Teresa Ashe took a break from looking for work on a recent rainy morning to fill out the necessary paperwork that would get her a week’s worth of food.
But the laid-off housekeeper didn't rush home to tuck into the offerings of tinned stew or boxes of mac and cheese from the Christian Aid Mission Partnership, or CAMP, food pantry in Austell. She waited in the office so she could meet with an expert to help her apply online for food stamps.
If approved, she will be eating more fresh vegetables and meat for her new year job hunt.
“I don’t know what’s going to come next,” said Ashe, whose unemployment benefits ran out the week before Christmas. “It’s going to be thin until I can find a job. I can use the help.”
Ashe is hardly alone. Faced with a record number of hungry Georgians, food-bank operators and state officials have teamed up to find more potential recipients of the food stamp program, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Nearly one in five people in the state rely on food stamps, a record 1.8 million people through September of this year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture figures. Georgia has seen an 87 percent jump in the program since the recession began in 2007. The cost to taxpayers grown considerably. Americans will pay $65 billion to fund the SNAP program this year, more than double what it cost in 2005.
A big reason for the expansion is that many workers have slipped from the middle class during the ongoing economic downturn, creating a need for more regular help than food banks can provide. Food stamps offer that boost.
“It’s a perfect match for the state to find the population that needs this program,” Lucy Smith, manager of the Food & Nutrition Unit in the state Department of Human Resources. “Right now, it appears that need is only going to grow.”
Food bank operators would like the see the number of food stamp recipients grow through the partnership between the state and nonprofits. It’s not that donors don’t make feeding needy people a priority. Charities like the Atlanta Community Food Bank consistently rank among the top 10 recipients of financial and food aid.
But even with more donations, the nonprofits can’t keep up with demand for their help, said the food bank’s chief operating officer Rob Johnson. And food banks are designed for emergency aid, not to provide regular assistance.
“Quite frankly, we are not the most efficient way of getting food to people,” Johnson said. “People being able to go to the store and buy what they need with their card is certainly more efficient than we are.”
Opponents of the expansion argue food stamps are beyond the original mission of the agriculture department. In an essay written for the libertarian-leaning Georgia Public Policy Foundation, University of Georgia Professor Emeritus Harold Brown argues that shift bloats the department budget.
“In times of great controversy over the cost of government, it is time to question USDA's straying from its traditional mandates,” Brown writes. “Remove nutrition programs from USDA and let it concentrate on what made it great.”
That criticism is tempered, though, considering the foundation has not taken an official stance against food stamps or advocated for any changes. Funding for food assistance also has been spared from budget controversies on the federal level.
Still, despite its relative budget safety, the program only serves about 70 percent of people who qualify for food stamps, Smith said.
One factor is the lack of computer literacy – or of a computer itself – to file an application. That is where food pantries like the CAMP center play a key role in encouraging applications.
Little technical savvy is needed for the food stamps, which years ago shifted from coupons to a Electronic Benefits Transfer card that functions much like any debit card. The cards can be used only for food, with checkout machines at stores configured to determine what products qualify for purchase.
Still, workers on the front lines say there remains a stigma of applying for aid, especially among senior citizens who never before needed help.
Vera Carrillo, an intake counselor at CAMP, said there is also a growing number of people of all ages who never before needed assistance. Many have some money coming in, but food is a distant third to priorities like housing and transportation.
“People say, ‘I didn’t think I would qualify,' or they think for years they didn’t need it, so now they don’t want it,” Carrillo said.
Joan Martin, who also recently received food from CAMP, applied years ago for food stamps but was $15 over the weekly limit. General recipients qualify if they are 130 percent over the federal poverty line, which is $22,350 for a family of four.
Now a retired daycare worker, the 70-year-old Lithia Springs woman is more likely to qualify – most senior citizens do – but isn’t sure she’ll bother.
“One month I had 37 cents left over,” Martin said of paying bills and medicine with her Social Security income. “But I don’t fool with food stamps. I’ll get by.”
Even those who receive food stamps will likely need some help. CAMP’s executive director Darlene Duke said the food pantry this year changed its rules, allowing needy people to receive food every month. They had been limited to assistance six times a year.
That effectively doubles their distribution, with each of the 12,000 families served getting about 95 pounds of food each time they visit.
“It’s a monthly need for a lot of these people,” Duke said. “We have to hook people up with every food program we can.”
Karen Ferguson is among those who needed regular help, even after qualifying for $175 of food stamps for her, her fiancé and three children in Austell.
Ferguson qualifies for survivor benefits from her late husband. Her fiancé does day labor and mechanic work when he can find it. Most of that money is spent on a Lithia Springs home and to keep a battered van running.
“Even with food stamps and donations, we make just enough to squeak by every month. Without them …” Ferguson trails off.
“Let’s just say we make it but we are going to need the food stamps for a while so we can make it,” Ferguson said.
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