Source: http://webserver.rilin.state.ri.us/Statutes/TITLE40/40-5.2/40-5.2-10.HTM
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 04:52:59+00:00

Document:
§ 40-5.2-10. Necessary requirements and conditions.
The following requirements and conditions shall be necessary to establish eligibility for the program.
(a) Citizenship, alienage and residency requirements.
(1) A person shall be a resident of the State of Rhode Island.
(2) Effective October 1, 2008 a person shall be a United States citizen, or shall meet the alienage requirements established in § 402(b) of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, PRWORA, Public Laws No. 104-193 and as that section may hereafter be amended [8 U.S.C. § 1612]; a person who is not a United States citizen and does not meet the alienage requirements established in PRWORA, as amended, is not eligible for cash assistance in accordance with this chapter.
(b) The family/assistance unit must meet any other requirements established by the department of human services by rules and regulations adopted pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act, as necessary to promote the purpose and goals of this chapter.
(c) Receipt of cash assistance is conditional upon compliance with all program requirements.
(d) All individuals domiciled in this state shall be exempt from the application of subdivision 115(d)(1)(A) of Public Law 104-193, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, PRWORA [21 U.S.C. § 862a], which makes any individual ineligible for certain state and federal assistance if that individual has been convicted under federal or state law of any offense which is classified as a felony by the law of the jurisdiction and which has as an element the possession, use, or distribution of a controlled substance as defined in § 102(6) of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. § 802(6)).
(e) Individual employment plan as a condition of eligibility.
(1) Following receipt of an application, the department of human services shall assess the financial conditions of the family, including the non-parent caretaker relative who is applying for cash assistance for himself or herself as well as for the minor child(ren),in the context of an eligibility determination. If a parent or non parent caretaker relative is unemployed or under-employed, the department shall conduct an initial assessment, taking into account: (A) the physical capacity, skills, education, work experience, health, safety, family responsibilities and place of residence of the individual; and (B) the child care and supportive services required by the applicant to avail himself or herself of employment opportunities and/or work readiness programs.
(2) On the basis of such assessment, the department of human services and the department of labor and training, as appropriate, in consultation with the applicant, shall develop an individual employment plan for the family which requires the individual to participate in the intensive employment services. Intensive employment services shall be defined as the work requirement activities in subsections 40-5.2-12(g) and (i).
(3) The director, or his/her designee, may assign a case manager to an applicant/participant, as appropriate.
(4) The department of labor and training and the department of human services in conjunction with the participant shall develop a revised individual employment plan which shall identify employment objectives, taking into consideration factors above, and shall include a strategy for immediate employment and for preparing for, finding, and retaining employment consistent, to the extent practicable, with the individual's career objectives.
(5) The individual employment plan must include the provision for the participant to engage in work requirements as outlined in § 40-5.2-12 of this chapter.
(6)(A) The participant shall attend and participate immediately in intensive assessment and employment services as the first step in the individual employment plan, unless temporarily exempt from this requirement in accordance with this chapter. Intensive assessment and employment services shall be defined as the work requirement activities in subsections 40-5.2-12(g) and (i).
(B) Parents under age twenty (20) without a high school diploma or General Equivalency Diploma (GED) shall be referred to special teen parent programs which will provide intensive services designed to assist teen parent to complete high school education or GED, and to continue approved work plan activities in accord with Works program requirements.
(7) The applicant shall become a participant in accordance with this chapter at the time the individual employment plan is signed and entered into.
(8) Applicants and participants of the Rhode Island Work Program shall agree to comply with the terms of the individual employment plan, and shall cooperate fully with the steps established in the individual employment plan, including the work requirements.
(9) The department of human services has the authority under the chapter to require attendance by the applicant/participant, either at the department of human services or at the department of labor and training, at appointments deemed necessary for the purpose of having the applicant enter into and become eligible for assistance through the Rhode Island Work Program. Said appointments include, but are not limited to, the initial interview, orientation and assessment; job readiness and job search. Attendance is required as a condition of eligibility for cash assistance in accordance with rules and regulations established by the department.
(10) As a condition of eligibility for assistance pursuant to this chapter, the applicant/participant shall be obligated to keep appointments, attend orientation meetings at the department of human services and/or the Rhode Island department of labor and training, participate in any initial assessments or appraisals and comply with all the terms of the individual employment plan in accordance with department of human service rules and regulations.
(11) A participant, including a parent or non-parent caretaker relative included in the cash assistance payment, shall not voluntarily quit a job or refuse a job unless there is good cause as defined in this chapter or the department's rules and regulations.
(12) A participant who voluntarily quits or refuses a job without good cause, as defined in subsection 40-5.2-12(l), while receiving cash assistance in accordance with this chapter, shall be sanctioned in accordance with rules and regulations promulgated by the department.
(1) The Family or assistance unit's countable resources shall be less than the allowable resource limit established by the department in accordance with this chapter.
(2) No family or assistance unit shall be eligible for assistance payments if the combined value of its available resources (reduced by any obligations or debts with respect to such resources) exceeds one thousand dollars ($1,000).
(I) The resources of any family member receiving supplementary security income assistance under the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 301 et seq.
(1) Except as otherwise provided for herein, in determining eligibility for and the amount of cash assistance to which a family is entitled under this chapter, the income of a family includes all of the money, goods, and services received or actually available to any member of the family.
(2) In determining the eligibility for and the amount of cash assistance to which a family/assistance unit is entitled under this chapter, income in any month shall not include the first one hundred seventy dollars ($170) of gross earnings plus fifty percent (50%) of the gross earnings of the family in excess of one hundred seventy dollars ($170) earned during the month.
(L) The value of any state, local, or federal government rent or housing subsidy, provided that this exclusion shall not limit the reduction in benefits provided for in the payment standard section of this chapter.
(4) The receipt of a lump sum of income shall affect participants for cash assistance in accordance with rules and regulations promulgated by the department.
(h) Time limit on the receipt of cash assistance.
(1) No cash assistance shall be provided, pursuant to this chapter, to a family or assistance unit which includes an adult member who has received cash assistance, either for him/herself or on behalf of his/her children, for a total of twenty-four (24) months, (whether or not consecutive) within any sixty (60) continuous months after July 1, 2008 to include any time receiving any type of cash assistance in any other state or territory of the United States of America as defined herein. Provided further, in no circumstances other than provided for in section (3) below with respect to certain minor children, shall cash assistance be provided pursuant to this chapter to a family or assistance unit which includes an adult member who has received cash assistance for a total of a lifetime limit of forty-eight (48) months.
(2) Cash benefits received by a minor dependent child shall not be counted toward their lifetime time limit for receiving benefits under this chapter should that minor child apply for cash benefits as an adult.
(3) Certain minor children not subject to time limit. This section regarding the lifetime time limit for the receipt of cash assistance, shall not apply only in the instances of a minor child(ren) living with a parent who receives SSI benefits and a minor child(ren) living with a responsible adult non-parent caretaker relative who is not in the case assistance payment.
(4) Receipt of family cash assistance in any other state or territory of the United States of America shall be determined by the department of human services and shall include family cash assistance funded in whole or in part by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds [Title IV-A of the Federal Social Security Act 42 U.S.C. § 601 et seq.] and/or family cash assistance provided under a program similar to the Rhode Island Families Work and Opportunity Program or the federal TANF program.
(5)(A) The department of human service shall mail a notice to each assistance unit when the assistance unit has six (6) months of cash assistance remaining and each month thereafter until the time limit has expired. The notice must be developed by the department of human services and must contain information about the lifetime time limit. the number of months the participant has remaining, the hardship extension policy, the availability of a post-employment-and-closure bonus, and any other information pertinent to a family or an assistance unit nearing either the twenty-four (24) month or forty-eight (48) month lifetime time limit.
(B) For applicants who have less than six (6) months remaining in either the twenty-four (24) month or forty-eight (48) month lifetime time limit because the family or assistance unit previously received cash assistance in Rhode Island or in another state, the department shall notify the applicant of the number of months remaining when the application is approved and begin the process required in paragraph (A) above.
(6) If a cash assistance recipient family closed pursuant to Rhode Island's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, (federal TANF described in Title IV A of the Federal Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 601 et seq.) formerly entitled the Rhode Island Family Independence Program, more specifically under subdivision 40-5.1-9(2)(c), due to sanction because of failure to comply with the cash assistance program requirements; and that recipients family received forty-eight (48) months of cash benefits in accordance with the Family Independence Program, than that recipient family is not able to receive further cash assistance for his/her family, under this chapter, except under hardship exceptions.
(7) The months of state or federally funded cash assistance received by a recipient family since May 1, 1997 under Rhode Island's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, (federal TANF described in Title IV A of the Federal Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 601 et seq.) formerly entitled the Rhode Island Family Independence Program, shall be countable toward the time limited cash assistance described in this chapter.
(i) Time limit on the receipt of cash assistance.
(1)(A) No cash assistance shall be provided, pursuant to this chapter, to a family assistance unit in which an adult member has received cash assistance for a total of sixty (60) months (whether or not consecutive) to include any time receiving any type of cash assistance in any other state or territory of the United States as defined herein effective August 1, 2008. Provided further, that no cash assistance shall be provided to a family in which an adult member has received assistance for twenty-four (24) consecutive months unless the adult member has a rehabilitation employment plan as provided in subsection 40-5.2-12(g)(5).
(B) Effective August 1, 2008 no cash assistance shall be provided pursuant to this chapter to a family in which a child has received cash assistance for a total of sixty (60) months (whether or not consecutive) if the parent is ineligible for assistance under this chapter pursuant to subdivision 40-5.2(a) (2) to include any time received any type of cash assistance in any other state or territory of the United States as defined herein.
(1) The department may extend an assistance unit's or family's cash assistance beyond the time limit, by reason of hardship; provided, however, that the number of such families to be exempted by the department with respect to their time limit under this subsection shall not exceed twenty percent (20%) of the average monthly number of families to which assistance is provided for under this chapter in a fiscal year; provided, however, that to the extent now or hereafter permitted by federal law, any waiver granted under § 40-5.2-35, for domestic violence, shall not be counted in determining the twenty percent (20%) maximum under this section.
(2) Parents who receive extensions to the time limit due to hardship must have and comply with employment plans designed to remove or ameliorate the conditions that warranted the extension.
(k) Parents under eighteen (18) years of age.
(1) A family consisting of a parent who is under the age of eighteen (18), and who has never been married, and who has a child; or a family which consists of a woman under the age of eighteen (18) who is at least six (6) months pregnant, shall be eligible for cash assistance only if such family resides in the home of an adult parent, legal guardian or other adult relative. Such assistance shall be provided to the adult parent, legal guardian, or other adult relative on behalf of the individual and child unless otherwise authorized by the department.
(2) This subsection shall not apply if the minor parent or pregnant minor has no parent, legal guardian or other adult relative who is living and/or whose whereabouts are unknown; or the department determines that the physical or emotional health or safety of the minor parent, or his or her child, or the pregnant minor, would be jeopardized if he or she was required to live in the same residence as his or her parent, legal guardian or other adult relative (refusal of a parent, legal guardian or other adult relative to allow the minor parent or his or her child, or a pregnant minor, to live in his or her home shall constitute a presumption that the health or safety would be so jeopardized); or the minor parent or pregnant minor has lived apart from his or her own parent or legal guardian for a period of at least one year before either the birth of any child to a minor parent or the onset of the pregnant minor's pregnancy; or there is good cause, under departmental regulations, for waiving the subsection; and the individual resides in supervised supportive living arrangement to the extent available.
(3) For purposes of this section "supervised supportive living arrangement" means an arrangement which requires minor parents to enroll and make satisfactory progress in a program leading to a high school diploma or a general education development certificate, and requires minor parents to participate in the adolescent parenting program designated by the department, to the extent the program is available; and provides rules and regulations which ensure regular adult supervision.
(2) Consent to and cooperate with the state in establishing the paternity and in establishing and/or enforcing child support and medical support orders for all children in the family or assistance unit in accordance with Title 15 of the general laws, as amended, unless the parent or caretaker relative is found to have good cause for refusing to comply with the requirements of this subsection.
(3) Absent good cause, as defined by the department of human services through the rule making process, for refusing to comply with the requirements of (1) and (2) above, cash assistance to the family shall be reduced by twenty-five percent (25%) until the adult member of the family who has refused to comply with the requirements of this subsection consents to and cooperates with the state in accordance with the requirements of this subsection.
(4) As a condition of eligibility for cash and medical assistance under this chapter, each adult member, parent or caretaker relative of the family/assistance unit must consent to and cooperate with the state in identifying and providing information to assist the state in pursuing any third-party who may be liable to pay for care and services under Title XIX of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1396 et seq.

References: § 402
 § 1612
 § 862
 § 102
 § 802
 § 40
 § 301
 § 601
 § 601
 § 601
 § 40
 § 1396