Background Checks

The Legal Aid Society of Orange County has filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the extensive police background checks being routinely run on homeless people who apply for welfare benefits. The investigations ostensibly are to prevent welfare fraud.

It’s a cruel approach that, even if legal, is so abhorrent that it should be abandoned.

The lawsuit contends that homeless people with no identification papers who seek aid under the county’s General Relief program are referred to a special unit of fraud investigators from the district attorney’s office. And that applicants are subjected to extensive police background checks that violate state and federal law.

The result is that aid applicants often are arrested on the spot on outstanding warrants, some for such minor traffic violations as driving with a broken taillight. As many don’t even have money for food or shelter, fixing a taillight or paying a ticket is not a top priority.

The county defends the practice with the argument that the investigations are designed to prevent welfare fraud and that they actually help find a “substantial number of serious felons.” The practice may be well-intentioned and uncover some felons, but investigators might also find a “substantial” number of “serious felons” if they extended their fishing expedition and did criminal background checks on people who apply for marriage licenses or building permits.

Police may investigate backgrounds for probable cause, but the mere seeking of county aid should hardly be considered reason enough for such an extensive check. A social service program should not intimidate the people it is designed to help or take the cynical approach that everyone seeking public assistance is out to defraud the system.

The Social Services Agency is there to provide help for people, not to harass and intimidate them. Certainly fraud should be prevented when possible and prosecuted when uncovered. But that shouldn’t mean turning the welfare office into a clearinghouse for police reports and subjecting welfare applicants to extensive police probes that have nothing to do with welfare fraud.