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The state’s miserable job of processing food stamp applicants is allowing millions of eligible Texans to go hungry. State officials should recognize this as a crisis and act accordingly.
Of all the measures that define the problem, one jumps out as particularly distressing: In most parts of Texas, applicants must wait several weeks before they get time with an eligibility worker. North Texas’ record is by far the worst, with an average wait of more than 80 days just for an interview.
The Health and Human Services Commission is overwhelmed. The agency is hobbled by high turnover, inexperience and fewer eligibility workers than it had 10 years ago. And this comes at a time of a mushrooming caseload due to recession.
If pressure isn’t relieved, things will further deteriorate.
The commission made a good call in giving more recipients automatic renewal status, dispensing with a six-month follow-up interview. That will save the workforce valuable time.
Another time saver would be emergency suspension of the review now required of an applicant’s savings and the value of the family vehicle. Most states now have no such test, and the denial rate for assets is extremely low. Health and Human Services Commissioner Thomas Suehs and lawmakers should agree on at least temporary suspension, along with a study of abuse rates.
The agency is now working to fill a backlog of vacancies and 250 positions newly authorized by legislative leaders. We hope the agency does that efficiently and then finds state leaders in a receptive, creative mood on its standing request for even more workers.
The state now helps about 2.8 million needy people put food on the table. But the number of eligible Texans may be another 2.8 million – greater than the population of Dallas County.
This qualifies as a crisis. The North Texas Food Bank is struggling to keep up with demand. For information on ways to help – including donations, volunteering and food drives – go to www.ntfb.org.
Dallas was the 12th stop on an 11-day tour of the U.S where Nick was celebrating the successful launch of a new website he co-founded called Winnit.com. It’s a reverse auction website where users bid to win items from brands including Apple, Sony and many more. He was also raising awareness for Feeding America food banks. He volunteered with VHA employees boxing and sorting food in the NTFB warehouse and took photos with the group.
Nick and our President and CEO Jan Pruitt
Nick touring the warehouse
Nick volunteering with VHA
The Increased Demand for Food Stamps
Dallas Food Stamp recipients have increased 10% over the last year. Recipients have increased 11% across Texas. Food Stamps are a necessary means of ending hunger, but the program has slowed down considerably due to the tremendous demand and insufficient budget and staffing. Offices all over the state are working night and day. With such a workload, it is mathematically impossible for the staff in Food Stamp offices around Texas to process the thousands of new submissions, conduct 30 minute interviews with each applicant, and on top of that, renew already accepted applications. The process is hard, but Food Stamps work. They end are one of the greatest tools we have to end hunger and provide access to nutritious meals.
What Are Food Stamps?
The Food Stamps Program has been around in one form or another since 1939. It was developed to help bridge the gap between the farm surpluses of the time and the undernourished, who had no access to nutritious food. The program was closed in 1943 when the widespread unemployment of Depression Era America had been neutralized. In 1961 the Food Stamp Program was reinstated by President Kennedy and has been growing ever since. In 1977, Congress passed a new Food Stamp Act to ground the program and create the basics of what we see in Food Stamps today. Since then, every office has taken part in evolving the Food Stamps Program. In October of 2008, the Food Stamp Program was renamed SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) to focus on nutrition.
Why Do We Need Food Stamps?
The need for food assistance has grown tremendously over the past year. The public has done a wonderful job of responding to the call for help, but many of those who use to make donations are now finding themselves on the receiving end.
Food Stamps help lessen the strain on food pantries, which is very important for this time of great need. They also help stimulate the economy. In fact, $5 worth of SNAP creates $9.20 in economic benefit to the local economy.
What Can You Do to Help?
You can write a letter to your elected officials asking them to help approve funding for Health and Human Services Commissions so the applications can be processed faster. Senators and Congressmen are the mouthpieces for the people. Tell them that SNAP, is woefully under-budgeted and undermanned. Ask them to lobby for the needs of the Texas community. Remind them that thousands of children are hungry in Texas and that they have the power to stop it. The more letters that go out to every representative, the more obvious this need will become. Ask that application renewals be served every year instead of every six months, or to hire more workers.
Volunteer.
Across the state, there are offices set up to act as a middleman between Food Stamp clients and workers. An example of such an office is one in the North Texas Food Bank. On staff are Food Stamp liaisons to help clients fill out the detailed applications. By volunteering at one such office, you can extend their network to assist with many more people. Complete and correct applications need be sent in only once, wasting less time for the overworked in the SNAP offices.
Food Banks and social service agencies stand on the front lines in the battle against hunger. Your support is necessary to influence the government’s approach to Food Stamps and can directly help us turn the tide. All it takes is one letter from you.
September 04, 2009
By HOPE YEN
WASHINGTON (AP) – The official poverty rate for Americans 65 years and older has stood for years at 10 percent, the lowest rate among age groups. But the true rate could be nearly twice that high, according to a revised formula created by the National Academy of Sciences that is gaining favor among public officials, including some in the Obama administration.
The NAS formula would put the poverty rate for older Americans at 18.6 percent, or 6.8 million people, compared with 9.7 percent, or 3.6 million people, under the existing measure. The original government formula, created in 1955, doesn’t take account of rising costs of medical care and other factors.
“It’s a hidden problem,” said Robin Talbert, president of the AARP Foundation, which provides job training and support to low-income seniors and is backing legislation that would adopt the NAS formula. “There are still many millions of older people on the edge, who don’t have what they need to get by.”
If the academy’s formula is adopted, a more refined picture of American poverty could emerge that would capture everyday costs of necessities besides just food. The result could upend long-standing notions of those in greatest need and lead eventually to shifts in how billions of federal dollars for the poor are distributed for health, housing, nutrition and child-care benefits.
The overall official poverty rate would increase, from 12.5 percent to 15.3 percent, for a total of 45.7 million people, according to rough calculations by the Census Bureau. Data on all segments, not only the elderly, would be affected:
_ The rate for children under 18 in poverty would decline slightly, to 17.9 percent.
_ Single mothers and their children, who disproportionately receive food stamps, would see declines in the rates of poverty because noncash aid would be taken into account. Low-income people who are working could see increases in poverty rates, a reflection of transportation and child-care costs.
_ Cities with higher costs of living, such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco, would see higher poverty rates, while more rural areas in the Midwest and South might see declines.
_ The rate for extreme poverty, defined as income falling below 50 percent of the poverty line, would decrease due to housing and other noncash benefits.
_ Immigrant poverty rates would go up, due to transportation costs and lower participation in government aid programs.
The changes have been discussed quietly for years in academic circles, and both Democrats and Republicans agree that the decades-old White House formula, which is based on a 1955 cost of an emergency food diet, is outdated.
The current calculation sets the poverty level at three times the annual cost of groceries. For a family of four that is $21,203. That calculation does not factor in rising medical, transportation, child care and housing expenses or geographical variations in living costs. Nor does the current formula consider noncash aid when calculating income, despite the recent expansion of food stamps and tax credits in the federal economic stimulus and other government programs. The result: The poverty rate has varied little from its current 12.5 percent.
Next week, the Census Bureau will publish official poverty figures for 2008 with a cautionary note about the shortcomings. The agency says it will expedite release of alternative numbers in the following weeks, because of the interest expressed by lawmakers and the Obama administration in seeing a fuller range of numbers.
“The current poverty measure does a very bad job of measuring the impact of quite a few of our anti-poverty policies,” Rebecca Blank, the Commerce Department’s undersecretary of economic affairs, said in an interview. “It isn’t meaningless, but it isn’t complete.”
Although the White House Office of Management and Budget dictates how federal poverty is measured, legislation pending in Congress would require use of the National Academy approach. Advocates are hoping the White House may act on its own.
Cities are already showing interest.
In New York City, roughly one in three senior citizens fell below the poverty line after Mayor Michael Bloomberg adopted the new formula last year; state officials in Albany, N.Y., plan to publish their revised numbers next month. Los Angeles, Miami, Washington, San Francisco and Chicago also have been considering a switch.
When New York City changed to the new formula, a smaller percentage of children fell below the poverty line, particularly those living in single-parent homes. Residents 65 and over in poverty nearly doubled, from 18.1 percent to 32 percent.
Bloomberg, who previously pushed for cuts in programs for the elderly, now is advocating pilot programs for older residents that would reduce taxi costs, provide free bus service to get to grocery stores and offer legal aid to those at risk of eviction from their homes.
“Under this up-to-date measure, you understand that government programs have had a beneficial impact on households with single parents and children,” said Linda Gibbs, New York’s deputy mayor for health and human services. She expressed concern that as the official measure becomes increasingly outdated, it is redirecting social programs and funding away from the people who may need it the most.
“We wanted to look at poverty with a finer view in New York City and have an impact,” Gibbs said.
Nationally, official poverty rates for older Americans have improved significantly over the past 30 years due to expansions of Social Security and Supplemental Security Income. But many older people with modest cash incomes would fall below the poverty line under the NAS formula due to out-of-pocket expenses from rising Medicare premiums, deductibles and a coverage gap in the prescription drug benefit that is known as the “doughnut hole.”
The NAS figures could take on added significance at a time when the government is touting an overhaul of Medicare and Social Security as its best hope for reducing the ballooning federal debt. With the potential to add more older Americans to the ranks of the poor, the numbers may underscore a need for continued – if not expanded – old-age benefits as a government safety net.
Advocates for updating the formula note that Barack Obama indicated during the presidential campaign that he supported an improved measure as part of a broader strategy to reduce poverty.
Simon Norwood of Little Rock, Ark., 56, says he’s still keeping faith in that promise. A lifelong construction worker who receives food stamps, Norwood hasn’t had regular work for months once jobs dried up in the housing meltdown. He doesn’t dare to think about getting sick or injured because he doesn’t know whether he could cover the expenses. Now working a part-time, minimum-wage job, Norwood said it doesn’t matter to him how the poverty numbers are sliced so long as people get a fair shake at getting assistance.
“I often tell my son, ‘You’ve got to save your money. Live within your means,’” he said. “Because you never know when things might take a turn”.
Learn how you can help feed seniors with just $1. Every dollar donated can create 4 meals for the elderly. Visit ntfb.org
The North Texas Food Bank needs actors, models and voice talent to volunteer for our Holiday Awareness Ad Campaign to help show the face of hunger. These PSAs could appear on TV, radio and online media portals. We are looking for people of all ages, both male and female, for speaking and non-speaking parts. Talent should NOT be a member of SAG or AFTRA and not be either SAG or AFTRA eligible.
• Please send only one full length and only one close up photo.
• Voice talent to speak “I am the face of hunger.” Please send an audio file of this statement.
• The selected talent will be paid $1 and be required to sign a release. Talent under 21 years of age will require a signature of a parent or legal guardian.
• Production will be between September 7-19, 2009.
• Photo or voice sessions will take one hour or less.
Please send your file to foodbankcasting@yahoo.com and include your name and daytime phone number. Our film crew will contact candidates chosen by August 31.
The North Texas Food Bank is seeking a Development Associate whose primary purpose is to accurately and efficiently enter and retrieve donor information from an extensive database, processes mail, acknowledge contributions, and perform Internet-based research on existing and potential donors.
Minimum Qualifications: Associate’s degree and experience in non-profit development and fundraising. Excellent writing, communication and relationship-building skills are required. For more information on the job requirements please visit our website ntfb.org or send your resume and salary history to resumes@ntfb.org EOE No Phone Calls Please.
Findings Highlight Long Term Physical And Cognitive Consequences
Chicago, Illinois
July 1, 2009
The direct and indirect effect of child hunger in the U.S. is a contributing factor to the nation’s economic woes and puts America at a competitive disadvantage, according to a new report issued today by Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger relief organization.
Child Food Insecurity: The Economic Impact On Our Nation, a report on research on the impact of food insecurity and hunger on child health, growth and development, details the economic effect of child hunger in the United States. It articulates the lifelong consequences child food insecurity has on individuals and families. (Food insecurity is defined as the lack of access at times to enough food for an active, healthy life; or limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods.)
The report states that the U.S. economy is losing its competitive edge to countries doing a better job of addressing nutrition and food insecurity in preparing children to learn and achieve their full potential. The report was funded with a grant from the ConAgra Foods Foundation.
“Child hunger is robbing us of the best of America’s imagination and ingenuity,” saidthe report’s author, John Cook, Ph.D., of the Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine, a nationally-recognized expert on child hunger. “Sustainable economic recovery depends on freeing children of the burden of hunger and malnutrition and supporting their optimal growth and development.”
“The impact of child hunger is more far reaching than one might anticipate. Child food insecurity creates billions of dollars in costs to our society. Child hunger affects a child’s health, education and job readiness,” said Cook. “Our best universities are graduating more students from other countries and fewer from the U.S. because we are failing to prepare our children to learn and develop their best skills, creativity and abilities.”
According to the USDA, 12.4 million American children–one in six–are food insecure. One in five children under the age of five live at risk of hunger in 13 states.
“This is the first report to show the direct, tax-payer burden inflicted by child hunger – along with a clear link to long-term impacts, such as life-time earnings and the ripple effects through our economy,” said Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of Feeding America. “It calls into question whether ongoing economic recovery can be sustained if child hunger is not eliminated; we can only achieve a prosperous future for all Americans if we ensure, right now, that all children have access to enough nutritious food for active, healthy lives.”
“It is also important to note in this context, however, that the Federal Government plays a very significant role in providing food to children at risk of hunger. The recent stimulus bills and increases in funding for USDA nutrition programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program), and The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) have made great strides in ensuring that more low-income children and their families have increased access to food. The Federal Government is the largest provider of food to at-risk children,” Escarra said.
Child Food Insecurity: The Economic Impact On Our Nation explains how a hungry child becomes a diminished adult, and a burden to society. Some of the report’s summary findings include:
· Child hunger first causes health problems:
Hungry children are sick more often, more likely to be hospitalized, and to suffer physical, emotional and developmental impairment.
· Child hunger then creates educational problems:
Under-nutrition before the age of three fundamentally changes the neurological architecture of the brain and central nervous system, harming a child’s ability to learn. Hungry children have lower academic achievement.
· Child hunger leads to workforce and job readiness problems:
Adults who experienced hunger as children are not well prepared mentally, emotionally, physically or socially to perform in contemporary work environments. Child hunger leads to greater absenteeism and turnover in the work place.
“The report’s sobering statistics serve as a wake-up call to the price we pay when even one child goes hungry in the United States,” said Chris Kircher, president, ConAgra Foods Foundation. “Through our partnership with Feeding America on this research, we’re building on ConAgra’s long-standing commitment to raise awareness of the issue of child hunger and keep it at the forefront of the national agenda to inspire action.”
The ConAgra Foods Foundation also partnered with Feeding America to recently publish the first-ever, state-by-state analysis of child food insecurity and hunger. ConAgra Foods’ 15-year partnership with Feeding America is the largest corporate initiative solely dedicated to fighting child hunger. The company has donated more than $27 million and more than 200 million pounds of food to Feeding America since 1993.
“Knowledge is as powerful as food in the fight against child hunger,” added Escarra. “The ConAgra Foods Foundation deserves credit for understanding this. Their leadership in this area is an example of how the private sector can mobilize resources to heighten public awareness and perception of the interrelated issues, root causes and effects of child hunger. Their efforts make us all stronger advocates, and are critical to helping us all find sustainable solutions to this problem.”
Dr. Cook concludes, “There has not been adequate attention paid to the role child food insecurity plays in impeding economic growth. This report clearly makes the case that children are a fundamental engine of growth in the economy, and all children in the U.S. must be adequately nourished. If we fail, not only does the child suffer, but our society does as well.”
The report is available at www.feedingamerica.org/recovery
The Plaza at Preston Center recently hosted its annual Plaza Days on April 24th and 25th, enabling shoppers to take advantage of family friendly activities and deep discounts from Plaza retailers. During Plaza Days the center also sold raffle tickets for the chance to drive a brand new Volkswagen EOS Convertible for two weeks, courtesy of Metro Volkswagen. All proceeds from raffle ticket sales benefited the North Texas Food Bank (NTFB), a nonprofit organization that passionately pursues a hunger-free community through distributing food to feeding and education programs in North Texas.
Several retailers in the center including Kid Biz/The Biz, New Balance DFW and The Cultured Cup, also worked to raise money for NTFB by donating a portion of their sales from the weekend to the organization. The Plaza at Preston Center matched the amount of money raised for NTFB from raffle sales and donations from stores, bringing the grand total to $3,278 raised for a great cause, providing over 13,000 meals for those in need in North Texas!
In a later presentation North Dallas resident, Jackie Stroh, was given the keys to her new convertible for two weeks and a check was presented to Amy Pritts, new business and partnership development coordinator for the NTFB.
Contact ntfb.org today to learn how to make your event a success.
Last week, I asked for network assistance in encouraging Senators to support additional hunger-relief provisions in the Senate economic recovery bill. Many of you have taken action, and I thank you for doing so. In order to ensure passage of the bill in the Senate, I hope you can take a few moments to now call your Senators by the end of the day on Tuesday, February 3. Your outreach can truly make a difference.
House Status
The House bill included $150 million for the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and investments in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Among the improvements to other nutrition programs is the expansion of after-school supper programs to all states. The full House of Representatives approved its economic recovery package on Wednesday by a vote of 244-188 with only Democratic support.
Senate Status
Next week, the full Senate will begin consideration of its version of the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” This legislation, which has the support of Feeding America, includes critical funding for several anti-hunger programs important to our network, including: $16.5 billion for SNAP, $500 million for the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), and $150 million for TEFAP.
How You Can Help
Right now, we need your assistance in encouraging passage of this bill in the Senate. Please call your Senators and urge them to vote in favor of passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. You can reach your Senators by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202.224.3121.
Thank you again for your continued support. Please keep us informed on your progress and results by emailing Eleanor Thompson, Director of Government Relations, at ethompson@feedingamerica.org.
Sincerely,
George Braley
Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Public Policy
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
A new study finds that certain brain functions of some low-income 9- and 10-year-olds pale in comparison with those of wealthy children and that the difference is almost equivalent to the damage from a stroke.
“It is a similar pattern to what’s seen in patients with strokes that have led to lesions in their prefrontal cortex,” which controls higher-order thinking and problem solving, says lead researcher Mark Kishiyama, a cognitive psychologist at the University of California-Berkeley. “It suggests that in these kids, prefrontal function is reduced or disrupted in some way.”
The study adds to a growing body of evidence that shows how poverty afflicts children’s brains. Researchers have long pointed to the ravages of malnutrition, stress, illiteracy and toxic environments in low-income children’s lives. Research has shown that the neural systems of poor children develop differently from those of middle-class children, affecting language development and “executive function,” or the ability to plan, remember details and pay attention in school.
Such deficiencies are reversible through intensive intervention such as focused lessons and games that encourage children to think out loud or use executive function.
“It’s really important for neuroscientists to start to think about the effects of people’s experiences on their brain function, and specifically about the effect of people’s socioeconomic status,” says Martha Farah, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania.
Among the most studied: differences in language acquisition between low- and middle-income children. The most famous study, from 1995, transcribed conversation between parents and children and found that by age 3, middle-class children had working vocabularies roughly twice the size of poor children’s.
For the new study, researchers used an electroencephalograph (EEG) to measure brain function of 26 children while they watched images flashing on a computer. The children pressed a button when a tilted triangle appeared.
The researchers found a huge difference in the low-income children’s ability to detect the tilted triangles and block out distractions — a key function of the prefrontal cortex.
“It’s just not functioning as efficiently as it could be, or as it should be,” Kishiyama says.
Though the effects of poverty are reversible, children need “incredibly intensive interventions to overcome this kind of difficulty,” says Susan Neuman, an education professor at the University of Michigan.
The study appears online in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience and will be published early next year.
