Cindy Rodriguez
Cindy Rodriguez has been a staff reporter at WNYC, New York Public Radio since July of 2002. As the station’s urban policy reporter she covers the impacts of poverty on communities in all five boroughs. ...
Federal Grant Will Allow NYers Renew Food Stamps Online
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
New York, NY –
A federal grant of more than $600,000 will allow New Yorkers to renew their food stamps online. Kevin Concannon, Under-Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, announced the help while visiting a food pantry on Manhattan's East Side. Concannon says the grant is supposed to make it easier for people to maintain their benefits:
CONCANNON: That's a very important thing because if you have a healthy bank account, you can go for a couple of months without a benefit but we're talking about very poor people and when they lose that for several months, that just deepens the problems that they are faced with.
REPORTER: According to the federal government during an eight month period, about 88,000 New Yorkers temporarily lost their food stamps, after they failed to reapply for them.
In addition to visiting the food pantry, Concannon and another U.S. Department of Agriculture official also testified at a city council hearing about making food stamps more accessible.
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