Living as a VISTA, part 3

Greetings from Columbus! I write this from my *suite* at the Double Tree Hotel in downtown Columbus. I'm here for my Community Trainer orientation through Friday.

The overall goals of the day were to get familiar with the Ohio Benefit Bank and to learn how to counsel clients, both of which I had already completed prior to my arrival today. Excluding the rainy 2+ hour drive from Fairfield, today was pretty relaxing and uneventful. But it did get me thinking about the last installment of my "Living as a VISTA" series on public benefits.

We spent the morning highlighting basic AmeriCorps*VISTA information and paperwork (many of the new OBB VISTAs have not been to their pre-service orientation yet). One of the main messages of the session detailed the importance of all OBB VISTAs--and perhaps all VISTAs in general--applying for food stamps prior to the start of their service.

The reasons for this are two-fold. The first is that because we counsel clients and train other counselors to counsel clients on applying for public benefits, it is a positive learning experience for us to have also gone through the same application process. How can we relate to our clients if we don't know what challenges and frustrations they are facing with their own applications? Makes sense.

The second is for...well...survival. Remember, VISTAs live at the poverty level. We can technically qualify for public assistance based on our living allowance income alone, but the federal government is kinda cool and says that any AmeriCorps member's income is excluded from determining their eligibility for food stamps. In other words, our income counts as $0, which makes for maximum benefits. It's kind of like a "thank you" for serving your country. Neat, huh? Well here's the catch--in order for VISTAs' income to be excluded from their household's eligibility, they have to have been receiving food stamps BEFORE beginning their year of service. Otherwise the full amount of their income will count against them, and they won't receive as much benefits. And let's face it--we all need as much help as we can get.

Meredith told me all of this during my interview on that fateful day in March. I knew I would be applying for food stamps as soon as I graduated from Miami. (How many college grads have that on their mind as they approach graduation?) After Taylor and I moved to Fairfield, I went to Shared Harvest where Martha, who is the VISTA Leader for my region, took me through the Benefit Bank. She told me it appeared we were eligible to receive benefits, and thanks to her, about an hour later I had successfully applied for food stamps for our household.

As nice as Martha is, I can't say I enjoyed the application process. Sure, the OBB software makes it easy--just answer the questions and move to the next screen. But the whole application from start to finish is just so...invasive. Because Taylor and I prepare and cook our meals together, he also had to be listed on the application. I needed both of our social security numbers, bank information, resources, a full count of our expenses, all pay stubs from the past 30 days--the list goes on and on. And that was just for the application.

Once we e-submitted my food stamp application through the Benefit Bank, I got a letter a couple days later from Butler Co. Dept. of Jobs and Family Services. They told us that we had an appointment for about a week later (note: they did not ask us what time would be best for us; they told us our date and time and we were expected to show up). This face-to-face interview was to verify that all of the information we put on our application was true. So we had to bring all of those documents I listed above PLUS original birth certificates, social security cards, and photo ID for both of us. Thankfully, Taylor and I keep good records and were able to retrieve every document we needed. If we had come ill-prepared, it would have only slowed down our case.

A few days later we arrived for our appointment. We waited for a while before a woman opened a door and called my name. We nervously got up to follow her down the corridor back to her desk. We knew this person had a lot of power in determining whether we would end up getting our benefits. Not once did she shake our hands, introduce herself, or even look us in the eye. It's those little things that really dehumanize this process, and it makes sense why 500,000 eligible Ohioans don't apply for food stamps. It was humiliating.

I felt myself getting smaller as we sat down across from our caseworker at her desk. Aside from a few 5-foot high partitions between the desks, there was no real privacy. I could hear everything the guy next to us was saying about his finances, and he could hear us too.

Just as quickly as we sat down to verify our information, our caseworker was shooing us out the door. Our paperwork checked out, and it turns out we qualified for expedited food stamps. Our card would arrive within 48 hours loaded with benefits for our first month and half. But our caseworker didn't tell us how much money was going on the card that day ($520) or how much we would receive every month after that ($367). She didn't tell us how the card worked (like a credit card at the check out line) or where we could shop (any grocery store with the food stamp sticker in the window) or what we could buy with the card (any food we could cook and eat--nothing premade and hot, no alcohol, no cigarettes, and no non-food house supplies). We had to kind of research that on our own.

We received our EBT (electronic benefit transfer) card in the mail about a day after our appointment. I remember tearing open the envelope and immediately jumping in the car with Taylor to go grocery shopping. We were so excited to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and to restock our pantry. My mom had paid for our first round of groceries when we moved in, but we were running severely low on food by that point. We were relieved to not have to pay for our groceries out of pocket, especially when we had our rent coming due and neither of us were gainfully employed at the time.

Based on my short-lived experience, I truly believe that food stamps strengthen families. No matter what you might have heard, food stamps aren't welfare and they aren't a handout. In order to receive food stamps, you have to complete a work assessment and either work or volunteer in the community at least 30 hours a week. Living on food stamps hasn't made us lazy, and I refuse to live with the stigma that "food stamps" carry. Food stamps have enabled Taylor and me to buy more healthy, fresh food (which is often more expensive) than we could have afforded if we were using our own money to pay the bill. Thanks to food stamps, we are NOT living on Ramen noodles this year! And because our food expenses are covered for the month, we don't have to worry so much about whether we'll have enough money for gas or electricity or toilet paper, even.

Food stamps strengthen local communities, as well. The money we are spending at the grocery store is staying in our community, which keeps our local grocer and his employees working. And no matter what you may have heard, food stamps are funded by federal dollars. Each year, $35 billion federal dollars go unclaimed, with Ohio missing out on $1.6 billion of that total. If everyone who was eligible applied for and received food stamps, think of how much money would be going back into our local and state economies. Instead, that unclaimed money is redistributed to other states' food stamp programs.

You can probably tell that I am a fan of food stamps. But I am not a fan of the bureaucratic hoops we have to jump through to get and KEEP our benefits. This is only half of the story. In part 4 of this series (yes I just added a part to the series), you'll see how stressful and difficult it can be to keep your benefits once you get them.