The state of Hawaii has long had one of the lowest participation rates in the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, a statistic that local legislators and agencies are trying to change.
According to legislation introduced by Sen. Josh Green, a Kona Democrat, Hawaii secures more than $500,000 annually for SNAP, known commonly as food stamps. But a 2012 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture ranked the state 46th in the country in terms of eligible people who were actually participating in the program.
Senate Bill 3039 would authorize health care providers to ask clients who are enrolled in the federal Medicaid program if they are participating in SNAP. Both federal programs are income-based.
Green, who is a physician, said he decided to introduce the bill after realizing that many of his patients didn’t know programs such as SNAP existed.
“I see a lot of people in my other life as a doctor that are in poverty, and I’ve noticed that a lot of them weren’t getting the full complement of resources that they’re eligible for,” he said.
According to the legislation, there were 159,603 people in the state who were enrolled in Medicaid but not in SNAP.
“If these additional, eligible … individuals participated in SNAP, the state could receive more federal funding, an estimated ($247 million) which would ultimately be injected into the economy in Hawaii with no negative impact on the state budget,” the bill states.
“If that money doesn’t come here, if it stays in Washington, D.C., it doesn’t do this island any good,” said Kristin Frost Albrecht of the Hawaii Food Basket. “It’s been our game plan to get as much of those SNAP dollars here. It’s an amazing amount of money that’s being left in D.C.”
The Food Basket was recently awarded the state Department of Human Service’s SNAP outreach contract, and is in the process of hiring two outreach workers, one for each side of the island.
“The (participation) numbers are way down here,” Frost Albrecht said.
A needs assessment created in fiscal year 2014 for SNAP found that Hilo has the second-highest percentage of low-income residents in the state (4.6 percent), after urban Honolulu (29.1 percent).
The same assessment identified Hilo as having a relatively high level of food insecurity and listed Hawaii Island as “substantially underserved” by SNAP.
SB 3039 is intended to boost participation by serving as “a mechanism to help DHS find all of the people who qualify,” Green said.
The bill unanimously cleared one committee, Human Services, and was referred to the Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health.
Green said he viewed the legislation as a means of solving other problems as well, because people would be able to put more of their financial resources into areas such as housing if they didn’t have to commit so much to buying food.
“$300 a month is a very, very significant amount of money for people,” he said. “Even people living right on the edge of homelessness could get set up to (be more stable).”
Citing concerns about implementation and confidentiality, DHS testified in opposition of the bill and said the department was “actively working” on a strategy that would allow people to apply for Medicaid and SNAP at the same time.
“All these years, we haven’t done it,” Green said. “So sometimes it takes legislation to bring awareness to the department … that this is something they should do.”
Email Ivy Ashe at iashe@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
