The women were in the right place, said club manager Gregory Hudson, except the only people there were the cleaning staff. After a confused conversation with the janitors, the women left, still in search of their benefits.

That bewildering early morning encounter was part of a pilot program that allows 5,000 residents of Congress Heights to withdraw welfare and other government benefits in cash from ATM machines. The program will be implemented citywide Oct. 1. The program, touted at its inception as "user-friendly and convenient," got off to a rocky start the first of this month, as many residents found their cards were not accepted by machines in their neighborhood.

Those who called the D.C. Department of Human Services for help received a list of 100 ATM locations either across the District line in Prince George’s County, Md., or miles away in Northwest Washington. Several Northwest locations, including the 9:30 Club, the Black Cat nightclub, The Tombs restaurant in Georgetown and LuLu’s Club Mardi Gras, are mostly open at night.

Frustration levels rose as benefit recipients went from one ATM to another, trying to get money for family groceries, said Commissioner Barbara Dickerson of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 8C, who fielded complaints from many residents.

Within hours, word spread that the ATM at the Eastover Plaza Giant Food store in Oxon Hill, Md., was working. Soon the line was out the door.

"This happened at the worst possible time," said Giant spokesman Barry Scher. "The first of the month, when everyone is trying to get their benefits."

Giant Food, NationsBank and other companies with ATMs posted flyers warning of long delays and directing customers to other locations.

Project manager Edwin Williams, who runs the program out of the Office of the D.C. Chief Financial Officer, said the downed machines and odd locations were not the city’s fault.

"The city has no say over that," he said. "It is entirely up to the contractor."

In fact, he said, no one in his office or at the Department of Human Services knew how many ATMs accepted the cards or where the machines were located until complaints started coming in.

"The first day was a nightmare, but it was a nightmare the city had no control over," he said.

The five-year, $7.5 million contract with Lockheed Martin included no provisions for checking the appropriateness of the ATM locations for customers using the card, Williams said.

"We had had assurances that major bank networks would be online," he said.

Cardholders eventually found ATM locations that accepted their cards as additional machines came online. More than $1 million in benefits were withdrawn in the first week.

"When we started on Monday (June 1), there were 18 sites," said Madelyn Andrews of the city’s human services department. "By late Wednesday, there were 50."

She defended the fact that many of those sites were miles from recipients, many of whom do not own cars.

"You have to go where the ATMs are," Andrews said. "There are more ATMs in Northwest."

While Williams said he now considers the contractor behind schedule, neither city officials nor Lockheed executives seemed overly concerned.

"We were expecting glitches since this is a pilot and has not been tried," Andrews said.

Although there are no formal review procedures or performance goals, problems with the pilot program will be worked out before the system is implemented citywide, Williams said.

"You work out your problems in the one neighborhood," said Lockheed spokesman Ron Jury. "We thought we had adequate coverage. People got their benefits. That’s the proof."

At a required one-hour instruction session on how to use the cards, known as Capital Access cards, benefit recipients were told their cards would work at any ATM on the Honor, Most or MAC networks.

But more than a week after the June 1 startup date, several major ATM networks including Honor, had yet to come online, Jury said. He said more than 400 locations were online within 10 days of the program start-up.

The city pays each participating bank a 33-cent fee for each of the cardholder’s first two transactions per month, Williams said. Cardholders pay an 85-cent fee to the bank for each additional transaction.

In addition to cash withdrawals at ATM machines, the program allows cardholders to access food stamp benefits when they swipe the card at grocery store checkouts. Charges for groceries meeting federal guidelines for food stamp eligibility are debited from the cardholder’s account. Food stamp benefits cannot be withdrawn as cash, Williams said, and are only good at retailers authorized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

By replacing food stamp coupons with electronic benefits, government officials hope to reduce the possibility that benefits can be illegally sold for cash. City officials estimate the program will save $3.3 million over the next five years. Benefit recipients in Virginia and Maryland have used similar electronic benefits programs for about two years.

City Councilwoman Sandra C. Allen, D-Ward 8, did not return repeated phone calls for comment. She met with Congress Heights residents in her ward June 18 to discuss problems with the system.

Meanwhile, businesses such as the 9:30 Club are trying to remove themselves from the list of participating retailers.

"Whoever put this together had no idea we are just a nightclub," Hudson said. "We just don’t have the staff to handle it."

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator