AmericanPace

American Pace is part of the Community Network of the ACCESS Florida Program, an arm of the Department of Children and Families, or DCF. This program’s goal is to “protect the vulnerable, promote strong and economically self-sufficient families, and advance personal and family recovery and resiliency.” American Pace staff helps applicants apply for public assistance from the one-stop ACCESS Florida offices that operate at each of American Care’s medical centers. From these offices, which are also known as Assisted Service Sites, American Pace associates skillfully take the client from initial orientation to problem resolution, providing the practical and compassionate support the client requires during his or hers time of need along the way- such as food assistance, temporary cash assistance, and Medicaid. The American Pace associates provide clients with informational brochures; explain the application process; provide paper applications; assist with completing and submitting applications; and help to check the status of the client’s case. In addition to ACCESS services, American Pace assists clients to apply for other services such as the federal Low Income Subsidy program, electricity subsidy, telephone and internet subsidy programs, food pantries program, and housing programs.

The Food Assistance Program helps low-income individuals and families buy the food they need; While the Temporary Cash Assistance Program provides short-term cash benefits to families with children under the age of 18, or under age 19, if full-time secondary school students, as well as pregnant women during their last trimester. The Medicaid Assistance Program provides medical coverage to low-income individuals and families through a variety of eligibility categories.

To ensure the timely and smooth processing of the client’s application, each of the community resources offices is equipped with computers, printers, copiers, telephones, and fax machines to allow the client to apply on-line.

As part of our corporate citizenship, we feel privileged to be part of the solution individuals and families need to recuperate after adverse circumstances. American Pace plays a vital role in providing access to quality health care and health insurance which is often difficult or impossible to access in low income communities. The medical centers in which the American Pace community resources offices are located have all been designated as Areas of Critical Need for primary care by the Florida Department of Health.

Individuals and families who visit our offices usually come to us in frustration, after they have exhausted all possible solutions to their particular problem, which can range from hunger to homelessness, from unemployment to health issues that have gone unattended due to lack of health insurance, or lack of access to food or housing. It is understandable that problems such as these may foster a negative attitude on the part of some clients that to be overcome requires of our community resources associates to have a special gift in human relations, as exemplified by an unprejudiced approach in dealing with members of a population that is needy. It takes a very special person to work in this position to serve this population. In addition to the technical and practical skills required by the position, the person must possess abundant amounts of patience, compassion, and understanding.

Although clients visit to solve very practical problems, without expressing it, they also visit to find the human warmth and encouraging words that are so needed when one confronts or faces the types of problems that American Pace offices helps resolve. The same client that may have initially been difficult because of their situation in life, frequently returns to thank his or hers community resources associate for helping him or her find a way out of his or her difficulty. We have found that it is deeply rewarding to know, for example, that thanks to the food stamps that have been approved for families from one of our community resources offices, these families’ children will not go hungry.