U.S. District Judge David Ezra has ordered the state of Hawaii's Department of Human Services to reach full compliance in terms of processing food stamp applications by the end of 2012. Under federal law, all food stamp applications must be processed within 30 days from receipt. In 2011, the state of Hawaii was only able to process 76.5 percent of the applications within a 30 day deadline for 2011. Judge Ezra stated that this was not acceptable. State of Hawaii officials contested that there has been an increase in applications due to the economic downturn and that the Department of Human Services has also experienced layoffs due to government cutbacks.
According to a recent report, there are approximately 173,000 people in Hawaii who receive "food stamps" from the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. This comes out to an annual cost of $440 million. The Department of Human Services receives approximately 5,000 to 7,000 new applications per month. If there is a delay in the application review process, applicants may be forced to wait several months to receive their food stamps.
An applicant may also file for an "emergency application" which the Department of Human Services must review within a federally required seven days. The DHS is also running behind in processing these applications. As a result, in 2010 a class-action lawsuit was filed against the state of Hawaii due to their "failure to process applications in a timely manner means that thousands of households are denied desperately needed assistance to help them feed their families and suffer hunger as a result."
Source: Honolulu Star Advertiser, 1-30-2012, www.staradvertiser.com
Posted by Jeff Uyemura-Reyes, Broker-in-Charge, Realtor®
Global Executive Realty, LLC
www.myhawaiihomesearch.com
www.myhawaiicondo.com
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