H-3539.1  _______________________________________________

                          HOUSE BILL 2656

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      57th Legislature     2002 Regular Session

By Representatives Boldt, Mielke, Clements and Morell

Read first time 01/23/2002.  Referred to Committee on Children & Family Services.

Modifying exemptions of temporary assistance for needy families.

    AN ACT Relating to allowing an exemption from temporary assistance for needy families' time limits; and amending RCW 74.08A.010.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

    Sec. 1.  RCW 74.08A.010 and 1997 c 58 s 103 are each amended to read as follows:

    (1) A family that includes an adult who has received temporary assistance for needy families for sixty months after July 27, 1997, shall be ineligible for further temporary assistance for needy families assistance.

    (2) For the purposes of applying the rules of this section, the department shall count any month in which an adult family member received a temporary assistance for needy families cash assistance grant unless the assistance was provided when the family member was a minor child and not the head of the household or married to the head of the household.

    (3) The department shall refer recipients who require specialized assistance to appropriate department programs, crime victims' programs through the department of community, trade, and economic development, or the crime victims' compensation program of the department of labor and industries.

    (4) The department may exempt a recipient and the recipient's family from the application of subsection (1) of this section ((by reason of hardship)) if a recipient is physically or mentally incapacitated to a degree that does not allow him or her to meet the participation requirements of the WorkFirst program, if the recipient is caring for a physically or mentally incapacitated family member, or if the recipient meets the family violence options of section 402(A)(7) of Title IVA of the federal social security act as amended by P.L. 104-193.  The number of recipients and their families exempted from subsection (1) of this section for a fiscal year shall not exceed twenty percent of the average monthly number of recipients and their families to which assistance is provided under the temporary assistance for needy families program.

    (5) The department shall not exempt a recipient and his or her family from the application of subsection (1) of this section until after the recipient has received fifty-two months of assistance under this chapter.

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