The Weekly Food Research and Action Center News Digest highlights what's new on hunger, nutrition and poverty issues at FRAC, at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, around the network of national, state and local anti-poverty and anti-hunger organizations, and in the media. The Digest will alert you to trends, reports, news items and resources and, when available, link you directly to them.

1. Child Nutrition Reauthorization Improvements Can Help More Children Receive Summer Meals in Washington State
(The News Tribune, May 31, 2010)

In Washington’s Pierce County, only 97 of the county’s 229 schools offer summer meals for the 54,000 children (43 percent of the county’s children) eligible for free or reduced-price school meals. “Anti-hunger organizations like [The Emergency Food Network] see a real need for a $1 billion annual increase in funding for childhood nutrition programs from the current level of $22 billion a year,” notes this editorial. The additional funding for the Child Nutrition Act would deliver more meals to children over the summer, as well as improve the quality of food served. “Society as a whole has a stake in childhood nutrition programs,” notes the editorial. “Children who aren’t hungry are more likely to focus on their schoolwork and not be disruptive – which means teachers can devote more time to academics and less to dealing with behavioral problems.” And since low-income children are more at-risk for being obese or overweight, giving them access to healthy food can help meet their nutritional needs.

2. Caseworkers Struggle Under Heavy SNAP/Food Stamp Caseloads in North Carolina
(Star News Online, May 30, 2010; Star News Online, June 4, 2010)

Welfare caseworkers in North Carolina’s Pender County experiencing heavy SNAP/Food Stamp, Medicaid and child protective services caseloads hear their clients’ tales of expired unemployment benefits and other hardships, prompting Reta Shiver, director of social services, to encourage workers to seek counseling. “If you have 20 cases similar to this coming in over one day, it wears you down,” said Shiver. “And we can’t help you immediately, and in some cases, we can’t help you at all.” Per-worker SNAP/Food Stamp caseloads grew to 414 cases in April 2010 from 351 in May 2009, and caseworkers are on the job nights and weekends to handle the requests. North Carolina raised the income limit for SNAP/Food Stamps, and removed the asset test for the benefit, making many more residents eligible for the program, creating more applications. Pender County’s commissioners are reviewing plans to add 7 positions out of 11 requested; the budget could be passed on June 21. In New Hanover County, SNAP/Food Stamp caseloads increased from 358 per worker to 438 per worker. “But we didn’t see any growth in manpower,” said the county’s social services director, LaVaughn Nesmith. “We got cut,” said added, referring to the department’s 16 lost positions over the past two years. SNAP/Food Stamp eligibility rules will change on July 1, which will only slow down service even more. Although Brunswick County gained another caseworker, upping the number of SNAP/Food Stamp workers to 10, individual caseloads also increased, from 525 SNAP/Food Stamp cases to 573 cases each. The pressure to keep up with the workload “creates internal morale problems,” said social services director Jamie Orrock. “[I]t impacts their ability to interact with clients.” Residents applying for the benefit “may be working-class families with mortgages who never before have had to cope with job loss and who need a little to allow them to cope while they seek another (in many cases, lower-paying) job,” notes an editorial. “Some are self-employed people hit hard by the recession, while others are saddled with high medical bills that tap their resources. And some are former welfare recipients who worked their way out of the system under the reform acts of the 1990s but because of the recession again find themselves in need of public assistance.”

3. SNAP/Food Stamp Applications Increase in Nevada, Causing Delays
(KTNV, June 2, 2010)

“I use [SNAP/Food Stamps] not because I want to, but because I need it,” wrote one Nevada woman in a message to KTNV’s news staff. This was after she received a letter stating her renewal application for SNAP/Food Stamps was incomplete and she was no longer eligible. “Don’t worry about it,” her caseworker told her. “Disregard the letter. Carson City is sending all the letters out. They just haven’t gotten to your paperwork yet.” The mother of three was then told she’d have to wait three months for benefits, although she’d get those three months in one sum. “My kids are hungry today,” she told KTNV. “Not a month from today, not a week from today. Right now.” The state advised the woman to speak to her caseworker’s supervisor. Among all 50 states, Nevada has had the highest increase in caseloads over the past year. “We’re a little overwhelmed sometimes,” said Rachelle Church, a social services manager. “Yesterday we saw 896 folks just at this office alone. It’s unfortunate if our employee told [the woman] to disregard that notice and that it’s going to be two or three months, because that would be an inappropriate response.”

4. Number of SNAP/Food Stamp Recipients in Central Texas Hits Record
(CBS19, June 3, 2010)

In one Central Texas county, SNAP/Food Stamp enrollment increased 29 percent over the past year, and nearly doubled since 2008, to current record levels. Although the average family gets $300 a month in SNAP/Food Stamp benefits, “[m]any times, depending on the amount of food stamps that a person gets, they may not be getting quite enough that can actually meet the full needs of their families,” said Buddy Edwards, executive director of the Caritas food bank. Many of the new recipients are the working poor. “More and more individuals have lost their employment, lost their job entirely or had cutbacks in the hours that they can work and they are facing very, very difficult situations,” said Edwards. The Caritas food bank has felt the strain, as families unable to make it through the month on SNAP/Food Stamps visit the bank for help. Edwards said the Caritas food bank has been swamped with requests. “We’re seeing more new families, people who have never been to Caritas before are coming, on the average of maybe 100 plus a month,” he said.

5. SNAP/Food Stamp Outreach Worker Ups Participation in Virginia
(Fredericksburg.com, June 3, 2010)

Bonnie Newcomb, the new community-based eligibility worker for the Fredericksburg Department of Social Services in Virginia, meets potential SNAP/Food Stamp clients at nine different community locations and helps them apply for the benefit. In the first three months of this new outreach program, funded by a grant from the Mary Washington Hospital Community Service Fund, 86 new SNAP/Food Stamp recipients signed on. Fredericksburg had 730 eligible residents who had not applied. Some people find it difficult to travel to the social services office. Others “don’t want to come into the office; it’s a whole stigma of charity or welfare,” said Newcomb. “Sometimes they look at me like I have five heads, and they don’t want to talk to me,” she said. “But then, most of the time, they’re very receptive and helpful.” One new SNAP/Food Stamp recipient called Newcomb’s arrival “a blessing.”

6. Connecticut Clears SNAP/Food Stamp Backlog
(The Connecticut Mirror, May 26, 2010)

Last December, 5,000 people in Connecticut had pending applications for the SNAP/Food Stamp Program. Although enrollment has grown to a record 300,000 a month, the state has nearly eliminated the application backlog, said Michael P. Starkowski, commissioner of the Department of Social Services (DSS). He credited $3.7 in new federal dollars for the backlog reduction; the money was used to hire more staff. The state had 40 percent of applications “on hold” for more than 30 days back in February, and 90 percent of nearly 500 emergency applications passed the seven-day time limit, according to End Hunger Connecticut! “We had a lot of complaints earlier, but our staff has seen a huge decline in the number of people complaining that they are not getting their subsidies in the time required,” said Lucy Nolan, the organization’s executive director. DSS lost 260 staff last year through early retirement – a budget cutting measure – and 25 percent of the jobs are still open. The federal money allowed DSS to hire 36 retired workers who focused on processing delayed applications. The revenues funding these positions will end on July 1, 2011. “They will absolutely still need that staff then,” said Nolan.

7. Army Veteran Helps Needy Ex-Service Members Access SNAP/Food Stamps and Other Services
(CNN, May 28, 2010)

CNN recognized Army veteran Roy Foster last November at its CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute for his efforts to bring food and other social services to nearly 1,100 veterans struggling with addiction and homelessness. Foster recently opened the First Stop Resource Center and Housing Program in Palm Beach, Florida, which provides a one-stop location for veterans to access SNAP/Food Stamps, medical care, employment, housing, and other needs.

8. Kansas Working to Increase Summer Meal Participation
(The Wichita Eagle, June 2, 2010; LJWorld, June 3, 2010)

During the summer of 2008, only 6.8 percent of Kansas children eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch also participated in the summer meal program, ranking the state 49th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia for summer meal participation. Shortly after the data was published last year, the Kansas Food Bank went to work on promoting summer meals and getting more sites to offer the program. The food bank focused its efforts in Wichita, where there is the greatest concentration of need, with seventy percent of its schoolchildren qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. Grant money from the Wichita Community Foundation funded development of banners for meal sites and door hangers in English and Spanish, which have been distributed throughout neighborhoods. This year, the number of Wichita sites has increased from 26 to 40. Meals are now being served, through July 30, and are available to all schoolchildren up to age 18. No applications are required, and children can eat at multiple sites. The Kansas Department of Education administers the program. Budget cuts have decreased the number of schools open this summer; consequently, 17 of the 40 summer meal sites are not schools.

9. Philadelphia School Meal Program Works
(Philly.com, June 1, 2010)

“Philadelphia’s Universal Feeding program makes more sense for high-poverty cities,” notes this editorial, which advocates for the program and calls on the state’s congressional delegation see that it continues. Begun in 1991 as a pilot program approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Universal Feeding allows all students to receive free school meals because of the city’s high poverty rate. More than 110,000 Philadelphia students eat for free without having to fill out applications, but “now the federal government wants the school district to require more paperwork.” “For nearly 20 years, Philadelphia’s program has successfully removed the stigma often associated with free-meal programs. Requiring more paperwork may lead to as many as 51,182 students no longer getting free school lunches.”

10. Reporters Experience Mississippi Food Desert
(PBS/Newshour, June 3, 2010)

In the non-metropolitan south in 2006, 256 of 873 counties were food deserts, with 50 percent or more of the population having low access to a supermarket. These findings were issued by the Southern Rural Development Center and researchers at Mississippi State University, which also found that Texas, Alabama, Arkansas and Oklahoma had the highest percentage of food desert counties. The Mississippi Delta region also has a high incidence of food deserts. Newshour reporter Betty Ann Bower and her news team travelled the region for five days, talking to people who lived in the food desert. One Lambert, Miss. resident recounted how the town has changed over the past 30 years. Jobs dried up in the town as the textile mill and grain elevator closed. Now, more than half of all families are on SNAP/Food Stamps, and the nearest chain supermarket is more than 30 miles away.

11. Study Finds Risk of Chronic Disease Associated with “Cheap, Instant Foods”
(NY Daily News, May 27, 2010)

A study of more than 800 university students in Brisbane, Australia found that diets containing less-healthy, energy-dense and instant foods are associated with higher risks of chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer and heart disease. “There seems to be an acceptance out there that getting by on less nutritious food is a typical part of being a university student,” said Dr. Danielle Gallegos, one of the researchers. “But a diet of baked beans and instant noodles is not good enough when health and academic results are at stake.” Six percent of students in the survey said they were repeatedly hungry, and 25 percent said they experienced food insecurity in the year before the study. “Two-thirds of the food-insecure students in our study ate less than two servings of fruit per week and 4 percent had no fruit at all,” said Gallegos.