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Several months before The Atlanta Project (TAP) was launched, former President Jimmy Carter met with more than 100 federal agencies to issue a challenge. "Is there a less cumbersome way," he asked, "for poor people to apply for public assistance? Since a candidate for housing subsidies frequently qualifies for food stamps and Medicaid as well, couldn't government distill the pages and pages of separate program applications into one common, easy-to-complete form?"

Two years later, Georgia has taken a giant first step. No fewer than 10 major state and federal agencies, meeting regularly since July, have boiled down 64 sheets of bureaucratic language into one eight-page, user-friendly application for seven programs.

In March, workers from the Atlanta/Fulton County Family Connection began a six-month test of the form, known as the Georgia Common Access Application, in TAP's Tri-Cities Cluster.

The team from Family Connection, a nonprofit organization that works primarily with low-income families, is interviewing interested applicants and routing the completed forms back to a central office. There, the forms are being faxed to the appropriate agencies for processing. Longer term, the goal is to train volunteers from the community to do the interviews and fill out the applications.

Once the test results are evaluated, the next step will be to adapt the form for use in other states and to develop an automated application process and database that participating agencies can share.

"Streamlining service delivery has long been a goal of the participating agencies, but it was President Carter who made this happen," said Janet Hubler, a supervisor with the Social Security Administration (SSA), who led the interagency working group that designed the application. President Carter won support from former President George Bush and the Clinton administration as well.

"This was a real team effort," said Bill DeBardelaben, on loan to TAP from SSA. "The main challenge now is to keep the enthusiasm high."

Agencies that collaborated to create the form include SSA, the U.S Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Food and Nutrition Service, the Fulton County Board of Commissioners and County Managers' Office, the Fulton County Department of Family and Children Services, the Georgia Department of Human Resources/Division of Family and Children Services, U.S. Health Care Financing, the Fulton County Housing Authority, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Georgia Women, Infants, and Children Program.