For people in need of public assistance, the process can be brutal. Monroe County is out to make getting help much more user-friendly.  

The Monroe County Department of Human Services (DHS) office on St. Paul Street in Rochester is a busy place, where people in need often have to wait in long lines to get the help they need.

“The humility of it all,” said Thalia Wright, DHS commissioner. “By coming in and asking for help at your most vulnerable time.”

Officials say the complaints fielded about the process are not a reflection of the people who work for the department of human services, but rather the system now in place. Some call it dehumanizing.

“Because it forces people to wait in long lines, enduring public humiliation and shame,” said Aqua Porter, who heads up the Monroe County Anti-Poverty Initiative. “And it’s unnecessarily complex.”

“Right now, the way the system is designed is, it's asking people who are in need and looking for assistance to come to us and to come find us,” said Monroe County Executive. Adam Bello. “And that's backwards.”

Bello says that's changing. In a plan designed to eventually make the building at 691 St. Paul obsolete, and to make the system more user-friendly, the county announced a "systematic redesign" of DHS services.

The biggest change in the short term, according to Bello, is that instead of clients going to DHS buildings, people will be able to receive services from agencies closer to their own neighborhoods.

“Community members want to be met where they are, whether it's in the city or towns or suburbs,” said Wright. “So our goal is to do exactly that."

It’s a new future, and a new way of helping those in need.

“There’s a better way to do this,” said Bello.