Sunday, 25 September 2016 00:00 By Meredith Kolodner , The Hechinger Report
| Report
Wendy Thompson always knew she wanted her son to go to college, but she
didn't realize so many people would disagree.
Her son was born with cerebral palsy, a disease that has him using a
wheelchair, but has little impact on his academic abilities. He graduated
from high school with a Regents diploma in 2013 -- a feat accomplished by
only 18 percent of students with disabilities in New York City that year,
compared to 70 percent of students without disabilities.
But when Thompson met with a counselor from the state agency that is
supposed to help people with disabilities get training or a degree that will
lead to a job, the counselor refused to sign off on her son's plan to go to
community college. That meant he wouldn't get wheelchair-accessible
transportation, tuition help or voice-activated software from the agency --
all of which he qualified for under federal law.
"I know too many young men with all kinds of disabilities just sitting
around at home doing nothing," said Thompson, who raised her son on her own.
"They're not even given a chance. I didn't want that for him."
Thompson's frustration is shared by people with disabilities and their
parents nationwide.
More than 800,000 people with disabilities found eligible for services
received no assistance between 2010 and 2014, according to federal data.
More than a dozen states failed to provide services to over 40 percent of
those they themselves deemed eligible. And many more states have left people
in limbo for months, despite laws that expressly forbid that.
"It's happening across the country, and it's inexcusable," said Ron Hager,
senior staff attorney at the National Disability Rights Network.
This despite $3 billion in tax dollars spent last year by the agencies
responsible, known as Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) offices. Created by the
Rehabilitation Act three decades ago, VRs are supposed to help people with
disabilities become independent. Some people need a hearing aid, for
example; others require voice-activated note-taking software or
screen-readers for college.
Studies have shown that people with disabilities benefit even more than the
general public from having a college degree, in terms of employment and
getting out of poverty -- people with disabilities with a bachelor's degree
are almost 50 percent more likely to have a job than those with just a high
school diploma. Yet, while 76 percent of people with disabilities have high
school diplomas, only 12 percent have college degrees.
Some VR agencies work well; counselors respond promptly to applications and
help clients further their education and secure employment. But in many
states the VR offices are understaffed, poorly run or hamstrung by political
battles. Staff turnover is high, successful job placement is fleeting and
money is spent without significant results.
Delays in service provision were so widespread that, in 2014, Congress
mandated that a person with a disability must receive a plan for employment
within 90 days of being deemed eligible for assistance. In 20 states, more
than one-third of cases stretched past the 90-day limit in 2015. Close to
14,000 cases stretched past a year.
Once an applicant gets an approved plan, the next step is to get the
services -- which often takes even longer. The delays lead to missed job and
educational opportunities and longer government dependence, all at a cost to
taxpayers.
Part of the problem, advocates say, is high caseloads. The situation is most
severe in urban centers. The recommended caseload per VR counselor is
between 80 and 100 clients. But in the Bronx, for example, the average
caseload rose to 270 in 2016, up from 222 in 2015. The current New York
statewide average is 185, according to state officials.
"VR is an underfunded ghetto for people with disabilities," said Susan
Dooha, executive director of the Center for Independence of the Disabled,
New York. "I don't understand why, given the large cost of maintaining
people with disabilities in poverty, in institutions, the state doesn't
invest more in VR services, but I cannot remember the last time that an
increase was proposed that would allow the hiring of more counselors."
Josh Greene, who has several learning disabilities, felt the impact of those
high caseloads firsthand. He lives in the Bronx, and in the fall of 2014, he
was brimming with hope. He had his first appointment with a counselor at the
Bronx VR agency. He was found eligible for services and was accepted that
spring to Guttman Community College in Manhattan.
It went downhill from there. Greene has dyslexia and needed software to help
him take notes without scrambling the letters. He also needed an audio
recorder so he could listen to lectures again at home, and some extra help
with writing.
He spent 10 months emailing, leaving messages and resubmitting forms, but by
the following September when he started classes, he still had received none
of the academic assistance for which he had been approved.
A spokeswoman for the Education Department, which oversees New York's VR
office, said the agency could not comment on individual cases, but
acknowledged that turnover among Bronx counselors was about 30 percent last
year.
New York isn't the only place struggling with high caseloads.
The backup in Milwaukee is so severe that it is not uncommon for people to
wait six weeks to get a first appointment to begin the eligibility process,
said Cathy Steffke, an advocacy specialist at Disability Rights Wisconsin.
"I feel very badly for a VR counselor stuck with a [high] caseload," said
Steffke. "Can you imagine going to school to help people and then find out
you can't help anyone?"
By law, VR caseworkers must have a master's degree, but in most states their
pay is lower than that of their counterparts at the veterans administration
or the department of education. The private sector pays even more, so many
people leave after just a few years, passing on their cases to
less-experienced counselors who already have their own loads.
"I think more people would stay, even with lower pay, if they felt like they
had the possibility of helping people," said a recently retired caseworker
who spent close to three decades at a Wisconsin VR office and asked to
remain anonymous because he still works with the agency. Of the 22
co-workers when he left his office less than two years ago, only two are
left, he said.
Statewide, 30 percent of casework-related staff left between 2012 and 2015,
according to a state audit.
"It's a caseload issue that's basically political," said Linda Vegoe, the
director of Wisconsin's client assistance program (CAP). State CAPs are also
federally funded and were established to help people having difficulty
getting services from the VR agencies. "They don't want to increase the
number of positions."
In 2013, Governor Scott Walker became the first Wisconsin governor in more
than a decade to put up the full amount of state matching funds for
Wisconsin's VR. Walker supported moving people from government assistance to
work. Nonetheless, the number of counselors in Wisconsin has stayed flat
since 2012, according to a state audit, although there has been an increase
in the number of counselors in training.
State officials say that new initiatives, including one that enlists the
counselors in training to handle some eligibility-related tasks, allowed
them to successfully close a record-number of cases last fiscal year. The
Wisconsin waiting list now averages only 150 people at a time (down from
4,900 in 2013), according to John Dipko, communications director at
Wisconsin's Department of Workforce Development, and the agency has
streamlined its intake process.
But advocates say that some of the changes have only pushed people off the
waitlists and into the system, where the waiting time isn't tracked but has
increased. "Waiting for service inside the system takes longer than waiting
on the outside," said Vegoe, who has worked at CAP for 25 years. "The
external waitlist basically became an internal one."
High caseloads translate into delays and lack of services for people like
Amy Kerzner.
Multiple sclerosis struck Kerzner relatively late in life, making it
impossible for her to keep working as a nurse.
"I knew one thing: I would never, ever live the rest of my life on
disability," said Kerzner, 49. "I would find a way to be a productive
citizen."
She met with a VR counselor in Calumet County, where she lived, who approved
her plan to attend Alverno College in Milwaukee so she could get training to
become a psychologist. She moved to Milwaukee in October 2010 and called her
new caseworker there -- repeatedly. Even though the paperwork had been
transferred and she was due to start classes in January, she couldn't get an
appointment until March. She began the program anyway.
"He kept making appointments and canceling, not returning emails," she
recalled.
When she finally met with the caseworker, he told her that he was denying
her request to attend Alverno. She called an advocacy hotline, appealed the
decision and won, although it took several more months before she was
reimbursed.
Kerzner graduated four years later with a GPA of 4.0 and is now working on a
master's degree. "Movement is painful, you ache and throb all the time, you
just get used to that level of pain," she said. "But I will take that pain
all day long, as long as I can be independent."
Wisconsin VR officials dispute Kerzner's account of her treatment. They say
they have requested but have not received permission from her that would
allow them to make the details of her case public.
Steffke says Kerzner's experience is not an anomaly.
"These people just want to work, they just want a job, they're not asking
for cars and boats and property," she said.
Yet high caseloads are not the only reason that some people leave the system
without receiving services, according to a U.S. Department of Education
spokesman. In light of a shortfall of funding, some states have created
waiting lists to prioritize the most disabled, so clients on the waitlist
who have been found eligible for VR services but whose needs are less
"significant" may be redirected to other agencies, such as a Veterans
program if the disability occurred due to military service.
"No one wants to say it, but I'll say it: funding, funding, funding,"
Steffke argued. "There's lots of people who can get off of social security,
or at least just partial social security, but the federal government has
never dealt with this well."
Federal funding for VR has dropped by 6 percent since 2009, accounting for
inflation. And 21 states did not put up enough state money in 2015 to get
the full amount of federal matching funds.
The failure to fund is shortsighted, say advocates. Not only does a
successful job placement reduce government assistance rolls, they argue, but
when services for clients are denied or delayed, the agency is still
spending time and money on those clients.
In 2012, VR agencies around the country spent close to $365 million on
people who left the system before they completed services, and that's up
from $326 million in 2009, according to a study from the University of
Montana.
In Louisiana, 44 percent of people found eligible for services never
received any in 2014. This year, statewide budget cuts forced an even worse
crisis -- the office ran out of money and stopped taking new clients on
February 29. In addition, hundreds of people who had been found eligible but
hadn't gotten approval for their employment plan also had their cases put on
hold. The office reopened its caseloads on June 1, and counselors are now
wading through the backlog.
"It's had a big impact on everyone," said David Gallegos, program director
at the Advocacy Center of Louisiana who has been working there for 17 years.
Caseloads in New Orleans are now between 150 and 200 clients, said Gallegos,
who is also the state's CAP director.
Similarly, in January 2015, Tennessee's agency also temporarily stopped
taking new clients. Although it has opened its doors again, a state report
found that 100 of the 243 positions that provide direct services to clients
were vacant last year. The result has been caseloads of up to 200 in
Knoxville and elsewhere, and many dropped clients, advocates say.
Tennessee is actively hiring, said Devin Stone, spokesperson for the state
Department of Human Services. Stone added that over the past four years, the
agency has increased the number of clients getting jobs each year; advocates
say things have gotten worse.
People with disabilities and their advocates in many states also say that
even when applicants do get plans and see counselors, the results are
disappointing due to the counselors' skepticism about their abilities.
Loria Richardson, a project specialist from the nonprofit advocacy group The
Arc Tennessee, said she has seen this happen on numerous occasions. She is
currently working with a young man who was accepted at the Tennessee College
of Applied Technology. He visited the school, met with instructors and
decided to enroll in its HVAC program. School officials said it was not a
problem that he had graduated high school with a special education diploma.
They assured him that others without regular diplomas had been successful
there, and that they would work with him to provide accommodations, such as
digital access to class readings so he could use headphones to hear the
required texts. Yet when he applied to VR, although he was immediately found
eligible for services, his case manager said she did not think he would be
able to complete the HVAC class. She was not moved by the school officials'
opinion, the young man's successful four-year employment history, or the
fact that he had a driver's license and could already perform basic car
mechanic tasks. Richardson is now trying to help the young man find other
forms of financial aid so he can enroll at TCAT. An HVAC assistant -- the
job he aspires to -- starts at about $15 an hour, which would be a big step
up from his current job where he makes minimum wage.
Similarly, in Ohio, a VR counselor determined that a woman with spina bifida
was incapable of handling college and refused her request for assistance.
The woman managed to cobble together financial aid from other public
agencies and got her associate's degree. Yet when she returned to the VR
office to seek help for a bachelor's degree, she was again deemed ineligible
for college. It took a lengthy appeal, but she eventually won and got the
assistance she needed. She graduated two years later and landed a job as a
social worker.
Many people with disabilities say that such bias is not only offensive but
also threatens the independence they desperately seek.
"There is still a profound ignorance about what it means to have a
disability," said Hager of the National Disability Rights Network. "The vast
majority of learning disabilities do not affect a person's ability to handle
a college curriculum."
The poverty rate for people with disabilities is 30 percent, twice that of
people without a disability. But a college degree makes a difference.
"Underemployment is a big problem for people with disabilities in VR," said
Gallegos, the CAP director in Louisiana. "College can help with that, but it
seems like we're having to advocate much harder for everything than we ever
have before."
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