The Lancaster County Board of Commissioners has approved changes to the county’s General Assistance Guidelines, including more flexible notification options for applicants and expanded transportation assistance for people experiencing homelessness.
Sara Hoyle, Director of Human Services for the City of Lincoln and Lancaster County, outlined three main changes during a public hearing before commissioners approved the amendments unanimously.
One change allows applicants who are denied assistance to choose how they receive notification of the decision. Previously, the county generally sent denial notices by mail, which can be difficult for people who do not have a mailing address.
“Most of our clients prefer to be notified via text,” Hoyle told commissioners. Another change addresses transportation assistance for people who need help leaving Lancaster County to reconnect with family or other support systems.
Under the previous guidelines, applicants generally had to live in Lancaster County for six consecutive months before qualifying for transportation assistance, and the county checked for local employment before providing a bus pass.
Hoyle says that requirement could prevent people experiencing homelessness from returning to a place where they have family or other support available. She explained that people often become homeless after moving to the area to be near a loved one, only to find that circumstances do not work out as planned.
Transportation problems, including a broken-down vehicle, can leave them without a way to get somewhere they can receive help. “The virtue of how people become homelessness in the Midwest is not because they come here because of our great weather and decide to be homeless here,” Hoyle says. “It’s often because they follow a loved one here.”
The revised guidelines will give the county more flexibility to help those individuals reach family members or other support networks. The third change addresses a provision that makes applicants ineligible for Lancaster County assistance if they have been denied assistance in their home county within the previous 90 days.
Sarah said the county has no shared database to verify whether someone has been denied assistance elsewhere, making the existing restriction difficult to enforce. “So I have no way of knowing if somebody has applied in Saunders County and denied and then they apply here.”