Maria X. Martinez, deputy director of community programs at the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH), will tell you that the SSI Advocacy Workgroup was started because “there were so many systems-level issues to overcome and so much tension between the various players that needed to be resolved.” The Workgroup was convened to bring together key stakeholders in local government, the advocacy community, and the mental health and homeless services community to increase access to SSA disability benefits.
Since 2001, the Workgroup has fostered relationships between community agencies and outreach programs, advocated to city government for systems change, and compiled materials to help direct service providers access the information and resources they need.
One of their largest undertakings has been collecting and analyzing cost-benefit data on their SSI outreach efforts. During their first year, each client who received benefits cost the DPH $3000 in advocacy money. However, the DPH was able to recoup $20,000 for each client in Medicaid and GA monies. They estimate the return on providing SSI outreach services to be around $6 for every $1 spent for the City. They have used these figures to convince key stakeholders of the need for SSI outreach, and the Workgroup’s success in rallying support has been a model for the benefits of outcome-based data collection.