Current through Register Vol. 46, No. 39, September 25, 2024
(a) Social services districts shall provide
assistance and care to the dependents of persons in the Armed Forces on the
basis of presumptive or established need. Assistance and care shall be granted
to such dependents for whose support members of the Armed Forces are legally or
socially responsible but for whom they are unwilling to allot portions of
service pay or are unwilling and/or unable to make allotments in specified
amounts in order to claim quarters allowances. Such assistance shall be granted
only until needed support can be obtained from legally responsible relatives in
the Armed Forces and only for such amounts as are not provided by such
relatives' allotments.
(1) Applicants for
public assistance or care, who are the spouses and children of members of the
Armed Forces, shall be referred to local chapters of the American Red Cross for
financial assistance pending the first receipt of allotments or allowances, or
the first determination of the member's refusal to allot payments and claim
quarters allowances for their support.
(2) Recipients of public assistance and care,
including the spouses and children of members of the Armed Forces, shall be
granted public assistance and care during the exploration of the service
person's intent in regard to allotments and pending the receipt of such
payments.
(3) Public assistance and
care shall be granted when necessary to supplement allotments of service pay,
or in lieu of such payments when the person in service refuses to make
allotments of pay or claim quarters allowances for the support of his
dependents.
(4) In applying the
income made available through allotments of service pay, the regular and
special needs of the dependent for whom the member of the Armed Forces has
allotted a specified amount in order to claim quarters allowances shall be met
before any portion of this income is applied to the needs of other members of
the household.
(b) In
determining initial or continuing eligibility for public assistance and care,
full utilization shall be made of correspondence and documents which the
dependents of the service person are able to furnish in verification of the
receipt or nonreceipt of allotments-of-pay and quarters allowances or of the
attitude of the service person in regard to such provision.
(1) Referral of dependents shall be made when
necessary to agencies established to provide services to members of the Armed
Forces, veterans and their dependents for help in completing affidavits and
other documents which may be required for the claiming of dependents allotments
and allowances.
(2) Information in
regard to the needs of dependents and the amount of public assistance or care
which they are receiving shall be made available to such agencies in order to
substantiate claims of dependency.
(3) Local social services departments shall
communicate directly with the dependency divisions administering
allotments-of-pay and quarters allowances, or with commanding officers, when
necessary to substantiate the claims of dependents or to validate the fact that
public assistance is required for their support. Such direct correspondence
shall be initiated after review of the evidence of refusal to provide support
through allotments of pay and/or after consultation of the agencies to whom
dependents may have been referred for help in filing claims of
dependency.
(c) The
determination of relationship made by the dependency divisions of the armed
services administering allotments-of-pay and quarters allowances may be
accepted by social services districts but solely for the purpose of
establishing eligibility for categories of public assistance where marital
status is a factor or where proof of relationship to the service person may be
required, as in family assistance and veteran assistance.
(1) The acceptance of such determination for
the purpose of establishing eligibility for public assistance shall not be
construed as an adjudication of other legal rights of the persons concerned in
such applications.
(2) The
acceptance of such adjudications shall not prevent review and reconsideration
of particular situations on the basis on the submission of additional
data.
