The House Human Services Committee on Jan. 10 heard testimony from the Department for Children and Families and legislative counsel about how the FY25 budget law (Act 113 of 2024) is being applied to the General Assistance (GA) emergency housing program, including eligibility criteria, an 1,100-room cap for parts of the year, an 80-day maximum in a 12-month period and a $10 million appropriation to expand shelter capacity.

The matter matters because the GA emergency-housing rules determine who can access state-funded motel or hotel rooms and for how long during a statewide housing shortage. Committee members pressed DCF on how the department is implementing statutory limits, how it prioritizes households when demand exceeds capacity, and whether administrative procedures match legislative intent.

Katie, legislative counsel for the committee, reviewed the statutory language in Act 113 (2024), section E321, and told members that the statute sets out eligibility for GA emergency housing for households that attest they lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence and have a household member who falls into several categories (examples include a member age 65 or older; a child 19 or younger; someone who is pregnant; those with qualifying disabilities; victims of domestic violence; those who have suffered loss of housing because of the death of a household member, a natural disaster, or a court-ordered/constructive eviction). Katie also summarized program limits written into the budget language: a maximum of 80 days of hotel/motel emergency housing per household in a 12-month period (not counting the cold-weather period), a cold-weather period exemption that runs Dec. 1–March 31, and a per-room payment limit set at the hotel’s lowest advertised rate but not to exceed $80 per day.

“Emergency housing shall be provided in a community-based shelter whenever possible,” Katie told the committee while walking members through statutory subdivisions; hotels or motels are authorized when shelter space is not available in a household’s Agency of Human Services district. The statute also directs DCF to adopt emergency rules while permanent rules are pending and requires monthly reporting of program activity and expenditures to the Joint Fiscal Office and relevant legislative committees.

Chris Winters, commissioner of the Department for Children and Families, said DCF is implementing the program within the statute but emphasized the underlying constraint: a shortage of permanent housing stock. “We have to address more housing units in order to address housing insecurity,” Winters said, and described GA and the shelter system as a safety net that can be strained when vacancy rates are very low.

Deputy Commissioner Miranda Graham (Economic Services Division) explained operational changes the department made after Act 113 took effect July 1. Graham said the statute moved the program to an attestation model (applicants attest to homelessness rather than the department verifying last-night sleeping location), which has expanded the population eligible for GA and increased demand for rooms. She said the department has used emergency rules and three 90-day iterations while the permanent rule is pending before the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (LCAR).

Committee members pressed DCF on a set of administrative procedures the department put in place when available rooms approached capacity. DCF officials said they put a prioritization procedure into effect when hotel use hit 90 percent of capacity. Under that procedure, households the department designated as higher risk—families with children, people age 65 and older, and some people with disabilities—receive extended advance authorization windows (up to 20 days for certain categories) while other eligible households receive shorter increments and must call during a defined daily window to request reauthorization. DCF described this as an emergency operational response to a situation in which the department was using roughly 1,420 rooms and needed to reduce to the statutory 1,100-room cap during capped periods.

Several committee members said the department’s prioritization policy effectively ranks eligible groups against one another and questioned whether that administrative practice aligns with legislative intent. “The legislature defined all eligible populations as being eligible,” one member said; the member expressed concern about displacing one eligible household in favor of another eligible household when rooms are scarce. DCF officials said the choices were difficult and were intended to be easy to implement in the field during high-demand periods; they invited further discussion as permanent rules and future legislation are considered.

Act 113 also provided a $10,000,000 general-fund appropriation “to expand shelter bed and permanent supportive housing capacity,” the legislative counsel noted. DCF officials said the department issued a notice of funding opportunity, reviewed many applications, and awarded funding to more than a dozen projects; they characterized the projects as mixed in purpose (seasonal expansion, family shelters, domestic-violence shelter expansion and other capacity-building). DCF staff said some funded projects are designed to serve populations that are not eligible under the GA emergency-housing list and that sponsors and projects vary by community need and feasibility. The department said monthly progress reports to the Joint Fiscal Committee describe awards and implementation steps and encouraged members to review the reports posted on the General Assembly website.

Operational details raised during questioning included: how after-hours intake is handled (211 covers after-hours referrals and DCF can provisionally authorize a night’s lodging); that hotel/motel stays may be terminated if a household is offered an alternative placement or is determined to have access to other housing; and that hotels may report destructive behavior to Economic Services, which can result in a period of ineligibility per existing law or policy.

Committee discussion closed with disagreement about where prioritization decisions belong (statute vs. administrative procedure). The committee chair said lawmakers will continue oversight: DCF must submit monthly reports through June and the permanent rule is awaiting review by LCAR. Members signaled plans to continue this topic in upcoming shelter- and GA-focused legislation this session and to review the department’s reporting and the $10 million awards to assess whether legislative intent was met.

The committee did not take formal votes on statutory changes or appropriations at the hearing; the session was an oversight and implementation review and will feed into future bill work this session.