Feeding Their Fear : Food Stamp Changes Leave Some Recipients Expecting the Worst

The first day of the month at any welfare office is usually one of crowded confusion. But Tuesday, the first day that new federal welfare reforms restricting the food stamp program were supposed to be implemented, the confusion was tinged with fear.

A throng of welfare recipients at the County Social Services Agency office on Walnut Street scanned the new regulations to see if they would be eliminated from the food stamp program.

“Of course I’m going to be affected--everyone is going to be hurt by this,” said Mark Seixas, 34, a homeless man who stays in the Civic Center area in Santa Ana. “I’ve been on food stamps for about a year and a half, but I don’t really know yet what’s going to happen to me.”

Under the new regulations, county governments are to stop giving food stamps to legal immigrants who have not worked in the U.S. during the past 10 years or who have not been granted asylum or refugee status.

About 142,000 people receive food stamps in Orange County at a monthly cost of about $9 million. Most also receive assistance through the Aid to Families with Dependent Children or general relief programs. About 70% of those receiving general relief are not citizens, and of those, 31% are sponsored immigrants who have been in the country less than five years, county officials said.

So far, no one in Orange County has been denied food stamp assistance. County welfare officials said that under federal regulations they have 30 days to process applications and determine eligibility.

“You can’t just flat out deny somebody,” said Angelo Doti, director of financial assistance for the Social Services Agency. “If somebody walks in the door and says, ‘I’m a noncitizen,’ there’s still a process we’re going to go through.”

Doti noted that because of budget cuts as a result of the county’s bankruptcy, his department does not have the staff to quickly process the applications.

The county will begin notifying applicants who are ineligible for food stamps by Nov. 1, Doti said.

Among those waiting for final word are a significant number of senior citizens in the county’s Vietnamese community.

Nearly 95% of immigrants brought to Orange County by relatives and who receive food stamps along with general relief are Vietnamese, according to county welfare officials.

At the Vietnamese Community Center of Orange County in Santa Ana, months of apprehension have crystallized into fear.

Mai Cong, the center’s president and CEO, tried to comfort distraught seniors who fear the poverty facing them.

Sitting in Cong’s office, Ngo Dung, a 75-year-old widow, begged Cong for help.

“Without the food stamps, all I will have left to do is die. Without them, then I will starve to death,” Dung said tearfully.

Dung said she came to the U.S. nearly five years ago with her husband and daughter, both of whom died within three years. The sister who sponsored Dung and her family has also died.

Dung, who shares a room in a Santa Ana apartment with another woman, carries with her a scrap of paper with Nov. 22, 1996, written on it. She believes that on that date she will become eligible for Supplemental Security Income.

But that was under the old federal regulations. Because of welfare reform barring noncitizens from federal aid programs, Dung will not be eligible for either SSI or food stamps.

As Dung left the office to join friends in the center’s community room, she turned to Cong and said: “Please, work hard to help me.”

“This is sad for me to hear,” Cong said. “There was a crying inside of me.”

Like Dung, many food stamp recipients in Orange County have yet to be informed that they are no longer eligible for assistance.

But even those who remain eligible face a slew of new regulations designed to push them into work and off welfare relief.

“Temporary assistance until you get a job is the focus of welfare reform, so anything that a person does that is considered noncooperation can result in disqualification,” Doti said.

The new rules penalize people who fail to search for a job, who do not accept a job offer, who fail to go to county-required work programs or vocational training or who quit a job.

And food stamps will no longer be increased if AFDC assistance decreases, as it once did.

“That used to be a major frustration for us,” Doti said. “We would prosecute a [welfare] fraud case and cut the mother’s grant by 5% or 10% to effect a recovery [of the money], and the food stamp benefits would go up corresponding to our cut.”

Also, the income of students 18 or older who live at home must be counted toward the total household income, and people who file more than one application at the same time or who use false identification can be disqualified for 10 years.

In the meantime, like any first of the month, hundreds of people turned to the county for help.

At the Walnut Street welfare office, Kipper Ballentine, 34, of Garden Grove filled out his applications for food stamps and general relief. He said he did not understand the welfare reforms or the politics driving them.

“A thing I can’t understand is why the U.S. government wants to spend billions and billions of dollars to go into outer space to find life when they’ve already got life here to care about,” Ballentine said. “I guess they basically really want to cut off food stamps and have nothing for people. But I don’t think it’s right.”