Food aid fiasco taught Fla. lessons
Streamlining program is new goal
They lined up by the thousands and wilted for hours in the scorching South Florida sun in hopes of getting Hurricane Irma food assistance.
Traffic snarled roads. People fainted in the heat. Tempers flared. Scuffles broke out. Citing safety concerns, police abruptly shut down packed relief sites, leaving people emptyhanded, frustrated and confused.
Some applicants and advocates say those problems could have been avoided if people had been allowed to submit documents online and skip a federally required face-to-face interview.
The federal government has given Florida permission to
Massive crowds
conduct phone interviews instead of in-person interviews for people applying for regular food stamps. But those who don’t normally get food stamps must line up at relief sites to receive assistance after a disaster.
The requirement is intended to cut down on fraud, but it also has led to huge crowds that make it difficult for people to get help.
Jo Ann Mugwadi, 53, of Lake Worth, said she doesn’t think it makes sense to require people to wait hours in line when they’ve already been through a disaster. Mugwadi said she has a back condition that prevents her from standing for hours, and high blood pressure makes her prone to heat-related issues.
“It is barbaric,” she said. “That’s how you treat cows going to get grass. They are treating you like an animal.”
Applicants can “pre-register” online to expedite the process, but they or an authorized representative must appear in person at designated sites to collect the benefit, which state officials have branded Food for Florida. The crowds were massive. Officials estimated that 50,000 showed up at a site at Tropical Park in Miami.
All of those people hoped to get a card worth from a few hundred to more than a thousand dollars depending on family size, income and storm damage that can be used to buy food.
The benefit — officially called the Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or D-SNAP — is available only to people who don’t receive food stamps. Recipients of food stamps affected by Hurricane Irma had extra funds put into their accounts through a separate process.
At disaster sites at Lake Ida and John Prince parks in Palm Beach County, cars were parked as far as a mile away. Many in the crowd sat beneath umbrellas to shield them from the beating sun as temperatures climbed into the high 80s. One woman sat hooked up to oxygen.
Angela Harmon, 43, of West Palm Beach, said she drove from her home to John Prince Park near Lake Worth on Tuesday, only to have to turn around because the park was full. She said she questions how much the government is spending staffing the sites and providing police protection to control the crowds.
Harmon said she, too, would have difficulty standing in line because of fibromyalgia.
“With today’s technology, it makes no sense,” Harmon said.
Exceptions can be made under federal rules for people with disabilities. While officials with Florida’s Department of Children and Families say the elderly and people with disabilities are being moved to the front of the line, the state isn’t offering in-home visits or phone interviews to them.
Some local governments and charities in 2016 warned of the problems that could be created by face-to-face interview requirements when the federal government solicited comments on the rules, according to a review of records by the Sun Sentinel.
The New York City Human Resources Administration suggested the federal government allow caseworkers to conduct phone interviews and accept documents by email or fax.
“The use of telephone interviews benefits both the client and the agency; clients who are not close to the application site would not have to come into the site and the agency would have fewer clients queuing up at the site, reducing wait times,” the agency wrote.
Officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture — the agency that funds the program — say the requirement is in place for good reason: to cut down on fraud. Emergency food stamps require fewer verification checks than regular food stamps do, a federal spokesman said.
“Identity confirmation as part of a face-to-face interview is important,” a federal spokesman said. “Overall, in D-SNAP, it is critical that we balance access and customer service with integrity.”
In its comments, Florida’s DCF raised some concerns about post-storm reporting, but officials didn’t voice concerns about the screening requirements.
Gov. Rick Scott’s office and DCF did not respond to questions asking whether they would support lifting the in-person requirement.
A plan is required
The federal government wanted Florida to be ready.
The USDA requires states to submit detailed plans outlining how they will administer the emergency food assistance program. The goal is to quickly provide assistance to people who lost food and income during a disaster.
The federal government provides the funding for assistance, and the state administers the program.
The documents require the state to explain how it will accommodate crowds, root out fraud, help the elderly and people with disabilities, manage traffic, communicate with the public and provide “human comforts,” such as water, snacks and restrooms.
USDA and DCF officials have not supplied a copy of Florida’s plan to the Sun Sentinel.
Hurricane Wilma in 2005 should have served as a warning that demand would be massive. More than 2 million Floridians received emergency food assistance after that storm.
Lines overwhelmed workers. Reporters observed people showing up in luxury cars to apply for benefits. Post-storm reviews noted fraud, and the state relied on applicants to be honest in reporting their income and storm losses.
JoNel Newman, director of the University of Miami Health Rights Clinic, said the state failed to adequately prepare for food relief after Hurricane Irma. Law students at the clinic help poor clients navigate the system.
In a letter sent to DCF, Newman’s group and other advocacy organizations called the state’s efforts “wholly inadequate on every level.” Among their concerns voiced in the letter: Too few sites were open for too short a time. (Miami-Dade had four sites scheduled to be open for five days to serve a county with a population of 2.7 million people.) Police abruptly shut down sites in Broward and Miami-Dade counties because of health and safety concerns. The elderly and people with disabilities weren’t accommodated, the letter read. People were forced to stand in the sun.
“This is how we want to treat people who need food,” Newman said. “It’s very disturbing.”
State officials, though, say they have been overwhelmed by an “unprecedented turnout.”
As of Thursday, 2.9 million Floridians had been approved for federal disaster food aid, totaling $493.4 million in payments, according to DCF.
The state has deployed 6,000 people, including 1,500 temporary workers, to operate the program, DCF officials say. Traffic control companies have been hired to help manage parking, and bottled water is being given to those in line. The state plans to schedule make-up dates in Miami-Dade, Broward and Marion counties.
“DCF has aggressively pursued actions to ensure operations are as expeditious, safe and efficient as possible,” an agency statement reads. “Following the conclusion of the Food for Florida program statewide, DCF will conduct a thorough after-action review of all operations.”
What about fraud?
Although applicants must undergo in-person interviews, little verification exists beyond a check of personal identification documents, according to a dozen people the Sun Sentinel interviewed and first-hand observation of the processing.
Federal guidance intends to speed the delivery of food to disaster victims who may not have access to all of their documents and receipts.
“Verification rules are eased during a disaster to reduce administrative burdens and to reflect the reality that households and eligibility workers may not have access to the usual verification sources,” federal guidance on the program states.
Florida’s website asks applicants only to bring a driver’s license or identification card.
State agencies can request applicants bring other documents showing income and food loss, provided that applicants “are not denied based solely on the unavailability of verification,” according to the guidance.
That’s led to concerns about fraud.
After food vouchers were distributed in New Jersey in 2011 in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, a review found that nearly 1 in 5 households that received aid had been ineligible, a problem blamed on fraud, confusion about the requirement and the rushed nature of the process. A 2016 audit of 9,029 aid applicants after severe flooding in South Carolina found 297 of the cases were fraudulent.
Investigators are reviewing applications at relief sites and monitoring social media for illegal sales of food assistance, DCF officials said. Applicants found guilty of submitting false information on their application are subject to criminal prosecution and will be required to pay back the money, officials said.
As of Thursday, investigators had reviewed 27,416 DSNAP applications, avoiding the issuance of more than $7 million in fraudulent benefits, according to the Department of Children and Families.
Newman said that while fraud is a concern, the state also has to ensure benefits get into the hands of people who desperately need it.
Tiffany Robinson, 30, of Pompano Beach, said the state asked for only her driver’s license and relied on her to truthfully report the size of her household, her household income and storm losses.
“My mother-in-law lives with us, but I didn’t claim her, because I do everything by the book,” she said.