This assistance ranges from mileage reimbursement for clients participating in employment and training programs, to contracts with private transportation companies to provide services to medically-needy clients. Table 1 details transportation services provided by six of the state's 14 primary health and human services agencies during fiscal year 1991. These agencies include the Texas Department on Aging, the Commission for the Blind, the Texas Employment Commission, the Texas Department of Health, the Texas Department of Human Services and the Texas Rehabilitation Commission. While other agencies such as the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation, and the Texas Youth Commission also provide transportation services, these agencies do not routinely track the costs associated with providing these services or the number of clients served.
Transportation is essential to the delivery of health and human services.
As the state attempts to identify and support health and human services programs that will serve the most critical needs of disadvantaged Texans, it is important to ensure that clients can physically get to the point of service delivery to receive services. And yet, despite the amount of funds spent on transportation services by agencies, transportation difficulties are routinely cited by clients and agency providers as one of the major obstacles that clients face in accessing needed services. In a survey conducted by the Texas Interagency Council for Services to the Homeless, transportation and problems in establishing eligibility for services were named most often by providers as barriers to service delivery. In providing transportation for clients, most agencies provide clients with vouchers, reimburse them for mileage or contract with private transportation companies or local transportation authorities to transport clients at a fixed rate. However, lack of coordination between agencies results in costly inefficiencies to the state.