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West Texas at Work:
The West Texas Benefit Planning Outreach and Assistance Project

by Sandy Hardy

West Texas is a land of large open spaces, tumbleweeds and small communities. The landscape has its challenges, but in most ways, young people with disabilities are the same everywhere – seeking the opportunity to work as they enter adulthood. In Texas, students with disabilities at transition age are accessing the newest resource to enhance the chances of successful and meaningful employment. The West Texas Benefit Planning Outreach and Assistance (BPA&O) project, a program of Imagine Enterprises through a Social Security Administration grant, provides assistance for eligible students to turn their Social Security benefits into a meaningful employment tool.

Work Incentives Overview

Social Security cash benefits and Medicaid or Medicare insurance historically are viewed as income safety nets for people with disabilities. Like most issues facing the Social Security Administration (SSA), changing the system to reduce dependency on benefits is a hard sell. Recent changes in the Social Security Act have created work incentives to assist eligible recipients to enter the workforce. Transition-aged students can use the work incentives to explore work opportunities and education that create a good career match for their future!

Identifying all the risks and the pros and cons of taking steps toward employment and self-sufficiency is a difficult and frightening task, but not impossible. Each person is different, and the maze of rules and possibilities that exist for each person requires expertise that is beyond the typical social service case manager. With teamwork, patience, creativity and determination, a person with a disability can go to work without the threat of loosing the safety net of benefits and medical insurance until they are stable in long-term employment.

When Congress added new work incentives to the Social Security Act with the passage of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act in 1999, it envisioned coordinated employment services between One-Stops, Vocational Rehabilitation, and State Mental Health and Metal Retardation systems. With the work incentives, people with disabilities can test their abilities, and may even be able to get help with disability-related expenses, education, training, and rehabilitation. Unfortunately, for many it hasn’t been easy to get reliable information about work and benefits. People have a lot of misperceptions. We want to change that.

The West Texas Project

Since January 2001, the West Texas BPA&O Project has served as the information conduit in the 41 counties that constitute SSA’s West Texas BPA&O area. Providing educational sessions to over 500 people in 27 different local agencies, we know it will take some time before the message starts to catch on, but once professionals understand the basic concept that a person with a disability can earn a living wage and retain some benefits to assist in the employment retention, then a whole new world begins to open up.

The project‘s home, Imagine Enterprises, is a non-profit employment agency with extensive experience in assisting people with disabilities who want to work. I am the Project Director and Stacey Sparks is the regional Benefits Planner. We provide services to people with disabilities that include assistance with housing, employment, community-based social services, Social Security, and other support programs. An estimated 17,000 Social Security recipients live in the geographic service area, and we work one-on-one with the person who has a disability and wants to explore how to work and use their disability benefits.

Individualized services offered by the project include information and referral, problem-solving and advocacy, benefits analysis and advisement, benefits support planning, and short- and long-term benefits management. Services also include information and guidance on how work impacts other support programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Food Stamps, Federal Housing Subsidies, Unemployment Insurance, Worker’s Compensation, Earned-Income Tax Credit, State Child Health Insurance Programs (CHIP), and others. We work with individuals and the local Social Security office to ensure full consideration of personal benefits. All services are individualized, friendly, and promote the beneficiary’s or recipient’s choice. Services are delivered in a setting selected by the beneficiary/recipient; it could be their home, their job, or the local coffee shop – the emphasis is on their choice. All benefit planning is completed in a non-judgmental manner and is focused on the future of the beneficiary/recipient, with special emphasis on his or her work goals. In addition, we provide training and outreach to disability advocacy organizations, state agency staff, and others interested in learning about the work incentives and how to help people with disabilities take advantage of them.

“I’m Finding My Career”

One success story from the West Texas BPA&O Project is that of Rod. When asked to describe his experience and his vocational and educational goals, he shared the following:

Hi, I’m Rod and I am 21. I have autism and use facilitated communication. I receive SSI and my Mom is my payee. I go San Angelo Central High School. The school helps me find jobs; I have worked at the school and K-Mart. Right now, I have two jobs: I work at the YMCA and at a local restaurant. Mom and I were afraid I would lose my Medicaid because I worked. Mom met with Sandy and Stacey from Imagine Enterprises. They showed us how much I could earn before I would lose my SSI; they also said if I lost my SSI because I earned too much, I could maintain my Medicaid under 1619(b). After that, they told us about a program called Student Earned Income Exclusion. I can use it because I am a student and receive SSI. With it, Social Security won’t count up to $1,320 per month of my paycheck, up to $5,340 per year. They are currently helping Mom write a letter to Social Security requesting it; then each month Mom will report my wages! It’s that easy. While I am a student I can try different jobs or keep this job and not worry about my Medicaid!

After graduation, I am leaning toward something involving sports at the university. Sandy and Stacey said there is another work incentive called PASS that can help pay for job coaching and other expenses. Thanks to good information and support, I am given the opportunity to find my career!

Sandy Hardy is Project Director with Imagine Enterprises, Abilene, Texas. She may be reached at 915/677-0767 or by e-mail at shardy@imagineenterprises.com. Additional information and materials on SSI Work Incentives, including sample Plan for Achieving Self-Support (PASS) and Income Related Work Expense (IRWE) applications, can be found on the Web at www.imagineenterprises.com.

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