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Making WIC work for consumers and farmers

WIC Sign at Ward 8 Farmers Market

In a previous post, we explored a new Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program that helps low-income mothers buy more fresh produce at farmers markets. The new coupons are known as WIC Fruit and Vegetable Cash Value Vouchers, or FVC. This second post in the series looks at benefits of a similar nutrition assistance program already in place–the WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP)–and yet more stumbling blocks in implementation of such programs.

First, the good news.

According to a report by the Community Food Security Coalition based on USDA numbers, 2.3 million WIC participants received farmers market benefits in 2008, spending about $20 million. During that year, 16,016 farmers and 3,367 farmers markets were authorized to accept FMNP coupons. The USDA awarded grants to each state, amounting to $301,302 for D.C. in 2009, while Maryland received $341,338 (Virginia received $291,212 in 2008, but declined to participate last year).

Also according to the report, evaluation of the program in Washington state showed that WIC recipients who used vouchers increased their knowledge and consumption of fruits and vegetables, and planned to keep coming to farmers markets in the future. Several D.C.-area markets–including the Crossroads market in Takoma Park and three of the markets run by FRESHFARM Markets–established very popular grant-funded “double dollar” programs, which matched the value of vouchers, increasing shoppers’ buying power and farmers’ income.

This works out for everyone–at least until bureaucracy or lack of participation get in the way.

Liz Falk, the former manager of WIC and food stamp programs for FRESHFARM Markets, says she saw very little in the way of advertising for the WIC FMNP. D.C.’s WIC administrators and the Department of Health could not — or would not — devote much funding to develop and distribute marketing materials, and different agencies were reluctant even to add each others’ information to existing materials. The situation will likely hold true for the FVC program.

More worrisome still: Falk says that “red tape is covering so much of what’s possible with these programs.”

The program’s certification process itself is problematic. As our first post mentioned, D.C. offers just one training for farmers who want to participate in the WIC FMNP, Senior FMNP, and FVC programs. (It’s set for this Wednesday, March 10 in Greenbelt, MD, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.)

By contrast Maryland offers multiple trainings on 13 different dates in Greenbelt, Annapolis, Hagerstown, Baltimore, and Denton. Each lasts an hour–from 10 to 11 a.m. or 1 to 2 p.m.

This is not to say that Maryland gets it all right: it has separate trainings for the FMNP and FVC programs, and each is administered by a different department – FMNP by the Department of Agriculture; FVC by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

All of this is enough to make a farmer’s head spin, and tempt her to drop participating all together.

“[Farmers] want to come, they want to sell produce, and they want to make a living,” says Falk. “Willingness to participate in a WIC program is primarily determined by perceived man-hours needed on the bureaucratic back-end to get enrolled and stay enrolled,” wrote Dan White, DC Food For All contributor, on our listserv recently. Raise the hurdles too high, and farmers will decide the program isn’t worth the earnings.

Crossroads Farmers Market staff have also seen a problem with reimbursement. This market, located just outside the District line in Takoma Park, MD, sees the majority of its customers come in with some form of nutrition assistance. In the three years that Crossroads has been in existence and accepting programs like the WIC FMNP, staff have heard numerous complaints from farmers who say that the reimbursement procedure is complex and the timeline is short. Unlike cash or bank checks, the WIC checks have expiration dates. Once the farmers and customers do successfully exchange a payment, the sellers often have to wait weeks or months to see it turn into cash. Similar problems loom for the new FVC program.

As the last post mentioned, DC Food for All members are asking whether this system can be improved. To learn more and become part of the conversation, join the D.C. Food for All discussion group.

Posted on March 8th 2010 in Access, Farmers, Government Issues | No Comments »

Composting Food Waste

Over the last two years of leading service projects in Washington DC, I have volunteered with several soup kitchens and homeless shelters. I respect and admire the work these organizations do. They help some of our most forgotten citizens.

One thing I love about some of these organizations is that they do great work rescuing unwanted food. For example, last year Bread for the City started its Glean for the City program, which gathers vegetables from local farms — all for free. And one of the better known examples of food-reclamation in the country was founded here in DC in 1989 — the DC Central Kitchen started off making meals for the homeless from the leftovers from the Presidential Inauguration festivals. These days, they rescue more than 600,000 pounds of food a year.

But in some cases at several social service organizations, I see a large amount of food waste ends up in the trash. I often wonder: Can these organizations compost? Is there a way to ‘close the loop’ on this process, to give back to the fields that produce the food? In response to these questions I raised to the DCFoodforAll Google Group, representatives from the Common Good City Farm, located near Howard University, say that the farm will start accepting compost from community members.

This may be just the start of a series of such community composting opportunities. In another response to these questions, the Director of Kitchen Operations at Miriam’s Kitchen, Steven Badt, noted that — even if there were local sites to compost — even a well-run service organization like Miriam’s would be daunted by the volunteer resources that regular composting would require. Also, there’s the question of volume: Badt estimates that the Kitchen ends up with fifty or a hundred or more gallons of food waste every day — “There is no way a community garden could handle/manage the amount.” He did note, however, that Miriam’s Kitchen will switch trash hauling companies in January 2011 to a company that does industrial composting. (This is just one of the green initiatives that they are undertaking there. Also they are looking at hiring a night green cleaning crew for their building. )

There are other opportunities on the horizon. Included in the DC Government’s proposed Healthy Schools Act, introduced by DC Council member Mary Cheh and Chairman Vincent Gray, there will be money set aside for a DC Schools compost pilot project. This could be a way to start a large scale composting program.

DC wouldn’t have the first large scale composting program in the nation. San Francisco implemented a mandatory composting law with fines for residents or businesses that throw anything compostable in the trash. Composting Bins in San Francisco (Image from www.treehugger.com) (When the law went into effect, most of the city was already in compliance, because many companies and landlords already changed their practices.) Currently the city of Denver has a pilot residential composting program happening. And in Milwaukee, Will Allen of Growing Power says that his organization compost more than twelve million pounds of food waste yearly that came from a variety of different sources, from breweries to private homes.

Can Washington DC become another city to require composting? We are already the first city to install a bag tax. What would intermediary steps look like? A composting law could be years away. Could we start picking up small qualities of compost from social services agencies to take to community gardens? What are other ideas?

One of the first steps we can take is to support the Healthy Schools Act: On March 26 DC Council is holding a hearing on the Healthy Schools Act at 11 am in Room 500 of the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

What if the DC government created something like Baltimore Public Schools’ Great Kids Farm, a 33 acre educational farm in Catonsville, Maryland in response to this act? Class Trip to Great Kids Farm (Picture from washingtonpost.com)

Let’s show support for the DC Schools Compost Pilot Program. This could be the first step towards closing the loop in getting food waste back to the land instead of the landfill.

Here are more details about the March 26 hearing:

Anyone wishing to testify at the hearing should contact Ms. Aukima Benjamin, staff assistant to the Committee on Government Operations and the Environment, at 724-8062, or via e-mail at abenjamin@dccouncil.us. Witnesses should bring 15 copies of their written testimony to the hearing. If possible, witnesses should submit a copy of their testimony in advance of the hearing to abenjamin@dccouncil.us. Witnesses will be allowed a maximum of three (3) minutes for oral presentation.

If you are unable to testify at the hearing, written statements are encouraged and will be made a part of the official record. Copies of written statements should be submitted either to the Committee on Government Operations and the Environment, or to Ms. Cynthia Brock-Smith, Secretary to the Council, Room 5 of the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20004. The record will close at the end of the business day on April 2, 2010.

Thanks to Steven Badt, Greg Boom, Rebecca Kantar, Greg Plotkin, Jenn Roccanti, and Carl Rollins for their assistance on researching this topic on the DCFoodforAll Google Group.

Posted on March 3rd 2010 in Access, Farmers, Food Security, Government Issues, Organizations, Schools | 1 Comment »

One Hundred Acres and a Tractor

tractor Food and Health: the two go hand in hand. In many areas of the country, food insecurity, poverty and obesity are also terms that go hand in hand. Safeway is in the neighborhood one day and gone the next. This is the reality of urban communities where fast food restaurants dominate the food landscape. Corner grocery stores fill in the gaps for full stop supermarkets, but the pickings are slim to none when it comes to local and organic produce — and the fruits and vegetables are expensive and not exactly fresh. In these neighborhoods, hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease are pervasive and increasing.

Where is the food justice? One place to look is in Beltsville, Md.

The District of Columbia owns over 50 acres of land in Beltsville, which is managed by the University of the District of Columbia(UDC). There, UDC houses an agriculture experiment station used for research, investigation and experiments. Dr. James Allen, a UDC professor, was profiled in a recent Washington Post article on the benefits of pigweed, a leafy vegetable high in Vitamin A.

UDC, a land grant institution, stood to gain almost $10 million dollars from the recent farm bill for use with community outreach and research. While I truly appreciate and understand the need for research and experimentation, I also understand that 12% of households in DC suffer from food insecurity. And yet the majority of the land that DC owns is unused and unproductive.

This relatively unknown and underutilized gem in the coffers of the D.C. government can help decrease the incidence and prevalence of food insecurity in D.C.

Take, for instance, the Food Project in Boston and Ma’o Organic Farms in Hawaii which offer examples of the economic and health benefits of sustainable agriculture. Ma’o Organic Farms grows certified organic produce on 25 acres of land in a community plagued by food insecurity, teen pregnancy, juvenile arrests, cancer and heart disease; a community similar to some of D.C’s wards. The young participants in this program are involved in educational and youth leadership programs in addition to social enterprise. The Food Project engages teens in programs which encourage leadership as well as providing vocational skills through their CSA, farmers’ market and work with hunger relief organizations.

A similar program on D.C. owned farm in Beltsville has to be included in the war on hunger.

We live in an area filled with contradictions and uncertainty. The food secure and the food insecure intersect at hunger relief organizations which provide needed services. Most families, however, would prefer to feed themselves. Living with the uncertainty that food insecurity brings can trigger mental instability. Providing food directly to DC citizens from D.C. land could potentially provide the economic, social and health benefits needed to stem the tide of illness, unemployment, hunger and poverty. The time is now to use this land for food and families.

Fenty Farms anyone?

Vicki Reese is a healthcare professional and the owner of 5 A DAY CSA a company dedicated to providing fresh organic/ locally grown food and supporting farmers. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Posted on March 1st 2010 in Access, Farmers, Food Security, Government Issues | No Comments »

WIC at Farmers Markets: Will DC Miss an Opportunity?

WIC Sign at Ward 8 Farmers Market

A revamped Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program — which provides low-income single mothers with cash value vouchers good for fruits and vegetables — will soon include a farmers market component. This is a promising opportunity.

But the program is currently designed in ways that will create tension with recipients, farmers, and administrators.

As of October 1, 2009, the USDA required all states to implement the new WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP). Through FMNP, WIC recipients can use the $6 to $15 monthly Fruit and Vegetable Cash Value Vouchers (or CVVs) just like cash to purchase a wide range of produce (PDF). (Check out a nice, clear explanation of the benefits here). The revised program will increase the voucher value for pregnant, breastfeeding, and partially breastfeeding women from $8 to $10 per month. And when the new market season rolls around, recipients can also use the vouchers at farmers markets. The previous WIC program, by contrast, provided only $30 worth of coupons for the entire May-through-November market season. It’s a significant increase.

But each state has the choice of whether to train and authorize farmers to accept those CVVs. Both Maryland and D.C. have opted in to the program. Virginia, on the other hand, recently canceled it.

Maryland has given the program every chance to succeed by including a variety of training options for farmers (including at market, and using trainers who have worked extensively with farmers market vendors). It will be pretty easy for farmers to become registered for the program, as the state will provide multiple trainings in different locations — and each only an hour-long.

D.C.’s Department of Health, by contrast, will offer only one training (on March 10th). It’s an all day training, and it’s in Greenbelt, MD.

The District has other options for facilitating participation in WIC programs at farmers markets. For instance, one Maryland official ~~will recognize~~ has expressed interest in recognizing the registration of farmers who undergo the D.C. FMNP training — freeing farmers up to sell across state and district lines. Although it would go through a different agency than the older FMNP, a similar agreement may be possible for the fruit and vegetable vouchers. As of now, D.C. has expressed no such interest in a reciprocal arrangement.

The arrangement has raised concerns among market coordinators and healthy food advocates alike. This is a program with proven positive results for both WIC recipients and farmers, and yet for farmers to participate in the District, they have only one chance to attend all-day training — in the middle of a critical season.

A group of DC Food for All members have recently been discussing the issue. As the March 10 training date approaches, we are asking:

How can D.C. make its program more conducive to farmers’ participation?

What might bring the program back for Virginians?

What is the best way to reach WIC recipients?

Those questions could shape a new campaign in the movement for fresh, healthy food for everyone. Join our discussion group to learn more.

Photo credit: A sign at the Ward 8 Farmers Market shows that vendors accept the WIC FMNP.

Posted on February 26th 2010 in Access, Farmers, Government Issues | 2 Comments »

DC To Get $1.5 Million More For Food Stamp Administration

Cross-posted on Poverty and Policy

Tucked away in the Fiscal Year 2010 appropriations for the Department of Defense are some other appropriations Congress wanted to fast-track. One provides a total of $400 million more to help states–and the District of Columbia–cope with increasing pressures on their food stamp programs.

The costs of food stamps themselves are covered by the federal government. But state and local agencies have to administer the program. The federal government ordinarily picks up about 50% of the administrative costs, leaving states responsible for the rest.

The supplement will increase the federal share, with the greatest amounts going to the states with the highest percentages of households in the food stamp program and the greatest recent increases in the number participating. The District will get nearly $1.5 million.

The recession has vastly increased applications, caseloads and, with them, needs to periodically re-verify eligibility. Backlogs have become a serious problem. In our own backyard, Maryland is under court order because of excessive processing delays. At least four other states have settled similar class action lawsuits. Texas has been told it may lose federal funds if it doesn’t speed up its system.

Last year, the District got a bonus performance award for the timeliness of its applications processing, along with an award for program access, i.e., the percentage of eligible residents enrolled in its program.

But applications processing doesn’t measure how long people have to wait to complete the intake process. We read of people waiting hours–even days–to get the required meeting with an Income Maintenance Administration staff member. No wonder, given the staff cutbacks and rising unemployment rate.

And bonus award notwithstanding, the participation rate here leaves room for improvement. This means that IMA should be investing resources in outreach to low-income people who don’t know they’re eligible or are deterred by barriers real and imagined. The hassle factor, including the costs of repeated trips to an IMA service center, are surely among the former.

Now IMA could have reduced its administrative burdens by swiftly implementing the Food Stamp Expansion Act because making more people categorically eligible would reduce needs to go through the complex process of calculating assets. It might have gotten a larger share of the supplement too.

We’re given to understand that it will complete implementation some time this spring. By then, it will also have its extra administrative funds. So we should see shorter waiting times in the service centers, quick turnarounds on applications and a higher participation rate.

This, of course, assumes that the Fenty administration uses the extra funds as Congress intended. Staff at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have warned that states could reduce their own funding for food administration and use the new federal funds instead.

But surely that won’t happen here. Will it?

Posted on February 24th 2010 in Government Issues | No Comments »

Realizing Democracy Through Farming Food

PLOTSKYrootingphotos01

By Matt Young

I’ve recently arrived in Washington from a place a whole world apart, New Mexico, and I’m still delving into how community works in the District. While my Congressional work to date has suggested a less than transparent, if not detached, relationship between the halls of power and the residents of the District, Rooting DC has given me a whole new perspective on the vibrant, stirring, service-driven nature of Washington, DC

The event brought together hundreds of activists, chefs, gardeners, farmers, community organizers, students, nonprofit professionals, and even politicians to bring a fully-integrated local food system to fruition. It represents a growing movement in D.C. to collaborate on how a local food system should look.

I found myself not just learning how to make a seasonal winter salad from Niko Welch; how to can lusciously spice-packed carrots from Liz Falk; how to realize and sustain a sustainable business model from Robert Egger; how to build kitchen connections between Mennonite farmers and inner-city youth from Kristin Roberts; and how to continually and passionately push for social change and a community voice from Andrea Northrup, Carl Rollins, and Parisa Norouzi.

PLOTSKYrootingphotos05 I also learned that as disconnected as Capitol Hill may be from the rest of the District of Columbia and the country at large, that optimism, transparency, accountability, innovation, responsibility, and community exists at the level of grassroots food systems. Such values provide the root base not only for healthy produce and stewardship, but healthy societies and healthy ecologies.

How appropriate, too, that something that can nourish us in the most rudimentary sense, such as a fresh batch of mustard greens, can also nourish us in the most systemic of ways, to draw people together to ensure sustainable cultivation of a new, true democracy

Matt Young currently serves as a Congressional assistant for Representative Peter Welch on Capitol Hill. When not answering constituent mail, Matt likes to dig deep into creating sustainable communities, listening to and writing stories of those voices you don’t hear everyday, and planting, weeding, harvesting, and getting dirty in crop rows, all skills he learned deeply through Real Food Challenge involvement at St. Lawrence University (Class of 2009).

Thanks to Andrew Plotsky for photos!

Posted on February 24th 2010 in Action, Events, Government Issues | No Comments »

Improve Language Access to Food Stamps

Yesterday, we posted Stacy Braverman’s testimony before DC City Council’s oversight hearings of the Department of Human Services. The following is the testimony of Bread for the City attorney Allison Miles-Lee, who represents Bread for the City in the Language Access Coalition. Allison speaks to the challenge that non-English speakers face when trying to obtain public assistance — food stamps in particular.

Good morning. My name is Allison Miles-Lee. I am a bilingual family law and public benefits staff attorney at Bread for the City.

Others have given testimony today and in the past about ways that DHS can improve its customers’ access to services. However, these improvements will be meaningless for a large portion of DC residents unless DHS also provides services in a language that its customers can understand.

Under federal and DC laws, including the 2004 DC Language Access Act, DHS is required to provide meaningful access to services for limited and non-English speaking customers. This includes oral interpretation and written translation of vital documents. But we have frequently seen and heard from non-English speaking customers who were turned away by security guards or front desk staff at service centers because they were not able to communicate in English. We have seen frontline staff at one service center attempting to communicate with a Spanish speaking customer by Googling phrases in Spanish, and IMA (Income Maintenance Administration) eligibility workers frequently rely on customers’ children, other family members or advocates to provide oral interpretation for customers. In more alarming cases, customers have reported being shouted at and belittled in English, castigated for not speaking the language.

In our experience, even if customers do receive language interpretation at IMA service centers during their initial interview, information about their language preference is somehow not captured by IMA’s computer system. This happens even though the capture of such information is required by the Language Access Act. As a result, we have seen that important follow-up notices are often sent to these limited or non-English speaking customers in English.

I recently helped two clients, Ms. C and Ms. D, with very similar problems. Both are Spanish-speaking single mothers, who had applied for food stamps for their children multiple times at the Taylor street service center. Both failed to receive adequate Spanish interpretation at the service center, and left believing they had been denied benefits each time. They finally sought the assistance of an attorney since they did not understand why their applications continued to be denied.

I quickly learned that in both cases, my clients had actually been approved for food stamps and food stamps cases had been opened more than eight months earlier. In both cases, an EBT card had been issued to each woman and benefits were loaded onto the card every month.

Luckily, the EBT cards were still available to be picked up, and the benefits on the cards had not yet expired. Ms. D’s card had over $2,700 of food stamps loaded onto it when she picked it up. Neither of these women was told in Spanish at the service center that their food stamps case had even been opened. In addition, because neither of these women ever received notices of approval for food stamps in Spanish, or notices explaining where to pick up their EBT cards in Spanish, they had no idea these cards were waiting for them. Our understanding, after speaking with senior DHS staff, is that if these cards had not been picked up, the money loaded onto the cards would not be refunded to DHS, even after it expired. The failure to send notices in a comprehensible language to these clients was almost a lose-lose situation, for the clients and for the agency.

In these cases, since the women also did not receive notice of the need to recertify for food stamps benefits in Spanish, their cases had been closed after 6 months for failure to recertify. Working with IMA appeals officers and other senior DHS staff, I was able to secure retroactive benefits for both women. Ms. D received over $2,500 in retroactive benefits. While she was happy to finally get the benefits that her three children were entitled to, much had happened during the months she believed she had been denied benefits. Unable to purchase food for her children and pay rent, Ms. D was forced to move out of the apartment she had rented and into the basement of a family friend with her children.

For both of these women, as well as other Bread for the City clients, senior IMA staff quickly remedied problems and restored or provided benefits once we brought a language access concern to their attention. However, we are concerned about the doubtless many other customers who have encountered language access barriers and do not seek the help of advocates like those at Bread for the City.

Unless IMA comes into compliance with DC and federal laws regarding language access, any of its other service improvements will still leave a large portion of its customers in the dark.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

Taped testimony of all the witnesses is available on the D.C. Council website

Posted on February 23rd 2010 in Access, Food Security, Government Issues | No Comments »

Bread for the City at City Council Oversight Hearing: DC’s Families Need Change

Last week, Bread for the City attorney Stacy Braverman testified before the D.C. Council at its oversight hearing on the Department of Human Services (DHS). DHS provides many services to the District’s homeless population and also oversees public benefits programs including food stamps, TANF, Interim Disability Assistance, and medical insurance. Stacy spoke about the need for better training of DHS frontline staff, and about the importance of finally expanding the amount of DC families who are eligible for food stamps.

The executive director of DHS, Clarence Carter, was on hand at the hearing to address some of the concerns of the councilmembers and the many witnesses who provided testimony. Mr. Carter’s testimony included some potentially good news for benefits recipients–including the news that DHS is hiring 20 more eligibility workers to cope with the long wait times at service centers, and a promise that the Food Stamp Expansion Act will be fully implemented by the end of March. It’s a promise, however, that we’ve heard before.

Taped testimony of all the witnesses is available on the D.C. Council website. Abbreviated verbal remarks follow:

Good afternoon. My name is Stacy Braverman and I am a public benefits lawyer at Bread for the City. Today, I’d like to focus on the need for better training and organization at Income Maintenance Administration service centers in general, and the need for DHS to implement changes to the food stamp program as directed by the Food Stamp Expansion Act of 2009.

As Mr. Carter noted, there are more applicants and fewer IMA service center and staff. I visit the service centers often and rarely see the express lines or “all hands on deck” mentality he mentioned, but I look forward to those initiatives. Service centers need to be better organized and staff needs more training to cope, because right now files and paperwork are often lost and decisions are delayed beyond the requirements of DHS policy and federal law.

For example, my client Mr. F had trouble requesting benefits at the Taylor Street service center. I accompanied him on a return visit and we waited for six hours before he could apply. Mr. F forgot to bring his pay stubs to the service center, so he waited for several more hours the following week to drop them off. When over a month passed and Mr. F hadn’t heard from IMA, I called the service center. A supervisor said she could tell from the computer that he had brought in his pay stubs, but said that his income was not entered into the system and the documents had been lost. Her only suggestion was to have Mr. F return to the service center another time, missing work, and wait again.

Part of the reason crowds at service centers are so large is because it is nearly impossible to reach staff by phone. Phone numbers printed on notices sent to customers often direct to other employees, or to full voicemail boxes. The voicemail system at the Taylor Street Service Center was broken for approximately a month this winter, and I haven’t been able to reach anyone at the Ft. Davis Service Center for weeks. When you do leave a message, it is rarely returned in the promised 24 hours—or at all.

Even when customers do get to speak with an eligibility worker, they often receive incorrect information. For example, my client Ms. T went to the Ft. Davis service center and was told she couldn’t receive TANF because one of her children got SSI. Another client, Mr. Q, was denied medical assistance because he couldn’t get a termination letter from his former employer. And Ms. B was told that her young grandchildren were ineligible for food stamps because of their legal immigration status. Eligibility rules for IMA benefits can be complicated, and these customers all actually qualified for benefits and got them with the help of attorneys. However, countless low-income District residents leave service centers without crucial safety-net benefits, and may never learn they were wrongly deprived. IMA staff need more training in program rules, they should be encouraged to look to the policy manual or to supervisors when they have questions, and they need to promptly and willingly remedy problems when they occur.

Of course, many people who apply for benefits are given the correct information about their eligibility, and some of them are denied food stamps because they do not qualify under the current rules. However, more of them will be able to receive this crucial safety-net benefit once DHS implements the Food Stamp Expansion Act of 2009. This law expanded categorical eligibility for food stamps to households earning less than 200% of the federal poverty level, so they could receive benefits without having to pass certain income and asset tests. It also created a Heat and Eat initiative that leverages federal energy assistance funds to increase the food stamp benefits many households would receive. The Council passed this bill last summer, and we originally heard that DHS would modify its computer system and enact the changes on October 1, 2009. When that date passed, we heard the changes would come in January, then March 15th—and today Mr. Carter has promised “the end of March.”

I have spoken with many people who will be eligible for food stamps as soon as these changes are implemented, like Mr. Q, whose employer went bankrupt and laid off all its workers. Like Ms. N, who struggles to make ends meet with Social Security Disability Insurance as her only income. And Ms. C, who spends nearly half her unemployment benefits on COBRA so she can continue to get medical treatment for her Multiple Sclerosis; after that and her rent, she struggles to buy food.

Implementing the Council’s changes will bring more federal funds to the District, which supports local grocery stores and farmers’ markets. It would reduce the burden on food pantries and other service providers, who are facing increasing demands. It would simplify the food stamp application process, leading to greater efficiency at the service centers. And for the people who are most affected by DHS’ delay in implementing these changes—people who worked and then became unemployed or disabled; people working part-time or minimum wage jobs; and those with severe housing, utility, medical, or child care expenses—it could help avert catastrophe.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

Posted on February 22nd 2010 in Food Security, Government Issues | No Comments »

Federal Emergency Food Program Helps Feed Hungry DC Area Residents

Cross-posted from Poverty and Policy.

Under TEFAP (the Emergency Food Assistance Program), the U.S. Department of Agriculture distributes food commodities to states, which then distribute them to food banks and/or directly to emergency food providers like soup kitchens and pantries. As I recently wrote, the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) is said to need a supplemental appropriation because it can’t otherwise provide enough food commodities to meet the increasing pressures on food banks.

Still on my learning curve, I contacted Marian Peele, the Director of Agency Relations at the Capital Area Food Bank, to find out what the situation is there.

CAFB is the Feeding America network partner for the greater Washington D.C. area. It uses federal funds channeled through the D.C. and Virginia state governments to purchase TEFAP food commodities. It also gets free TEFAP bonus commodities when they’re available and suitable to its needs.

All told, CAFB distributes about 23 million pounds of food a year. Nearly 14% of this comes through TEFAP. The rest is donated by various food industry sources and food collected by a vast number of organizations and individuals.

CAFB distributes the food it gets to more than 700 partner agencies, i.e., local nonprofits that either prepare and serve them or give them to low-income people to take home. Organizations I’ve written about before, including Bread for the City, Miriam’s Kitchen and So Others Might Eat are all partner agencies and thus, in part, dependent on TEFAP. CAFB also distributes some food directly to local low-income residents.

Peele says that TEFAP foods are “an enormous help to [their] agencies and thus the community members who receive them.” She says they’re often healthier choices than foods donated from other sources, except for the fresh produce CAFB gets from local farmers.

As we know, the recession has vastly increased the number of people needing emergency food assistance. The newspapers are full of stories about people going to food pantries who never sought help before. Feeding America reports that its food bank network is serving one in eight Americans–46% more than in 2006.

Calls to the CAFB Hunger Lifeline, an emergency food referral, have increased 91%. Peele says that partner agencies report increases in food distributions ranging from 85% to 200%. They’re dealing with longer lines, cutting back on portions and still running out of food faster than ever before.

The organizations that are calling for a supplemental appropriation say that it’s needed to avert a drop of 50% or more in the dollar value of this year’s bonus commodity donations. This doesn’t mean that CAFB would receive that much less. But it does show what the food bank may be up against as it tries to keep up with the rising tide of hunger in our nation’s capital.

Posted on February 16th 2010 in Food Security, Government Issues | No Comments »

Healthy food for all a tenet of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity initiative

On Tuesday, sixth grader Tammy Nguyen brought down the White House with some choice words. Leading up to a much-anticipated announcement in the State Dining Room, Nguyen described how she helped grow a rainbow of vegetables in a kitchen garden on the “first lawn.”

“My friends and I have learned a lot about change, about eating healthy food, and making the right choices,” the former Bancroft Elementary School student explained. “My classmates and I plan to keep that color on the plate–and I don’t mean M&Ms,” she said.

Nguyen then introduced First Lady Michelle Obama, who summoned all hands on deck to bring the Bancroft students’ experience to every American child in the interest of better health. She outlined a detailed initiative, called Let’s Move, to curb the startling rate of childhood obesity (about one in three children is overweight or obese, she said), and save the nation’s kids from preventable diseases. Such an initiative can also create jobs and help fish the budget out of a deficit. That can only happen, Obama said, if many sectors work together and the action starts immediately.

“Instead of just talking bout this problem, instead of just worrying and wringing our hands about it, let’s do something about it,” said the first lady. “Let’s act…. let’s move.”

A new Task Force on Childhood Obesity will propel the initiative. Once on course, Let’s Move will include $10 billion in funding over 10 years for programs in the Child Nutrition Act reauthorization, and $400 million to infuse “food deserts” with supermarkets and other sources of healthy food. The specific tenets include healthier choices (clearer food labeling, better eating habits), healthier schools (through the Healthier US Schools Challenge Program and the Child Nutrition Act), and physical activity (an hour or more a day, and more opportunities to get that 60 minutes in).

Perhaps the most exciting part for DC Food For All members and readers is the fourth mainstay: Accessible and affordable healthy food for everyone. To achieve this, the task force will identify problem areas with a new USDA Food Environment Atlas, work to eliminate food deserts, and implement more programs for school gardens and urban gardening.

Michelle Obama not only brought the concept of a food desert to national attention; she proclaimed the initiative will banish such wastelands in seven years. And it seeks to push out childhood obesity in a generation. Fresh, local food claims an important place in both efforts.

Also exciting was the way Obama connected the dots. Having Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius commit to the task force and attend the announcement seemed only natural. Including the secretaries of agriculture, education, the interior, HUD, and labor spoke to a paradigm shift. Alleviating childhood obesity will take a multi-pronged effort, the umbrella approach implies, and a new way of thinking about food and well-being.

Obama had recruited former NFL star Tiki Barber—along with key players in the Obama administration, members of Congress, figures in sports and entertainment, and leaders in the business and medical communities—to join her at the announcement. But it was the mayor of a small town in Mississippi and a Milwaukee, Wisc. farmer who talked most convincingly about the power of wholesome food.

Mayor Chip Johnson, of Hernando, Miss., started a farmers market on shaky ground one August. “Everybody said ‘well, it was too late in the season’,” Johnson said. “But we said ‘no, let’s get going. Let’s do it now.’ So we started.” In the next two months, 23 vendors signed on.

Will Allen, who founded the urban farming initiative Growing Power, took the stage soon after Johnson. Allen stressed the importance of access to fresh produce, and explained that urban agriculture can prove very profitable. The average conventional farm produces about $500 or profit per acre, he said, while a new approach to agriculture that he uses yields $5 per square foot–a total of $200,000 an acre. In addition to eating the fruits of such operations, Allen feels it is crucial for children to take part in growing them.

As DC Food for All reported, urban agriculture is getting a lot of attention in America. District residents have already thrown their energy and ingenuity behind the idea, with initiatives like Common Good City Farm, the Washington Youth Garden at the National Arboretum and the Neighborhood Farm Initiative are doing just that.

It may not matter if it’s at a market or on a farm. When I talked with him later, Allen agreed that D.C. can make high-yield urban agriculture happen. For every challenge, like contaminants in the soil, he seems to know of an advantage—or five. Composting could play a part in soil remediation, and the excess compost could become a lucrative product.

Just like the buy-in Obama garnered from cabinet members, kids will need to take part in getting a move on. As the next generation of eaters and growers ripens, Allen said, the key is having the kids experience real food—like Nguyen’s classmates did. “If they can touch it and feel it,” he said, “they’re bound to go the next step.”

For more:

Watch the full announcement

Read the Washington Post coverage in today’s paper and yesterday’s All We Can Eat blog

Check out the new Let’s Move website

View the new USDA Food Environment Atlas, which identifies “food deserts” that lack sources of fresh food

Photos, from top: Michelle Obama announces the Let’s Move initiative; middle school student Tammy Nguyen recalls planting and learning from the White House Kitchen Garden; Will Allen, of Growing Power. All photos by the author.

Posted on February 10th 2010 in Access, Action, Events, Food Security, Government Issues, Health | 4 Comments »