The District of Columbia’s Department of Human Services (DHS) repeatedly failed to provide language access services to limited-English-proficient D.C. residents, including two women denied aid from the city after they were unable to access Spanish language translators, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this month.
The District passed the Language Access Act of 2004 (LAA) to ensure that residents have access to interpreters who speak their languages. The legislation mandates that once the number of non-English speakers enrolled in any given public service or program reaches a threshold level of 3 percent, or 500 individuals, the city is required to have translators or copies of translated documents. In DHS’ case, about 22,000 of the program’s 200,000 enrollees are only proficient in languages other than English, exceeding that threshold.
In the lawsuit, plaintiff Maria Amaya Torres, a low-income D.C. resident, indicated that her Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan (SNAP) benefits — colloquially known as “food stamps” — were cut by two-thirds after she was denied an interpreter at her annual re-certification appointment. Minerva Nolasco, another plaintiff, said she was denied medical care when she was seven months pregnant after her health benefits were canceled erroneously and not reinstated because of DHS’ failure to provide an interpreter.
In both cases, DHS was aware that the customers didn’t speak English.
“[Torres’] food benefits, or SNAP benefits, were reduced from $220 a month to $87 a month,” Steve Hollman, a partner at the law firm of Hogan Lovells U.S. LLP and co-chair of the Board of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, told ThinkProgress in a phone interview. He is representing both women. “For a woman who’s barely able to feed her family even with full benefits, she went a month without receiving sufficient benefits to provide food for her family.”
The noncompliance was significant enough to be labeled as systemic.
Field tests conducted by the District’s Office of Human Rights (OHR) in 2014 — the agency tasked with monitoring LAA compliance — found that DHS has failed to provide language access services in about half of its interactions with District residents. The report, which gives an annual measure of compliance to the LAA, gave the DHS a score of zero out of five for the quality of its language services.
According to the lawsuit, DHS agents failed to translate documents for limited and non-English proficient residents and refused to provide interpretation services.
When D.C. residents interact with DHS agents, they must provide that individual with “oral language services,” such as providing bilingual staff members or even allowing access to the “Language Line,” a telephone interpretation system where DHS agents can engage an interpreter over the phone to talk to the resident. But “DHS agents routinely refuse to offer necessary interpretation and translation services,” the lawsuit charged.
“The report prepared by the Office of Human Rights indicated that the noncompliance was significant enough to be labeled as systemic,” Hollman said. “The statute requires interpreters for personal interface and translations for written communications. Both of those types of services are systematically not being provided where they’re obviously needed.”
The lack of language services is especially troubling for critical services that are particularly acute for low-income families. In fact, the services provided by the Department of Human Services are also the ones that are most critical for survival. Those services include food and nutritional benefits, shelter for the homeless or people at risk of being homeless, medical care, child care, and family violence protection services.
Spanish-speaking residents have run into language issues with the DHS in the past, such as one woman who was asked to fill out documents in English on three separate visits. When she asked for help, the DHS agents told her that they didn’t understand her question and “instructed her to speak English.” Another resident learned that she was denied benefits in a letter written in English. Once she was able to locate a Spanish-speaking DHS agent, she found out that her application had never been processed. And yet another resident called DHS eight times, each time asking for assistance in Spanish, but either had her call dropped or was hung up on.
“Generally, Washington is this amazingly cosmopolitan international city,” Hollman said. “It attracts speakers of other languages and people from other origins… and yet the level at which it’s providing services for non-English speakers or limited-English proficiency speakers is distressing.”
“It can and must do better.”