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S. HRG. 110–29

THE ROLE OF FEDERAL FOOD

ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS IN FAMILY

ECONOMIC SECURITY AND NUTRITION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JANUARY 31, 2007

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.agriculture.senate.gov 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont 

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas 

DEBBIE A. STABENOW, Michigan 

E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska 

KEN SALAZAR, Colorado 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi 

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

MICHEAL D. CRAPO, Idaho 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa

MARK HALVERSON, Majority Staff Director 

ROBERT E. STURM, Chief Clerk 

MARTHA SCOTT POINDEXTER, Minority Staff Director 

VERNIE HUBERT, Minority General Counsel 

(II) 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

HEARING(S):

The Role of Federal Food Assistance Programs in Family Economic Security 

and Nutrition ........................................................................................................ 1

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS 

Harkin, Hon. Tom, a U.S. Senator from Iowa, Chairman, Committee on 

Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry ................................................................... 1

Chambliss, Hon. Saxby, a U.S. Senator from Georgia ......................................... 2

Panel I 

Dostis, Robert, Executive Director, Vermont Campaign to end Childhood Hunger .......................................................................................................................... 8

Greenstein, Robert, Executive Director, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities ........................................................................................................................ 7

Nilsen, Sigurd, Director, Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues, 

Government Accountability Office ...................................................................... 5

Stewart, Rhonda, Hamilton, Ohio .......................................................................... 10

Panel II 

Bolling, Bill, Executive Director, Atlanta Community Food Bank, Atlanta, 

Georgia .................................................................................................................. 25

Francis, Luanne, Program Manager, Health Care for all, Kingsley House, 

New Orleans, Louisiana ...................................................................................... 27

Kubik, Frank, Manager, Commodity Supplemental Food Program, Focus: 

Hope, Detroit, Michigan ...................................................................................... 31

Newport, Melinda, Director, Nutrition Services, Chickasaw Nation, Ada, 

Oklahoma .............................................................................................................. 29

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Casey, Hon. Robert P., Jr. ............................................................................... 44

Leahy, Hon. Patrick J. ..................................................................................... 45

Nelson, Hon. E. Benjamin ............................................................................... 46

Roberts, Hon. Pat ............................................................................................. 47

Salazar, Hon. Ken ............................................................................................ 49

Thune, Hon. John ............................................................................................. 51

Bolling, Bill ....................................................................................................... 53

Dostis, Robert ................................................................................................... 59

Francis, Luanne ................................................................................................ 67

Greenstein, Robert ............................................................................................ 70

Kubik, Frank ..................................................................................................... 88

Newport, Melinda ............................................................................................. 93

Nilsen, Sigurd ................................................................................................... 101

Stewart, Rhonda ............................................................................................... 128

DOCUMENT(S) SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

American Dietetic Association ................................................................................ 136

Page

IV

American Public Human Services Association, prepared statement ................... 139

Bread for the World, prepared statement .............................................................. 152

Catholic Charities USA, prepared statement ........................................................ 159

Food Research & Action Center, prepared statement .......................................... 164

National Commodity Supplemental Food Program Association, prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 191

New America Foundation, prepared statement .................................................... 195

Society for Nutrition Education, prepared statement .......................................... 201

QUESTION(S) AND ANSWER(S): 

Casey, Hon. Robert P., Jr.: 

Written questions for Mr. Nilsen .................................................................... 210

Written questions for Mr. Dostis ..................................................................... 211

Written questions for Mr. Kubik ..................................................................... 212

Written questions for Mr. Greenstein ............................................................. 213

Coleman, Hon. Norm: 

Written questions for Mr. Dostis ..................................................................... 214

Dostis, Robert: 

Written response to questions from Hon. Robert P. Casey, Jr. .................... 217

Written response to questions from Hon. Norm Coleman ............................ 219

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THE ROLE OF FEDERAL FOOD 

ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS IN FAMILY 

ECONOMIC SECURITY AND NUTRITION 

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY, 

Washington, DC 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room SR–

328A, Russell Senate Office Building, Hon. Tom Harkin (Chairman 

of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Harkin, Lincoln, Nelson, Salazar, Brown, 

Casey, Chambliss, Cochran, McConnell, Thune, and Grassley. 

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM HARKIN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM 

IOWA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION AND FORESTRY 

Chairman HARKIN. The Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry will come to order. 

Our hearing today is on nutrition. We begin gathering information and data for the upcoming writing of the farm bill. 

In recent decades, our country has made remarkable progress in 

addressing hunger and malnutrition, but the problem is that we 

still see some gaps. Food assistance often operates under the radar 

screen. Like the working families they serve, the nutrition programs operate out of sight and out of mind. 

However, some things bring to light the importance of these programs. We must mention Hurricane Katrina when food assistance 

brought relief, critical relief, to millions of Americans. As a result 

of the Gulf hurricanes of 2005, 1.8 million households turned to the 

Food Stamp Program to meet their household needs. 

Every day, Federal nutrition programs support Americans who 

live on the margins of our economy, persons with disabilities, children, the elderly, working families not making enough to get by. 

Fifty percent of food stamp recipients are children; 89 percent of 

food stamp households contain an elderly person, a person with a 

disability, or a child. 

There are twice as many food stamp households with earnings 

than there are households that receive just the TANF benefits. 

In the early nineties, we shifted to Electronic Benefit Transfer 

(EBT) cards because of all the trafficking and benefit trading in the 

Food Stamp Program. Since then, the rate of trafficking has been 

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cut from 4 cents of every dollar of benefits in 1990 to just one cent 

per dollar today. 

Rates of erroneous payments were high in the 1990’s, almost 11 

percent. We brought that down to a record low of under 6 percent 

in 2005. Clearly, additional things can be done, and that is why we 

seek some information on how we can even make it better. 

One last thing I would just mention for the record, and that is 

the committee must also grapple with the apparent paradox of food 

insecurity and obesity. How is it that many of the same families 

who struggle to get by also seem at greatest risk of becoming overweight and developing diet-related chronic diseases like diabetes? 

This hearing is an important reminder of just how broad the jurisdiction of our committee is. It is the Agriculture, Nutrition and 

Forestry Committee, and we intend to fulfill our obligations to 

make sure that we meet the nutritional needs of our country. 

With that, I will turn to my colleague, Senator Saxby Chambliss. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SAXBY CHAMBLISS, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM GEORGIA 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this 

hearing today. 

Nutrition is an important and often overlooked component of the 

farm bill and I appreciate the bipartisan approach we have taken 

on nutrition issues in the past, and I hope that we will continue 

to work together as we put together this year’s farm bill. 

I also want to say that I am pleased that my good friend Bill 

Bolling will testify today on behalf of the Atlanta Community Food 

Bank and America’s Second Harvest. Bill is the Executive Director 

of the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Bill is a good friend and I 

recently visited his facility, which is an amazing operation, Mr. 

Chairman. 

You and I have agreed that we are going to do a nutrition hearing in Atlanta. He has a great facility at which we can do it, and 

it will give you a chance to see an unbelievable operation that provides nutritional food to literally thousands of households in a way 

that is truly unbelievable. 

Our nutrition assistance programs play a key role in ensuring 

that needy Americans have access to the food they need to lead 

healthy, productive lives. I know from the teachers in my family 

the importance of nutrition, especially for our children’s development. 

Moreover, the food for nutrition programs comes from U.S. farmers, which helps agriculture. 

Finally, food assistance programs are an important part of this 

country’s safety net. Not long ago, the Nation witnessed the Food 

Stamp Program’s effective emergency response to evacuees from 

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The U.S. Food Assistance Programs 

are good for families, good for farmers, and good for America. 

The Food Stamp Program not only helps by providing food and 

emergency aid, it helps America’s needy families on the path to 

independence and self-sufficiency. 

The goals of the 1996 Welfare Reform were spelled out in the 

title, to increase personal responsibility and work opportunity. In 

essence, Congress asked our Nation’s families on welfare to take 

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personal responsibility for themselves and join the workforce. And 

many of those families did. 

In the 10 years since Welfare Reform was passed by Congress 

and signed by President Clinton, fewer families receive cash welfare and more families are working. According to the Congressional 

Research Service from 1996 to 2005 the number of food stamp 

households with children who received cash welfare payments decreased by 57 percent, and the number who reported earned income increased by 41 percent. 

Many families have transitioned from welfare to work and the 

Food Stamp Program should do more to encourage this continuing 

transition. 

States have done a great job of addressing food stamps error 

rates. From fiscal year 2000 to fiscal year 2005, while average 

monthly participation increased to a near historical high of almost 

26 million people, the combined error rates of overpayments and 

underpayments fell by 34 percent, to a historical low of 5.84 percent. 

Mr. Chairman, in the 2002 farm bill, Congress legislated many 

options states can choose from to make the administration of the 

Food Stamp Program easier. Most States have taken advantage of 

at least some of these options and the program serves both taxpayers and recipients better today than it ever has. 

However, we do have room to improve. Although I realize we 

may not be able to achieve every suggested improvement due to 

budget constraints, there are a few ideas worthy of consideration. 

First, we should take a look at extending the special allowance 

for privatized managed housing provided for our Nation’s military 

families. Senator Roberts introduced a bill on this issue in the 

109th Congress, and we should explore what can be done administratively without the need for legislation. 

Next, while many former welfare families are now working, there 

are some aspects of the Food Stamp Program that may reduce 

working families’ ability to escape the cycle of poverty. The law encourages welfare families to enter the workforce and begin to save 

money. 

However, food stamp asset rules conflict with families’ ability to 

save for their future. The asset limit of $2,000 for most food stamp 

recipients was set more than 20 years ago. When indexed for inflation, the asset limit would be almost $4,000 today. A higher asset 

limit may help families buildup savings in order to achieve financial independence and prepare for a rainy day or give an education, 

and eventually end their need to receive food stamps. 

Finally, food stamp rules discourage working families from utilizing all of the financial investment tools encouraged by the tax 

code for other working Americans. We should take a look at permitting investment in modern savings programs, for retirement 

and for higher education. 

Mr. Chairman, as I mentioned before, I understand we will likely 

be facing budgetary pressures in crafting the farm bill. However, 

I hope we can work together to address these issues, especially the 

asset limits, reforming food stamp asset limits has the potential to 

help needy families break the cycle of poverty and achieve longterm financial independence. 

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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to our witnesses’ testimony. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Chambliss. 

We have nine members. We need a quorum. We need to report 

out our committee rules and our funding resolution that Senator 

Chambliss’ staff and our staff have worked out. But I cannot do it, 

we need a quorum. 

So we will go ahead with the hearing. As soon as we get—we 

need two more, 11. If we get a quorum, I will interrupt the hearing. 

We will pass those out. But I know Senators have busy schedules, 

other hearings and things like that. So I really appreciate your 

being here at this point. 

We also have two votes at 11:30, so we are going to have to proceed efficiently, so I am going to ask people to limit their questions. 

I am going to ask our witnesses to limit their testimony to five 

minutes and we will also hold to these restraints. 

I will introduce our first panel. Sigurd Nilsen is the Director of 

Education, Workforce, and Income Security at the Government Accountability Office. I want to thank you and the GAO for all of the 

great work you have done on this program. You have identified 

both the strengths and weaknesses of our nations nutrition programs. 

Bob Greenstein, Executive Director at the Center on Budget and 

Policy Priorities. I think all of us here have known Bob for many 

years. I first met Bob when I got on the Ag Committee in 1975. 

He was working on these issues then, and of course, was the Administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service during the Carter 

Administration. He is a renowned expert on all areas dealing with 

food and food assistance programs. 

Robert Dostis is the Executive Director of the Vermont Campaign 

to End Childhood Hunger. 

I am especially pleased to be able to introduce Ms. Rhonda Stewart, who comes to us from Hamilton, Ohio. Ms. Stewart works with 

the Outreach for Community, a non profit organization helping 

lower income residents in Hamilton, Ohio. 

She is also a food stamp recipient, and she is here with her 9–

year-old son, Wyatt who, before many of you got here, actually 

chaired this committee for a while, and did it in fine fashion. 

I also want to say that, again, accompanying Robert Dostis is 

Jim Weill with the Food Research and Action Center. 

With that——

Senator BROWN. Mr. Chairman, if I could introduce Ms. Stewart. 

You have done very well. 

Chairman HARKIN. Go ahead. I will recognize Senator Brown 

right now. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. 

I just want to recognize Ms. Stewart. Thank you very much for 

coming, and Wyatt, thank you again for being here and accompanying your mother on this trip to Washington, DC 

Ms. Stewart does everything right that we ask her to. She works, 

she is the president of the PTA, she teaches Sunday school class, 

she is involved in Cub Scouts. Yet in this society where wages too 

often are so low, too often she runs out of food stamps and money 

by the end of the week. 

5

Martin Luther King once said that equality means getting a paycheck that last through the week. With minimum wage coming up 

this week, with Ms. Stewart telling her story which is compelling, 

I suggest all my colleagues read her statement and listen to her, 

I think you will learn something. 

So thank you for coming. And Wyatt, thank you very much. 

Wyatt is also a committee photographer. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Brown. 

Mr. Nilsen, welcome to the committee. All of your written statements will be made a part of the record in their entirety, without 

objection. 

Mr. Nilsen, if you could go ahead and just give us an overview 

of your written testimony, I would appreciate it. You are recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF SIGURD NILSEN, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION, 

WORKFORCE, AND INCOME SECURITY ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. NILSEN. Thank you. 

Chairman Harkin and members of the committee. I am pleased 

to be here today to discuss findings from our work related to the 

integrity of the Food Stamp Program. 

First, improper payments; and second, trafficking of food stamp 

benefits. As this chart over here illustrates, the national payment 

error rate has declined by about 40 percent between 1999 and 

2005, from roughly 10 percent, as the Chairman noted, to a record 

low of just under 6 percent. In 2005, payment errors totaled about 

$1.7 billion. However, if the error rate had not declined and the 

1999 error rate was still the norm, program payment errors would 

have been over $1.1 billion higher. 

I would like to highlight what the chart also illustrates, and that 

is that the total error rate is the sum of the two lower lines. The 

upper line——

Chairman HARKIN. We cannot see it. Do you have anybody over 

there to hold it up? I cannot see that. 

Mr. NILSEN. The upper line is the overpayments and the lower 

line are underpayments. Typically overpayments are about threequarters of the total error rate. 

The reduction in State payment error rates has been widespread 

with error rates falling in 41 States and the District of Columbia, 

and 18 States reduced their error rates by one-third or more. For 

example, Illinois’ error rate dropped by two-thirds, from nearly 15 

percent in 1999 to under 5 percent in 2003. 

Payment errors have many causes, but two-thirds of errors are 

due to caseworkers making mistakes when applying complex program rules or failing to act on new information. The other onethird of errors are due to participants failing to report needed information or providing incomplete or incorrect information. However, it is important to note that just 5 percent of payment errors 

were due to participant fraud in 2003. 

FNS has long focused its attention on States’ accountability for 

errors rates through its Quality Control, or QC, system by assessing penalties and providing financial incentives. For their part, 

6

States have adopted a combination of practices to address payment 

accuracy problems. For example, California officials reported expanding State oversight, hiring a contractor to perform assessments and provide training, preparing detailed error analyses, and 

implementing a quality assurance case review system in Los Angeles County, which accounted for 40 percent of the State’s caseload. 

California State officials credit this multifaceted approach for the 

State’s dramatic error rate reduction from over 17 percent in 2001 

to 6.4 percent in 2005. 

In addition, 47 States have adopted some form of simplified reporting that allows food stamp recipients to update their financial 

data less frequently. This has been shown to have contributed to 

the reduction in the payment error rate by simplifying the process 

for both caseworkers and participants. 

Now I would like to talk about the progress that has been made 

in reducing the trafficking of food stamps, that is, exchanging food 

stamp benefits for cash, where participants usually receive 50 cents 

on the dollar for their food stamp benefits. 

As this table illustrates, since the 1990’s the rate of food stamp 

trafficking declined by three-quarters, from about 3.8 cents per dollar, as the Chairman noted, in the 1990’s to about 1 cent today, reducing the amount trafficked from over $800 million a year to 

about $240 million a year today. Trafficking is more likely to occur 

in smaller stores, however. Even though they redeem less than 14 

percent of food stamp benefits, they have a trafficking rate of about 

7.6 cents per dollar. In contrast, large stores, which redeem the 

lion’s share of benefits, have a trafficking rate of only 0.2 cents per 

dollar. 

FNS has taken advantage of electronic benefit transfer, or EBT, 

cards and other new technology to improve its ability to detect trafficking and disqualify retailers who traffic. However, law enforcement agencies have investigated and referred for prosecution a decreasing number of traffickers. Instead, they focus on fewer highimpact investigations. 

Despite the progress FNS has made in combating retailer trafficking, the Food Stamp Program remains vulnerable because retailers can enter the program intending to traffic, do so, often without fear of severe criminal penalties, as the declining number of investigations suggests. 

In conclusion, both payment errors and trafficking of benefits 

have declined at a time of rising participation in the program. 

While program complexity is a fundamental contributor to errors, 

ensuring program integrity remains a fundamental challenge facing the Food Stamp Program. In particular, FNS needs to develop 

a more focused effort to target and disqualify stores that traffic, 

thus helping FNS meet its continuing challenge of ensuring that 

stores are available in areas of high need, while still maintaining 

program integrity. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement, and I 

would be happy to answer any questions you or members of the 

Committee have at this time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nilsen can be found on page 101 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you. 

7

I am informed that our clock is not working. That was less than 

5 minutes? OK. Great example. 

Mr. Greenstein, welcome back to this Committee. You are no 

stranger here. Again, your testimony will be made part of the 

record in its entirety. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT GREENSTEIN, EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES 

Mr. GREENSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Bob Greenstein, Director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As administrator of the Food and Nutrition Service in the late 1970’s, I 

was fortunate to work with Congress on the Food Stamp Act of 

1977, which grew out of bipartisan legislation designed by Senators 

Dole and McGovern, and something on which you, Mr. Chairman, 

Senator Cochran, and other members of this Committee were very 

actively involved. This year marks the 30th anniversary of that historic legislation, and you will be reauthorizing that as part of the 

farm bill. Experts regard the Food Stamp Program as the single 

most important anti-hunger program in our Nation. 

Back in the 1960’s, hunger and malnutrition were pretty severe 

problems in a number of very poor parts of this country. The problems are much less severe today, and research has shown that the 

Food Stamp Program is a primary, probably the primary reason for 

the difference. In the 1980’s, Senator Dole described the Food 

Stamp Program as ‘‘the most important advance in the Nation’s social programs since the creation of Social Security.’’

Today, the program continues to be one of the Government’s 

soundest investments. By taking advantage of modern technology 

and business practices, the program in recent years has become 

substantially more efficient, more accurate, and more effective. 

Earlier this month, National Journal rated it as one of the Government’s leading successes, calling it ‘‘a case study in effective government aid,’’ and citing, among other things, the big reduction in 

error and fraud rates that Mr. Nilsen just talked about. 

Food stamps also lessen the severity of poverty. Census data 

show that in 2004, the latest year for which these data are available, food stamps lifted 2.2 million Americans above the poverty 

line, half of them children, and lifted more children out of extreme 

poverty than any other Federal program. They also helped families 

bridge temporary periods of unemployment. Studies have found 

that half of all entrants to the Food Stamp Program participate for 

8 months or less, and then leave as the need goes away. Food 

stamps also support work. Twice as many food stamp households 

today work as rely solely on public assistance benefits. But there 

are some larger issues in this society we need to look at that have 

implications for the food stamp reauthorization. Three key points 

are worth noting. 

First, poverty remains high. In 2005, the most recent year for 

which these data are available from Census, 37 million Americans 

were poor, a 17–percent increase over 2000. 

Second, the census data also show that the incomes of low-wage 

working families have been stagnant in recent years, while families’ expenses have continued to rise. Roughly 60 percent of poor 

households now pay more than half of their income for housing. 

8

Health care and child care costs have been rising faster than the 

incomes of low-income families. The result is that expenses are absorbing an increased share of families’ limited budgets, leaving less 

for food. 

And, third, Census and USDA data show that 35 million Americans live in households that sometimes have difficulty affording 

food, suffering from what is termed ‘‘food insecurity.’’

The Food Stamp Program is our first line of defense against 

these problems, but it can do more to address them, and that will 

require new investments in three broad areas. 

First, despite recent progress, only about 50 percent of eligible 

working poor households and fewer than 30 percent of eligible seniors participate in the program. The Committee should look for opportunities to streamline and simplify program rules, both so that 

more of those who are eligible can participate and so that administrative costs are held down. 

Second, food stamp benefits I believe are too small, and of particular concern, they are eroding in food purchasing power each 

year due to a flaw in the structure of the program’s standard deduction and, to a lesser degree, in its minimum benefit. A key to 

reducing hunger is to ensure that food stamp households have the 

resources to secure an adequate diet. The average benefit in the 

program, now about $1 per person per meal, is not sufficient for 

that task. 

And, third, but certainly not least, many poor households that 

have accumulated modest savings, as well as many unemployed 

workers without children who are looking for work but cannot find 

it, and many legal immigrants, including legal immigrant parents 

working hard for low wages, are excluded from the program even 

though they face food insecurity, too. Addressing these eligibility 

barriers is, in my view, the single most important change the Committee can make. And on the issue of assets, I would like to associate myself strongly with Senator Chambliss’ remarks on those 

issues at the beginning of this hearing. 

In conclusion, the Food Stamp Program plays a vital role. I urge 

the Committee to build upon its strong track record in addressing 

hunger and making appropriate investments in the program so 

that it will do even better in the years ahead. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Greenstein can be found on page 

70 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Mr. Greenstein. 

Next we go to Robert Dostis, Executive Directors of the Vermont 

Campaign to End Childhood Hunger. Mr. Dostis? 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT DOSTIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

VERMONT CAMPAIGN TO END CHILDHOOD HUNGER 

Mr. DOSTIS. Thank you, Chairman Harkin and Senator 

Chambliss and members of the Committee, for this opportunity to 

address the Food Stamp Program’s fundamental role in serving our 

Nation’s nutritional health. I commend your past diligence in maintaining the program’s entitlement structure, and I especially want 

to thank Vermont’s senior Senator Patrick Leahy for all his support on Federal nutrition programs. 

9

I want to share with you, first, how the Food Stamp Program, 

as the single most effective assistance program in the country, is 

making a difference in our communities; and, second, that by 

strengthening and improving the program, you can address the disturbing trend of increasing rates of hunger in America. 

I am here as the Executive Director of the Vermont Campaign 

to End Childhood Hunger and as one among hundreds of anti-hunger organizations affiliated with our national counterpart, the Food 

Research and Action Center. And, Mr. Chairman, on their behalf 

I have a letter I would like to introduce into the record. 

Chairman HARKIN. Without objection. 

[The following information can be found on page 164 in the appendix.] 

I am here also as a registered dietitian who knows that hunger 

and poor diet result in obesity, compromised health, and chronic 

disease. The devastating effect of hunger is indisputable. Nutrient 

deficiencies in children compromise their physical, cognitive, and 

emotional development. In my role as a State legislator, I see the 

burden hunger puts on our State by increasing health care and 

education costs. 

Hunger and food insecurity exist in every corner of the Nation. 

My written testimony, which I have submitted, includes extensive 

data on the extent of hunger and food insecurity and studies on 

health impact of poor nutrition. With rising housing, transportation, and health care costs, it is increasingly difficult for families 

to make ends meet, especially when wages are not keeping pace 

with inflation. To feed families, they borrow, they scrimp, and then 

they do without. Food is one of the most flexible items in the 

household budget, so they cope by foregoing the more costly but 

wholesome foods, like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and instead purchase cheap but filling foods that are high in fat, sugar, 

sodium, and calories but low in nutritional value—foods that contribute to America’s health problems. 

The Food Stamp Program is a vital resource. It is a program that 

works and it works well. It feeds people. It also promotes good 

diets, prevents obesity and chronic disease, and provides families 

a consistent and reliable and, importantly, a dignified way of obtaining food, especially during those tough economic family times. 

It is America’s first line of defense against hunger. 

I want to highlight that this Committee has consistently protected the program’s entitlement structure, making food stamps 

immediately available to those hit by economic disaster, such as 

the two manufacturing plant closings in Middlebury, Vermont. And 

I know Senator Brown has experienced some issues in his State as 

well about manufacturing plant closings. 

Food stamps help so many people. Some of their stories I have 

written in my statement, like the family at risk of being evicted 

who gets signed up for food stamps, freeing up enough money to 

pay their rent and still eat; the dad working as a milker on a dairy 

farm who faced financial crisis when his premature twins required 

special medical care; the intern in my office, as I was preparing 

this testimony, who confided in me that she and her mom received 

food stamps and, when they did, their diets were healthier and 

they got along a lot better because there was less stress. 

10

The Food Stamp Program provides these families and over 26 

million other Americans with heightened food security. Despite the 

program’s success, there is still hunger, and people who need help 

are not getting it. There are obstacles to participation and stories 

of the underserved. There are gaps, namely, benefit allotments are 

not adequate and asset limits are too low. 

I think of the senior I learned of who gets food stamps but cannot 

afford the foods required for his medical condition; the homeless 

family who is losing food stamp benefits because they exceeded the 

program’s asset limits as they try to save money for their first 

month’s rent and security deposit; or the elementary school principal who shared with me the story of a young girl who was holding 

her stomach on a Monday morning because there was no food in 

her home, and the last meal she had eaten was lunch at school on 

Friday. 

I know personally the limitations of the program. Growing up, 

my father made too much money for us to qualify for food stamps, 

but too little money to cover rent, heat, and food. Personally, I 

know the painful nature of the gaps I just spoke about. 

In conclusion, a strengthened food stamp program will have a 

far-reaching effect, helping reduce obesity and nutrition-related illnesses, helping curb rising health care costs, improving the cognitive development and education of children, and bolstering local 

economies and agriculture as families consume more fruits, vegetables, proteins, and whole grain. A strengthened Food Stamp Program is a sound investment in our future and will help steer the 

course for the health and well-being of America’s children, families, 

and elderly. 

I thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Dostis can be found on page 59 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Mr. Dostis. 

And now we turn to Rhonda Stewart from Hamilton, Ohio. Ms. 

Stewart? 

STATEMENT OF RHONDA STEWART, HAMILTON, OHIO 

Ms. STEWART. Chairman Harkin, distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, I would like to thank you for this opportunity 

to speak with you today. And, Senator Brown, thank you for introducing me. 

I am also a food stamp recipient. The first time I participated in 

the program was in 2003. I received food stamp benefits for about 

a year and a half, and then in mid–2005, I started receiving my 

child support again so my son and I were able to make it on our 

own. 

Unfortunately, after a year of steady child support payments, my 

ex-husband lost his job due to a plant closing at Sara Lee. The 

child support, if it came, was not regular, and my income just did 

not go far enough to pay for our basic needs, especially food. 

The cheapest food I could afford to buy was not the healthiest for 

my son. I can buy a can of Spaghetti-O’s for less than $1, but a 

gallon of milk is almost $3. A pack of Kool-Aid costs a dime, but 

a can of juice is $3.50 to $4. I contacted the outreach worker, GloVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:26 May 21, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\34740.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
11

ria Bateman, at Shared Harvest Food Bank and asked her to meet 

with me to help me fill out an application for food stamps. I currently earn $900 a month at my job. My rent is $440. I pay 

my utilities, including gas and electric. After paying rent, utilities, 

car insurance, and gasoline, there is not much left to meet the 

needs of my son. 

Before I started to get food stamps, I paid bills every other 

month—my phone bill this month, my electric bill next. I learned 

how long I could go before I lost my heat. Eventually, I did lose 

my phone. I was scraping by to buy what groceries I could. In the 

months when I do receive child support, I must use these funds to 

pay my utility bill to avoid it getting shut off. 

The child support I receive is never spent on food. Sometimes I 

could buy real milk for us. Sometimes it was powdered milk. I always made sure my son had something to eat. I say this because 

on some nights he would ask me if I was feeling OK because I was 

not eating. I would just reply, ‘‘Yeah. I’m just not hungry tonight, 

buddy.’’

Once again I am receiving food stamps and have been for the last 

7 months. I decided to apply for food stamps again because I 

couldn’t do it on my own anymore and we needed help, and I don’t 

want my son to suffer. Unfortunately, the amount food stamps I receive varies from month to month due to my sporadic child support 

payments. This month, I received $103 in food stamps. Last month, 

it was $174. it is so hard to budget when my food stamps drop so 

significantly from month to month. I am very grateful for the 

months when my son is able to eat the healthier and more nutritious foods he needs. However, some days he has dinner. I have a 

grilled cheese sandwich, or I am just not hungry. 

I am very careful how I spend my food stamp benefits. I shop at 

an off-brand store some of you may have heard called Aldi’s for 

most of my groceries. The first 2 weeks of the month are OK. The 

last few get a little weird. My son says, ‘‘Momma gets creative with 

dinner.’’

In some months when my food stamp benefits are lower, I run 

out of food stamps before the end of the month. I am always watching the calendar for the first of the month to come so I have access 

to my benefits and we can eat again. I would love to have fresh 

veggies in the refrigerator and fruit on the counter. Wyatt loves 

these things. He knows at the beginning of the month we have a 

more traditional family dinner, with a meat, one or two veggies, 

and some corn muffins—his favorite. He has also come to learn 

that toward the end of the month we seem to have a generic Hamburger Helper with processed ground turkey because it is cheaper 

than beef. 

At the beginning of the month, he knows it is OK to ask me to 

fix his favorite foods again because I have the ability to get these 

for him. And by his favorite foods, I mean pork chops, a box of instant stuffing maybe. Nothing extravagant. 

Many of the things I am saying to you here today, distinguish 

members of this panel, my son has been unaware of until today. 

I am not in the habit of telling my 9–year-old the status of our finances. Wyatt is on the free breakfast and lunch program at school 

so this helps during the school year. But during the summer 

12

months and days when school is not in session it is a different 

story. I am sure that any of you that have children or grandchildren know that feeding them three times a day is a lot more 

expensive than feeding them once. And if you are a parent such as 

myself and you cannot afford what you need, you go without. 

I ask you to think about something for a moment. Is it in the 

best interest of my child to skip a meal and take the chance on me 

getting ill? And what will happen to him if I do? 

I am grateful for the food stamp benefits I receive, but at the end 

of the month it is not enough. Have you ever seen a child get excited when you tell them you have enough to get a bag of apples 

or some grapes or even a kiwi? Wyatt does. 

I am very proud of my son. He is on the honor roll, and I want 

him to have a normal life. There are times when my son wants a 

friend to come over to spend the night, but unfortunately I have 

to make an excuse because I do not have enough food to feed them 

both. It is not my son’s fault that he lives in a single-parent home 

in a trailer park. I am very good at keeping things hidden from 

him and even those outside our front door. 

Times are hard, and I am grateful for the program, and it makes 

life truly better for me and my son and the tens of millions of people like us who participate. And on behalf of all of us who receive 

the food stamps each month, I want to thank you for your support. 

I urge your leadership to make it a better program by increasing 

the amount of food stamp benefits people receive each month so 

that we can purchase the nutritious foods that are so important to 

good health and well-being. This will allow us to eat every day and 

not go hungry when our limited benefits run out. 

In closing, in addition to my personal experience with the program, I would like to tell you about my job duties as a counselor 

using the Benefit Bank, a Web-based program that allows people 

in similar situations to complete applications for public benefits 

such as food stamps. The people that I help are usually parents 

like myself who have fallen on hard times. They tell me they are 

forced to make the difficult choice between buying food or paying 

their rent. It gives me great pride to be able to help people who 

cannot ask for help because they do not think they understand. I 

tell them I know and that it is OK to ask for help. 

Thank you for taking this time from your busy schedule to listen 

to my story, and I would be pleased to answer any questions at this 

time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Stewart can be found on page 

128 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Ms. Stewart, thank you very much for a very 

powerful, powerful statement. Thanks for putting a human face on 

all these statistics we see all the time and reminding us that the 

policies we are discussing affect real people and not just numbers 

on a piece of paper. So we really appreciate your being here. 

We will have a quick round of questions. I wanted to start with 

Mr. Nilsen. On the subject of trafficking—we have had great reductions in the amount of Food Stamp trafficking, as you testified to, 

as we know, again, from the numbers and statistics. However, trafficking in small grocery stores remains at 7.6 cents per dollar as 

compared to just 0.2 cents per dollar in large stores. What caused 

13

this difference? What is it about the small stores that needs more 

attention and improvement to combat food stamp trafficking? 

Mr. NILSEN. A couple things, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I think 

trafficking is higher because there is less oversight in a small store. 

These small stores tend to be stand-alone stores without a lot of 

oversight, no checking, few audits. They are not like a grocery store 

that has systems in place, automated cashiers, cash registers that 

track everything. So it is a lot easier to traffic in a small operation. 

Our view is that FNS needs to be more proactive in screening 

stores and when they let stores into the system, particularly in the 

first year or so, use the EBT system to look at the volume of transactions and have the resources to go in and see what is really going 

on. 

We saw one instance where a store had estimated that it was 

going to redeem about $180,000 in food stamps in a year, and within 3 months it was trafficking over $200,000 in food stamp benefits 

in a month. This store then was shut down, lost its license, but it 

took a number of months. I think it was about $690,000 in food 

stamp benefits it redeemed in a matter of 6 months. That store 

only lost its license. The person’s ability to redeem food stamps was 

taken away. Very often, in cases like that the store is then transferred to other ownership. Sometimes trafficking then starts all 

over again. 

So FNS, we feel, needs to use the data that it has more 

proactively to monitor particularly these small operations. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Nilsen. 

Mr. Greenstein, why this rapid rise in food stamp receipts by 

working families? Why do we have this rise by working families? 

Do you have any ideas on what you would attribute that to? 

Mr. GREENSTEIN. Well, two things. First off, we have had an increase in the number of working families with low incomes below 

the poverty line, so more have been eligible. If you look at the percentage of eligible working poor families getting food stamps, it has 

gone from about 46 percent in 2000 to about 51 percent in the most 

recent data. That is a significant increase, but I would submit that 

51 percent—these are people who are working for low wages, playing by the rules, raising their children in poverty. We ought to be 

able to do better than that. And I think there are some things you 

could do, the Committee could do, that could really address that. 

There is the issue of simplification, which we talked about, but 

there is also this issue of benefit costs. The USDA studies show 

that families, to get on food stamps, when they apply, have an average of two and a half visits in the food stamp office and an average of 5 hours of time. Now, if you are a family working for low 

wages and the employer does not give you time off to go to the welfare office to apply, this is a real barrier to participation, particularly if the benefits you get in return for what may be lost wages 

are quite modest. 

So I think you need to make further progress. I would urge looking at both sides of the equation. We need more simplification, but 

we also need to deal with the benefit side. And as I noted earlier, 

the key issue that really concerns me here is that the benefits are 

continuing to decline in food purchasing power. 

14

Years ago, in the 1977 Food Stamp Act, a number of deductions 

that were designed to reflect the impact of certain expenses of families’ disposable incomes and ability to buy food were replaced with 

a standard deduction which was indexed for inflation because the 

costs that they are reflecting rise with inflation. 

The indexation was taken away in 1996 and restored in a partial 

way in 2002. So where we are now is that deduction is indexed for 

families of four or more. For families of three, I think it will be 

until 2014 until indexation resumes. For families of two, it will be 

2025 under current law until indexation resumes. For the 80 percent of food stamp households that are households of three or 

fewer, the benefits are eroding in food purchasing power each year, 

and the tradeoff between the time you have got to take off from 

work and put in to apply and what you get in return is going in 

an unfavorable direction with each passing year. 

So I think if you both simplified the program and dealt with this 

problem in the standard deduction, we could make further progress 

and do better than having 49 percent of eligible working poor families left out of the program. 

Chairman HARKIN. Well, as I said, there is a rapid rise in working families, but as you correctly point out, it is still way below the 

national average. 

Mr. GREENSTEIN. It is way below the national average, and part 

of the rise again is because more families are eligible because 

wages have been eroding at the bottom of the wage scale, pushing 

more people into the food stamp eligibility category. 

Chairman HARKIN. Ms. Stewart, I want to pick up on what Bob 

just said about the complexity of the food stamp program and the 

length of time it takes to file and receive benefits. How much paperwork do you have to bring to the local food stamp office? You 

have to go there, you say, regularly because your income varies 

from month to month because of child support payments. Give us 

some idea of what you go through each time you visit. And you are 

working all the time. How do you find the time to go to the food 

stamp office and go through all the paperwork? Could you describe 

that? 

Ms. STEWART. Well, fortunately, my employer does allow me to 

take the time off. I know some people cannot get the time off to 

go. Their employer will not let them. However, I do not get paid 

when I go. It can take me sometimes up to 2 hours. And I know 

that does not seem like a lot, but when I miss 2 hours of work, that 

is $20 out of my pocket. And for me, you know, that is filling up 

my gas tank for the week. That could be a new pair of shoes for 

my son. Or that could be what I need to keep my utilities from getting turned off. So for me to have to go back—and I usually have 

to go back like every 3 months because of my child support varying. And getting everything together, I have to have check stubs for 

all that time, current electric bill, current rent. Even though my 

rent stays the same and has for the past 8 years, I have to take 

that every time I go, and it has to be current. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Ms. Stewart, I will 

now turn to Senator Chambliss. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

15

Ms. Stewart, with respect to having to return to the food stamp 

office to update your income reports, I realize that most food stamp 

recipients do not have the ability to go online to make those reports, but maybe folks who are working in offices would have that 

capability. 

In your case, would you be able to do that? Could you go online 

to do something like that if we were able to work out some mechanism for online reporting? 

Ms. STEWART. Yes, sir, I could. Most public libraries also have 

Internet access with computers there that you could go at your own 

schedule. Most of them are open until 9 o’clock at night, so when 

you get off work, I just take what I need to input into the online 

system, and I can go to the public library and do that. And some 

schools even offer access to parents after school hours. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. So going online would be pretty feasible for 

you personally. 

Ms. STEWART. Yes, sir, that would be excellent because then I 

would not have to take the time off work to do that. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. OK. Mr. Dostis, as a nutritionist, in your capacity as a nutritionist, let me ask you: One complaint I constantly 

hear from folks who are standing in line in the grocery store behind food stamp beneficiaries is that that the types of things that 

they are buying are obviously not the most nutritional. They are 

buying candy, they are buying popcorn, instead of buying cereal or 

meat or whatever. 

Are there any statistics on this to show whether or not folks who 

are really buying what they ought to be buying to provide nutritional means? Or is this something that there is no way to track? 

Mr. DOSTIS. I think the major issue that families face—and we 

heard that from Mrs. Stewart—is the benefit level that food stamps 

offers. If you have $1 and you go into a supermarket, you know you 

have to feed your family, and you have a choice between buying 

one piece of fruit, or maybe two if you are lucky, or three boxes of 

macaroni and cheese or five or six packages of those soups that 

come in packages that are really inexpensive but that are filling, 

you are going to buy the more filling stuff. Because when you are 

hungry, when there is not enough food in the house, you try to 

stretch those dollars as much as you can. And the foods that you 

are buying are the less nutritious foods, but they are doing the job 

and filling you up. 

If we really want to address improving the quality of the meals 

that people are eating who are on tight budgets, then we have to 

provide more resources. So that is the answer. 

Now, every so often, you will see—and I have heard those same 

stories, too. You know, it is hard to know exactly what stage a family is in when they are buying something. If you see a family with 

some soda and cake in there, who am I to judge? Maybe they are 

having a birthday party. I do not know. 

What I hear from the front lines, from the people who are on food 

stamps, is that they make the best choices they can make. They 

know how to stretch those dollars very well, but they are limited 

in their capacity in terms of what they can do in terms of buying 

those good foods, because the top-line foods, the foods that many 

16

of us take for granted, you know, protein foods, vegetables, whole 

grains, they are out of reach. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Nilsen, in your testimony regarding the 

trafficking of food stamps, you mentioned that there are some 

stores that traffic food stamps repeatedly under different owners. 

Is there evidence of any collusion between the buyers and the sellers on this issue? 

Mr. NILSEN. To traffic, there has to be. Basically, you have two 

willing parties. You have the vendor, who is willing to trade cash 

for the benefits, and you have the person with the food stamp EBT 

card willing to trade in order to get cash so they can spend it on 

things that food stamps are not eligible for. 

So, to that extent, yes, there is collusion. What usually happens 

is FNS turns over a list of the names of participants who have been 

using that particular store to the State, and it is up to the State 

to follow up, talking to the participants. Some States follow up; 

others do not. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. You mentioned in your testimony that the 

food stamp payment error rates have reached an all-time low, but 

there are also some remaining causes of payment error in the program. Would you expand on the source of the remaining errors? 

Mr. NILSEN. The complexity of the program continues to create 

errors. If you look at the total number of errors, again, two-thirds 

of them are the result of caseworkers either inputting data wrong, 

not inputting data that they have gotten—for example, when somebody reports an income change in a timely way—which then creates an error. Or they just do not understand the rules and do not 

input that data correctly. 

Also, on the participant side, if people cannot get into the office, 

about 30 percent of the errors is a result of participants not reporting information in a timely way. 

But, together, 43 percent is failure to act on information, or a 

caseworker is using information incorrectly. So complexity is still 

an issue with the Food Stamp Program, even since the changes to 

simplify from the 2002 farm bill. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Mr. Greenstein, I appreciate your comments 

about the asset limit issue, and this is obviously going to be a 

budget issue for us, in addition to just a practical issue. The asset 

limits are so out of date. If we are going to do a good job of serving 

the people in the best way, we have got to try to figure out some 

way to do this. 

I would just ask you—and you may have something off the top 

of your head, or you may need to get back with us. But do you have 

any thoughts about how we can be more cost-effective in raising 

the asset limits? 

Mr. GREENSTEIN. As you say, this is a tough issue. There are 

costs involved. Had the current asset limits, which I think were 

last set in 1985 or 1986, kept pace with inflation, the $2,000 limit 

would be close to $4,000 today. I doubt you are going to have room 

in your allocation to make that up. I would hope you could do better than what I am about to suggest, but at a bare minimum, at 

least indexing what we have now so it does not erode for another 

20 years as it has eroded now. 

17

I also think the proposal the President made last year was quite 

important to exempt retirement accounts from the asset test. We 

have a complicated, irrational system now. If your employer has a 

defined benefit plan, it is exempt. If it is a defined contribution 

plan, most are exempt, but not all. If you have a 401(k), maybe you 

have $4,500 in it, a tiny amount, and you are laid off in a recession, planners are going to recommend, not that you liquidate that 

account and have nothing for old age, but that you roll it over into 

an IRA. The minute you roll it over, it starts counting in food 

stamps, and you have to completely wipe out your retirement account. The recession is over, you are starting at zero. 

So I think this is why the administration has recommended 

changing that. It is something that is supported across the political 

spectrum. I know the Heritage Foundation is supportive of making 

that change as well. 

At retirement analysts—the White House had a summit on retirement security last year, and as you can imagine, with issues 

from Social Security to others, there were many areas of disagreement. An area of unanimity, everyone there, regardless of where 

they were on the political spectrum, every retirement analyst 

thought the current treatment of retirement accounts in the asset 

test made no sense and should be reformed. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Chambliss. 

Senator Cochran? 

Senator COCHRAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Mr. Greenstein, I can remember when you first came to this 

Committee and talked about this program and helped us analyze 

it and develop the provisions in it, and we appreciate over the 

years your continued assistance and advice and counsel. It has 

been very helpful to the Committee. 

I also just want to thank all of the members of the panel for 

being here today and helping us take a look at this program and 

determine ways to make it more efficient, to make it more beneficial to the people who need the food assistance that this program 

provides. 

I think my State probably has a higher percentage of population 

participating in this program than any State in the Union, so I feel 

it is an important obligation that I have to try to make sure we 

are getting the most out of the program and it is delivering the 

most benefits that we can deliver to the people entitled to participate. 

A couple things came to mind as I was listening to your testimony, and I will direct this first question to Mr. Greenstein. What 

changes do you think would be important for the Committee to consider as we prepare to reauthorize the Food Stamp Program? You 

have already answered that now since I wrote that down. But is 

there anything else that comes to mind that you could recommend 

to us? 

Mr. GREENSTEIN. Well, I think in each of the three broad areas 

I mentioned, there are specific proposals, and I know you have time 

constraints so I will not go into every one. But there are a variety 

of things. We have just talked about the asset test. We have menVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:26 May 21, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00021 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\34740.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
18

tioned the issue of the standard deduction. Without trying to get 

too technical, if one simply for all household sizes set the standard 

deduction at 10 percent of the poverty line—and the poverty line 

varies by family size, and it is adjusted for inflation—that would 

really address that particular issue. 

Another part of the program that has eroded due to inflation is 

the minimum benefit, which is important for the elderly and disabled poor. 

Two other things I alluded to quickly in the testimony that I will 

maybe just take a tiny bit more time on. 

The Senate and the House have been in different places from 

1996 through the present, through 2002, and sadly, the House has 

prevailed until now in each of those differences, on how restrictive 

to be for low-income workers who are not raising minor children 

and are below the poverty line or working hard. You know, the current rules limit the benefits to 3 months out of every 3 years while 

they are out of work. That goes well beyond what the Senate 

passed. Each time you have done food stamps, that had been the 

House position. It really needs to be revisited. It really is too severe. 

And, finally, we are increasingly concerned about both the complexity and the effect of where we are now with the immigrant 

rules. We made a change, and we have made a series of patches. 

We have a very complicated set of rules. I think there ought to be 

one set of rules for legal permanent residents who are poor enough 

to qualify. Anyone who is undocumented or is here temporarily, 

you should not get food stamps. If you are here legally and you otherwise qualify, let’s have one simple set of rules rather than these 

complicated ones, different parts of families are dealt with differently. 

I think all of those would be changes that would be helpful, along 

with the simplifications that we have been talking about. And I 

think Senator Chambliss’ point about promoting more online—enabling people to do more in a modern technological age where you 

do not have to take time off from your job and lose $20 to stand 

in line at the food stamp office to provide new information, that 

would be an important set of issues to address, as well. 

Senator COCHRAN. I am not aware of the exact amount that is 

spent on the administration of the program, but it has to be a considerable sum. I may ask this question to Mr. Nilsen. Have you 

thought about or has anybody undertaken a review of how we could 

improve the efficiency of the program in terms of reducing the costs 

of administration so we can make more of the funds that are appropriated for this program actually available to the beneficiaries in 

the form of food nutrition assistance? 

Mr. NILSEN. We have not specifically been asked to look at the 

administration of the program. I think the Federal share of administration is about $2.6 billion currently. But we are currently looking at what States are doing to facilitate access to the program. As 

Mr. Greenstein said and Ms. Stewart said, there are numerous 

things that can be done to use technology to make it simpler for 

people to apply and to update. And so we will get some information 

out of the current study which we are doing for the Committee at 

this time. But I think there is more that can be looked at in terms 

19

of applying technology to simplify the administration of the program because, again, as I said, many of the errors are caused by 

the complexity itself, by caseworkers misapplying information. If 

there is better software to handle that information, if instead of 

being inputted and read a couple times and re-inputted, if it could 

be directly input by the participant, it would be a lot more efficient. 

Senator COCHRAN. Mr. Greenstein and Mr. Dostis and Ms. Stewart, do you have any other comments on that question, if you do 

have suggestions? Or if you think of something later, you can submit them in writing for the record. 

Mr. DOSTIS. In Vermont, we have had a 28–percent increase in 

food stamp participation since 2001, and that is a concerted effort 

on behalf of my organization and many of our partners to do outreach. 

One of the things we implemented, and that was thanks to a food 

stamp outreach grant that we received, was creating a website 

where people can go to learn about the Food Stamp Program. They 

can plug in their numbers, their financial numbers, and find out 

if they may qualify. And it gives them some sense of whether they 

should even go down the road. And then they are able to communicate with us directly with any of their questions, and there is a 

1–800 number so we can respond to any immediate questions. But 

it cuts a lot of the time, and it encourages people to use technologies to find out if they are eligible. And the access points are—

like Mrs. Stewart pointed out, you know, if they do not have a computer at home, then it is libraries. 

So I think it is the wave of the future. Investments in technology 

need to happen. We are seeing some of that in Vermont, and I 

think there are many more opportunities that exist in that realm. 

Senator COCHRAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Senator Salazar? 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you very much, Chairman Harkin. I appreciate your holding this hearing on this very important title of 

the farm bill. I have a question for Mr. Nilsen concerning the payment errors and trafficking. 

I know that in the findings of the GAO, what you found is that 

there has been a significant decline, I think from 9.86 percent in 

1999 to 5.84 percent in 2005. And I don’t remember this exact figure, but I think from some of the conversations we had on this 

Committee last year, we were looking at spending about 51 percent 

on nutrition programs out of the entire budget for the farm bill. So 

I look at a $100 billion program, some $50 billion of that being 

spent on nutrition. And I think that if you look at a 5.84 percent 

error rate, you are probably talking—it is at least a several billion 

dollar amount that is still being expended via error or some kind 

of trafficking. 

My question to you—we are going to think about a lot of priorities, I am sure, in this Committee as we go through the farm bill 

and try to figure out what we want to do on renewable energy and 

biofuels and a whole host of other things. But if we were to look 

at how we could bring that number down from 5.84 percent to, say, 

half of that, what would be your top three recommendations that 

we as a Committee ought to look at as we try to halve the error 

rate? 

20

Mr. NILSEN. A couple things. First of all, the current estimated 

error rate translates to about $1.7 billion, so that is still a lot of 

money. Had it not been reduced, it would have been over a billion 

dollars higher, so a significant amount of progress has been made. 

But I think because two-thirds of the errors are caused by caseworkers and by the difficulty, particularly for working families, of 

reporting information in a timely way, I think continuing to simplify the program could continue to bring the error rate down; the 

introduction of additional technology to help people report that information quickly, easily; and also for caseworkers to handle the information. If you have good technology software that puts the information in the right context and analyzes it correctly, then it reduces the error rate. 

Part of the problem is there is a lot of turnover in caseworkers, 

and it is a very complex program, so it is hard to learn the rules 

and exactly how to administer the program. So that is where the 

substitution of technology can help bring the error rate down, I believe. 

Senator SALAZAR. Let me push you on the caseworker enhancement concept that you were just talking about. Describe to us how 

a caseworker is part of, if you will, the error that occurs at the 

front end when somebody is entering into the system food stamps 

and what it is that you would do with respect to that caseworker 

to try to upgrade the skills so that you do not have those problems. 

Mr. NILSEN. Well, as Mr. Greenstein was saying, how do you 

handle certain assets? If you are a particular kind of person, you 

will handle it one way. If you are somebody else, it is a different 

way. If the asset, for example, changes from a 401(k) and you roll 

it over into a regular mutual fund, all of a sudden it is no longer 

an excluded asset. So there is a lot of delving in that interview to 

find out exactly how to handle people’s income, their deductions, 

their assets. And that is where the complexity comes in. 

Senator SALAZAR. For both you, Mr. Nilsen, and Mr. Greenstein, 

if you look at the concept of simplification so that you can avoid 

errors by having caseworkers being able to go through the process 

in a more simple way and applicants also to understand more what 

it is that they are—the information that they are providing, what 

recommendations would you make to the Committee in terms of 

simplification, Mr. Greenstein? 

Mr. GREENSTEIN. Simplification I think is very important. You 

know, I am remembering the first error rate report we issued when 

I went into the Department, and it was like March or April 1977. 

And the combination of the payments to ineligible households and 

overpayments to eligible households was 17 percent of benefits 

issue. Today it is 4.5 percent. The 5.8 also includes the underpayments. 

What has changed since then? Probably the single biggest factor 

is simplification in technology, so one wants to keep pushing there. 

There are more things you can do. We have talked about simplifying the asset rules, simplifying the immigrant rules. In 2002, you 

simplified the reporting rules for working families. We can go farther and look at simplifying the reporting rules more for elderly 

households as well. 

21

But I want to make a caveat. In a program this large, it is going 

to be harder to drive the error rate much below 4.5 percent—we 

can get it some with more simplification—unless another issue is 

dealt with that, to a large degree, is outside your control, and that 

is, States administer the program, the Federal Government pays 

half the administrative costs. In a number of States, they have cut 

back significantly in recent years as a budget matter on the number of caseworkers and have not fully invested in all the new information technology that is available because of the costs. 

So some of the technology that is there today is not being fully 

used, and in a number of States, the number of clients per caseworker is too high, and that contributes to caseworkers making the 

errors that Mr. Nilsen talked about. 

Now, I do not have a magic-bullet answer for what to do about 

that. It is probably worth our all thinking more about that as you 

go into reauthorization. But inadequate State staffing and investment in IT is one of the contributing factors here. 

Senator SALAZAR. Just one more question, if I may. Are there 

some States that you could hold out, Mr. Nilsen, as stellar States 

that are great examples of having cut down the error rate below 

this 4.65 percent? Because it depends a lot on the budget issue that 

Mr. Greenstein was talking about. 

Mr. NILSEN. What we found in our study is that a lot of the 

States sort of did a number of things, and some things that worked 

in some States like California maybe were not the things that 

brought the error rate down in Illinois. Very often it was State by 

State. 

Looking at some of the dramatic changes, Illinois, Michigan, I believe, and California had dramatic declines in their error rates. But 

they had to do a range of things. A lot of it was targeting on those 

areas where the error rate was the highest in the sub-State, and 

then to go in—as I said, in California there was a lot of training 

of caseworkers that was done. There was a lot of targeting of resources, education, and really focusing on processing more quickly 

the information they got and making it a priority. That was something else that changed: making bringing down the error rate a priority. For a long time, I think it came down from probably 17 percent early on to around 10 percent, but then it was hard to budge 

from that level for many years. But they have made a lot of 

progress since the 2002 farm bill. 

Senator SALAZAR. Thank you very much. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Lincoln? 

Senator LINCOLN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so 

much for bringing us here today to discuss what is, I think, one of 

the most critical issues before our country. And it is certainly the 

issue of hunger among working families and any of our citizens. 

The important role that our Federal Food Assistance Program 

plays in the lives of America’s working families is critical, and I 

think we often underestimate oftentimes because we do take for 

granted the wonderful, wonderful country that we live in, that it 

has an impact on so many things, whether it is certainly the health 

of our children, the cost of health care in general and long term, 

the ability of our children to learn, to pay attention, to be able to 

reach their potential. It is very important. 

22

It is a timely discussion we are having here in the Committee. 

It prepares us for the always difficult task of crafting a new farm 

bill, and I certainly look forward to working more on this title and 

looking at how we can make improvements. 

We are enormously grateful to our panel that is here today for 

sharing with us. I would like to take one point of personal privilege 

here and just quickly address something that I have been very involved with. 

Many may know that Senator Gordon Smith and I, along with 

Senator Durbin and Senator Elizabeth Dole, started the Hunger 

Caucus, the Senate Hunger Caucus, in 2004 to really highlight the 

importance of these issues that we are discussing this morning and 

really to provide a more organized voice for the anti-hunger community here on Capitol Hill and to speak out. 

We currently have over one-third of the Senate represented in 

the caucus, including our Chairman, which we are grateful to you 

for your involvement. And I wanted to take this opportunity particularly to encourage our new members who have joined us in the 

Senate this session to join our Hunger Caucus because we have 

done some incredible things, and we are going to continue to do 

those things. So we appreciate that. 

I want to especially thank our panel, but, Ms. Stewart, I want 

to thank you so much for bringing, as the Chairman mentioned, a 

real face to what we are talking about here. Oftentimes we try to 

express that as well, and I want to say thank you for being here. 

Thank you for bringing your son, Wyatt. I know that was not an 

easy decision. It is difficult. I have 10–year-old twins, both of which 

were sick last week and both of which came to work with me last 

week. It is a tough choice that we make, and it is . hat I appreciate 

and certainly respect you for. 

The other thing I just wanted to point out that I do not know 

has been pointed out in the Committee was from Ms. Stewart’s testimony. Ms. Stewart is not only working diligently to provide for 

her son and to do so in a way that is remarkable in terms of his 

health and well-being and his education. But if you look at the 

opening of her statement, her written testimony, she is also president of the PTA, she is a Sunday school teacher, a chartered chairperson for the local Cub Scout pack, a band booster for the school. 

She assists with the cheerleading competition, and she is a food 

stamp recipient. She is not only taking care of her son, but she is 

contributing enormously to the community and the village that 

raises everyone’s children in her community. And I just think that 

is so important, Mr. Chairman, that we note the tremendous gift 

that Ms. Stewart is giving to her community and to the other children and the families that exist there. 

When we look at the fact that the nutrition title in the farm bill 

takes up 60 percent of all the spending in the farm bill, roughly 

60 percent, and yet we recognize those that are eligible for food 

stamps that are not even accessing them, it should be overwhelming to us that this is an issue that exists in this country that 

has to be dealt with for the future of our country and its well-being 

and the children who are our future and our future leaders. 

So I want to commend you because I have got to tell you, I work 

with the PTA and several of these others, between the Cub Scouts 

23

and other things, and it is not an easy task. And my hat is off to 

you for the incredible contribution that you give to your country 

from that respect. 

Ms. STEWART. Thank you. 

Senator LINCOLN. I would like to touch on what I just mentioned 

there in terms of eligibility. Some 50 percent of eligible working 

families and 30 percent of eligible low-income seniors do not participate. Those figures do vary among different States, and that has 

been discussed a little bit. My own State beats the national average 

by serving 68 percent of all eligible and 60 percent of working families. But, unfortunately, a number of States do considerably worse 

than the national average. And I guess may you could answer, any 

of you all. Mr. Dostis, you mentioned some of the things you all 

have done in Vermont to really increase the participation and 

make sure that that availability is out there for individuals. But 

the disparity between States and how it exists, is there a better 

way that perhaps we could—and maybe we already are and I am 

unaware of it—providing collocation for access to food stamps, particularly for our elderly? We have a disproportionate number of elderly in Arkansas. They are disproportionately low-income and in 

need of assistance. I do not know if collocation of being able to access those benefits through the area agency on aging and others 

things is as easy and as appropriate as it should be. 

But anything that we have learned from high-performing States 

or anything else that you all could recommend? I know Mr. Dostis 

has shared with us some of what Vermont does. 

Mr. DOSTIS. I would say that the key is outreach. There is a lot 

of misconceptions about the Food Stamp Program. I think of seniors who do not understand its entitlement nature, and they assume if they take, then they are taking from someone else. So just 

to reach out to them, let them know they can have it and they are 

not taking it from someone else. 

Families who are working and increasingly, as you have heard, 

more families are struggling, working families are struggling, and 

that is where we are seeing an increase in participation in food 

shelves as well as requests for the Food Stamp Program. 

But it is very difficult for working families to take off, as you 

heard from Mrs. Stewart, to apply for and sustain themselves on 

that program. 

There are misconceptions about the benefit levels, so doing outreach will help people understand to what extent the program can 

be beneficial to them, but we have to do it in a way that makes 

it as easy for them as possible to find out that information. 

Senator LINCOLN. Is there something that we can provide the 

States? I noticed you, Mr. Greenstein—I think it was Mr. Greenstein—mentioned that the States have cut back on their caseworkers, their technology, or the investment in technology. Is there 

something there that we could provide them as an incentive perhaps? 

Mr. GREENSTEIN. I think that is certainly something we can look 

at. I do not have a specific recommendation there, but I think that 

is worth looking at. 

Following up on Mr. Dostis’ comment and your question, where 

we have a real problem, whether it is for working families or the 

24

elderly, or whoever, is that you go to one office and you apply for 

Medicaid. Two months later, you are called in for food stamps. You 

have to go over here for child care. 

Senator LINCOLN. Right. 

Mr. GREENSTEIN. And to the degree that there are conflicting 

rules in the program, it is hard to align. To the degree that States 

can align the rules, it makes it possible to do more of the one-stop 

shopping, which can really help. 

Some of the changes you made in 2002 really enabled States to 

more closely align the programs, but we need to look for additional 

opportunities in that regard. 

And with regard to the elderly—and maybe this is something you 

can talk with the Finance Committee about—we ought to be more 

systematic about if seniors are signing up for the low-income drug 

benefit in Part D of Medicare, let’s refer them and hook them into 

food stamps if they are eligible and vice versa. We have seniors 

that need the drug benefit that are not signed up, that have misconceptions about the problems with the drug benefit as well, a 

number of which have now been resolved. But we ought to look for 

opportunities like that rather than having these individual silos 

where you sign up for one program, you go through the hoops, and 

you are not hooked up with another. And for people who are older 

and frail and it is hard to get around, that could really help. 

I think there are particular opportunities to look at in the interface between the low-income subsidies for the prescription drug 

benefit and food stamps. 

Senator LINCOLN. That is a great suggestion, Mr. Chairman, and 

I hope we will reach out to other committees and other programs 

that exist. I know that we tried to do that with Social Security and 

veterans’ benefits, and it was like pulling teeth to get the two agencies to talk and figure out how we could make sure that as veterans came for certain programs in Social Security, they could still 

see what was available to them through the Veterans Administration. But it certainly makes a lot of sense, and I know that for us 

in Arkansas, once we did make it one-stop shopping, particularly 

for children, whether it was vaccinations or other things that they 

could sign up for, we saw a real difference in terms of what was 

actually getting out to children through programs. So I really appreciate that. 

Mr. GREENSTEIN. And, of course, you are on both Committees—

Finance and——

Senator LINCOLN. Exactly. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman HARKIN. I was going to say, your comments were well 

placed. 

Senator LINCOLN. Well, I have been noting your tax comments as 

well in terms of what we can do there. 

I believe my time has expired, Mr. Chairman, but I do thank you 

so much for bringing this issue up, and you have brought a great 

panel. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Lincoln. 

Your comments were well placed there, Mr. Greenstein. 

[Laughter.] 

25

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much to panel one. As I said, 

we have a couple of votes at 11:30, so we are going to have to move 

ahead. Thank you. You are excused. We appreciate your input and 

look forward to further contact with you as we develop this title of 

the farm bill. 

Chairman HARKIN. Now we will ask our second panel to come to 

the table: Bill Bolling, Luanne Francis, Melinda Newport, and 

Frank Kubik. 

For the benefit of the Senators who are diligent in remaining 

here, hopefully we will try to get off the Senate floor, maybe, 

Saxby, sometime after a vote and try to get a quorum to report out 

our funding resolution and stuff. So we will try to do that. 

I will recognize Senator Chambliss for the purpose of an introduction here. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Well, I mentioned my friend Bill Bolling in 

my opening comments, but since he is here on this panel, let me 

just say again, Bill, welcome to the panel. 

Bill is the Executive Director of the Atlanta Food Bank, and he 

truly is an amazing American with what he has done, not just in 

the Atlanta area but the whole metro area surrounding Atlanta. 

Today, Bill runs 18–wheelers in and out of his facility, both bringing food in that comes straight off the grocery store shelves. He has 

developed a relationship with major manufacturers as well as retailers for the contribution of food products to his facility. He then 

returns those 18–wheelers out delivering food products around the 

metro area in Atlanta. 

In addition to that, Mr. Chairman, he now has moved into providing school supplies for school children by allowing teachers to 

come in and literally take school supplies that are, again, 100 percent donated and gives kids who do not have pencils and paper and 

crayons, the opportunity to have not only nutritious meals but also 

school supplies. 

It is an unbelievable operation that Bill has put together, and I 

am very pleased that he is here today to share some thoughts with 

us on this critical issue. So welcome, Bill. 

Mr. BOLLING. Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you for that great introduction. In 

fact, Senator Chambliss has talked to me about you, and I look forward to visiting your enterprise down there sometime soon, I hope. 

Mr. BOLLING. Thank you. 

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Bolling, please proceed. Again, we are 

going to try to keep it to 5 minutes or so. I would sure appreciate 

it. We have, as I said, two votes at 11:30. 

STATEMENT OF BILL BOLLING, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

ATLANTA COMMUNITY FOOD BANK, ATLANTA, GEORGIA 

Mr. BOLLING. I understand. Thank you, Senator Chambliss, for 

the introduction and taking time to come to visit us. Thank you, 

Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here. 

I am the Executive Director of the Atlanta Community Food Bank, 

and I am not only representing my food bank and the eight food 

banks in Georgia, but the Nation’s Food Bank Network, America’s 

Second Harvest, that serves over 50,000 community-based organizations. 

26

I have been a food bank director for 27 years and have been feeding the hungry for 32 years. I was one of the first directors to actually help start the Second Harvest Food Bank. I have seen a dramatic increase in the problem of hunger and the complexity of hunger and poverty, not only in Georgia but throughout the country. 

As the problem has grown, the profiles of the people affected by the 

threat of hunger have changed. Today, most people are off of welfare. A large percentage have a job, sometimes two jobs, but they 

are challenged to find affordable housing, adequate health care, 

and enough to eat. 

As we look back over the past few years, something interesting 

has happened. Food bank partner agencies that used to provide 

emergency food relief are now opening their doors to the same families over and over again. Agencies that used to focus only on providing meals and groceries are providing a range of services today. 

For many low-income working families, food banks and their partner agencies are the last defense against hunger. It is because the 

network of food banks and relief agencies in their communities 

exist that people are able to face the heart-wrenching decision to 

forego a trip to the grocery store in order to pay rent or utilities, 

and we just heard that in the last briefing. 

The people we serve are struggling every day to make ends meet. 

The local agency system in North Georgia and around the country 

is largely composed of faith-based entities, with three-fourths of our 

agencies made up of community support from churches, synagogues, temples and mosques. These local relief agencies reflect the 

very best of America, the broad array of America’s social fabric and 

religious life. And they are a reflection of the public and private 

sector successfully working together to address a major public 

health challenge. In fact, they are in my mind a strong part of our 

national security system, neighbors knowing and helping neighbors. 

We rely heavily on volunteers in our network of food banks. Volunteer labor in our network in any typical week is estimated at 

$8.2 million. These volunteers do not just ladle soup and pack food 

boxes. They provide additional support to needy families. Oftentimes, food and hunger is just the presenting problem. Partner 

agencies provide school tutoring, community support to seniors, 

counseling and training for jobs, nutritional counseling which is so 

important, housing support, mental health services, and an array 

of other support services that transform lives. 

Using a commodity that our country has in abundance—food—we 

are able to engage, educate, and empower people. This is the essential role that food programs provide every day—to transform lives 

to those most in need. 

I understand in the upcoming farm bill the choices are going to 

be tough and the competing interests many. But in TEFAP and 

other commodity donation programs, we clearly find mutual and 

compound interests. They are to serve as a nutritional safety net 

for millions of our Nation’s hungry. TEFAP commodities offer some 

of the healthiest and most nutritious food distributed to our agencies. TEFAP commodities stabilize our distribution when private 

donations are lagging or can help extend private donations enabling food to mix and be more complete. 

27

I know my colleagues on this panel have spoken quite eloquently 

about the needs to improve and sustain the Food Stamp Program. 

I only want to add to that testimony and say that we stand ready 

to work with this Committee and welfare and food stamp offices 

around the country. 

If I were sitting in your shoes with more requests than resources, 

my main concern would be whether money committed to feeding 

hungry people can leverage private money, food, and support. I am 

here to tell you that it does and it can be continued with your support. This is a place where resources committed multiply many, 

many times over, a place where people come together and strengthen and nurture community. This is a place where money and food 

make a tremendous difference. It is a network of public and private 

agencies that work at so many different levels to transform the 

lives of both the giver and the receiver. It is a system that works 

on many different levels, and it deserves our full support. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bolling can be found on page 53 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Bolling, for, again, 

a very powerful statement. 

Now we turn to Luanne Francis, the Program Manager at Kingsley House, which is a social service agency in New Orleans that 

provides help to families throughout Southeast Louisiana. Ms. 

Francis will be sharing some of her experiences working for Kingsley House during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. 

Ms. Francis, welcome to the Committee. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF LUANNE FRANCIS, PROGRAM MANAGER, 

HEALTH CARE FOR ALL, KINGSLEY HOUSE, NEW ORLEANS, 

LOUISIANA 

Ms. FRANCIS. Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity to 

speak before you today. I welcome the opportunity to appear before 

you not only on behalf of Kingsley House but on behalf of New Orleans and Louisiana families, in particular to speak about the Food 

Stamp Program and the Disaster Food Stamp Program and the 

role they played in the lives of families in Louisiana and continue 

to play today. 

It is my hope that after this hearing you will understand even 

more why the 2007 farm bill is an opportunity for you to allow 

many more families across America to be lifted out of hunger and 

to have the resources they need to recover when disaster strikes. 

We have all heard and seen the pictures of devastation suffered 

by Gulf Coast families in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and 

Rita. I have lived it and continue to live it today. 

On August 29, 2005, 2 days before payday and 2 weeks after 

school began for us, many of our families did not have the resources to prepare for a disaster, and they were down to the last 

of their food stamp dollars for that month. 

In the months after the storm, the Disaster Food Stamp Program 

was there for us when others were not. During a time of loss and 

uncertainty, we did have access to food, and it did not matter 

where we were, whether we were in Baton Rouge, Texas, or GeorVerDate 0ct 09 2002 12:26 May 21, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00031 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\34740.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
28

gia. For many of us, though, the rebuilding was only just beginning 

when the Disaster Food Stamp Program ended. 

Today, Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, 17 months 

after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, families like the 

Thompsons are still struggling with the resettlement and recovery 

process, but it is not as easy to access the Food Stamp Program as 

it was in the months following the storm. The Thompsons had lost 

the home they were renting before the storm and everything in it. 

Currently, they are staying with friends while they are trying to 

find a place to live. 

The New Orleans that we live in today and the Thompsons live 

in is a place where the fair market rent has increased by 45 percent since before the hurricane, and child care costs are increasing. 

Both Mr. and Mrs. Thompson work because one salary will not 

help them pay moving costs for a new place, food, child care, and 

all their household costs. Between work, trying to find a place to 

live, and taking care of the children, the Thompsons have not had 

time to do much else. 

My staff and I met the Thompsons while we were out in the community assessing families’ needs, trying to connect them to resources that were available to them. They had not applied for food 

stamps because they thought that they would be ineligible because 

they were working and because they did not live in their own 

home. 

Members of the Committee, Mr. Chairman, since June 2006 my 

staff and I have enrolled over 500 individuals like the Thompsons 

in the Food Stamp Program, and we have been able to do this primarily because we were also able to assist families in securing the 

documents they need to complete the application process and because we can assist them in their home at a time that is convenient to them, and they do not have to spend a day at the Food 

Stamp Program and lose work, lose wages. 

Food stamp benefits to a family of four that has a monthly rent of $1,000 and child care costs between $300 and $400 a month help 

a family stay healthy and probably escape homelessness. Food 

stamps help to ensure families that their basic need for food can 

be met while attending to the other basics of our needs. If the same 

relaxed verification and resources rules that operated in the 

months after the storm could be extended beyond the 3 months, 

then many more families would have the resources to rebuild and 

probably regain some economic security. And the Thompson family 

is one of success because we were able to help them enroll in the 

program. 

There are many more families that cannot provide documents—

families, immigrant families who are legal, who have lost naturalization certificates, and the time it takes to regain that does not 

allow them to participate in the Food Stamp Program. And the stories are endless. 

Mr. Chairman, Committee members, I urge you to invest resources in the 2007 farm bill that would allow families like ours 

that are suffering now and others who suffer from unemployment 

and other forms of economic hardship to access those benefits without exhausting their resources, and giving them an opportunity to 

build and regain some sense of self-sufficiency. 

29

Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Francis can be found on page 67 

in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you very much, Ms. Francis, not only 

for your testimony but for being here and for all your great work 

through the devastation in Louisiana. 

Now we turn to Melinda Newport, Director of the Nutrition Services for the Chickasaw Nation Health System. Ms. Newport will be 

talking to us today about some of the unique food insecurity and 

diet-related health challenges facing our Native American population, particularly with respect to the Food Distribution Program 

on Indian Reservations. 

Ms. Newport, welcome to the Committee and please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MELINDA NEWPORT, DIRECTOR, NUTRITION 

SERVICES, CHICKASAW NATION, ADA, OKLAHOMA 

Ms. NEWPORT. Thank you. Mr. Chairman and members of the 

Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today. My name is 

Melinda Newport, and I am the Director of Nutrition Services for 

the Chickasaw Nation. In this capacity, I administer eight USDA 

Food and Nutrition Service programs for over 10,000 monthly participants. As a registered dietitian who has worked at the local and 

national level on many challenging nutrition issues for over 25 

years, I have served as the president of the National WIC Association and most recently president of the National Association of 

Farmers Market Nutrition Programs. I bring you greetings from 

Governor Bill Anoatubby of the Chickasaw Nation, and I am accompanied today by Mr. Bill Lance, administrator of our health 

system. 

Chairman Harkin, I particularly appreciate your career-long 

commitment to ensuring the viability, strength, and quality of Federal nutrition programs, many of which benefit American Indian 

Tribal Governments and their citizens. To provide the Committee 

with additional perspective, there are 59 tribes, most, if not all, 

reservation based, in 12 different States represented by the Senators on this Committee today. The cumulative tribal population is 

approximately half a million. Senator Conrad, for instance, represents a State with large land-based tribes and has five food distribution programs in his State. Likewise, Senator Thune serves 

over 10,000 American Indian citizens served by seven tribal programs in South Dakota. 

I cannot speak on behalf of every tribe’s individual requirements, 

but there is certainly an overarching need that calls for continued 

support and innovation in the Nutrition and Food Assistance Programs for Indian country. 

With poverty being the principal factor causing food insecurity, 

the Native American community suffers rates twice as high as 

those of the normal U.S. population. Nearly one in four Native 

American households is hungry or on the edge of hunger. The fear 

of running out of food causes people to reduce the quality of their 

diets or reduce the quantity of foods they consume. Some families, 

as we have heard earlier, are forced to rely on less expensive, often 

high-fat foods, and very few fruits and vegetables. 

30

As the Chairman mentioned, paradoxically at the same time we 

experience hunger and food insecurity, obesity has been declared 

an epidemic. Both obesity and hunger require solutions that include regular access to nutritionally adequate food. Additionally, 

guidance on proper selection and preparation of foods is just as important. 

Consequently, I urge the Committee to provide enhancements 

that enable tribes to directly access programs through governmentto-government agreements and to allow flexibility to implement 

programs in an innovative and culturally appropriate manner. A 

specific example of a barrier that we need to address is to provide 

a method in the Food Stamp Act for Tribal Governments to directly 

access the Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program through the 

Food Distribution Program. 

Briefly, for those who may be less familiar, the Food Distribution 

Program on Indian Reservations is an alternative to food stamps, 

targeted to those living in more remote areas. Just under 100 

tribes administer the Food Distribution Program for over 250 reservations or tribal jurisdictions. The program has been enhanced in 

recent years through the addition of fresh fruits and vegetables and 

frozen chicken and ground beef. We need to continue to improve 

the nutritional quality of the food package by offering foods that 

are lower in fat, higher in whole grains, and lower in sugar and 

sodium content. Foods that are convenient to serve and culturally 

appropriate are key with the families that we serve today. 

Many Food Distribution Programs continue to deliver benefits 

from a truck 1 day per month at each site and do not have adequate equipment to handle fresh produce or frozen meats. Infrastructure funding for one-time expenses such as these—to renovate 

a warehouse or to purchase equipment—would help this program 

tremendously. I also urge the Committee to expand funding for 

WIC and senior farmers market nutrition programs to allow more 

tribes to participate and to provide opportunities to include nutrition professionals in the Native American nutrition programs, just 

as there is in the WIC program, for example. 

Given the improved state of health enjoyed by most Americans, 

the lingering health disparity among American Indians is most 

troubling. Investment by Federal nutrition programs in foods of 

high nutritional quality and the educational support to assist families in using those optimally is far less costly than funding care for 

chronic diseases many develop in the absence of sound nutritional 

status. Improving the health and security of Native American families must be ever present in the minds and hearts of Congress as 

they establish policy. 

I encourage you to do all you can to give voice to all tribes to 

share with you the challenges they have in feeding themselves and 

their families. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, and 

I remain ready to answer questions or provide information as needed. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Newport can be found on page 

93 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Ms. Newport. 

31

Now we will turn to Frank Kubik, and I was just notified that 

our 11:30 vote was moved, so we are not quite as rushed as we 

were. That is what happens around this place. 

Frank Kubik is the Commodity Supplemental Food Program 

Manager at Focus: HOPE, a civil and human rights nonprofit organization in Detroit, Michigan. Mr. Kubik, will be talking to us 

today about his work at Focus: HOPE and the particular challenge 

that senior Americans face in maintaining an adequate diet. 

Mr. Kubik, welcome to the Committee. 

STATEMENT OF FRANK KUBIK, MANAGER, COMMODITY SUPPLEMENTAL FOOD PROGRAM, FOCUS: HOPE, DETROIT, 

MICHIGAN 

Mr. KUBIK. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank 

you for the opportunity to present testimony today. I work with the 

Commodity Supplemental Food Program. We provide food to 41,000 

monthly Detroit metropolitan area residents, and CSFP serves 

nearly 500,000 monthly participants in 32 States, the District of 

Columbia, and two Indian Tribal Organizations. 

Today, 91 percent of CSFP participants are seniors who face an 

increasingly difficult time making their limited resources stretch to 

take care of all their daily needs, particularly their food needs. The 

average income for a senior in our program is under $600 a month. 

At Focus: HOPE, we work with over 300 volunteer agencies and 

thousands of volunteers to distribute the commodities to individuals who are unable to visit our sites, and these are their stories. 

Leonard and Theresa are both in their 80’s. Leonard worked in 

a small machine shop for 38 years. Unfortunately, his pension was 

discontinued because his former employer went out of business. 

Now Leonard and his wife are living off their monthly Social Security check of $822. Because of health problems, neither can drive 

a car. Leonard told me that he is unable to fill out the registration 

forms for public assistance because his vision is not that good, and 

the meager amount of assistance they would receive is not worth 

the cost of paying someone to drive them to the office and then 

paying someone else to take them shopping. There are only small 

corner stores, liquor stores, and gas stations that sell some food 

products within walking distance of Leonard’s house, providing few 

choices given the money that Leonard and his wife have for food 

each month. Leonard depends on the kindness of neighbors to take 

him on some errands without charge and the food supplement that 

they receive each month from Focus: HOPE. Leonard and his wife 

do not have much, and they do not ask for much. His eyes tear up 

when he talks about the circumstances that he and his wife endure. Leonard worked all his life and did everything the right way. 

How did things go so wrong? 

Mike toured Focus: HOPE as part of a Ford management employee group who carried out a one-time community service delivery to homebound seniors. Mike delivered food to Mary Ann, a 

woman in her 70’s. After spending a few minutes with Mary Ann, 

he found out something shocking. He discovered that she was hungry. Four hundred and fifty dollars a month does not cover much. 

Moreover, Mary Ann is afraid to leave her house because of crime 

in her neighborhood. Her husband died years ago and she is alone. 

32

A native of England, Mike was shaken by what he had just seen 

and certainly did not expect to find it here in America. Mike made 

a promise to himself that as long as he was on assignment in this 

region, he would take Mary Ann her monthly CSFP food box, add 

to it what he could, and he would bring his wife to spend time with 

her. I often wonder what will happen to Mary Ann when Mike gets 

reassigned elsewhere. 

University of Michigan graduate students run a volunteer community service assignment at Focus: HOPE. They were delivering 

food packages to a five-story apartment building with a non-working elevator. When they arrived at Mrs. Jones’ apartment, everyone 

immediately noticed the smell of gas. The gas burners on the stove 

were turned on high with the window open a bit. Mrs. Jones used 

the stove for heat because the landlord would not allow the heat 

to be turned on until November 1st. This happened to be the last 

week of October, so Mrs. Jones kept the stove on and the window 

open slightly so that the gas fumes did not make her sick, or worse. 

Mrs. Jones lived with her husband for 28 years before he died. 

They had children who rarely came by. Mrs. Jones had worked lowpaying, under-the-table jobs. The only Social Security benefits that 

she was receiving were based on their modest income. Mrs. Jones 

could not confront the landlord about the heat because he evicted 

anyone who disagreed with him. She did not move somewhere else 

because she could not afford anything better. She considered her 

neighbors in the building to be her family, and she did not want 

to leave them. She was not receiving any additional assistance because she had no way of getting to one of the offices to apply for 

help. Public transportation in Detroit is woefully inadequate and 

needs much improvement. 

When the students returned to their campus, they started making phone calls and things began to happen. A day or so later, but 

still in October, the heat in that apartment building got turned on. 

The elevator was miraculously fixed. Those students spent a day 

out of their lives to deliver food to seniors. What would have happened if they had not gone? And what happens to others in Mrs. 

Jones’ situation? 

The conditions are all too typical for many seniors in this country. The lack of access to high-quality food, public transportation, 

inadequate affordable medical care, and too often unsafe neighborhoods collude to tarnish the golden years. This is unconscionable 

for the most prosperous Nation in the world. People who have 

worked all of their lives and have contributed so much to this Nation are being neglected and left on their own at a time when they 

could most use a helping hand. While we are doing much, there is 

still much left to be done. 

We deeply appreciate the Committee’s continued support of vital 

programs such as CSFP, which provide a critical lifeline to so many 

who are not here to thank you today. 

On behalf of the Nation’s Commodity Supplemental Food Program participants and volunteers nationwide, I thank you for your 

continued support and this opportunity to present testimony today. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kubik can be found on page 88 

in the appendix.] 

33

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Kubik, thank you very much for your testimony, and thank you all again, for putting a human face on the 

challenges we are confronted with here. 

I will start at the end. Mr. Kubik, again, with regard to the elderly, we have heard testimony and seen data indicating that less 

than a third of seniors eligible for food stamps actually receive food 

stamps. Do you have suggestions as to how we might take steps 

to increase seniors’ participation in the Food Stamp Program? 

Mr. KUBIK. As many have said before me today, the enrollment 

process is very complicated for many seniors. In Michigan, there is 

a group called My Caf that is trying to bring food stamp registration closer to seniors, as opposed to the State offices they would 

have to travel to. They are setting up operations in apartment 

buildings and areas where seniors congregate, and they have an 

enrollment process that makes it easier for seniors to access them. 

The problem is, as they have approached me to work with my 

agency, I wanted to learn more about what they were doing, so I 

asked to sit through a process, a normal enrollment process so I 

would have an idea of what I am going to try to sell to folks who 

visit our sites. With the prepared staff member, with the prepared 

volunteer who had every answer to every question in front of them 

so that there was no delay in terms of what was the question, what 

exactly do I need, it still took about 45 minutes for that one person 

to complete the process. And the questions that I was hearing, they 

were pretty difficult for me, and I am sure that a lot of seniors who 

may not have a clear understanding of the process are going to be 

very confused. They may not have the proper information and documentation. They may not know what type of information they 

should be keeping. They might not have a detailed spending record. 

So the process itself has to be streamlined and become more accessible. 

The problem that springs from that also is how do we reach seniors who are homebound or have issues like we have in Detroit and 

in many major cities, and I am sure in urban and rural areas all 

over the country, of access to the sites and access to shopping—and 

competitive shopping and not the corner stores, gas stations, and 

liquor stores that offer the limited supply of food at high prices. 

That is a major issue in Detroit. And I know that providing someone with the Bridge card, as we call it in Michigan, the electronic 

benefit card, in lieu of a food stamp per se, if you do not have a 

place to take it or a place you can get good value for what may be 

a small amount of benefits, it is not worth it for the senior to enroll 

in the program. We have got to look at that benefit——

Chairman HARKIN. How much coordination is there among 

churches and other public service agencies in Detroit? If and individual in need of assistance is identified at one agency is there coordination between agencies to ensure that individual is enrolled in 

other assistance programs, such as food stamps? I am still bothered 

by what was said earlier about, the need to go one place for one 

thing, and somewhere else for another thing, and public transportation does not work well. I have heard so many stories. You wait 

for a bus. You finally get down there. You walk someplace, you get 

there, and you find out you did not bring all the necessary documents you needed or something like that. Well, then you have got 

34

to go back and come back again. It is very hard for people to do 

that. 

So I worry about the coordination. Again, I have heard stories in 

the past where someone had been visited by, say, a health agency 

and maybe they were in a community health center, and they were 

getting their medical attention through a community health center. 

But they also needed food, but no one seemed to be coordinating 

with them to get that information. 

How much coordination do you feel there is among all these various entities? 

Mr. KUBIK. Not as much as there needs to be. As providers of 

the USDA program, we have to have food stamp information available to our participants when they come in. There is a varied 

amount of posters and handouts and brochures that make the program—that we can provide to our participants. The problem is in 

a city like Detroit that is so—transportation and communication 

among seniors is so difficult. We have a hard time even getting our 

program to the seniors who need it. We have to work with 150 

agencies in Detroit itself to give food out. When I mentioned the 

300, we cover four counties, and I always assumed the bulk of 

those 300 were in the other counties, not in Detroit. Well, half of 

those agencies are in Detroit, which means the issue of transportation, the issue of access is just a larger issue than we all imagined. 

I think another issue is just the message of what are food 

stamps, what do you qualify for, are you eligible. Many seniors do 

not believe they are eligible. In a city like Detroit, they have such 

a varied background of diversity and many languages spoken, the 

information is sometimes hard to translate. I know there is information available in varied languages because we get it off the 

USDA website. But it still is going to be an issue of getting that 

message across. 

There is a reluctance among some folks from immigrant backgrounds to apply for the program because they are afraid of giving 

up their personal information. They are afraid of what that may 

do. 

We have got to dispel all those myths and all those misconceptions about the program, strengthen it to seniors, and make seniors 

know that it is there for them. It is a supplemental program, like 

CSFP. These programs work hand in hand together. But if they do 

not know about it, they do not know if they qualify or they think 

they are taking benefits from someone else. It is just a hard sell. 

And, quite honestly, many seniors see it as welfare and do not 

want to participate in it. 

Chairman HARKIN. We must examine and work to improve coordination between agencies. It just spills over into so many different jurisdictions that are beyond this committee, too. 

Regarding the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, you have talked about how a recipient may get food from a 

truck approximately once a month when it comes to the Indian reservation, and, therefore, to get fresh fruits and vegetables is pretty 

tough. 

Ms. NEWPORT. Yes, sir. 

35

Chairman HARKIN. Is this widespread? Is this a widespread problem, or is this just in certain areas? 

Ms. NEWPORT. I would say that the problem is widespread, especially in the large land-based tribes where there is actually only 

perhaps a 4–hour window of opportunity per month for people in 

that community to come and pick up their food. They travel a long 

distance, and they have a very short opportunity to be sure they 

are there at the right time and the right place. And so it is of a 

great deal of concern. Certainly that is not the case everywhere, 

but it happens way too often, yes, sir. 

Chairman HARKIN. Are you able to estimate how many of the 

programs have the capacity to regularly receive and stock fresh 

fruit and frozen produce? 

Ms. NEWPORT. I believe that we have finally reached the point, 

after 5 or so years, that almost every program in the country is 

tapping into the fresh produce if they have the coolers to handle 

the produce properly. And I think there is some final installation 

going on in a very large tribe in the Southwest to accommodate frozen meats, and they are just now receiving those, while some of us 

have had those for years, just because of equipment and infrastructure challenges. But taking those out on the road is a different 

challenge than having them in your main warehouse. 

Chairman HARKIN. Are you providing any kind of nutrition information at your sites? 

Ms. NEWPORT. Absolutely. We have a very coordinated effort at 

Chickasaw Nation. I mentioned that I administer many FNS programs, and we do deliver those services in nutrition centers and 

are able to coordinate our WIC nutrition education and Food Distribution Program, a lot of the farmers market activity, all of those 

sorts of things our participants in any program are the beneficiary 

of. 

Unfortunately, the Food Distribution Program does not have any 

specific nutrition education money and needs to be able to tap into 

that food stamp/nutrition education money just like the State does 

through their Food Stamp Program. 

Chairman HARKIN. Ms. Francis, again, we were both somewhat 

pleased, I think, as a Committee and those of us that serve on it, 

with the rapidity with which the Department of Agriculture, the 

Food Service people, got food stamps and got food out after Hurricane Katrina. Generally speaking, I think it was pretty good. Obviously, there were gaps, but I have heard that it worked pretty well. 

Ms. FRANCIS. It did. 

Chairman HARKIN. But I am just wondering, again, it seemed to 

me that initially we heard that emergency relief was going well 

and it remained okay for a certain period of time, and then what 

happened, that was OK for a certain period of time. 

Ms. FRANCIS. It was. 

Chairman HARKIN. And then it sort of fell off after that. 

Ms. FRANCIS. Yes, sir. 

Chairman HARKIN. Can you tell me a little bit more about that 

and what recommendations you might have for any changes to deal 

with emergencies—well, I hope we do not have another emergency 

of that nature, but we will have emergencies. What can we do to 

36

kind of get over that where when you come in, you have got a big 

bubble right afterward and then it sort of falls off after that? 

Ms. FRANCIS. I think one of the things that we can do is there 

needs to be more outreach so that folks transition from the Disaster Program to the regular Food Stamp Program. There was a lot 

of confusion in the beginning once we were eligible for the Disaster 

Food Stamp Program. There was a point we were only told it was 

going to be for a month. Then they said, OK, we can extend it for 

another month. And then some of us were under the impression 

that we needed to spend the money before the end of the third 

month; otherwise, we were going to lose it. So there was that. 

So there needs to be some more consistent messaging and outreach to and educating families about what the process is and how 

they are going to transition. For some of us, it was the first time 

we were using the program, so we did not understand clearly. All 

we knew was that we had something that we could get food for 

families. 

The relaxed rules, verification requirements for us after 3 

months would have helped some more because the devastation that 

we had, our infrastructure was not there to support replacing the 

documents that we lost, to prove residency, to get bank statements, 

to get leases. Things like that are difficult for families to provide 

that, and you also have to remember that, again, the food stamp 

offices themselves, they were devastated, too. And so on their end, 

they did not have the resources as well to handle the overwhelming 

need. 

An organization like ours can step in and meet some of that, you 

know, because we are out there working with families and helping 

to alleviate some of that. But for us it would have made a difference if the time had been extended and if there were more consistent, clear messages about how we go from one to the other and 

what actually our benefits were and how long we had them for. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Just one last thing. Mr. Bolling, 

in visiting some of the food banks, food pantries in Iowa over the 

last few years, again, I have heard what you have just testified to, 

and that is that some of the donations have gone down, food prices 

have gone up obviously in the last couple, 3 years, but the demand 

has also gone up. And I could not figure that out. I tried to think. 

More and more people are working, but at the same time more and 

more people are going to food pantries. The more I delved into it, 

what became, I think, somewhat clear is that the food stamp benefits were running out, and that is when they would go to the food 

pantries. And it just seemed to me like the food stamp benefits 

were not keeping up. 

So I am just curious as to your experience in that area in the 

last—oh, I don’t know if I would have a delineation of the timeline; 

the last few years, let me just put it that way—of more and more 

people who get food stamps coming in to get food from your food 

bank. 

Mr. BOLLING. Well, I have got 30 years to draw from, but if we 

would look in the last few years, I think what we see—and we have 

never really named this—we are seeing emergency programs become supplemental feeding programs, programs that were never 

meant to function in that way, it used to be a rule we would feed 

37

you three times in a year in a certain emergency. The same folks 

are coming back in month and month out. 

So my point of those community-based organizations, 50,000 

strong, are the point of entry. I think this is where we can really 

gain ground in doing nutritional counseling and helping people fill 

out their food stamp forms, EITC forms. We are leaving money on 

the table. We are leaving food on the table. And I think these are 

organizations that the Federal Government does not have to pay, 

who are motivated, usually from religious persuasion, to work in 

partnership with the food stamp offices. 

I cannot say enough about how important commodities are here. 

I with The Atlanta Community Food Bank has the contract for all 

eight food banks in Georgia, and that is the way it works in a lot 

of States. I have got to do the same work no matter how many commodities you send me. I have got to set up the systems, set aside 

the warehouse space, contract with the truckers. In our food bank, 

commodities are down 50 percent. I think they are down 40 percent 

across the board. 

Chairman HARKIN. From what point in time, down from——

Mr. BOLLING. Well, that is in the last year. 

Chairman HARKIN. Oh, just in the last year. 

Mr. BOLLING. In the last year. So those commodities, as we talk 

about how important nutrition is, are the nutritious food. They are 

the best food. And they are the food that we can get directly to 

families through community-based organizations. We have an outlet to do that. 

So this is where I think we get the leverage, and I think as food 

banks and our community-based partner agencies become more sophisticated, they can be the point of entry for people to—if the library is not open, go to your local church. There is a computer 

there and counselors who have been trained. 

Again, in Atlanta—and I think this is throughout the country—

we have a relationship with Georgia State Public Health School, 

with Emory, Rollins School of Public Health. We have nutritionists 

and interns that work with us, and they are very motivated to do 

internships at the community level. Again, not anybody that the 

Federal or State government has to pay to do this, but working in 

partnership using the commodities that you can make available, it 

multiplies, leverages many times over. 

Chairman HARKIN. Well, I look forward to visiting your place and 

getting more information. I think you can be very helpful in our deliberations this year on what we need to do. 

Mr. BOLLING. Well, certainly call on me, and we look forward to 

hosting a field hearing at the Atlanta Food Bank. 

Chairman HARKIN. Mr. Bolling, thank you. 

Senator Chambliss? 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Following on what you said there, Ms. Francis, with respect to 

educating folks about this program and, Bill, knowing that you 

have said that one-third of the people you serve are on food 

stamps, but two-thirds are eligible. I assume that others have similar experiences. What are you hearing from the folks out there in 

the field who are eligible that is the biggest impediment to applying for food stamps? 

38

Ms. FRANCIS. For us, the biggest impediment is the time that it 

takes. Our application is 16 pages long, and the documents that 

they need to provide for that, and then some folks are hesitant to 

share any savings that they may have because they know it will 

count against them in receiving. And so the time that it takes to 

complete the application, the way that they are treated when they 

go to the food stamp office, and the hesitancy to share all that personal information to receive food benefits stops many families from 

doing it, from participating. 

A program like ours, where they do not have to go to the food 

stamp office to receive it and somebody is actually there helping 

them complete the application and spending the time to help them 

get the documents together, and we are not just providing access 

to the Food Stamp Program, but in more—90 percent of the times 

providing access for other programs that require the same documentation helps some families get in. 

Mr. BOLLING. I would certainly echo that. It is time, complexity, 

access. Again, I think this is a place where we can use the private 

sector to help facilitate people getting access. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Anybody else have a comment? 

[No response.] 

Senator CHAMBLISS. OK. The issue of nutrition continues to be 

of concern to me. Bill, for example, in your operation at your level 

in your distribution system, do you get into the nutrition issue to 

make sure that a family that receives the benefits of your facility 

has the right kind of balance? Is that an achievable goal from your 

perspective? 

Mr. BOLLING. Well, I certainly think it is achievable. I think 

there is a lot more work to do in this area. Again, I would emphasize the role of commodities here because it balances out. Food 

banks depend on donations from the food industry, and it is fresh 

food, it is frozen, it is canned food, it is food drives, all the ways 

that we get it. We will handle over 25 million pounds out of my 

food bank. But there are times when we do not have the nutrition 

we need and we need to rely on commodities. 

This is a place where we need to use those folks who really care 

about nutrition—the nutritionists, the public health nurses and 

doctors and so forth—and we can work in partnership with them. 

What we have got to do is push it down to community-based organizations. We are doing that. As you saw, we were doing it at the 

Atlanta Food Bank, and I think increasingly if we can offer the incentives and have the placement for interns and nutritionists to 

work directly with these community-based organizations, we can 

make great progress in this area. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. So, again, it is a matter of educating the 

folks out there, not only to participate in the system but how to 

participate in the system. 

Mr. BOLLING. Well, I think it is not only education, but as in the 

testimony in the panel before, if you have limited income and popcorn costs $1 and fresh fruit costs $4, and you need to fill up that 

evening, you buy the popcorn. You may know that is not nutritional, but you need to fill up. So I think it is a combination of both 

education and access 

39

We are, for instance, working both with immigrant communities 

and with families with limited incomes to show them how not buying prepared food would save them money, that you can put—not 

even using meat, but with beans and rice, you can make complete 

protein. So there are ways of stretching the food dollar, and it is 

a matter of education. And I think you know that does not happen 

in the welfare office. That happens at your local church or mosque 

or synagogue where people feel comfortable, they can stay there as 

long as they like; there are counselors there that they learn to 

trust. And over time, even as we do at the food bank, we prepare 

some of those meals, you know, and send them out, and over time 

people make progress in this area. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Ms. Francis, was there food generally available after Rita and Katrina? 

Ms. FRANCIS. In the months after? Yes. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. No, I mean immediately after. In other 

words was there a system in place that was able to deliver food to 

folks who needed it? 

Ms. FRANCIS. No, sir, there was not, but we did have maybe 

then, 2 to 3 weeks, folks like my colleague to the left who would 

actually get commodities and food stores, and that is what we had 

afterwards until the Disaster Food Stamp Program got up and running. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. OK. So it was primarily a private sector operation that delivered the food. 

Ms. FRANCIS. Yes, sir. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Bill, by chance, did you send food down 

there? 

Mr. BOLLING. We not only sent food, but we also received 150,000 

people from the Gulf Coast, into Atlanta. We were second to Houston. So we did both. 

It is interesting. It is not only food, but it is paper supplies, it 

is cleaning supplies. It is all the things that you need to get back 

up on your feet. 

This is another area, I think, where community-based food banks 

and the aid organizations know their community. You have always 

got to triage in with the Red Cross and the Federal Government, 

but after that first week or so, you need to work with folks who 

know their community. When people come in and say, ‘‘I live here,’’ 

if you go to your local church, they will know if you live in that 

neighborhood or not. 

So that is where we really rely on community-based organizations to make that connection and do a better job. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. I guess from a pure food stamp distribution 

standpoint, we do not do a very good job of that, probably do not 

do anything at all relative to incorporating other agencies, Mr. 

Chairman, within our DFACS or whatever the distribution point 

may be, to provide other services. If you need health care, you go 

to the Health Department. If you need food, you got to the Department of Family and Children’s Services. And what you are saying 

makes sense. If you have got all of these agencies working together, 

you can do a much better job. I don’t know how we would do that 

in the farm bill, but——

[Laughter.] 

40

Mr. BOLLING. I would say there is a very interesting project in 

northern Illinois now where we are using community-based organizations actually to fill, e-mail them in, and expedite the services. 

We can do that anywhere in the country. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Do the private agencies that you work with 

do any counseling of potential food stamp recipients? 

Mr. BOLLING. Many, many of them do. Many of them are not 

that sophisticated. You know, it really is up to them how they want 

to run their ministry. But, increasingly, the food banks are able to 

offer incentives to do that kind of counseling. We will give you a 

discount on food. We will come out and do the training. And we are 

doing much more of that around the country. 

I really think that is the best connection for folks, in their local 

community, in their neighborhood, with people they trust. And the 

more we can be in partnership with our food stamp office and our 

welfare office, the more we are able to use the technology that is 

now available, the more we learn to trust each other and the more 

we leverage our resources. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. Again, just to the panel, Tom and I were 

both part of the welfare reform package that we passed back in 

1996, and our idea obviously was to incentivize people to get off of 

welfare and onto payrolls. At the same time, we tried to have the 

compassion that would allow these folks to participate in programs 

like food stamps. 

Generally have you seen that accomplished? We have seen numbers about folks coming off welfare rolls, but obviously a lot of this 

is due to folks not wanting to fill out the paperwork for food 

stamps, as you have alluded to. But, overall, are you seeing the incentives work to get people off food stamps, off welfare, and back 

into the mainstream community and back on payrolls? 

Mr. KUBIK. One of the things we have seen, our organization offers job training in addition to food. We want to get some of the 

young people who are in the program—even though our numbers 

are a majority senior citizen, we want to get some of the young people self-sufficient. We offer degrees in engineering and other skills 

there so that the young moms can get off our program, get off food 

stamps, and get a job. 

So we have seen some impact that way, but, again, it is a small 

impact on a larger problem; especially our unemployment rate in 

Detroit is very high. So we have seen some movement that way, 

and yet we see—the people that we are dealing with are those who 

are not likely to get another job, the seniors, who are not going to 

enter the workforce. That is what we see in our program. I cannot 

speak for the others, but our program is seeing more and more seniors. We have seen our demographics go from, in 1990, where we 

were 90 percent moms and kids and 10 percent seniors, to 2007 

now where we are 91 percent seniors and 9 percent moms and kids. 

So we do what we can on the local level with what we do at 

Focus: HOPE with job training, but nationwide, my counterparts 

and CSFP in States across the country will say they are seeing 

more and more seniors who are not likely to benefit from that. 

We mentioned some of the seniors in my examples that have 

families and children who do not support them and who have 

distanced themselves from their families. So maybe a child is doing 

41

better now, but that does not impact the senior. And so we have 

actually seen an increased need among seniors at a time when we 

have seen less moms and kids come in. 

Senator CHAMBLISS. OK. Well, thank you all very much for some 

very insightful testimony, and we appreciate very much you taking 

the time to be here today. 

Chairman HARKIN. Thank you, Senator Chambliss. Thank you 

all. 

Let’s see. Just a couple of things here. For those of you who are 

here, and staff, we have talked about how we get people who are 

food stamp recipients getting more fresh fruits and vegetables. We 

know what is happening. We know that, you know, things that are 

fat-laden or starch-laden fill you up. And we also know those are 

the cheapest, and fresh fruits and vegetables are the highest 

priced. So when you are trying to figure out how much you can 

spend, obviously you gravitate toward those things that fill you up 

and that are cheapest. 

But if we want people to buy more nutritious foods, then I think 

we have got to figure out some way maybe, Saxby, of having some 

added benefit, if you go with your EBT card and you go into a store 

and you buy food, if you buy fresh fruits and vegetables, that somehow when that is added you get some kind of added benefit to your 

food stamps. 

Mr. KUBIK. Good idea. 

Ms. NEWPORT. An incentive. 

Chairman HARKIN. So help us figure out how you do that. I am 

not certain how you do it, but some way we have got to figure that 

out and get some added benefit in to do that. So I am looking for 

ideas and suggestions on how that might be done. 

I have a statement here from Senator Ben Nelson that I want 

to include in the record at the beginning of our hearing. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. E. Benjamin Nelson can be 

found on page 46 in the appendix.] 

Chairman HARKIN. Also, we have to try to get a quorum at some 

time to get our business resolution through, and we will do that off 

the floor of the Senate at some time, maybe during a vote. 

With that, I thank you all for being here, and the Committee will 

stand adjourned subject to the call of the Chair, I guess. 

[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(43)

A P P E N D I X

JANUARY 31, 2007

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(135)

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

JANUARY 31, 2007

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(209)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

JANUARY 31, 2007

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Æ