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Speaker 1: Tens of millions of Americans depend on food assistants and

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Speaker 1: other social programs to feed their families and make ends meet.

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Speaker 1: And yet state budgets, which we know are under a

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Speaker 1: lot of strain these days, don't always set aside much

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Speaker 1: money to help people stay up to date on all

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Speaker 1: the paperwork the government requires for them to keep those

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Speaker 1: benefits coming. So people wind up getting kicked off for

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Speaker 1: no other reason than they just didn't know. This is

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Speaker 1: a big problem for the families who suddenly can't afford food,

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Speaker 1: and also for states that have to spend time and

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Speaker 1: millions of dollars signing them back up. If you're thinking

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Speaker 1: to yourself, there has got to be a better way, well,

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Speaker 1: in fact, there is. Bloomberg BusinessWeek contributor Bryce Covert is

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Speaker 1: here with the story of a nonprofit called Code for America.

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Speaker 1: It works with states to make navigating these benefit programs

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Speaker 1: less of a hassle.

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Speaker 2: Anything that can get rid of some of those frictions

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Speaker 2: is something that they're trying to eliminate, so it's just

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Speaker 2: an easy, easy process.

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Speaker 1: And a little later, Code for America's Genevieve Miller talks

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Speaker 1: about the challenge of marrying new digital tools to old

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Speaker 1: analog bureaucracies.

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Speaker 3: We're working to transform the social safety net by using

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Speaker 3: human centered technology to remove barriers to public benefits.

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Speaker 1: I'm Wescasova today on the Big Take. They're from the

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Speaker 1: government and they're here to help Bryce. Tell us about

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Speaker 1: Code for America. What does it do.

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Speaker 2: It's a nonprofit and their mission is basically to help

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Speaker 2: state governments make it easier for people to get the

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Speaker 2: benefits that they're already eligible for. Just because you might

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Speaker 2: be eligible for foods damps or for medicaid doesn't mean

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Speaker 2: it's an easy process to get it or to hold

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Speaker 2: on to it in a lot of places. And so

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Speaker 2: they are focused on working on the tech side of

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Speaker 2: things so that when you go to apply, when you

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Speaker 2: go to renew, it's a smoother process that works on

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Speaker 2: your cell phone, it's translated into whatever your native language is,

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Speaker 2: and then you're able to actually get the assistance that

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Speaker 2: you deserve to help you survive.

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Speaker 1: And so people who aren't on public assistants probably don't

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Speaker 1: know that there's just an endless amount that you have

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Speaker 1: to do to keep it up. You have to reapply,

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Speaker 1: you have to hit deadlines, there's a lot of paperwork.

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Speaker 1: You imagine the government bureaucracy, and so this is aimed

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Speaker 1: at just making that a whole lot easier.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think their ideal is that the process takes

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Speaker 2: you maybe ten minutes, and for most people where the

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Speaker 2: norm is operating, it can be hours of paperwork. And

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Speaker 2: they do that by putting things online. They do that

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Speaker 2: by making the language easier to understand. A lot of

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Speaker 2: these forms are in very like technical jargon ey language.

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Speaker 2: It's really hard to decipher. Again, they translate it into

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Speaker 2: Spanish or to even other languages. They make it mobile friendly.

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Speaker 2: They make it so that maybe you don't even need

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Speaker 2: a password, you could use a pin because a lot

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Speaker 2: of people struggle with having an email address or a password.

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Speaker 2: Anything that can get rid of some of those frictions

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Speaker 2: is something that they're trying to eliminate. So it's just

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Speaker 2: an easy, easy process.

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Speaker 1: And so they are not a government organization. What they

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Speaker 1: do is they try to get governments to work with them.

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Speaker 2: Right, they're a nonprofit and what they do is they

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Speaker 2: partner with the governments and they are very much about

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Speaker 2: working together. Basically, the landscape sort of pre code for

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Speaker 2: America is that there are a bunch of vendors that

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Speaker 2: specialize in these benefit delivery technology services, and the vendor

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Speaker 2: will be hired to say, build a website where you

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Speaker 2: can apply for SNAP. But then the vendor goes off

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Speaker 2: and sort of does all the work, delivers this product,

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Speaker 2: and then the state government hands it over and says, okay,

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Speaker 2: people come apply, and if they want to update it,

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Speaker 2: they have to go back to the vendor and say, hey,

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Speaker 2: can you change this little thing, and then the vendor

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Speaker 2: has to go through the process, and so it's very

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Speaker 2: hard to update technology, and it means that the state

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Speaker 2: government employees don't have ownership over it, maybe don't understand

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Speaker 2: the systems that they're working with. Code for America is

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Speaker 2: very much about coming in and learning from the state

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Speaker 2: government employees, learning also from the people who use these

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Speaker 2: systems themselves to understand how they work, how they don't work,

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Speaker 2: and then working with everyone in a really collaborative way.

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Speaker 2: And ultimately every project they aim to hand over completely

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Speaker 2: to the state government so that they can keep building

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Speaker 2: on it and they can just fully own it and

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Speaker 2: use it for whatever purposes they think are the right purposes.

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Speaker 1: So you got to watch them in action as they

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Speaker 1: were trying to put together a program in a state.

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Speaker 1: How did that work? Just tell us what do they

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Speaker 1: do when they contract with the state to provide their services.

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Speaker 2: Sure, so I got to watch and sort of ride

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Speaker 2: as they were helping the state of Connecticut in their

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Speaker 2: SNAP program, their food benefit program specifically roll out texting

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Speaker 2: for the first time, and the first pilot, which is

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Speaker 2: basically the part of it that I got to see,

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Speaker 2: was just to text people when it was time to

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Speaker 2: renew their benefits so that they didn't forget. And the

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Speaker 2: text would also include a link to the website where

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Speaker 2: they can renew, to try to urge them to do

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Speaker 2: it online.

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Speaker 1: So, in Connecticut, how does your work? You get SNAP

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Speaker 1: benefits and sort of like what happens?

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Speaker 2: So you enroll the first time, and then every six

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Speaker 2: months or so, unless you aren't in an exempt category,

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Speaker 2: you have to renew in order to keep your benefits,

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Speaker 2: which means that the paperwork is lighter, but you still

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Speaker 2: have to do it on a regular basis, basically to

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Speaker 2: tell the state whether your income has changed, or you

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Speaker 2: have a kid at home or maybe a kid left,

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Speaker 2: and a lot of people actually lose their benefits at

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Speaker 2: that point. Nationally, there is a lot of what's called

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Speaker 2: churn when people have to renew and reapply, and it's

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Speaker 2: not because they're not eligible, it's because they get tripped

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Speaker 2: up by the paperwork, the deadlines, all of that.

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Speaker 1: If somebody has kicked off the rolls, are people going

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Speaker 1: for long periods of time without being able to buy food?

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Speaker 2: It depends on, first of all, just the process the

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Speaker 2: state has already set up. You know, how long is

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Speaker 2: the paperwork and how long is the approval process, and

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Speaker 2: that's going to vary a lot. And then it also

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Speaker 2: just sort of depends on how quickly are you able

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Speaker 2: to get it together to get that paperwork done again.

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Speaker 2: You know, I spoke to a woman in Connecticut who

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Speaker 2: has to get doctor's notes for her SNAP and her

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Speaker 2: cash welfare renewal forms, and she doesn't have a car,

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Speaker 2: and it's hours on a bus to go see those

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Speaker 2: doctors and then get them to fax it in, and

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Speaker 2: they don't always fax it in time, and so she

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Speaker 2: went a couple weeks recently without her food stamp benefits,

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Speaker 2: and then she went months without her cash welfare benefits,

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Speaker 2: and that for her is missed meals, and then the

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Speaker 2: missed cash is missed rent payments, and she had to

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Speaker 2: go to her family, who also don't have many resources

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Speaker 2: and ask to borrow money. So that's I think a

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Speaker 2: very typical story where maybe you get on in a

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Speaker 2: couple of weeks, maybe you get back on in a

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Speaker 2: couple months, but that's pretty dire for someone who doesn't

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Speaker 2: have a lot of cushion to fall back on, and

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Speaker 2: that actually comes at a huge cost because they later

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Speaker 2: get back on, usually hopefully to reapply right, but then

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Speaker 2: a caseworker has to first of all take them off,

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Speaker 2: then put them back on, and they have to go

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Speaker 2: through that whole system again, whereas if they had just

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Speaker 2: gotten through the first time around with the first round

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Speaker 2: of paperwork, everyone would have been saved a lot of

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Speaker 2: time and hassle. So it is it's a really big

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Speaker 2: problem for the state for that outlay of resources. They

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Speaker 2: were able to calculate what that actually costs and dollars.

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Speaker 2: In Illinois, for example, it was three point nine million

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Speaker 2: dollars a year, and that's a net cost because while

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Speaker 2: the state saved some money perhaps by some people losing

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Speaker 2: benefits and then walking away or maybe they really weren't

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Speaker 2: eligible anymore, the cost to actually get everybody back on

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Speaker 2: who was in fact still eligible, was far more than

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Speaker 2: what was saved by kicking some people off. And then,

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Speaker 2: of course it's a huge problem for people with constantly

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Speaker 2: losing access to things that keep them alive food, health, insurance,

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Speaker 2: housing subsidies. You know, these are really basic things that

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Speaker 2: people need for survival that they're losing here and there

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Speaker 2: because of paperwork castles.

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Speaker 1: All right, So they come in and they set up

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Speaker 1: a system where all the people who are on food assistance,

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Speaker 1: when the deadline is coming up, they get a text, right,

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Speaker 1: and what does the text say? Like, how does sending

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Speaker 1: out a text suddenly make it much easier for somebody

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Speaker 1: to renew?

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Speaker 2: Every little piece of this process took a lot of work,

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Speaker 2: And that was what was so fascinating about watching it firsthand,

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Speaker 2: is that it's a small thing, right, just sending a

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Speaker 2: text to remind to renew, and yet it took months

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Speaker 2: of work, a lot of cooks in the kitchen and

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Speaker 2: something as small as a text message. You know, you

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Speaker 2: don't have a lot of space, so every single world counts.

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Speaker 2: And they also really thought very intentionally about every one

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Speaker 2: of those words. You know, do Connecticut residents call it

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Speaker 2: food stamps? Do they call it snap, Do they call

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Speaker 2: it EBT, which is like a little bit outdated. Do

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Speaker 2: they call it the Connecticut Department of Social Services? Do

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Speaker 2: they call it DSS. Can the text message be sent

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Speaker 2: from a short code or will people think that's a scam?

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Speaker 2: So they worked on every little bit of this, you know,

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Speaker 2: down to the wire. Right before they were supposed to

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Speaker 2: send the text. There was a question of is this

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Speaker 2: comma in the message going to screw up the URL,

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Speaker 2: so they had to move a comma. You know, they

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Speaker 2: were really fine tuning it. But in the end the

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Speaker 2: message basically said, you know, dear first name, and it

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Speaker 2: included the last four numbers of their case ID so

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Speaker 2: that it would look less scammy. Your benefits are about

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Speaker 2: to expire. You need to renew. I'm paraphrasing, because you know,

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Speaker 2: they had the language really exact by January twentieth. You

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Speaker 2: need to go here to update or you need to

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Speaker 2: send in your form by mail. And then it also

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Speaker 2: included if you want to opt out text. I think

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Speaker 2: it was stop snap opt out or something like that,

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Speaker 2: because they didn't want people when they texted back stop

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Speaker 2: to be unable to be contacted by the Department of

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Speaker 2: Social Services ever again about anything else.

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Speaker 1: So when they got this text and had the link

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Speaker 1: and you click on the link, where did a link

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Speaker 1: take you?

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Speaker 2: It took you to the Department of Social Services website.

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Speaker 2: They do have a website in Connecticut where you can

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Speaker 2: renew online. Not every state has the capabilities to do that,

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Speaker 2: And in fact, Code for America's next project is they

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Speaker 2: want to help make that website work even better. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: it just took you straight to the website where you

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Speaker 2: would have to renew anyway, and was sort of again

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Speaker 2: prompting people to do it digitally instead of go back

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Speaker 2: to the mailing and the paperwork.

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Speaker 1: Well, what about people, especially older people, or who may

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Speaker 1: not have smartphones, or don't have internet connection or don't

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Speaker 1: use a laptop. Is there a way that those people

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Speaker 1: are able to be reached?

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Speaker 2: It's going to be harder to reach them certainly with this.

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Speaker 2: They did do some research and the vast majority of

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Speaker 2: low income households in the state do have cell phone

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Speaker 2: numbers LOANCME. People do tend to access the Internet on

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Speaker 2: a phone, so they're more likely to be able to

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Speaker 2: get a text message, whereas if you're trying to reach

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Speaker 2: people by mail. They tend to move around a lot,

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Speaker 2: and their physical address actually changes quite frequently, so it

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Speaker 2: may be a better way to reach folks. But this

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Speaker 2: is definitely not going to reach everyone, and in particular

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Speaker 2: people who are not tech savvy, who do not have

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Speaker 2: a phone, perhaps older people, This is not something that's

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Speaker 2: going to reach them or.

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Speaker 4: Help them necessarily.

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Speaker 2: So the Department of Social Services is definitely going to

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Speaker 2: need to think of other ways to be in touch

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Speaker 2: with people as well.

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Speaker 1: After the break, how is this texting program in Connecticut

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Speaker 1: working out? You talked about how they really sweated over

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Speaker 1: the link. You know, what the link should look like

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Speaker 1: and what those tech should say. So how do they

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Speaker 1: overcome that skepticism that we all have now that everything

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Speaker 1: we get from someone we don't know is bad.

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Speaker 2: It's a huge hurdle and it's a real one. They

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Speaker 2: did research talking to snappers in themselves to try to

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Speaker 2: answer this question, and I sat in on some of that,

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Speaker 2: and everyone they talked to knew someone who had been

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Speaker 2: subject to a scam and had lost money a Social

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Speaker 2: Security scam or a snap scam over their texts. So

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Speaker 2: this is really real and people have a right to

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Speaker 2: be skeptical and so what they did was they talk

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Speaker 2: to people about, Okay, what are the things that we

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Speaker 2: could do that would signal to you that this is real.

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Speaker 2: One of them was get the word out ahead of time.

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Speaker 2: So in the paperwork that they send regularly, they include

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Speaker 2: a little flyer that says, this is coming. You're going

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Speaker 2: to get a text. It's going to look like this.

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Speaker 2: It's going to be from this number. They did TV spots,

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Speaker 2: they did radio spots, they did a press release, they

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Speaker 2: did social media.

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Speaker 4: So they got the word out.

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Speaker 2: And then the other thing they did was they were

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Speaker 2: really intentional about what the text looked like. One big

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Speaker 2: thing that really came up in the research they did

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Speaker 2: with Snap recipients was that if it came from a

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Speaker 2: random number or a five digit short code, that was

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Speaker 2: going to look like a scam. But everyone felt comfortable

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Speaker 2: having it come from the Department of so Services call

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Speaker 2: center number because they knew that number. Often it was

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Speaker 2: already in their phone. They called it a lot. That

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Speaker 2: was something they knew, so they said, okay, if it

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Speaker 2: comes from that, I'll be fine. Another thing was if

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Speaker 2: it has part of their client ID, that's a number

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Speaker 2: that no one else should have. A scammer or a

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Speaker 2: hacker shouldn't have So there were these things that they

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Speaker 2: could do to sort of signal to them, you know,

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Speaker 2: this is real. This is coming from a department you

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Speaker 2: already know, but it is a risk. I'm sure they

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Speaker 2: weren't able to eliminate skepticism entirely. One person said, this

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Speaker 2: text message idea is great, and if I get it,

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Speaker 2: I will probably trust it, but I will still go

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Speaker 2: to a library computer and I will type it in

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Speaker 2: manually just to be sure.

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Speaker 1: How were they able to make sure that all that

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Speaker 1: pretty sensitive private information was going to be safe when

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Speaker 1: they contracted out to a nonprofit.

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Speaker 2: That is I think a concern that comes up a

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Speaker 2: lot for Code for America in this project and all others,

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Speaker 2: because governments are tasked with having and keeping your very

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Speaker 2: very personal data and promising to keep it secure, and

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Speaker 2: so I think there's a lot of discomfort around allowing

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Speaker 2: an outside entity to have access to it. So one

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Speaker 2: thing is just that Code for America has protocols and

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Speaker 2: practices that it has in place that it has used

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Speaker 2: with other states, and it was able to say to Connecticut,

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Speaker 2: for example, this is what we do. This is what

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Speaker 2: we've done it has worked, we can vouch for it.

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Speaker 2: But on top of that, you know Code for America,

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Speaker 2: anyone who was going to be working with the data

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Speaker 2: that they needed to send text messages had to have

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Speaker 2: a background check. There are some extra sort of bureaucratic

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Speaker 2: hurdles that they had to step through to make sure

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Speaker 2: that they were going to be able to be trusted

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Speaker 2: with this highly sensitive data.

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Speaker 1: So this kind of sounds like less question of technology

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Speaker 1: because this is some pretty like low tech stuff, as

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Speaker 1: it is a matter of just will to be able

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Speaker 1: to do this. Do states just make this really really hard?

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Speaker 2: Yes, and no, I think to some extent there are

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Speaker 2: a lot of states that want to do better, and

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Speaker 2: it's a question of resources. To some intent, it is

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Speaker 2: a question of technology, Like, yes, these are not really

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Speaker 2: high flying projects, but it does require a brand new

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Speaker 2: system to send texts when you've never sent a text

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Speaker 2: message to someone before. And state agencies are really starved

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Speaker 2: for resources. The workforces that take care of giving out

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Speaker 2: benefits of reviewing applications, they just are chronically underfunded. So

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Speaker 2: if you spend money in time on something like text messages,

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Speaker 2: you're taking it away from something else. But I will

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Speaker 2: also say that the hurdles that poor people are confronted

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Speaker 2: with when they go to apply for these benefits are

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Speaker 2: sometimes intentional. It is a way to whittle down the

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Speaker 2: roles when you just make it harder and harder for

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Speaker 2: people to access benefits. And we tend to see more

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Speaker 2: of those hurdles and states, for example, with higher black population.

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Speaker 2: So it's this legacy of sort of viewing the poor

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Speaker 2: as perhaps undeserving or needing to work harder for the

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Speaker 2: assistance that they qualify for.

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Speaker 1: They put the system in place to send all these

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Speaker 1: texts to people in Connecticut when it was time to

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Speaker 1: renew their benefits. Did it work? Was it successful?

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: I got to watch the day they deployed the pilot

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Speaker 2: and the texts went out extremely quickly and costs less

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Speaker 2: than four dollars total.

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Speaker 1: And how many texts did they send that.

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Speaker 2: That first day They sent about ten thousand texts, And

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Speaker 2: the plan was to keep ramping it up. But it

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Speaker 2: is reaching people and they're evaluating the impact. But it

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Speaker 2: seemed preliminarily that they were seeing less churn. They were

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Speaker 2: not overwhelming the field offices with calls for recipients who

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Speaker 2: were confused or scared by these texts and they were

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Speaker 2: also driving traffic to the Department of Social Services websites.

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Speaker 2: So the preliminary results looked really good. They were getting

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Speaker 2: a lot of texts back from people saying thank you,

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Speaker 2: this is great, and you know, I think they're going

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Speaker 2: to keep evaluating the impact and seeing if they can

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Speaker 2: keep expanding it to other uses.

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Speaker 1: And what did the state of Connecticut pay CODE for

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Speaker 1: America to do this for them?

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Speaker 4: They paid them nothing.

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Speaker 1: So where does the funding for HOD for America come from?

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Speaker 1: How do they pay their staff?

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Speaker 2: They have philanthropic funding and they just got this big

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Speaker 2: infusion of funding to start what they're calling the Safety

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Speaker 2: Net Innovation Lab, and so this Connecticut partnership is part

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Speaker 2: of that lab.

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Speaker 4: And the goal is both to work with more states.

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Speaker 2: Eventually they hope to have fifteen states in this innovation

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Speaker 2: lab with them, but also I think to do it

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Speaker 2: on a longer timeframe. Most of their projects before this

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Speaker 2: tended to be come in and sort of fix the.

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Speaker 4: Problem and then walk away.

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Speaker 2: And in Connecticut, for example, they started with this texting

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Speaker 2: pilot which was pretty small, and then they wanted to

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Speaker 2: expand texting and then, like I said, ultimately the goal

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Speaker 2: is to redo the whole process entirely, the Department of

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Speaker 2: Social Services website and how people interact with it, how

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Speaker 2: easy it is to navigate, how easy it is to

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Speaker 2: complete things online. So it's a bigger project and a

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Speaker 2: longer term project, I think than they've normally been able

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Speaker 2: to take on. Interestingly, though, it's not really a blue

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Speaker 2: state or a red state thing so far. You know,

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Speaker 2: they've done a lot of work with the State of Louisiana,

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Speaker 2: which has been really interested in making benefit delivery better.

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Speaker 2: So I think that this is the kind of work

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Speaker 2: that can attract people from all political persuasions. But there

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Speaker 2: is a bit of a hurdle for some state governments

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Speaker 2: in that while Code for America does not charge anything,

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Speaker 2: you do have to invest staff time, and that is

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Speaker 2: a resource, and it's a limited resource when funding is

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Speaker 2: solow for state government agencies. So I think they would

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Speaker 2: love to work with every single state government, but there'll

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Speaker 2: be me some that just feel like they can't really

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Speaker 2: swing it.

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Speaker 1: Bryce, thanks so much for coming on the show.

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Speaker 4: Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: When we come back. How receptive our states to the

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Speaker 1: kind of help Code for America is offering. Now, let's

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Speaker 1: hear what it's actually like to do this kind of work.

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Speaker 1: Genevieve Miller is Program Manager for Insight and Impact at

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Speaker 1: Code for America. Genevieve, can you start by telling us

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Speaker 1: how does Code for America choose projects?

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Speaker 3: Like?

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Speaker 1: How do you decide who you're going to work with?

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Speaker 3: Code for America is a civic tech nonprofit, So that

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Speaker 3: phrase civic tech may or may not be something listeners

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Speaker 3: are familiar with, but what that essentially means is that

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Speaker 3: we're driven by a core belief, which is that with

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Speaker 3: the mindful use of technology, government can work well for everyone.

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Speaker 3: And so for more than a decade, we've been working

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Speaker 3: shoulder to shoulder with governments and communities across the country

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Speaker 3: to make government services more accessible and equitable.

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Speaker 4: We've worked with a.

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Speaker 3: Wide range of states up until this point, and now

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Speaker 3: our work with Connecticut is part of something called the

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Speaker 3: Safety Net Innovation Lab. This is something that we launched

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Speaker 3: last year with the goal of working with fifteen states

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Speaker 3: over seven years to reach thirteen million people and unlock

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Speaker 3: thirty billion dollars in benefits.

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Speaker 4: And so that's a lot of numbers.

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Speaker 3: But another way of articulating that vision is that we're

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Speaker 3: working to transform the social safety net by using human

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Speaker 3: centered technology to remove barriers to public benefits. And it's

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Speaker 3: really both as simple and as complex as that. Alongside Connecticut,

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Speaker 3: we are also working with Louisiana, Minnesota, Colorado, and California.

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Speaker 3: And then we recently announced and are in the process

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Speaker 3: of kicking off work with New York, New Mexico, Maryland,

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Speaker 3: and Washington, DC as part of the second cohort. We

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Speaker 3: as part of the Innovation Lab. In particular, we kind

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Speaker 3: of shared this opportunity publicly and states actually reached out

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Speaker 3: to us.

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Speaker 1: And so you are working on this project to make

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Speaker 1: it easier for people to renew benefits that would expire otherwise.

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Speaker 1: So when you move in to a project, here's this need.

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Speaker 1: How do you go about figuring out what to do

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Speaker 1: from like a tech standpoint.

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Speaker 3: With the recent end of the public health emergency and

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Speaker 3: unwinding of Medicaid, we're really seeing that renewing benefits is

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Speaker 3: particularly challenging right now for both clients and government partners.

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Speaker 3: This is true in Connecticut and across the country.

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Speaker 1: How did you zero in a simple text message as

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Speaker 1: being the best way to reach people.

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Speaker 3: Government services are at their best when they meet people

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Speaker 3: where they're at and center those who are often excluded,

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Speaker 3: And we know from our previous work in other states

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Speaker 3: and now in Connecticut, that texting is one of the

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Speaker 3: most effective and equitable tools to do so. Texts are

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Speaker 3: relatively affordable to send, especially when you compare it to

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Speaker 3: sending for example, paper notices in the mail. Client Phone

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Speaker 3: numbers are also less likely to change than their physical address,

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Speaker 3: which makes texting a more consistently reliable way of reaching people.

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Speaker 3: And most importantly, texts provide really timely information to support

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Speaker 3: clients every step of the way.

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Speaker 1: What does CO for America see as like this next

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Speaker 1: needed step in making public benefits more accessible so you

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Speaker 1: don't just lose them if you forget to renew.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think what we learned from our pilot thus

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Speaker 3: far in Connecticut, and what we've learned certainly in our

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Speaker 3: texting work in other states as well, is that texts

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Speaker 3: are a part of a much larger puzzle when it

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Speaker 3: comes to supporting clients all the way from accessing benefits

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Speaker 3: from the first time to renewing and maintaining their benefits,

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Speaker 3: and so texts can provide timely information and resources for clients. However,

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00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:33,760
Speaker 3: there are still a lot of other steps in the

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Speaker 3: process and kind of barriers that clients need to overcome

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Speaker 3: when it comes to pulling together the documents that are needed,

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Speaker 3: or attending an interview and kind of scheduling that, and

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Speaker 3: there are all of these pieces to the process. And

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Speaker 3: so what's been really wonderful about this process and working

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Speaker 3: with the Department of Social Services is that we're hearing

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Speaker 3: from clients who are replying to our texts, and we're

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Speaker 3: hearing the questions that they're asking. And so when we

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Speaker 3: remind clients to renew, for example, they may have a

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Speaker 3: lot of follow up questions around what's required of them

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Speaker 3: and some of those next steps. And so we're continuing

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Speaker 3: to have conversations with the Department of Social Services around

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Speaker 3: other things that we're hearing from clients about Gennevie.

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Speaker 1: We've mostly been talking about this specific program in Connecticut,

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Speaker 1: but you mentioned other states that Code for America is

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Speaker 1: also working in. What do you do in those places?

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Speaker 1: What are their projects do you have in the works?

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Speaker 3: Other states are looking at increasing participation for the Special

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Speaker 3: Supplemental Nutrition Program for women, infants, and children, often referred

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Speaker 3: to as WICK, and other states are focused on projects

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Speaker 3: related to Medicaid and really improving single integrated benefits applications.

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Speaker 3: And so there's a lot of different projects that are

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Speaker 3: within the Innovation Lab, and so we're sharing a lot

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Speaker 3: of learnings as part of that process. And actually, a

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Speaker 3: really core part of the Innovation Lab for States is

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Speaker 3: that they're doing this in cohorts, so they have the

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Speaker 3: opportunity to on a monthly basis come together and really

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Speaker 3: learn from each other, hear what everyone is working on,

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Speaker 3: and I think really importantly to share the challenges they're facing,

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Speaker 3: the dreams that they have for their clients and their staff.

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Speaker 3: And we've seen just an incredible space held for those conversations.

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Speaker 3: And so they're doing a lot of learning together, even

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Speaker 3: if their specific projects might look different.

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Speaker 1: Genevieve, thanks so much. I appreciate your time. Thank you,

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to us here at The Big Take.

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Speaker 1: It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio. For more

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Speaker 1: Email us questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: brow with another big takee

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Speaker 3: Mhm