STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2271

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2344

       S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2344 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HUMAN SERVICES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to exempt the subsidies received directly by the applicant or recipient or payments made on behalf of or directly to the applicant or recipient from the section 8 housing voucher program of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for purposes of qualifying for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from one individual.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Human Services.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of the Attorney General.

     Your Committee finds that an individual who has section 8 housing voucher program payments made directly to a landlord or mortgagee on behalf of the individual should not lose eligibility to participate in SNAP merely because the individual fails to meet the income requirement due to the inclusion of the section 8 benefit.  The Department of the Attorney General testified that under federal regulations, United States Department of Housing and Urban Development vendor payments, which would include the housing payments made directly to the landlord or mortgagee on behalf of the recipient, would be excluded from a household's income calculation for SNAP eligibility purposes, while subsidies received directly by the applicant or recipient are not excluded from an applicant's or recipient's income for SNAP eligibility purposes.

     Your Committee has therefore amended this measure by deleting language exempting from income subsidies that are received directly by the applicant or recipient.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2344, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2344, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Human Services,

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SUZANNE CHUN OAKLAND, Chair