Outreach Coalition Minutes

April 22, 2004
Food and Nutrition Service

Attendees:

          Stacy Dean, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
          Bill Ayres, World Hunger Year
          Priscilla Ramoz, World Hunger Year
          Christina Schiavoni, World Hunger Year
          Larry Goolsby, American Public Human Services Association
          Abby Hughes Holsclaw, National League of Cities
          Julie Paradis, America’s Second Harvest
          Ellen Vollinger, Food Research and Action Center
          Heather Axford, Food Research and Action Center
          Heidi Nelson, RESULTS
          Becca Wehrly, RESULTS
          Amaliya Morgan Brown, RESULTS
          Shana McDavis-Conway, Community Food Security Coalition/NFFC
          Jeanine Valles, Bread for the World
          Yesenia Garcia, National Council of La Raza
          Jeremy Rosen, National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty
          Kristin Anderson, Congressional Hunger Center
          Sarah Wilson, H&R Block
          Wayne Moore, AARP



From FNS and USDA:

          Suanne Buggy, Office of Communications and Governmental Affairs [CGA]
          Jeff Cohen, Food Stamp Program [FSP]
          Kathie Klass, CGA
          Pat Seward, CGA
          Art Foley, FSP
          Carolyn Foley, FSP
          Barbara Hallman, FSP
          Lynn Jordan, FSP
          Patrick Waldron, FSP
          Dawn Washington, FSP
          Jennifer McNabb, FSP, EBT
          Marian Wig, FSP, MARO
          Harriet Kornegay, FSP
          Laura Griffin, FSP
          Elizabeth Whelan, FSP, CHC
          Shelia Little, FSP
          Martha Newton, CGA




Introduction, Barbara Hallman (FNS, Chief, State Administration Branch)

Barbara Hallman moderated the meeting. She welcomed all participants and emphasized the importance of FNS’ partnership with the Coalition members.




Combined Applications Projects Presentation, Shelia Little (FNS, PDD); distributed 3 handouts 

The Combined Application Projects (CAPs) are the result of a joint project between FNS and the Social Security Administration (SSA) to serve elderly and disabled individuals who are eligible for both the FSP and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. CAP projects test streamlined application procedures for these eligible participants by merging the two application processes into one. 

There are two models for CAP: standard and modified. Under the standard model, SSA provides simplified joint application processing for single-person households who apply for or are re-certified for SSI. The standard model also requires the development of procedures to convert existing FSP/SSI participants to the CAP model. The modified model does not require coordination with SSA, but uses information already provided to the State via the automated State Date Exchange system to identify and enroll SSI individuals in the FSP using a streamlined application process. The modified model focuses on outreach only and existing SSI/FSP households are not converted to the project under this model.

CAP projects must be able to distinguish between households with high shelter costs (costs that would make the household eligible for a deduction under the regular program), and low costs (costs that would not make the household eligible for a shelter deduction under the regular program). Households are then given a standardized benefit based on their high or low shelter costs. For example, South Carolina (SCCAP) has four standard benefit amounts for all participants depending on whether they have high or low shelter costs. 

It is important to note that the CAP projects must be cost neutral and cost-neutrality requirements may result in some projects providing a lower benefit amount than the households would receive under the regular FSP. Participants, eligible for higher food stamp benefits, can choose to opt out of the CAP. There is a trade-off for participants between receiving lower food stamp benefits and not having to visit the local food stamp office. 

The Simplified Nutrition Application Project (SNAP) in Texas is a modified project for which outreach is conducted through an enrollment invitation sent to eligible households. Individuals currently receiving food stamps are not eligible to convert. Food banks can help with these outreach efforts, as is happening in Texas. 

SSA does not anticipate accepting any more standard projects; they are not prepared to handle more than they are currently engaging. The states with standard projects are: Mississippi, New York, South Carolina and Washington State. Florida, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania are pending implementation. Texas is the only state with a modified project; Louisiana, New Jersey and North Carolina are pending. 

Proposed Rule: Farm Bill Eligibility and Certification Provisions, Patrick Waldron (FNS, PDD) 

There is a 60-day comment period for the proposed Rule, which was published on April 16, 2004. The highlights of the Proposed Rule: 

• Child support option—States can either exclude or continue to count these payments as a deduction. 
• TANF and Section 1931 Medicaid—Excludes these sources of income. 
• Household size—Establishes a standard deduction
• Homeless shelter expense—Establishes a $143 shelter deduction
• Disabled benefit—Raises asset limit for households with disabled members to $3000
• Transitional benefits—Expands timeframe 3-5 months
• Liberalized disregard of income—Expands timeframe during transition times
• Non-citizens and aliens—Restoration of benefits has been phased in and is now fully implemented
• Web applications—Requires States to post their application forms on their websites in English and translated versions
• 6-month simplified reporting—Makes option available to all households; about 35 States have implemented some form of this provision to date. 

Immigrant eligibility restorations will be fully realized by FY 2006, with over 400,000 legal immigrants receiving benefits, including immigrants from working-poor families, the elderly and disabled, and approximately 60,000 children. The provision that affected disabled persons also increased eligibility, but to a lesser extent. 



General Coalition Update, Elizabeth Whelan (FNS, PAD) 

FNS invites feedback and suggestions on how to further develop the FSOC and form creative partnerships to promote food stamp outreach. At this point there are between 150 and 200 individuals from various local organizations across the country on the listserv. She is expanding FNS’ outreach website, which will feature a map of local outreach organizations across the country by state, FSP applications by state, a list of local offices by state, promising practices as well as outreach resources available from FNS and other organizations. FNS will soon send a letter to states, encouraging them to join the FSOC, since they are such vital partners. Elizabeth asked the attendees to please continue to send her materials. 


Update: State and Regional Office Collaboration/Promising Practices Committee, Larry Goolsby (American Public Human Services Association) and Stacy Dean (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities)

The committee identified three areas that describe the current environment in which states are operating: 1) State budget crises; 2) increasing local office workloads; and 3) strained resources. This led the committee to strategies that focus on outreach and streamlining office practices in order to benefit both the clients and office staff.

The committee discussed the importance of involving eligibility workers (EWs), who need to be equipped to do effective outreach. They discussed that the mindset of the front-line worker, who has been trained to operate under threat of QC error, must now shift to an increased flexibility of program rules. It takes time for this shift in emphasis and direction towards outreach and customer service to trickle down and affect change. In the midst of the changing FSP, it is important to sell to clients that things have changed. Project Bread has done focus groups on appropriate and receptive messages: “Our practices have changed; it’s hard but we want to help you get benefits” works, whereas “it’s new” doesn’t work.

Challenges include gathering information on what works well, how to judge what works well, and how to share information with others. The FNS Guides on Access to the FSP for target populations (working poor, elderly, immigrants) were good pieces and the committee would like to see them updated and reissued with updated examples of promising practices. The GAO Report on Working Families included two recommendations, one of which is for FNS to publicize the results of outreach best practices. 

There is a general difficulty in defining best practices. A fairly informal reporting template will be shared with the FNS Regional Offices soon. While on the one hand there needs to be an external validation of State information from clients and advocates, on the other hand, formal evaluation is costly and takes time. Thus, there needs to be a way to share promising practices that are not necessarily proven to be effective, but intuitively make sense. So often the success of practices depends on the people that are carrying out the project, as well as the specific community environment. Nevertheless, it is important to link contacts and ensure that locals agree with the State’s perception that a practice is promising and worthy of promotion.

There is a need for a web-based catalogue of promising practices searchable by subject, population, practice, etc., including identifying contact persons for existing models. This would help most organizations, which don’t have time or funds to research and/or try out different, unknown models. When reviewing promising practices, it is also important to share challenges encountered. Analyzing what doesn’t work is just as important as looking at what does work. 

A further complication in implementing promising practices is that while finding a good idea is helpful, it is difficult to replicate it. WHY is working with private non-profit and government sectors to learn how to do replication.

The committee encourages more administrative and/or grant funds be provided to help States with technology to implement the Farm Bill options. They also identified the need for a centralized system to alert States to changes in policy; under the current system, the word hits the ground at different times. Also, answers to questions are not shared with others besides the one who asked the question—these Qs & As need to be e-mailed or posted on the website for all to benefit. Art Foley has agreed to this.

The committee will probably break up into subcommittees: 1) Promising practices 2) Technology 3) Local and State offices. 


Update: Business Interests Committee, Julie Paradis (America’s Second Harvest)

It’s a challenge to reach the business community and explain why the FSP is important. FNS staff created a one-page handout that is currently in draft form and comments are welcome.

Since the Welfare-to-Work Partnership has laid some groundwork, the committee does not need to re-invent wheel. Rather, information needs to be updated to get businesses’ buy-in. Past experience has shown that it takes high-level government leaders to get the attention of businesses. 

The committee needs to increase and expand its members. Elizabeth said she is learning of locally based, non-national organizations who would be good fits for the FSOC committees, since listserv and conference calls make it easier to communicate with others.

Major corporations want information for their Human Relations Departments to share with welfare-to-work and minimum wage employees. The Small Business Administration’s minority business section is also a good resource for struggling businesses with low-wage workers. The committee might consider adding labor unions. When plants have closed down; food stamp workers were on site to enroll people in the program. Also, food retailers are a natural connection. 

Another possibility is to combine EITC and FSP outreach, since there is a natural partnership to start with. The focus should be not just FSP, but other work support programs as well (EITC, health, nutrition assistance, etc.). 


Update: Hunger Heroes Committee, Kathie Klass (FNS, Congressional and Governmental Affairs)

The Hero awards intend to encourage food stamp workers to provide services in a pleasant manner. 

The committee is discussing the introduction of the award at the APHSA annual conference. Corporate sponsorship to fund the hero’s attendance is also under consideration. A press release and web page announcement with the individual’s name, office, why they’re a hero, etc. would be distributed. Also, hopefully the Under Secretary would send a letter to the hero and the FNS Administrator might personally call them.

The committee is considering monthly awards at the State level and one national hero per year or one hero per FNS geographic region from that group. Eventually the committee would like to see awards begin at the local level, at which visibility is most important, possibly through sponsorship by local service clubs such as Kiwanis, Rotary, etc.

The committee’s next steps are to draft a proposal and convene another meeting.

Bill expressed concern about the problem with growing caseloads per EW, and asked if FNS can research the ratio of EW to cases. He thinks outreach can be tied to increased monies for the local community through increased participation. This would show that it is cost-effective to hire more EWs. Barbara responded that FNS has looked at administrative costs, but can’t separate staff time devoted to non-FSP work. Also FNS hasn’t been able to identify a number or range for a good, standard-sized caseload.


Committee Structure Discussion, Barbara Hallman (FNS, Chief, SAB)

Barbara posed some structural and organizational questions for the group’s consideration:
• Are the committees the right ones?
• Do the committees have the right members?
• Is the frequency and format of the meetings appropriate?
• Is the current concept of the FSOC satisfactory or does it need redesign?

The minutes of the committees should be shared with all FSOC members, to keep everyone informed, and promote ideas, especially between committees.

When the FSOC web page is ready, it could serve as an asset for participating organizations and a motivation to those who might have information to share. 

The Coalition discussed the relationship between the FSOC meeting attendees and the local organizations that are being collected in the listserv. Whoever can come to the meetings is invited to attend and participate in committees. Minutes will be shared with all. Some members think national-level organizations work well together and the FSOC meetings should keep the national focus. More clarity is needed on what local-level organizations would get from FSOC membership, versus having the national affiliated organization representative filter and share selected information.

Members expressed concern about not letting the listserv get overwhelming in terms of volume of mail coming through. Some suggest keeping two listservs separate; while some Coalition members can’t lobby at the national level, local members can. 

Wayne Moore (AARP) said that AARP has discussed similar issues, and he shared three ideas: 1) determine the needs/struggles/barriers at the local level and identify solutions; 2) create an event database consisting of a master calendar of local events to be shared nationally; and, 3) sort the listserv members by Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas, which will provide more commonalities.

The Coalition should make better use of the anti-hunger networks (FRAC, Second Harvest, etc.), that are already organized regionally and at the State and local levels. 


Closing Remarks, Barbara Hallman (FNS, Chief, SAB)

Barbara urged the committees to continue their work and examine their structures. She noted that most of the work for the FSOC will happen outside of formal meetings—through committees, etc. She asked that committees be prepared to report on their progress and next steps at the next FSOC meeting on August 3. 

For more information, please contact Elizabeth Whelan at elizabeth.whelan@fns.usda.gov  or Laura Griffin at (703) 605-4399 or laura.griffin@fns.usda.gov . 

Last modified: 04/30/2009