TO:	Commissioners; TA & FS Directors; WMS Coordinators

FROM:	Russell Sykes, Deputy Commissioner, Division of Employment and Transitional Supports

SUBJECT:	New Shelter Type ‘42’ for New Congregate Care Level 3

EFFECTIVE DATE:	Immediately

CONTACT PERSON: Stephen Cohen 212-961-8205	

Purpose
•	To inform NYC HRA that effective January 1, 2006, adult homes and enriched housing programs certified by the Department of Health will be reclassified from Congregate Care Level 2 to Congregate Care Level 3 facilities.
•	To inform NYC HRA that a new shelter type code has been developed to support this reclassification of adult homes and enriched housing programs.
•	To inform NYC HRA that a mass rebudget (MRB) will be run to support the shelter change.

Background

Effective January 1, 2006, adult homes and enriched housing programs certified by the Department of Health (DOH) will be reclassified from Congregate Care Level 2 to Congregate Care Level 3 facilities. The new Congregate Care Level 3 is named “Enhanced Residential Care”.  This change will result in residents of affected facilities receiving higher shelter payments and higher personal needs allowances (PNAs) starting on January 1, 2006.   Districts will receive the annual Informational Letter (INF) for the SSA COLA increase that has the updated SSI Benefit Levels Chart effective January 1, 2006.

SYSTEMS IMPLICATIONS

Shelter Type Code Change

The new Congregate Care Level 3 TA and FS ABEL Budget shelter type overlay will be run on the weekend of November 19th and will be available in WMS on Monday, November 21st, 2005.  A file from DOH that identifies TA and FS recipients who currently reside in Adult Homes (Facility Codes E or F) or DOH Enriched Housing Facilities (Facility Code S) will be passed to OTDA to have their shelter type changed.  Cases with the criteria listed below will be changed to Shelter Type 42: 

•	Existing active single person TA or TA/FS cases with shelter types ‘16’ or ‘29’ and Facility Code ‘E’, ‘F’ or ‘S’.
•	Existing active single person NTA/FS cases identified with Shelter Type ‘16’ or ‘29’ and Facility Code ‘S’ (DOH Enriched Housing Facilities).

These cases will continue to be budgeted with the current Congregate Care Level 2 TA and FS amounts until the JAN COLA MRB, when they will be changed to the new Congregate Care Level 3 amounts. Cases that are successfully completed will be available through WMS on the Budget Menu Screen (NSBLOO-Option 01, 02 or 03).

Exception Reports will be generated for the following:

•	TA/FS cases with Facility Code E or F that were changed by the MRB but are incorrectly active for FS since they reside in Adult Home facilities.  The FS portion of these cases would have to be reevaluated.
•	NTA/FS cases with Facility Codes E or F which are incorrectly active for FS due to their ineligibility for Food Stamps.  These cases would have to be reevaluated.
•	Cases with current shelter types equal to 16 or 29 with more than one person in the household.
•	Cases on the DOH file with shelter types other than 16 or 29.

Recipients who entered a DOH Adult Home or Enriched Housing Program after September 1st may not have been included in the list of recipients provided by DOH for whom benefits will be adjusted by the JAN MRB/A.  NYC HRA must manually change the shelter type codes for such individuals.  Additionally, if the manual change to shelter type code ‘42’ is not made effective January 2006, such residents are entitled to retroactive benefits back to January 2006.

NYS SSI Supplementation Indicator Code Change in the Congregate Care Directory

The reclassification of DOH adult homes and enriched housing programs will result in a change to the ‘Supp Ind.’ (NYS SSI Supplementation Indicator Code) on the NYS Congregate Care Directory for the impacted facilities. The Congregate Care Directory is located on Centraport.

On the NYS Congregate Care Directory, the SSI Supplementation Indicator code will change from Supp Ind. ‘D’ to Supp Ind. ‘E – Level 3’ for the impacted facilities.  This change impacts Adult Homes that have ‘Type’ (facility type) code of ‘E’ or ‘F’ and Enriched Housing Programs that have facility type code of ‘S’.  The new display for the ‘Supp Ind.’ column will be displayed in mid-December in preparation for the January 1, 2006 effective date.  The new display will enable districts to easily identify the level of care for facilities.