In the spirit of “you can’t make this up,” I learned recently about a federal regulation that guides the operations of the Department of Public Social Services (DPSS). This is the County department which manages all of the General Relief payments and food stamps. Participants receive updates on their cases and program announcements on a regular basis.
Under the federal law, we must send paper mail to all program participants, many of whom list one of our district offices as their mailing address because they are homeless.
Yep, you got it.
We are sending mail to ourselves! In fact, more than a million pieces of mail are issued from any of our 13 offices, and they are delivered right back to us. On the rare occasion that participants come to pick up their mail, staff must search through thousands of items, resulting in long lines and frankly, a waste of staff time.
This week, I have put forth a motion for consideration by the Board to fix this. The first step will be overcoming all federal and state regulations requiring paper mail to those that list our offices as their mailing address. Second step will be developing an electronic alternative that allows program participants to access the information they need, either through a place where the internet is available (public library, for example) or a DPSS office, where they can request print-outs of everything we “mail” to them.
While the County is facing many challenges that we cannot fix because of the economy and the impacts of the federal and state budgets, as the great John Wooden once said, “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.”