New Hampshire Food Stamp Use at Record High

Dshorter.bite1.wav: Now we’re going to apply for the food stamps and I see, you guys live together? Yes. In your own apartment? It’s a house, but we don’t own it, we’re renting it. You rent the house? Yeah. And are you pregnant? Yep. How far along are you? 7 months.
About halfway through bite above, fade under:

EG1: Meet Deb Shorter.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services , Shorter is a family services specialist.

Here, she’s more typically referred to simply as a worker.

But neither term does justice to what Shorter does, day in and day out, at the Concord Welfare Office.

In the space of half an hour -- sometimes as much as 45 minutes -- she tries to fix what’s broken in people’s lives.

SHORTER: Have you done prenatal stuff? Gone to the doctor? Taking vitamins, etc.?

She whizzes through computer screens and flips forms, peppering her clients with questions about income, employment, housing, medical needs –even whether they can afford to put gas in their car.

She’s trying to determine whether her young clients, Matthew and Kelly, are eligible for food stamps.

If they are, they’ll get about 3 dollars and 15 cents each, per day, to pay for food.

But rarely do clients just need food stamps. [FADE UP AMBI OF PAPERS, TYPING]

Shorter sees her job as helping clients get all the help they need.

SHORTERRESOURCES.wav: Have you guys applied for fuel assistance? Not yet. OK, you want to do that right away. Let me give you that number because that list is…Do you have the number for NH housing? I have all the numbers. Help us with electric and water… 15 SECS

EG2: Shorter’s job has gotten a lot tougher in the last year, as more and more people flood into welfare offices looking for assistance of all kinds.

Public assistance director Terry Smith says caseloads are growing daily – and that the rate of growth is speeding up with no end in sight.

Last year, food stamp caseloads grew by 8 percent.

This year, he expects them to grow an additional 11 percent – and possibly more if credit continues to tighten.

That means each worker has a caseload of close to 500 people.

Tsmithrecord.wav: New Hampshire continues to set records with our caseloads, particularly our food stamp caseload, which is a prime indicator – of all of our programs, it’s the prime indicator of the economy. 12 secs

EG3: To qualify for food stamps, an applicant must make less than 130% of federal poverty guidelines – or $27,564 for a family of four.
Deb Shorter is seeing more and more people who fall into that category.

Lately, she says, no two cases are the same.

Dshorter.diversity.wav: You might get someone who was an executive who’s been downsized, used up all his savings, his 401K and now he’s on food stamps. He’d never believe that he’d be there. Five minutes later you get an elderly guy who needs ten dollars in food stamps. Laughs, so you never know!

EG5: Public assistance director Terry Smith takes pride in how quickly his workers determine eligibility.

About 97 percent of the time, workers meet federal regulations – which require making decisions on food stamps within 30 days.

And they often beat that goal.

When Shorter believes someone has no food in the house, she tries to get them food stamps in about 48 hours.

Last year, 160 caseworkers put in about 16,000 hours of overtime to keep up.

This year, they’re on track to work 22,000 hours.
But the state’s budget problems may force the department to cut overtime.

Terry Smith says if workers can no longer put in extra hours, up to 15 percent of applicants won’t get their food stamps in a month.

And that, he says, would have severe consequences not just for hungry people but also for the communities in which they live.

Tsmith.emergency.wav …These people are needing eligibility determined as soon as they can. In the interim they have no choice but to go to towns for relief and that’s something we try to avoid at all costs.

EG6: Health and Human Services Commissioner Nick Toumpas:

NT.overtime2.wav: We have not said we’re cutting overtime point blank.

EG7: But Toumpas says caseloads are growing throughout HHS – not just in public assistance -- and that the state faces a financial crisis.

So overtime is not sacred.

He says as well that the department is looking for more ways to increase efficiency.

Procedural changes can’t solve the larger problem, of course, of growing numbers of people going without.

Joanne Burke is a nutrition professor at the University of New Hampshire.

While one in ten Americans receives food stamps, she says, many more are hungry.

Thirty five and a half million people, including more than 12 million kids, don’t have enough to eat.

Burke1.wav: To me the food stamps and food pantries represent failed policy. Our country makes more than enough food to feed everybody. There will always be people at need who are marginalized but the sheer numbers, to have 12% of people struggling, routinely, with food access is reprehensible.

EG8: And, she points out, people who qualify for food stamps may be – well -- the lucky ones.

There are millions of working poor who make too much money to qualify – but who don’t make nearly enough to feed their families.

For NHPR News, I’m Elaine Grant.