HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES |
H.B. NO. |
1417 |
THIRTIETH LEGISLATURE, 2019 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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A BILL FOR AN ACT
relating to human services.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:
SECTION
1. The department of human services has
the largest operating budget of any state department, approximately
$3,304,000,000, including seventy-nine per cent of all the executive branch's
federal funds. The department provides
benefits and services to one in four Hawaii residents or nearly 360,000 individuals. The State's medicaid program provides medical
insurance coverage for nearly one-half of Hawaii's children.
The
department's programs and services include: protection of vulnerable children
and adults; vocational rehabilitation and financial assistance to the disabled;
the supplemental nutrition assistance program; financial assistance; job
training and placement; housing and services for the homeless; medicaid
services for the State's medically needy population; and prevention, treatment,
and housing for the State's youthful offenders.
To
provide these benefits and services to Hawaii's vulnerable individuals and
families, the department manages significant federal and state funds and
processes vast amounts of information on a daily basis. Initiated by the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act of 2010, the department continues to invest in the
development of an enterprise eligibility system that will support the
integration of services that will lead to improved individual and program outcomes
through more efficient service delivery and data analytics.
As
part of the department's continuous improvement efforts, in 2016 the department
embarked on its ‘ohana nui effort by
adopting a multigenerational approach to transform the way services are
provided to individuals and families to improve outcomes and well-being. By providing programs and services that
maintain a high level of service integration, quality, and intensity across
multiple generations, the department intends to reduce intergenerational
poverty in the State, and the human and financial costs associated with
poverty.
The
human and financial costs associated with poverty are well documented. The 2009 paper "Childhood and
Intergenerational Poverty: The Long Term Consequences of Growing up Poor,"
by Robert L. Wagmiller, Jr., and Robert M. Adelman, found that
"individuals who grow up in poor families are much more likely to be poor
in early adulthood. Moreover, the
chances of being poor in early adulthood increase sharply as the time spent
living in poverty during childhood increases." The department's programs must focus on
reducing the time children, families, and individuals spend in poverty and
supporting every person's ability to meet their human and economic potential.
Furthermore,
other studies link adverse social and economic conditions in childhood to
health problems in adulthood. The
original 1998 Adverse Childhood Experiences study conducted by the Centers on
Disease Control & Prevention and Kaiser Permanente, surveyed nearly seventeen
thousand adults in southern California.
The primary conclusion of the Adverse Childhood Experiences study was
the finding of a strong relationship between "exposure to abuse or
household dysfunction during childhood and multiple risk factors for several
leading causes of death in adults," such as heart disease, cancer, chronic
lung disease, fractures, and liver disease.
While adverse childhood experiences occur across all races and economic
classes, there is a higher prevalence of adverse childhood experiences for
those who also live in poverty.
A
similar conclusion was again found in a 2014 Swedish study that "showed
social and economic disadvantages in childhood were associated with an earlier
onset and faster progression of functional health problems from midlife into
old age." The Swedish study also
concluded that "creating equal opportunities for educational attainment
may help reduce the long-term effect of disadvantaged childhood conditions and
postpone functional health problems."
The
legislature finds that transitioning the department's service delivery to a
multigenerational approach will refocus the department's efforts to provide
available resources and support to reduce the time a child and family spends in
poverty, stabilize the child's basic needs and environment to enhance their
ability to learn, improve all recipients' economic security, and ultimately
reduce intergenerational poverty in Hawaii.
The purpose of this Act is to require the
department of human services to use an integrated and multigenerational service
delivery approach to reduce the incidence of intergenerational poverty and
dependence on public benefits, consistent with the
nationally recognized best practices.
SECTION
2. Section 26-14, Hawaii Revised Statutes,
is amended by amending subsection (b) to read as follows:
"(b)
The department shall administer programs through an integrated and
multigenerational approach designed to improve the social well-being,
economic security, and productivity of the people of the State[.],
and to reduce the incidence of intergenerational poverty and dependence upon
public benefits. Without limit to
the generality of the foregoing, the department shall concern itself with
problems of human behavior, adjustment, and daily living through the
administration of programs of family, child and adult welfare, economic
assistance, health care assistance, rehabilitation toward self-care and
support, public housing, and other related programs provided by law."
SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.
SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2019.
INTRODUCED BY: |
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Report Title:
DHS; Integrated and Multigenerational Approach; Reduction of Intergenerational Poverty
Description:
Requires the Department of Human Services to use an integrated and multigenerational approach to delivering human services to reduce the incidence of intergenerational poverty and dependence on public benefits.
The summary description
of legislation appearing on this page is for informational purposes only and is
not legislation or evidence of legislative intent.