Food Stamps:
An Interview with Karen Galuli

Aired July 22, 1999

David C. Barnett–Well, conflicting rules and regulations. Last week, President Clinton attempted to ease the burdens of welfare recipients by altering some of the rules of food stamp distribution. He announced a new public education campaign to help clarify just who is qualified for food stamps, and he loosened some restrictions on receiving them. For instance, it used to be if you were a working family and had a car worth more than $4,650, you'd lose your food stamp eligibility. The president wants to change that and not penalize someone who has a car and wants to work. Joining us in the studio to help us assess welfare reform from the perspective of someone on the front lines is Karen Galuli, director of the Catholic Hunger and Shelter Network, one of the larger such organizations in the area. Thanks for joining us this morning.

Karen Galuli–Thank you.

DCB–How do food stamps affect your organization?

KG–Well, what we've found in our hunger centers is just over half of the folks who come to us for food don't receive food stamps, and those that do say that it doesn't last the entire month, so that's why they come to us for emergency food.

DCB–Run into problems with people being sanctioned and stuff like that?

KG–Yeah, a lot of people have been sanctioned because of missing appointments, or because they haven't been able to find and maintain employment, and people who are sanctioned then go for either one, tow, or three months without their benefit. We're finding that people are confused, as we just heard in the story, about what they are eligible for, how to receive those benefits, and to be honest, some people have just given up trying, because they have to go through such a hassle, in their view, to try and get the benefit. Often times, the food stamp benefit is rather small, and it won't last the entire month, so they try very hard to find employment in order to pay for their food.

DCB–Have you seen a drop in people coming in for food aid?

KG–Actually, we've seen an increase in the frequency. Remember, we've always been serving folks who didn't receive welfare. Welfare was never substantial enough to take someone out of the need for emergency food, so we've been seeing those folks already, but the frequency with which they've come has increased because they're needing food more regularly with the sanctions.

DCB–What about access to food? The situation with food stamps is one thing, although I understand they're-are they doing that debit card thing yet, is that in full force?

KG–Right, the Ohio Direct Card has been in place. The transition from the actual paper stamps to the card was a little rocky for some folks, but most people now are on the card itself, and they use it like a debit card at the grocery store. People, I think, are getting more familiar with that, but there was, you know, there were people who went without their food stamps because of that transition, even for a short time, so we picked up some of those folks in our centers as well.

DCB–Are we going to have to rely on overworked self-sufficiency coaches to reach out to people, are you running into problems like that?

KG–Well, what we try to do in our centers is our staff and volunteers try to communicate, you know, they try to be an extension of that information so that they can educate the folks who come for either the bags of groceries or the hot meals, to help them learn and educate them about what they are eligible for and try to encourage them to go see their self-sufficiency coach, so that they can get what they're eligible for.

DCB–Have you noticed, as we noted towards the end of that story, situations where the very system itself and the requirements that it has do in fact discourage people, I mean, there was a situation just on-

KG–Yeah, I think that that's the case. I think people are confused and they get frustrated. They're trying to do the best they can. There's an image of folks that come to emergency food programs that they don't want ot work or they're not interested in improving their situation, that's not what we've found at all. People are eager to improve their situation and trying very, very hard, but with the multiple barriers that we've heard about, with medical coverage and transportation and child care and housing and all those things that take a lot of energy, people become very frustrated.

DCB–We're nearly two years, now, into welfare reform. What's your sense of how things have changed, either for the better or for the worst?

KG–Well, I think that it did encourage people who were ready to work to move in that direction, so we've seen a number of people who were on welfare perhaps move off welfare more quickly than they might have otherwise, but the folks that are still using welfare benefits are the ones that have multiple barriers and are more challenging to help, and those are the people who, as the clock keeps ticking, we're going to have to figure out a way to help them once their time limits are up.

DCB–Karen Galuli is director of Catholic Hunger and Shelter Network in the Greater Cleveland Catholic Diocese. Thank for joining us this morning.

KG–Thank you very much.