At least 26K NYC residents still waiting for ‘life and death’ public benefits, despite improvements

Thousands of New York City residents are still waiting more than a month to receive cash assistance or food stamps, even as city staffers cut through record-high backlogs.

“What are you going to do about it?” City Councilmember Gale Brewer asked representatives from the city's Department of Social Services during a Council committee hearing on Wednesday. “Because this is life and death for people.”

DSS, which processes cash assistance and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — or SNAP — benefits, recorded its slowest processing times for benefits in more than a decade last fiscal year, according to the Mayor’s Management Report, a citywide report card released in September.

Jill Berry, first deputy commissioner at DSS, said at Wednesday's hearing that the agency is making progress on the backlog and has hired 700 people since December to handle an application surge "not seen in modern times.” More than 51,000 cash assistance applications were submitted in August alone, according to city data.

Fewer than 2,000 people were still waiting for food benefits and another 26,700 were waiting for cash assistance, Berry told councilmembers. Under federal and state law, the city must process and approve benefits within 30 days of receiving someone's application.

“We are continuing to hire monthly, currently at numbers that are higher than our attrition rates,” Berry said, adding that the department is aiming to reduce employee workloads through creative methods as applications reach historic highs.

Berry also said the city is seeking several waivers from the state and federal governments, which fund the benefits, to allow staffers to process applications faster.

In one example she gave, residents on fixed incomes would be required to reapply for cash assistance every year, instead of the current six months. If granted, such a waiver would reduce expected recertification cases by 15,000 in December, Berry said.

The city processed 28.8% of cash assistance applications within the legally required 30 days last fiscal year, which ended June 30, compared to 82.3% the prior year — marking the lowest rate since 2010. Meanwhile, DSS processed 39.7% of SNAP applications on time last fiscal year, the lowest rate since 2006.

“Cash assistance is a lifeline for the city’s most vulnerable residents,” Councilmember Diana Ayala said at Wednesday's hearing.