Expansion of Eligibility for State Food Assistance Program Violence

May 1, 2002

Author: Amy Schwartz

Several days ago, the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) issued 02 ADM-4, directing those local social services districts that have implemented the State's Food Assistance Program (FAP) to begin providing state food stamp benefits to certain immigrant victims of domestic violence. FAP was established in 1997 to provide state and locally funded food stamp benefits to elderly and disabled immigrants and immigrant children who had been made ineligible for federal food stamps by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996.

Local districts are not required to participate in FAP and a local district can opt in or out of the program at any time. Districts that do participate in FAP bear half the cost of providing benefits. At this time, thirteen counties operate the program: Albany, Dutchess, Jefferson, Monroe, Nassau, Oneida, Orange, Rockland, Schenectady, Suffolk, Tompkins, Westchester and New York City. Because several years ago Congress restored the federal food stamp eligibility of most of the immigrants who had been covered by FAP, relatively few immigrants were receiving benefits under the program in October of 2001 when the State Legislature re-authorized FAP for another two years and expanded eligibility to include certain battered immigrants.

To qualify for FAP benefits under the domestic violence provision, the immigrant must be identified as a victim of domestic violence in accordance with New York's Family Violence Option (FVO) procedures or be classified as a "qualified alien" through application of the federal immigration provisions regarding battered spouses and dependents. In addition, the battered immigrant must satisfy these previously existing FAP requirements:

• she must have entered the United States on or before 8/22/96;
  
• she must currently be residing in the same social services district in which she resided on 8/22/96;
  
• she must not have left the United States for more than 90 days in the past 12 months;
  
• she must be willing to apply for US citizenship as soon as she is eligible, and, of course,
  
• she must be living in a district that has opted to offer FAP benefits.

(See Social Services Law § 95 (10) as amended by Chapter 362 of the Laws of 2001.)

OTDA's new directive is not yet available on its website. In the meantime, advocates who would like a copy of 02 ADM-4 can contact Barbara Weiner at Empire Justice Center in Albany ( bweiner@empirejustice.org ) or Anne Pearson of the Welfare Law Center in New York City .