Legislative committee declines to object to DCF emergency housing rule despite concerns over resource test and 1,100-room cap

The Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules voted Sept. 19 to neither approve nor object to an emergency rule from the Department for Children and Families that governs emergency housing eligibility and resource testing.

The rule, 24 EO 6, retains a department requirement that a household “exhaust all available resources” before qualifying for emergency hotel or motel rooms, Heidi Morrow, a policy advisor for the Department for Children and Families, told the committee. The department said it maintained that requirement because available shelter rooms are limited and expanding eligibility without more capacity would create access problems.

Katie McLean of the Office of Legislative Council briefed members on how the statute and annual budget interact with rulemaking. McLean said the budget and ‘big bill’ set a 1,100-room cap during two seasonal periods but do not prescribe how the department must reach that limit; DCF therefore elected to use a resource test and to collapse earlier categories of eligible households into a single emergency-housing category.

Senator Ginny Lyons, who recommended the motion the committee adopted, said the rule’s emergency status and the murkiness around the resource test argued for taking no formal position while the rule remains in effect for a limited period. “The best thing for us to do is to allow for the rule to remain as an emergency rule as it will regardless, and take no action,” Lyons said.

Members pressing the department included Representative Carol Odey and Senator McConnell, who warned the resource test could force people to liquidate assets — such as savings for car insurance or other work-related costs — to qualify for shelter. “We are…taking people who do not have homes and…stripping them of their assets so that they will not be able to put a deposit on an apartment,” one committee member said.

Nicole Tuzian, Economic Benefits Director at DCF’s Economic Services Division, said staff guidance allows discretion in applying the resource test. Tuzian described examples in which staff can deduct verified, necessary spending (for example, auto insurance or car repairs) from available resources if claimants provide receipts, and said the department can provide its housing resource guide as guidance to the committee.

Legislative Council counsel and several senators emphasized that the statute’s 1,100-room limit appears in the budget and is explicit about counts of “rooms,” which the department interprets as hotel and motel rooms rather than shelter beds. McLean reiterated that the legislation does not say how the department must implement the cap or whether a resource test must apply, leaving discretion to the agency unless the legislature acts.

After debate, the committee voted for the motion to neither approve nor object to rule 24 EO 6. Members also asked LCAR staff to prepare a memo to the Secretary of State and to the Legislature’s appropriations, health & welfare and human services committees highlighting concerns about the resource test, the interaction with the statutory room cap, and the potential impacts on households with disabilities.

The emergency rule was reported by committee staff to expire on Dec. 28, and a proposed permanent rule had been filed with the Secretary of State; the first public hearing on the permanent rule was scheduled for Oct. 25.

What’s next: LCAR will send a letter to the Secretary of State and a memo to relevant standing committees; the rule remains effective while the permanent rulemaking proceeds.