Indiana ranks third in rate of growth for food stamp use

INDIANAPOLIS -- The ranks of Indiana residents receiving food stamps grew at the third-fastest rate in the nation the past four years -- a finding released Wednesday some advocates for the poor consider a cause for optimism.\nWhile the growth is a symptom of Indiana's recent economic struggles, it also indicates Indiana's social service agencies are succeeding in signing up many eligible food stamp recipients who did not apply in the past, advocates say.\n"One of the reasons we're enrolling more people is we're reaching out to more people in need," said Charles Warren, research manager with the nonprofit Indiana Institute for Working Families. "But we've also got more people who are in need. It's a double-edged sword."\nThe number of Indiana's food stamp participants increased nearly 76 percent from the start of 2000 through January of this year, according to a nationwide study released by the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization.\nThe only states with higher growth rates were Arizona, at 108 percent, and Nevada, at 106 percent. The next-highest state in the Midwest was Wisconsin, No. 6 at 70 percent, and the rate for the nation as a whole was 37 percent.\nThe study, relying on federal data, reported about 521,000 food stamp recipients among Indiana's population of 6.2 million in January of this year, up from 300,000 recipients in January 1999.\nIndiana ranked 13th in the estimated percentage of eligible persons receiving food stamps in 2001, the most recent period for which data are available.\nGovernment agencies across Indiana have recently expanded efforts to reach poor people who in the past either chose not to apply for food stamps or were unaware they were eligible, Warren said.\nFor example, Community Harvest Food Bank in Fort Wayne received a federal grant to place outreach workers at grocery stores and other public sites to enroll eligible families.\nBeryl Cohen, deputy director of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration's Bureau of Family Resources, said Congress approved changes a few years ago that have streamlined food stamp application procedures and simplified reporting requirements.\nAid workers also are more widely distributing applications at food banks and social service agencies and conducting public information campaigns.\nFood stamp eligibility is based on income and family size.\n"Even if you only qualify for $10, that's $10 more you will have to pay rent," Cohen said.\nWhile money spent on food stamps is generated by tax revenue, advocates say the economic activity that food stamps generate is far-reaching.\n"Food stamps create jobs in agriculture, harvesting, processing, packaging, distributing and at the retail level," said Pamela Altmeyer, president and chief executive of Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana.\nAbout 23.5 million people are on food stamps nationally, according to the Food Research and Action Center's report.\nIn examining hunger data, the group concluded "The divide between affluent Americans and those low-income adults and children worrying about their next meal will come from is serious and worsening."\nThe group said there is a need for "aggressive steps to assure greater use of key federal nutrition investments"