Disability Advocacy Project

Legal Services NYC's Disability Advocacy Project (DAP) helps low income disabled children and adults get Social Security disability benefits and move off of welfare. Currently, thousands of adults and children remain on City welfare rolls when they should receive federal disability benefits instead. Most of these individuals receive no help in applying for federal disability assistance. Moving adults and children from public assistance to disability assistance helps individuals, their families, and the City.

Adults and children who qualify for Social Security (SSI) receive more than $600 per month from the federal government and the state, substantially more than they would receive from public assistance. And when welfare recipients qualify for federal disability benefits, the City gets money back in “interim assistance” payments and saves money in the future. A recent article form the NYC Independent Budget Office notes that by moving people from public assistance to SSI, the City has saved “hundreds of millions of dollars in potential cash assistance costs each year. . . [E]very time a person receives SSI rather than public assistance the city saves money.”

Our program has improved the ability of low-income New Yorkers to receive Social Security by representing scores of adults and children who have been denied Social Security benefits and saving the City millions of dollars. In 2004, for example, a State allocation to Legal Services NYC and Legal Aid of $2.5 million for disability advocacy work yielded a return to the City of over $6.5 million in averted public assistance and Medicaid costs.