News from New York State Office of Temporary & Disability Assistance

For more information contact: Michael Hayes, 518-474-9516

Commissioner to Address New York Food Stamp Efforts for West Coast Colleagues

David Hansell to Provide Keynote Address at Forum in Sacramento

ALBANY, NY (02/12/2008; 1533)(readMedia)-- State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) Commissioner David A. Hansell has been invited to speak this week to colleagues in California about Governor Spitzer’s Working Families Food Stamp Initiative.

Commissioner Hansell will speak at The 9th California Food Stamp Forum, being held Wednesday, February 13, in Sacramento, Calif.

“I am honored on behalf of Governor Spitzer to have been asked to detail our efforts to make sure low-income working families are given the help they need to feed their families,” Commissioner Hansell said. “This is a clear example that New York State is at the forefront of ensuring the economic security of our hard-working residents.”

Ken Hecht, executive director of California Food Policy Advocates, said the forum brings together people from around California and across the country who are dedicated to improving the health and nutritional status of low-income people by increase the use of the Food Stamp Program.

“We are honored to have Commissioner Hansell keynote this year's Forum. He is precisely the right person to showcase New York State's bold, new Working Families Food Stamp Initiative. New York State and California are both large states that have been hobbled by the same barriers that keep working families from receiving the essential nutrition assistance to which they are entitled,” said Hecht. “New York's Initiative, eliminating cumbersome administrative requirements -- face-to-face interviews, finger imaging, excessive reporting and, perhaps most of all, counterproductive asset limits -- while maintaining fiscal integrity, is exactly the sort of policy reform that California needs to undertake.”

United States Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Nancy Johner, who has been highly supportive of the Working Families Food Stamp Initiative, will also speak at the event.

The recently-launched Working Families Food Stamp Initiative has removed hurdles, such as face-to-face interviews and finger imaging requirements, that have kept Food Stamp-eligible households with earnings from participating in the Food Stamp Program at same rate as other eligible households. The goal of the initiative is to enroll an additional 100,000 new households in the Food Stamp Program, including more than 100,000 children, by the end of 2008.

For more information, visit www.otda.state.ny.us

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