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34 North Carolina

required to participate in the Work First program. In addition, families who have exhausted their 24- or 60-month time limit are eligible for Emergency Assistance, provided all other eligibility criteria are met. These families are not included in calculating the State’s participation rates.

At a minimum, counties must define and describe in their Emergency Assistance plans the following guidelines:

• The family must have a child who lives with a parent, relative caregiver, or nonrelative caregiver as defined in Work First policy, and who meets the age requirements for Work First. • Total income must be at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. • Family members must meet the same citizenship requirements and resource limits as for Work First. • Countable income is the same as for Work First.

DISASTER OR PUBLIC HEALTH DECLARATIONS (ALL COUNTIES)

There is no waiver authority within TANF that would be triggered in the event of a disaster. When disaster or public health declarations are issued by the state and federal governments, the state may implement additional provisions for the use of Federal TANF funds and State MOE funds when warranted due to the severity of a natural disaster or other emergency declaration. The state may exercise the ability to expand services and broaden eligibility criteria for Work First Cash Assistance such as streamlining the application process, temporary suspension on; sanctions, terminations, Unemployment Insurance Benefits (UIB), collection of Program Integrity claims, temporary pass through of child support payments, granting good cause for activities that cannot be reasonably performed, providing on-line approaches to participation, increasing cash benefit levels for TANF participants, and providing non-recurrent short-term benefits for families that meet the 200% FPL. The state may offer a wider range of services and benefits to address the crisis. Eligibility criteria may be altered to allow maximum flexibility to families and children negatively affected by the emergency. Additional options may include but are not limited to: relaxing or temporarily suspending residency requirements for families affected by a disaster when the family intends to return to the state within 90 days. The state may continue to provide assistance for a child who is temporarily absent from the home in which they reside for more than 90 days due to a disaster by granting good cause. The use of self-attestation for third party verifications will be accepted, with exception of citizenship and immigration documents. These two eligibility factors will continue to require third party verifications. However, county departments of human/social services would be encouraged to utilize all available resources to aid families affected by disasters in obtaining documents. The state may disregard all monies received by disaster victims under FEMA’s Individuals and Household Program (IHP). In addition, during disaster or public health declarations, mandatory face-to-face interviews for Work First recertifications may be temporarily suspended and conducted via telephone or by the ex parte process.

During the COVID-19 emergency declaration, the state temporarily suspended Work First Cash Assistance terminations in relation to time clocks and paperwork or procedural requirements as well as sanctions related to non-cooperation with child support and/or failure to perform work requirements. Active Work First Cash Assistance