Californians who receive food assistance come from all backgrounds, but many share a similar story: they were barely getting by financially when they were tipped into crisis by an unexpected expense or loss of income. This site shares their stories.
Professor Don Moynihan discusses how administrative burden is an effective tool to make it difficult for people to access certain types of benefits, noting that this is particularly harmful to communities of color.
Code for America’s Integrated Benefits Initiative has been working in partnership with the State of Colorado to demonstrate how user-centered approaches lead to measurably better delivery of safety net programs. This article describes their work with the state of Colorado in simplifying how clients report common life changes that can affect their eligibility.
Handbook by 18F designed for executives, budget specialists, legislators, and other “non-technical” decision-makers who fund or oversee state government technology projects that receive federal funding and implement the necessary technology to support federal programs. It aids in setting projects up for success by asking the right questions, identifying the right outcomes, and equally important, empowering decision-makers with a basic knowledge of the fundamental principles of modern software design.
This article discusses how Code for America enhanced the CalFresh application process to better assist self-employed individuals in accessing their full benefits by clarifying self-employment definitions and simplifying income verification.
Better Rules utilizes multidisciplinary teams that include people skilled in policy, legal, business rules, programming, and service design working together in an iterative fashion to develop rules. Several outputs are produced using this approach, each offering an opportunity that can be fed back into that iterative process and re-used to solve other issues.
The California Integrated Travel Project (Cal-ITP) simplifies transit benefits eligibility by developing the Benefits App, which uses Login.gov to securely verify age-based discounts for public transit riders. The project aims to create a standardized, interoperable system for verifying transit benefits, improving accessibility for low-income and special groups while reducing administrative burdens for transit agencies.
This issue brief describes the Pennsylvania case study, outlines the historical context, and offers strategies and recommendations for successfully implementing Fast Track.
This report describes C-Stat 2.0, an updated version of the the Colorado Department of Human Services’ performance-based analysis strategy that allows them to better focus on and improve performance outcomes that enhance people’s lives.
Government solicitations to procure custom software are often long, complicated, and take months. By using 18F’s agile contract format, agencies can hire an agile software contractor with a quickly-written dozen-page solicitation, allowing for immense savings in time and money.
