Four Orange County residents are filing today a class action lawsuit in federal district court in Santa Ana, challenging Orange County’s unlawful delays in processing applicants’ requests for Food Stamps, Medi-Cal and General Relief benefits and in determining recipients’ ongoing eligibility for these benefits. The lawsuit seeks to enjoin the County to process applications and to make determinations of ongoing eligibility within the time frames mandated by federal and state laws.

Orange County laid off more than 200 employees in its Social Services Agency (“SSA”)
this past Monday, January 19, and will be implementing a mandatory furlough program for the
remaining employees in the SSA beginning February 1. The Board of Supervisors voted for
these personnel changes even though the number of requests for assistance has increased
significantly during the last six months due to the economic downturn.

Plaintiffs in the case are current applicants or recipients of these benefit programs. The lawsuit alleges that they have been improperly cut off from aid and experienced excessive delays in applying for assistance, all in violation of applicable law. Plaintiff Joann Blackstar, for example, is currently homeless and sleeps at a cold weather shelter in Fullerton. Ms. Blackstar needs medication to control her asthma and petit mal seizures. She applied for Food Stamps and Medi-Cal on December 29, 2008, and is still waiting to receive these benefits. Ms. Blackstar was not informed about expedited Food Stamps, which she would have received within three days of application.

The lawsuit has been brought by the Western Center on Law & Poverty, the Public Law  Center, and Rothner Segall Greenstone & Leheny. Robert Newman, Senior Counsel at the Western Center, states: “Now more than ever the County should be extending a helping hand to its needy residents. The Board of Supervisors has chosen to do the exact opposite.” Defendants
in the lawsuit are the County of Orange, the members of its Board of Supervisors, SSA and SSA’s current Director, Ingrid Harita.

Even before the recent personnel changes at SSA, the County was already failing to meet its legal obligations to applicants and recipients. According to the most recent data available to the public, the number of regular Food Stamp applications that SSA did not approve within the 30-day time frame has increased from 8 applications in September 2002 to 1,031 applications in September 2008 (or more than one third of all approved applications that month). Plaintiffs have
similarly received reports that the eligibility technicians in the Santa Ana Mail-in Center are currently averaging 70 days to determine Medi-Cal applications; those applications should be decided within 45 days.

Kenneth W. Babcock, Executive Director of the Public Law Center, observes that “The Board of Supervisors has singled out some of Orange County’s most vulnerable residents to bear the brunt of these cuts. The County has significant funds in reserve which could be used to help ease the burden. It’s also troubling that no other agency has been subjected to layoffs and mandatory furloughs to the same extent as those at the Social Services Agency.”