New system, higher demand slows food stamp program
Gwendolyn Blaine, 53, of Burlington talks about her experience with the 3 SquaresVT program at the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf on Monday. PHOTO CREDIT: EMILY McMANAMY, Free Press
By Matt Ryan, Free Press Staff Writer • Tuesday, October 19, 2010
The 75-year-old disabled man who entered Tim Searles’ Burlington office Wednesday needed some help.
The man had applied for food stamps Sept. 13, expecting the Vermont Department for Children and Families to decide within 30 days whether to provide him the benefit. Instead, on Oct. 11, he received a letter from the department that announced a delay.
“Our rules say that we have to send you a decision within 30 days from the date we receive your application,” the letter reads in part. “The department could not process your application on time due to a temporary increase in our workload.”
“This is a new animal,” Searles, the executive director the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, said Thursday. Searles has worked at the agency, which aims “to work with low-income people to achieve economic independence,” for 21 years.
Historically, the Department for Children and Families has processed 82 percent to 85 percent of the food stamp applications it has received within 30 days, Commissioner Steve Dale said. This fall, the department has been able to process only 62-63 percent within that period, he said.
“It’s not catastrophic, but it’s not good,” he said. “And I’ll be the first to tell you it’s a problem.”
More Vermonters have become eligible for food stamps, now called 3SquaresVT, and are flooding a new system designed to process applications — a system that has hit a few snags while getting started, Dale said.
The number of people receiving food stamps has increased 63 percent over the past three years, Dale said. In Vermont, 43,296 households, or 86,948 people, receive food stamps. In January 2009, the criteria for entering the program loosened, Dale said. Also, the general state of the economy has pushed more people toward poverty, he said.
“Access to the program has been expanded enormously in the last three years,” Dale said. “The numbers are staggering.”
Doug LaForce, the 75-year-old recipient of the department’s letter, said Thursday that after waiting 30 days, he heard from the department and soon will receive food stamps.
“They’re correcting it,” LaForce said. “I had to wait quite a while, but it’s OK now.”
Gwendolyn Blaine, a food-stamp recipient of nearly 20 years who works at the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf in Burlington, said she depends on the program to buy eggs, meat, milk and vegetables.
“It’s pretty essential,” said Blaine, 53, of Burlington. “Especially when there aren’t any vegetables in season.”
Causing a strain
The delays, meanwhile, are straining hungry Vermonters and the organizations that serve them.
“Week after week they’re going hungry, they stop paying rent because they need to eat on a daily basis, and they’re starting to fall through the cracks,” said Rita Markley, executive director of the Committee on Temporary Shelter in Burlington.
Agencies have tried to help without additional funding, but they are frustrated by a system that decreases the number of clients they can serve, said Beth Stern, executive director of the Central Vermont Council on Aging.
“When my case managers spend hours trying to get one client 3SquaresVT who has been closed out erroneously, it affects their abilities to work with other clients who may be experiencing health issues, abuse, family problems and caregiver issues,” Stern said in a statement. “It feels like the state’s lack of planning and foresight has negatively affected both our staff and our clients.”
Most food-stamp recipients need to reapply for the service every 12 months, said Rene Richardson, director of the Department for Children and Families’ food and nutrition programs. Some recipients, such as seniors and the disabled, can wait 24 months to reapply, Richardson said.
A new system
The department used to staff 12 district offices, where applicants for food stamps would go to talk to benefits specialists. Anticipating a growing caseload, while “knowing that government needs to become more efficient,” the department spent the past year implementing a new system for processing food-stamp applications, Dale said.
“We believe that these kinds of changes that we’re making will allow us to respond to the significant increase in case load,” Dale said.
The new system has five components:
• A centralized call center, so people can apply over the phone.
• An image-processing center to document paperwork.
• A website, so people can apply online.
• A different method of linking applicants to workers.
• An effort to reinforce partnerships in the community.
Two of the five components stumbled out of the gate.
The website was completed Sept. 30 — three months late. Test runs of the site turned up a series of complications, which the department wanted to fix before putting online, Dale said.
“Not having Web access was a significant problem,” he said. “That added some stress to the system.”
Also adding stress to the system: The department has yet to implement a computerized program that matches applicants with available workers. Like the website, that component was supposed to be completed in June.
“It’s on the verge,” Dale said late last week. “Within the next couple of weeks, we expect it to be functional.”
In the meantime, the department has hired about 20 temporary workers to take on the extra work, Dale said. Three years ago, the department employed 151 benefit-eligibility specialists. It hired 16 more when the food-stamp program expanded, but then cut 11 of the positions during the statewide budget cuts.
“I am confident that the five components will make an enormous difference,” Dale said. Whether the department will be able to again process 85 percent of its food-stamp applications within 30 days depends on the success of the system, and the overall caseload, he said.
