at the door and peer around as if they too were doubtful that they were at the right address. In sum, the difficulty of finding and identifying these DHR offices created a physical barrier to application.
Many students going to the Birmingham office noted that the first persons they saw were police officers smoking on the steps of the building. Students going to the Bessemer office were surprised and discomfited to see a prominent yellow plastic sign on the office door which stated that weapons were prohibited on the premises and it also warned that violators would be prosecuted. In neither case did the DHR buildings appear to be welcoming to it's potential clients, and many students initially wondered why the police and these warnings were necessary. Other physical characteristics that students noted regarding the two Jefferson County DHR offices were chipped paint and shabby unclean interiors.
Once clients entered the Hill Building DHR office in Birmingham, my students noted that the configuration of the room relative to the front entrance resulted in the prospective applicant having all waiting clients' eyes on them as they walk past the chairs to the reception windows to ask for an application. While this is discomfiting, it is not clear that the room is intentionally set up to have this effect. Even so, combined with the stigma that pre-exists regarding welfare, this resulted in applicants feeling as though they were walking a humiliating gauntlet that put them on display as having "come to get welfare." While the social class of college students is distinct from that of most welfare clients, I would argue that any prospective client would feel uncomfortable walking that gauntlet.

The second systemic barrier to application was the very public nature of the "pre-screening process," which utilized the stigma the culture places on welfare clients to deter application. Applicants had to submit to a series of questions about their circumstances in front of other DHR workers and also clients waiting for appointments. The oral pre-screening process was a means to eliminate, not the just the ineligible, but anyone unwilling/unable to get past this obstacle course. One student called it a "lesson in humiliation" and others likewise reported that it was frustrating and embarrassing to be questioned in front of strangers in this manner, just to get the initial screening application. One student ducked the issue by grabbing a Food Stamps application, in hopes that was the one he needed, so as not to have to be questioned; another student used her friend's failure to get an application as a reason to also duck the "pre-screening." Such public display of private circumstances makes the process additionally daunting; it is difficult enough to submit to questioning in private with an intake worker. This added public questioning just makes it all the more humiliating for prospective clients.

A physical feature of the Birmingham DHR's Hill Building caused additional shame and discomfort for prospective clients. The reception counter had windows of plastic or glass that separate the client from the receptionist, with only a small space left open at the bottom to pass papers through. This quarantine of workers from clients implied that clients were either potentially violent or carrying something contagious that the workers did not want to be exposed to; in sum, they felt the barriers were insulting. More than the dramaturgical importance of the physical barriers, students indicated that they produced an increased need to respond loudly to the workers' questions, in order to be heard. This then made it even more likely that others in the waiting room would hear your responses. Clients were noticed to sometimes bend down to speak into the gap, and thus not have to raise their voices and risk others hearing them. For those who bent down, it was perceived by on looking students as a diminution of the client's dignity. Students noted that they too had to raise their voices to be heard, and this made them very self conscious. Of course, students sometimes heard the details of the clients' lives due to this physical layout. In the case of the Bessemer DHR office, there was a counter at which applicants stood to be "pre-screened," and, again, clients could easily hear each other's responses, as well as comments from the "audience" about their responses.

This loss of privacy was heightened by the fact that these receptionists asked applicants a series of personal questions, most of which would still have to be provided in writing if one obtained an application. Getting an application depended upon one's willingness to stand there and answer every question in front of other waiting clients and other DHR workers who, if idle, got to witness the procedure. When challenged about this, one worker referred to the questioning as a "pre-screening" which, if the client did not agree to pass through it, "you aren't gonna get an application!"

Additional systemic barriers to application were erected in the process of the "pre-screening." This pre-screening was fairly consistent in its content across the field reports of my students, with the primary variations being in how far each student (and clients they observed while there) got before being rejected, and/or the reasons why they would be allowed/prohibited from receiving the application. (In the case of the Bessemer DHR workers, there were some added barriers that enhanced the rejection process that will be discussed later on.) The results of the field observation were that only a minority of my students going to Jefferson County DHR offices got applications, and two of the six students getting applications were able to do so only by admitting that they did not need them!

This pre-screening procedure had some fairly standard features to it, regardless of the day, time of day, or receptionist with whom the students and clients interacted. "May I help you?" was sometimes, as noted previously, followed by a clarifying question regarding the type of aid the person was applying for, in spite of the fact that the applicant had chosen to stand in the Family Assistance line, not the Food Stamps line. This became systemic barrier number three . If the client appeared unsure or hesitated, they often were directed to the Food Stamps window or to a pile of Food Stamps applications provided in one of the offices. (The reason for encouraging Food Stamp applications while discouraging Family Assistance applications will be explained in later in this report.)

Systemic barrier number four: Clients who said they want AFDC/Family Assistance were then asked questions about their family type and size: "Do you have children?" or "How many children do you have/How many children are you applying for?"(All of this is information one must provide on the application.) The demand to see your child's social security card stopped many students from obtaining an application, even though it is only a requirement to begin one's case, not for making an application. They were then told that they could not have an application until they physically produced either the card or, in the case of one student, the actual child. The fact is that many poor people do not have social security numbers for their children until they actually need them. If they have no money for life insurance for their children, then the child probably does not have a social security number yet. This is not a legal barrier to getting an application, however. Aid applicants can apply for the social security number and prove that they have done so. Also, most parents do not carry their child's social security card on them as a matter of course, and legally do not have to produce it until they have filed an application for aid. If given an application, the client eventually is given a handout that listed eligibility requirements and documentation requirements, so that they would then know that they need to bring the child's social security card with them.

Those students who were allowed past this hurdle, were bombarded with even more personal questions and demands for information, all of which would still have to be put on an application, assuming they might eventually get one. Demands for their name, date of birth, child's name, date of birth, "Have you ever been married?", "Do you live on your own?", their address, the applicant's mother's name (a question that is no where needed on the applications I have seen), and her address and date of birth. Some students were also asked their age, if they had a job and, if so, how much they made an hour, and how many hours a week they worked. The number of questions varied by how soon the prospective client gave up or was told they were ineligible. As noted earlier, one student was told variously that she could not apply if she worked, she could apply if she worked part-time and then, she was not eligible because she worked.

The lack of knowledge by clients of their rights and eligibility requirements were used by the Jefferson County DHR workers to send clients away without an application and with the belief that they must not be eligible because the DHR worker told them so. All the lies told to prospective clients constituted systemic barrier number five, and this barrier was effective, in part, because clients did not know for sure what their rights were. In the case of students who tried to test this by asserting their right to an application, they were challenged by the DHR workers who told them they were wrong. In the absence of a lawyer, or an advocate with a copy of the Family Assistance Payments Manual on hand, how could a client effectively get her/his rights honored?

Some of these screening questions, oddly enough, were put to students before and sometimes after telling them that it was too late in the day to get an application. In these cases, the students felt that the receptionists were putting them through public humiliation that had no redeeming feature, since they would still (if they had been true clients) have to return and undergo more public questioning as part of the application process. Refusing to supply clients with applications after an arbitrary time of day was another systemic barrier.

In the Bessemer office, the "pre-screening" process of questioning took on an added dimension that may have just been a few individual workers' tweaking of the process, or it may represent further screening barriers being added to the process at this particular office. To illustrate, I reproduce here verbatim notes from that student's visit:

Student: I need an application for public assistance please.
Worker: I need to make sure you know that you have to fill it out here, because we don't allow you to take the application out of the office.
Student: Okay.
Worker: How many children do you have?
Student: Can't I tell you that, give you that on the application?
Worker: No. How many children are you applying for?
Student: One.
Worker: How old?
Student: Five.
Workers: How old are you?
Student: Nineteen. (Student overhears another woman in the waiting room whispering to another about the student's youthful age and parenthood of a child!)
Worker: Do you have a job?
Student: Yes, part-time.
Worker: How many hours do you work.
Student: Eight.
Worker: Per week?!
Student: yes, per week.
Worker: How much do you get paid?
Student: Minimum wage.
Worker: How much is that? Five fifty?
Another woman client interrupts, being helpful to the student: "Five fifteen!"
(Getting this information accurately to the worker is important to getting the
application only. Once one applies, pay stubs would have to be provided to
the intake worker who would then know if the client was earning too little to
be eligible.)
Student: Five fifteen.
Worker: Five fifteen? Have a seat and I'll be with you in a minute.
A FEW MINUTE LATER...
Worker: what is your name?
Student: {Gives her name}
Worker: Social security number?
Student: {Gives social security number}
Worker: I know that is not an Alabama number, so where are you from?
(There is no such thing as an Alabama Social security number, and the student knows this,
but plays along, to see where this will go...)
Student: Florida.
Worker: Well, we probably do things a little differently here than they do there!
What is your address?
Student: {Gives address}
Worker: Zip Code?
Student: {Gives her zip code}
Worker: (Looking at a chart) That's a Birmingham zip code; you're going to have to go to the Birmingham office. I can't give you an application. This is the Bessemer office. I can give you the address to the Birmingham office.
Student: What's the difference?
Worker: the zip code.

As shown above, the pre-screening process gives DHR workers the opportunity to use the screening process to deny even more potential clients than the screening process was already designed to do. I did the math on my student's pay of $5.15 an hour for 32 hours a month; this meant she grossed $164.80 each month and would probably net roughly $131 a month. If she had a child, given a payment standard of $137 a month for a family of two, she would be eligible for AFDC. But, if she were earning $5.50 an hour, (as the Bessemer DHR worker tried to imply, her monthly gross would be $176.00 and her net would probably be $140 a month, just above the payment standard. So, had she not corrected the worker's attempt to inflate her earnings, the worker could have argued that she makes too much money to be eligible, and denied her the right to an application on that basis. Because that did not work, she then tries to trick the student with a question that is a bald-faced lie: "I know that (Social Security) number is not an Alabama number, so where are you from?" There is no such thing as a social security numbering system that gives different sets of numbers to different states' residents. This may have been an attempt to trip her up as a con artist who travels from state to state applying for welfare (as another student was accused of doing). The next remark ("We do things a little differently here than they do there") implied that this student had been on welfare in the state she named in response to the previous question. Perhaps the worker did suspect some such thing and was trying to signal that she was suspicious of her, to "warn her" against making a fraudulent application. The same student whose notes are cited above continued her observation at the Bessemer office and found that this tricky questioning was not just reserved for her:

The student sat down and begins to take notes. She is able to listen in an another woman's
pre-screening with the same worker, who tries to test the woman's answers by repeating
them incorrectly. EXAMPLE: Worker: "How many children did you say you have? Three?" Client: "Two." The student then sees another worker come to receive clients at the counter,
and she hears, verbatim, the same litany of questions and attempts to trip clients on their
responses to which she had been subjected. The point she makes in her field notes is that the workers put clients through a particularly tricky course of questioning, all of it done publicly
so others can hear.

This is not only humiliating but also appears to be designed to make getting an application difficult.
It is not immediately clear why this student could not have an application and take it to the Birmingham office; just as it has not been clear why clients at both the Bessemer and the Birmingham offices are prevented from taking applications with them. In fact, the above-mentioned student left the Bessemer office empty-handed, and was chased to the parking lot by a worker who mistakenly thought she was leaving with an application! The tight security they have tried to create in Jefferson County to prevent applications from getting out into the public would function to maintain public ignorance of application and eligibility requirements for Family Assistance, and thus reduce the numbers of eligible families from knowing that they are eligible, thus empowering them to apply and receive aid.

A final barrier to application was discovered by my students who learned from other clients more about the process. Workers delayed the processing of applications by not providing clients with complete information regarding the documents one needed to bring to the intake "interview" appointment. In one conversation that was overheard in the waiting room, a client patted her large overstuffed purse and remarked, "I'll bet I have everything she asks for this time," alluding to delays in getting processed/extra trips to the office to provide the correct documents, a not uncommon problem in processing applications. The Shelby County application packet begins with a clear and unambiguous list of the documents needed to process an application; but the same cannot be said for Jefferson County DHR. As was displayed by a client to one student, in Jefferson County, persons who obtain and fill out the two page Family Assistance Application are given an interview appointment and a piece of paper with the case number, the worker's name, the date and location of the interview, and it also has a space that the worker can use to check off "Items To Bring With You Or Have Ready For Me When I Visit You." One new applicant, awaiting her group appointment and individual intake appointment, showed her Interview Notification paper to one of my students, to help explain the process. It had an apparently insufficient number of these items that apply to her case checked off, even though they are basic documents that, if she does not have them with her, will delay/prevent the opening her case. (The student laboriously copied all the information on the form in her notes and also discussed with her which ones she thought applied to her case. The result of this exchange was this assessment by the client herself who remarked, "Gee, I hope she doesn't ask for that too 'cause I didn't bring it!") It was through this process that we learned about the next step in the application process. A similar sloppiness in preparing the applicant to have a successful intake interview could explain the other woman's remark that she believed she had "everything she asks for this time." This barrier is not a new trick. When I helped welfare clients in Michigan to survive their application process over the years, there was a standard complaint that they bring the documents requested of them, only to discover that now the worker wants more documents, including some on the list that she had not requested earlier. And, as it states on the list of Alabama DHR required documents: "if these items are not provided by the date(s) shown above, your application for assistance may be denied or your case closed." Inaccurate requests for documents put an undue burden on clients who must arrange transportation, time, and sometimes child care, in order to make the additional trips to the DHR office to bring in documents and try to keep their case alive.

The pre-screening process contains several important barriers to application simply because the average person does not know the regulations or their rights with regard to welfare programs, and so, must assume their are being told the truth by the person behind the counter/window. I stopped counting the lies told to my students, as did they. The most common lies were about the application process. No four hour interview by a panel of social workers, contrary to what my students were told, is actually done. (I had a Jefferson County Family Assistance management worker explain the application process to me, and while she omitted the pre-screening Process in her description, she did give me a clear view of the intake process, including a group presentation on their rights and responsibilities and a video they must watch. When I asked her if they underwent a group intake interview process during those four hours, she emphatically said they did not.) Having a job does not automatically exclude one from welfare eligibility; the amount of monthly income per family size is the issue. There is no reason why a person could not pick up an application for someone else, nor is there any reason why people cannot take applications outside, except, of course, to keep others from seeing the application and knowing what kinds of questions they would be asked if they did apply. One difference in the Jefferson County process, as yet unmentioned, is that eligibility information, freely provided in the application packet in Shelby County, is not given to clients until after they submit their initial application! If they actually wanted to save time and paper by reducing the numbers of futile applications, they would provide this information sooner than they do.

Several students noted that it seemed that only the most persistent and stubborn person could get past the process and the worker in order to get an application. In reading their notes, I was amazed that several students "stayed the course" out of an obstinacy that exceeded my wildest expectations, yet only rarely did such behavior produce an application. Outside of admitting you don't need an application, it was quite random who did or did not get an application in Jefferson County, as the same responses could provoke either result.

The barriers to application illustrated here are not simply onerous; they are done in violation of DHR's own regulations. The Assistance Payments Manual clearly states, under Chapter 1, Section 1105, Application Process - General:

"Each individual wishing to do so shall have the opportunity to apply for assistance without
 delay. If the individual requests an application form be mailed to him/her, mail form 690A
 the day of the request or the next working day. Advise the client that s/he may bring the form
 in or mail it and that a face-to-face interview is required which may be conducted individually
 or in a group setting." (Family Assistance Payments Manual, Revision No. 692 (March 1997): p. 1-5)

The regulations cited above would tend to militate against this pre-screening process as delaying the prospective applicant from attempting the application procedure.
What's Going On? Possible Explanations from the Larger Historical Context
As I waited for students to finish their field observations, so that I could begin reading , grading and analyzing them, one student told me that she was denied an application, and being the curious sort, she drove to her home county and readily obtained an application! This was my first inkling that my students had turned up an application process in Jefferson County that was distinct from some other counties. (I do not want to say that it is distinct from all other Alabama Counties, as there may be others with similar practices.)
Let me begin by saying that nothing my students uncovered was particularly new or inventive in the actual process of administering social welfare policy. In fact, I had seen all these things done at different points in time in the state I grew up in, and these practices have also been documented in many books on the history of social welfare policy and practices. (See: Regulating the Poor by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven)

An understanding of current social welfare policy may go a long way to explaining what is going on in Jefferson County. Under the welfare reform of 1997, each state is required to reduce the welfare rolls by a specific amount each year, or be penalized in the size of the block grant it will receive for welfare programs in the following year. There was also to be an added money prize for the one state out of the fifty states with the best record of "moving clients from welfare to work." The latter phenomenon however is translated as reduced welfare rolls, rather than the actual number of clients who make the welfare-to-work transition. As part of a concerned group of organizations and individuals who have watched this process of reform, I have had numerous conversations with others similarly concerned that Alabama would "put all of its eggs into one basket" by making the more populous counties like Jefferson bear the brunt of welfare reform case reduction requirements. Of all possible explanations as to why Jefferson County has a distinct application process that tends to discourage and/or deny clients the right to an application, the need to reduce the State's caseload seems to explain it the best. In a Birmingham News article, Sunday April 12, 1998, on page one, the headline, "Welfare Rolls Plummet," was followed by estimates that Alabama has seen a caseload reduction of 32 percent from August 1996 to August 1997, a record that only ten other states bested in the same time period. (Given our poor showing in so many state rankings, the urge to shout, "We're Number 11!" was probably felt by many people.) The article did note that DHR administrators recognize that some part of the case reduction came from people quietly letting their cases be closed, out of a belief that the new regulations made getting aid "too much of a hassle." Some part of the drop in the welfare rolls can also be accounted for by closing cases of clients whose attempts to comply with the new regulations were inadequate to the new requirements put on them.

It would also seem that the goal of a reduced welfare caseload is also being met by keeping the numbers of new applicants down to a bare minimum. Certainly, the climate of misinformation, conjecture, and rumor that attended the welfare reform resulted in the poorly informed public being even further misinformed about welfare regulations, eligibility, etc. and this would include welfare recipients as well. In addition, some portion of the working poor who subsequently found themselves in need may have been warned off attempting to apply for aid, given the misinformation about aid regulations and eligibility requirements. The continuing stigma associated with receiving "welfare," but not receiving other forms of government aid, keeps the numbers of applicants down to only those who are sufficiently desperate, and/or those who are already so stigmatized that the welfare label doesn't matter that much.

It is at this pool of prospective new applicants in Jefferson County that the pre-screening techniques described in this report are aimed. In the more populous counties, like Jefferson, it is important to control the numbers of case openings and closings so that the state of Alabama can comply with the welfare reform regulations received from the Federal government. The goal is numbers, and Jefferson County can make or break the state's ability to comply with the reform.

Alabama Arise released a report in July 1997 ("Demystifiying the Caseload Reduction" by David Dawson) that analyzed changes in the caseload over 18 months, and provided possible explanations. At that time, given the data they had to statistically test, Alabama Arise concluded that the changes in the unemployment rate and changes in the percentages of cases awarded assistance had the greatest power to explain the reduced caseload of welfare recipients, although the two phenomena were not perfect in their ability to explain events. For example, while unemployment rate changes did have some influence on caseload reductions, there was no explanation for why caseloads had not been lower when unemployment had been lower. Arise did find a dramatic reduction in cases awarded assistance since May 1996 in Alabama; and based on a small amount of anecdotal evidence in student's field notes, the differing amounts of accuracy with which clients are notified of the documents they need to open a case or keep their cases open could be part of the process by which cases awarded assistance dropped.

It is even more clear from the qualitative data my students obtained in this field assignment that part of the drop in cases awarded is actually the prevention of case openings by preventing application for family assistance. How many new cases are prevented by the screening process used in Jefferson County would be difficult to calculate. As one of my students was discouraged from asking for an application by watching someone else get turned down, one wonders how many more potential clients never ask for the application because the person in line ahead of them had similar circumstances and was denied an application.

Many more of the needy are on food stamps but not AFDC, even if they are eligible. Why? Some may be avoiding AFDC because of the additional requirements that make getting and keeping one's eligibility difficult ; some others may be making do on Food Stamps out of the belief that Food Stamps "aren't really welfare," a remark I have heard often here in Alabama, but not a belief that the non-poor share. Based on this assumption, opting for the aid that one feels less stigmatizing is not an unheard of choice. But, we can also say that, lacking better information on eligibility and better access to applications, few of those eligible for AFDC can and will get it in Alabama. In the end, the "Welfare Reform" as defined as caseload reductions, is aided by the behavior of DHR workers in Jefferson County that flouts state regulations, and uses the ignorance of the average citizen against them in their time of need.

What is To Be Done?
I would argue that much more research needs to be done to determine if similar processes of denying and discouraging applications is occurring in other counties in Alabama, especially Mobile and Montgomery, as other counties with large populations. Large case reductions in small poor counties count little toward the numbers game our DHR administrators appear to be forced to play. Citizens ought to spot check their own local DHR offices regularly by posing as a potential applicant, and report their finding to the Alabama Poverty Project and/or Alabama Arise. We would be happy to assist such a data gathering effort.

In addition, we need to demand accountability from our state institutions. DHR administrators need to investigate and end the practices described here that flaunt their own regulations. I attempted to obtain information from Jefferson County administrators on the application process. I called the person I expected was in charge of such things and was told that she was out of the office helping tornado victims. I asked for the next lowest person in command and she gave me a rosy description of the process that went as follows:

ME: Can you describe the AFDC application process to me?
DHR: First, you come in. They will take your application. Then you come back for a group interview that takes 3 to 4 hours.
ME: Is that an interview? In a group?
DHR: No, that is really a group session where we go over information on the requirements. Then you see a case worker who goes over the case.
ME: Is that when you have to bring in documents to prove your circumstances before your case can be opened?
DHR: Yeah, but people can either bring in the paperwork they need to or just mail it in.
ME: Can you tell me what kind of timeliness deadlines the workers have to meet in opening a case?
DHR: The worker has 42 days from the initial date of application in which to open a case and issue a check to the client.
ME: What, if anything, has changed in the application process since the welfare reform?
DHR: The main change since the reform is the group part of the process.
ME: So, if I applied for welfare, then you would take my application and schedule me an interview, right? So, would I potentially be able to get the interview on the same day as when I applied?
DHR: No, but it would be soon. The only limitation is that we don't do the group presentations on Monday. But, then too, you don't HAVE to have a group presentation if you don't want. You have the right to request a private presentation instead of group.
ME: What are the hours of operation? When could I come in and apply?
DHR: Between the hours of 8AM and 4:40PM.

Please notice that, assuming this administrator believes what she is telling me, she thinks the process begins with filling out an application. My students' data shows that there is an entire process of application-getting (or better described as "application denial") that precedes the process of filling it out. It is unclear at what level in DHR the decision was made to initiate a new "pre-screening process in Jefferson County, but the actual pressure felt in Alabama to do such things came from Washington D.C. My data better explain the drop in applications taken in Alabama DHR offices between 10-95 and 3-97, as reported in the Arise report on the caseload reduction, than does the improvement in the unemployment rate over that time.
Alabama Arise also reports on cases awarded, data that combines awards of new cases with periodic recertification of existing cases, and reopenings of closed cases. From 10-94 to 3-97, the percent of cases awarded assistance dropped from 63 percent to 46.27, indicating that it is not only harder to get an application in Alabama, but having gotten one, you stand a better chance of being turned down for aid than of getting it. Any argument that the pre-screening being done in Jefferson County is a measure to reduce the unnecessary paperwork and time expended by potential clients and case workers, by quickly screening out the truly ineligible, is not born out by these data. Such a precipitous drop in percent of cases awarded is not accounted for by the numbers of clients leaving welfare for work either.

Of course, "churning" the welfare rolls is one way that the welfare rolls are being reduced as well. Churning involves a selective reinterpretation of welfare policy such that clients who were legally eligible are not under this new policy interpretation. The result is that some clients never reapply, believing that they are truly not eligible and a few will appeal the ruling and be reinstated, but this still saves money while artificially cutting the rolls.

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