The Struggling New York City Is Having A Hard Time To Process Applications For Food Stamps
NEW YORK — Half of all New Yorkers who applied for SNAP benefits, more known as food stamps, are waiting for a response. The city has been a slow process and so are the applications and how to get those in need but the federal money is there.
According to a published post by CBS News, the city’s Human Resources Administration or HRA is processing less than half of the time for the applications of the SNAP benefits. East New York, Brooklyn Henry Robinson said he knew firsthand the system is hard to navigate.
Robinson said he’s one of the individuals who rely on food stamps. He also said that you have to reapply on it’s a process all the time, and after that, if you forget and they take it away from you, you have to do it all over again.
City Councilman Lincoln Ressler said if you don’t have the people in place to operate the programs, the programs won’t work. Ressler said during the de Blasio administration, HRA staffing was roundabout 15,000 and now it’s down to 10,000, with a vacancy rate of 20%.
New York City Struggling To Process Applications For Food Stamps
Ressler said they have resources that are available to them that the federal government is making available and the incapability of the city, of HRA, to staff up appropriately means the people are not connected to the resources that they deserve and the food that keeps them healthy.
Adam said they are going to continue to their part in continuing to press the administration, work with the administration to try to fulfill these needs, and are trying to push these agencies to do the work that they are committed to doing for New Yorkers.
The city says what is making this worse is the number of applicants for SNAP benefits raised more than 50% in these past two years during the pandemic.
Mayor Eric Adams said that they have a fiscal crisis and that there are some places where we are gonna say let’s think differently about it. That’s what the team is going to do. We are not looking to do anything that’s going to impact those New Yorkers who are in need.
The city is now looking at ways to modernize the technology to process the applications more efficiently for everyone.
