# Presentation: 718298

## Improving Food Stamp Access for Homeless and Precariously Housed  New Yorkers

- By Rebecca Widom
- Director of Research
- Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Project (HOPP)
- Urban Justice Center

**Improving Food Stamp Access for Homeless and Precariously Housed  New Yorkers**

## Today’s Presentation

**Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Project**
**Diverse Experiences of Homelessness**
**Meeting Homeless Families Where They Are**
- Food Stamps outreach
- Cash benefits help too!
- Tailoring the Food Stamps application process

## Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Project (HOPP)

**Direct service, research, litigation, and policy work in support of New York City’s social safety net**
**Food Card Access Project**
- Citywide Food Stamps outreach, prescreenings, and application assistance provided by partner agencies
- For all Food Stamp eligible nonparticipants, not only homeless clients
- HOPP trains on client followup and advocacy, provides data assistance, and conducts research and advocacy
**Nutrition Outreach and Education Program**
- Statewide media, outreach, and prescreening program
- HOPP provides Food Stamps prescreenings and advocacy to clients in our legal outreach clinics in soup kitchens and food pantries

## Diverse Experiences of Homelessness

**Homeless clients live:**
- In a shelter, motel or other temporary housing
- In an institution, such as a jail or hospital
- With friends or family
- In the street
**Precariously housed clients spend more than half of their income on rent**
**Today’s presentation draws on experience with our clients and clients of our collaborators**
- Legal outreach clinics in soup kitchens and food pantries
- Mainstream outreach programs (Food Force and Food Card Access Project)

## Targeting Food Stamps Outreach to Homeless Families

**The life crises that lead to or result from homelessness make homeless families difficult to reach**
- Personal and family instability: physical and mental health problems, substance abuse, domestic violence
- Infrastructure for communication: unstable to access mail and phone
- Prioritizing basic needs: charities open only certain hours; basic things like bathing and eating take much more time and energy
**We have found most homeless clients where they go to receive other services**
- Soup kitchens and food pantries
- Health care settings, like hospitals and public clinics

**Notes:**
Talk re: HOPP greencard replacement program, because people kept losing them or getting mugged and so forth, also re: client who walked 60 blocks to go to job interview, and then had to go to get coat, etc.

## Where Do Mainstream Outreach  Programs Find Homeless Clients?

## Cash Benefits Help Too!

**Many homeless clients are eligible for cash welfare in addition to Food Stamps **
**In New York City, a homeless single mother with two kids* and no income is eligible for:**
- $393 per month in Food Stamps, or
- $393 per month in Food Stamps, plus $238 per month in public assistance, plus Medicaid, plus welfare-to-work services
**Additional resources from TANF can help homeless clients find housing and establish stability**

- * This assumes that no family members are disqualified based on immigration status.

## Tailoring Services:Sleeping in the Street 

**One client had been in and out of the hospital with sickle cell anemia and needed emergency Food Stamps  **
**In the process of resolving some problems with his EBT card, he had to spend several days waiting in the Food Stamps office**
**He asked staff for water, but none was available in the waiting room**
**Several times when he left and returned from the water fountain, he was forced to start waiting again**
**State agencies need to invest in meeting clients’ particular human needs**

## Tailoring Services:Staying in a Shelter

**Some shelters provide food, but do not meet clients’ needs for food**
- Special dietary needs to address health problems
- Inability to be at the shelter for a particular meal, because of other commitments like work
- Inability to physically access the food in shelters, because of disabilities or health problems
**Residing in a homeless shelter that provides food does *****not***** disqualify clients for Food Stamps**
- Ms. Stein often could not eat in her shelter because her disability prevented her from standing in line
- Because of poor staff training on this issue, it took a month of advocacy to get Food Stamps for Ms. Stein

## Tailoring Services:Precarious Housing

**If you stay with family or friends for more than 90 days without income, you essentially become precariously housed**
**Clients staying with family or friends or in precarious housing situations sometimes encounter difficulties documenting eligibility factors**
- Mr. Yen watched over his grandniece and grandnephew in exchange for living with their parents
- Ms. Majors paid to keep the lights and gas on for her building in exchange for a room
- Neither had a lease
**To help, Food Stamps center staff can emphasize alternate methods of documenting household composition and shelter expenses**

## Conclusion: Meet Homeless Families Where They Are

**Literally with outreach programs**
- Complete service at first interaction and/or develop a detailed followup communication plan with each client
**Figuratively by:**
- Acknowledging and meeting a real need for cash assistance
- Tailoring application processing and documentation requirements

**Notes:**
Communication plan options: lots of friends or family members who may know how to get in touch with them, weekly presence in outreach site, free voice-mail, other service providers they work with...

## For More Information

**Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Project, Urban Justice Center**
-  http://www.urbanjustice.org
**Food Card Access Project, funded by the United Way of New York City**
- http://www.uwnyc.org
**Food Force, a program of FoodChange (formerly CFRC)**
- http://www.foodchange.org
**Nutrition Outreach and Education Program, Nutrition Consortium of New York State**
- http://www.hungernys.org/programs/nop/nop.html