But that’s little comfort to New Yorkers who struggled to feed their families without immediate access to the benefits they are entitled to.īronx resident Bianca Herrera, 26, said she tried to get her family’s food stamps back for more than a year after a recertification error by HRA cut them off.

31 of this year, another 710 positions went unfilled, driving the staff vacancy rate to around 20 percent, IBO’s data shows.ĭespite the staffing issues and application volume, HRA said agency staff still managed to connect more households to SNAP than in recent years. The problem has only gotten worse: As of Oct. 31, 2021, the middle of the last fiscal year, according to information provided by the city’s Independent Budget Office (IBO). About 15 percent of HRA’s 13,044 budgeted positions were vacant on Dec. Over the past two years, the number of new applicants rose by more than 50 percent compared to the 2019 fiscal year, HRA said.Īt the same time, HRA lost hundreds of employees, a problem common throughout the municipal workforce since the start of the pandemic. The number of SNAP applicants soared during the pandemic, when unemployment reached 16.2 percent in New York City, thousands of businesses closed and many New Yorkers struggled to find consistent work that paid a living wage. More than 1.7 million New Yorkers across 1 million households received food stamps last fiscal year, a slight decrease from 2021, the mayor’s report shows. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal and state government allowed SNAP recipients to skip recertification interviews while continuing to receive their crucial benefits. HRA blamed the 30-percent decline in timely processing on “unprecedented increases in applications and the end of federal waivers that had delayed recertifications” the previous year. She hasn’t told her fiance where her missing ring is. The items are still sitting in a Brooklyn pawn shop because she cannot yet afford to buy them back, she said. As the weeks dragged on, she said she was forced to pawn her tablet and jewelry, including her new engagement ring, to come up with some extra cash for food. Thompson, 27, said she waited nearly a month for her family’s $600-a-month SNAP benefits to come through after recertifying them in September. “They’re people who are pregnant, people who have kids, people who can’t make ends meet but they’re trying to.” “It’s a lot of people going through this right now,” said a Crown Heights mother named Thompson, who asked not to use her first name because she is a survivor of domestic violence.

Applicants already approved for the benefits have to recertify them at regular intervals-and slow processing times mean households can abruptly lose access to funds they rely on.

SNAP is considered the most important anti-hunger program in the country, but any delay can have an immediate and tangible impact on families in need. The monthly benefits are issued electronically onto a card, which recipients, who qualify based on their income, can use to purchase groceries at supermarkets, bodegas and farmers markets. The rate of timely processing-considered a “critical indicator” of agency performance- plummeted from about 92 percent in fiscal year 2021 to just over 60 percent in the fiscal period spanning Jto June 30 of this year. The city’s Human Resources Administration (HRA) failed to promptly process four of every 10 applications for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, commonly known as food stamps, during the 2022 fiscal year, according to the annual Mayor’s Management Report. “It was truly devastating wondering how I was going to be able to buy food every day.”Ĭhronic delays in food stamp application processing left thousands of low-income New Yorkers scrambling to pay for groceries while they waited for their benefits to come through last year, city data shows. The mother of two said she spent more than year trying to get her family’s food stamps recertified. Adi TalwarBianca Herrera in her apartment in the Bronx.

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