Homeless Denied Free Food?

(AP)  A Washington advocacy group charges homeless Americans are not getting a fair shot at free food.

Some are denied because, by definition, they don't have an address -- even though federal law doesn't require one in order to qualify for food stamps. But homeless shelters and feeding programs surveyed by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty report that people are denied the assistance anyway.

"That's a great concern to us. That's clearly inconsistent with our rules,'' said Julie Paradis, the Agriculture Department's deputy undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer programs.

Of 72 charities that responded to the survey released Tuesday by the advocacy group, 45 percent said their homeless clients were sometimes or frequently denied food stamps for lack of an address. The surveys were given to organizations that already had reported problems with food-stamp eligibility.

A report this summer by the congressional General Accounting Office found that some states and local governments were unfairly discouraging the poor from getting food stamps and said USDA needed to monitor the agencies more closely.

Homeless people also have trouble getting information for the program or don't have the required documentation to prove their identity, according to the survey. Some 77 percent of the organizations surveyed reported having clients who were denied food stamps for lack of identification.

Under federal rules, applicants who lack IDs prove their identity by providing names of other people who can vouch for them. Even that is hard for many homeless people, said Frank Tamborello of the Los Angeles Coalition to end Hunger and Homelessness.

"They don't have contact with anyone,'' he said. "That's why a lot of them wind up not getting food stamps.''

Even when homeless individuals are approved for the program, there is a limited amount of food that they can buy in a grocery store that doesn't require cooking, he said. Many shelters do not provide cooking areas.

Other homeless individuals have been cut off from food stamps because of a work requirement imposed by Congress in 1996, according to the survey. Able-bodied adults who don't have children are required to work for at least 20 hours a week to get food stamps for more than three months out of a three-year period. States can get waivers from that requirement for areas with high unemployment.

"To be both hungry and homeless is a pretty desperate situation to be in,'' said Ellen Vollinger of the Food Research and Action Center, another advocacy group.