It took William Clark six days to sign up for food stamps, he
said
– and he’s lucky. With a sound mind and Victory Outreach’s roof
over his head, the former mechanic was able to juggle the paperwork
and office visits required to get food stamps, a bonus that brings
his monthly income to $325.
Gilroy – It took William Clark six days to sign up for food stamps, he said – and he’s lucky. With a sound mind and Victory Outreach’s roof over his head, the former mechanic was able to juggle the paperwork and office visits required to get food stamps, a bonus that brings his monthly income to $325.
“It takes time,” he said, “but I stayed on top of it.”
Others haven’t had his luck. Nearly half of income-eligible residents in Santa Clara County don’t receive food stamps, according to a study undertaken by the nonprofit National Priorities Project. Bulky applications that take six to eight weeks block some; fingerprinting wards off others. Aged and disabled clients on Supplemental Security Income can’t collect food stamps in California, and neither can illegal immigrants.
“The biggest barrier to food stamp participation is the complexity of the paperwork itself,” said Lee Mercer, program director of Second Harvest Food Bank in neighboring Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. “It takes an average of three visits of five hours to apply for food stamps. People give up on the process.”
Congress is mulling an additional $4 billion to beef up the food stamp program, a significant slice of this year’s Farm Bill. Advocates will be pleased to see those dollars trickle down from federal to state to county coffers, but say the question of how to get those benefits to the needy persists.
“I’ve never been a fan [of the application process],” said Jeff Fishback, employment services director at St. Joseph’s Family Center in Gilroy. “We should be dedicating more personal, one-on-one time to our clients’ needs – not the needs of the federal government.”
One county program aims to do just that, slimming the six- to eight-week application process down to three days, for some applicants. Gone are hours spent waiting in county offices, said Denise Boland, interim CalWORKs administrator for the county Social Services Agency. Instead, employees from community agencies such as St. Joseph’s directly identify people in need, help them fill out the applications on site, then dial up Social Services staff to interview applicants by phone. Electronic cards stocked with benefits are mailed to the agency within three days.
St. Joseph’s is one of five county agencies involved in the program, and the only one headquartered in South County. The pilot program launched in February targets working families and the chronically homeless, who haven’t always reaped county benefits.
“Chronically homeless folks don’t carry their life files with them,” explained Maureen O’Malley-Moore, a policy analyst for county supervisor Don Gage. “To have them go back and forth to meetings, to bring additional paperwork – we lose them. They fall through the cracks.”
Santa Clara County dodged federal requirements of face-to-face interviews for food stamps through a California state law that waives the requirement in hardship cases. Hardships include homelessness, illness or being unable to miss work, Boland said.
In California, elders and disabled people on SSI can’t get food stamps because a $10 food grant is included in their monthly benefits, said Mercer. Advocates are frustrated, but don’t want to nix the provision because it obliquely benefits larger households: Families with SSI recipients can deduct their SSI income from their stated income, helping them to qualify for benefits. Currently, food stamp eligibility is capped at 130 percent of the federal poverty level – $19,767 for a family of three, according to the National Priorities Project.
“If you were to suddenly change it, many families with children would lose food stamps – and some single disabled adults would gain them,” said Mercer. “More would lose than gain, but if you’re a disabled person living alone, it’s little solace.”
