Members of the New York City Council skewered Adams administration officials on Wednesday for what they said was a failure to address ongoing delays in processing food stamp and cash assistance applications — failures that have left about 30,000 households waiting more than a month for aid.
“The situation has gotten catastrophic,” Councilmember Lincoln Restler said during a hearing of the Council’s general welfare committee. “This administration has done an absolutely inadequate job in staffing the agency to meet the needs of the most vulnerable New Yorkers. It is beyond disheartening and disturbing, it is causing anguish for our neighbors each and every day.”
Administrators from the Department of Social Services said more people are seeking help, but the agency has fewer staff to assist them. During more than two hours of testimony, DSS officials couldn’t answer how many additional workers they needed to eliminate the backlog or whether they were retaining the staff they were hiring.
The hearing comes as recently released city data shows the processing rates for the two public benefits programs plunged to their worst numbers in a decade last fiscal year, with 6 out of 10 applicants to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as
SNAP, are waiting beyond the federally required 30-day deadline. Cash assistance processing rates were worse, with 7 out of 10 applicants experiencing delays, according to the Mayor’s Management Report released earlier this month.
“It kind of sounds like you guys don’t know how to get out of this crisis — that to me is really unacceptable,” said Councilmember Althea Stevens.
Marricka Scott-McFadden, the DSS deputy commissioner for intergovernmental and legislative affairs, said the agency is deploying workers within the department, offering voluntary overtime on nights and weekends, and has hired more than 700 new workers this year.
“This is not taken lightly,” she told councilmembers. “Daily, weekly…
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