Local lawmakers called for the city and state to compensate hungry New Yorkers who have had their SNAP benefits stolen after an article in The City Reporter detailed the prevalence of the food benefits scheme.
Citing The City Reporter’s article, legislators noted how California had successfully reduced the crime and demanded information on what the city had done to prevent such theft.
In a letter to city Social Services Commissioner Erin Dalton, Manhattan Assemblymembers Keith Powers and Grace Lee and City Councilmembers Christopher Marte and Harvey Epstein pressed for local action.
“As states like California have successfully transitioned to implementing enhanced security features we would like to understand what steps New York City is taking to similarly protect residents,” they wrote in a July 2 letter.
The City Reporter’s story “matches our experience with our constituents who have checked their balance for the month only to see that some or all of their balance had been stolen,” they wrote.
In an extensive look at the problem, The City Reporter found that untold numbers of New Yorkers reach the grocery checkout only to find that the benefits they need for food had already been taken by online swindlers — often in a series of near-simultaneous transactions that common fraud detection technology for commercial cards would catch.
Service providers across town told The City Reporter that the problem seems to be worse than ever, but victims have no recourse for replacing the benefits.
In a recent visit to a senior center at NYCHA’s Lillian Wald Houses in Alphabet City, Powers said that locals told him: “Ask anyone in this complex, and everyone has fallen victim at some point.”
Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas from Queens, who has been advocating for the reimbursements in Albany, despaired that years of efforts seem not to have produced the political will to replace stolen benefits. The measure was absent from both Governor Kathy Hochul and the Assembly’s proposed budgets this year.
“I think many of us that are dealing directly with constituents understand how horrifically unjust it is for the most vulnerable people to be robbed of food,” González-Rojas said. “We did everything in our power to elevate it as a priority.”
She did note Hochul’s support for a move to chip cards, which help prevent the fraud. The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance commissioner said in a hearing in February that the changeover will likely take at least a year.
“I’m very frustrated that we couldn’t get the fund, at least something to hold people over until the cards are distributed,” González-Rojas said.
Brooklyn Assemblymember Kalman Yeger said the state must find a faster way to implement chip cards and to replace the funds, without waiting an entire year for the next state budget.
“It should not have risen to the level of emergency, but here we are,” he told The City Reporter.
Yeger, who said constituents regularly visit his office in tears after losing their benefits in this way, was outraged that the technical fixes to prevent skimming exist but have not been implemented here.
“Can you imagine for a second if Yankees tickets were being stolen online and frauded up, wouldn’t the Yankees come up with a new ticketing solution in like a week?” he said. “This just makes no sense.”
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The post Lawmakers Push for Action Over Stolen SNAP Benefits appeared first on The City Reporter.
