BY ALFRED LUBRANO

Mayor Nutter endorsed yesterday an anti-hunger platform cobbled together by local advocates who have joined for the first time to bolster their fight against hunger.

Nutter, who was on his way to Washington after the morning meeting with advocates at City Hall, vowed to lobby Congress on expansion of food-stamp benefits in the stimulus bill.

Advocates have long said that boosting food-stamp benefits was one of the best ways to help struggling Americans, especially now, as more and more middle-class and working-poor people slip into poverty.

President Obama could make a good start toward fulfilling a campaign pledge to end childhood hunger by saving Philadelphia's successful school breakfast and lunch program.

Philadelphia is the only city in the country that has eliminated the bureaucratic red tape that gets in the way of providing breakfast and lunch daily to schoolchildren.

Known as the Universal Feeding Program, it works because students and their families are not required to fill out application forms to qualify for free and reduced-price meals.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

You reported Gov. Rendell expects the stimulus bill to be sufficient to help Pennsylvania "avert deeper budget cuts and layoffs." Above all others, the Department of Public Welfare must benefit from this investment.

The stimulus legislation also includes a boost in food-stamp benefits. The timing could not be better. But with enrollment dramatically higher and continuing to climb, public-welfare offices in every county can barely keep up with the new applications.

BY ALFRED LUBRANO

For the first time in recent memory, a Philadelphia mayor is taking an active interest in combatting hunger, advocates said yesterday at a panel discussion about hunger as a public-health issue.

Although Mayor Nutter alone cannot end hunger in the city, his interest is an important first step, said the panelists, many of them longtime veterans of an endless fight.

BY ALFRED LUBRANO

More people need food stamps than ever before, but there are fewer state workers in Pennsylvania to process the claims; this may result in applicants missing out on benefits, according to anti-hunger advocates.

Research by the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger shows that a major problem for people eligible for food stamps is communicating with their caseworkers at local offices of the state Department of Public Welfare.

BY ALFRED LUBRANO

Javina Brown, who makes $9.75 an hour working for Boston Market, applied for food stamps in June but was denied. Her salary was $4 a month too high.

As of this week, however, Brown and others like her will be eligible for food stamps. For the first time in nearly 30 years, Pennsylvania has raised the income limit for the program.

"It's a blessing," said Brown, 32, who lives in South Philadelphia with her 10-year-old daughter and will get an estimated $360 a month in food stamps.

BY CRAIG SMITH

Bonnie Frederick tried to get food stamps last year, but her $9.50-an-hour pay from a packaging company put her monthly income $3 over the limit.

But new guidelines, put in place July 27 by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, make Frederick, 61, of North Versailles and her husband Gary, 62, eligible for food stamps, they learned this week.

"I'm a couponer, and I cook. We don't eat out a lot," Bonnie Frederick said. "We eat a lot of chicken. It will be nice to have some pork."

BY ALFRED LUBRANO

Critical of how some states administer food stamps for the hungriest Americans, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has ranked state performance, with Pennsylvania listed among the best and New Jersey among the worst.

USDA officials indicated last week that certain states "have not served . . . taxpayers well," according to a letter from the agency to state food-stamp administrators that was first reported on by the Associated Press.

More than $18 million in state funding for Pennsylvania food pantries is tied up in Harrisburg, as Gov. Ed Rendell, Sen. Dominic Pileggi and state lawmakers continue to squabble over the state budget. The budget impasse could soon result in less food and fewer services at Philadelphia pantries and soup kitchens, which serve an estimated 152,000 of the region’s most vulnerable
residents, including children, seniors and people with disabilities.

Tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians are now eligible for food stamps, thanks to the state Department of Public Welfare’s decision to raise the income limits for eligibility. Effective immediately, the gross-income limit for food stamps (now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) is 160 percent of the federal poverty line, up from 130 percent.