August 11, 2009, 5:01 pm

Welfare Agency Is Sued Over Translation Service

By Jennifer 8. Lee

An advocacy group sued New York City’s welfare agency Tuesday morning, seeking to force it to comply with laws and policies that require translation and interpretation services for its clients.

A 2003 city law, the Equal Access to Human Services Act [pdf], passed after initial resistance from the Bloomberg administration,, gave city agencies five years to phase in comprehensive translation services, supplied by phone or in person. In addition, it required that city forms had to be made available in six main languages: Arabic, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian and Spanish. The deadline was February 2009.

(In addition to the 2003 city law, a number of other legal regulations — including the city’s Human Rights Law, the state’s social services regulations, and internal agency policies — can be read to require translation services.)

The advocacy group, Legal Services NYC, filed the lawsuit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on behalf of six clients whose primary language is other than English. Because of language barriers, the suit contends, they either lost benefits, were delayed in getting benefits, or were unable to appeal benefits determinations effectively.

When the 2003 law was passed, it was considered one of the strongest in the nation; about a fourth of the city population was regarded as having limited proficiency with English.

In 2006, the Human Resources Administration, which handles food stamp and welfare benefits, submitted a plan [pdf] that listed the processes it would adopt, including phone interpretation services, document translation priorities and cards that people could use to identify which of 21 languages they spoke.

In addition, the city has negotiated a contract with Language Line, a phone interpretation service that does work for pharmacies and the Police Department.

“On paper, it looks really strong,â€