Benefits Program: COVID-19 Assistance
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The Government Is Helping People Pay Rent, But Something’s Gone Wrong
This report describes the rent relief challenges during the pandemic, as well as a few possible fixes to help the next round of aid distribution.
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Keeping Students Fed in an Uncertain Back to School Season: What We Learned from P-EBT, and What Comes Next
Code for America describes its work building the P-EBT online application and the consulting it provided to 10 states regarding implementing the program in a quick, effective, and human-centered way. Despite herculean efforts among human services and education agencies to get P-EBT off the ground, there were a few key technological, operational, and logistical barriers that consistently got in the way and hampered a smooth rollout of the program across the country.
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Helping More Than 1.3 Million Schoolchildren Access Pandemic EBT—in Just One Week
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, the federal government authorized a new emergency program, Pandemic EBT (P-EBT), to replace school meals with money for groceries while schools are closed. Code for America describes its efforts to launch an accessible, online P-EBT application under an accelerated timeline due to to immense demand caused by the pandemic.
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GetYourRefund.Org: Free tax filing, made simple
GetYourRefund.org is an online portal by Code for America that helps low-income individuals claim thousands of dollars in tax credits, even after the traditional tax deadline has passed.
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Filing Taxes for Economic Justice
This Code for America article discusses how tax filing can be a powerful tool for economic justice, highlighting efforts to make the tax system more accessible and equitable for low-income individuals.
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Establishing Emergency Cash Assistance Programs
A guide by New America to help cities and states set up cash assistance programs for their residents, based on the Alia Cares platform that the National Domestic Workers Alliance built to run their Coronavirus Cares Fund that provides emergency assistance for home care workers to support them in staying safe and at home to slow the spread of COVID.
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Dismantling the Invisible Wall: Breaking down barriers to pandemic relief
This article details California's Disaster Relief Assistance for Immigrants (DRAI) program, which provided $500 in cash aid to undocumented adults affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the collaborative efforts between the state, community-based organizations (CBOs), and Code for America to distribute $75 million to 150,000 individuals.
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Claim Your Child Tax Credit
Code for America’s simplified tax filing tool that allows users to claim their Child Tax Credit and any missing amount of their third stimulus payment.
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“It has meant everything”: How P-EBT Helped Families in Michigan
This report explores Michigan’s implementation of the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program. Drawing on interviews from individuals within the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and input from SNAP participants via surveys distributed using the Fresh EBT app, this report provides insights into the strategies that enabled Michigan to roll out an entirely new program quickly and effectively.
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The Pandemic Proved That Cash Payments Work
The $600 cash payments provided by the CARES act prevented joblessness from turning into actual income loss for millions of families. It also gave Americans breathing room to wait for better jobs, rather than settling for bad ones out of desperation.
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Story-driven experience research on pandemic unemployment
Dana Chisnell describes work leading a team of researchers to interview people from across the US on their experiences applying for unemployment and other benefits during the pandemic.
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Software Update Required: COVID-19 Exposes Need for Federal Investments in Technology (Virtual Hearing)
House Committee on the Budget virtual hearing regarding the importance of federal investments in technology and software updates during COVID-19.