Millions forced to wait for food stamps benefits

SAN ANTONIO — When Amanda Vaca's husband lost his job, the couple took stock of their finances and drew a startling conclusion: They could not afford to feed their four young children.

So Vaca filled out an application for food stamps. Then, the wait began. A month passed, then two. In some weeks, the food simply ran out.

"There was several occasions where I didn't have breakfast to cook them or all there was was noodles," said Vaca, a customer-service representative in Fort Worth who got laid off shortly after her husband. They waited three months for assistance.

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"It got to that point where there was nothing. It was scary. It was very, very stressful," Vaca said. "We went to churches to get food, food banks or whatever. I was always searching for places to get food."

In fiscal 2009, Texas left about a third of its applicants waiting more than 30 days for food assistance, the worst among states examined by the AP, even though Texas was spared the brunt of the recession.

In Rhode Island, nearly a quarter of new applications were delayed. In Florida, Colorado and Nevada, about one-fifth of applications were processed late.

In the months since those problems arose, some agencies have improved their processing systems, but application delays persist in many places.

Vaca spent days pleading by phone and in person for someone to look at her application. At one point, a frazzled office manager took her to a back room to show her piles of unprocessed applications. Her family eventually was approved for food stamps and received retroactive benefits for the months they were waiting.

A record 40 million people — one in eight Americans — now rely on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, the official name of the modern food stamp program, which began in 1961. The number of participating households increased by one-fifth in fiscal 2009, and many states' food-stamp rolls grew by a third or more.

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How the fuck are you supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you CAN'T EAT????

I hate that phrase. I do pretty well for myself, but I didn't get here just through my own efforts. I got hear through good public education and occasional public assistance while growing up. We have become a very "I got mine, fuck you" society. I wish I could believe in hell, because that is where assholes like Rayguns belong.

My effort wouldn't have meant squat without public schools, public universities, Pell Grants, tax breaks for companies who pay for employee's tuition, and the dedication of teachers and administrators who helped me along the way

That would applaud this sad, sad story of subhuman treatment.

I'm not blaming the workers, their departments have been severely underfunded for many years. They didn't have enough staff when times were good. Now that they're bad, the staffing is severely inadequate.