WFSC Road Trip and Full Consortium meeting: Milwaukee

November 2, 2009

Early in 2009, the Wisconsin Food Security Consortium steering committee decided that in order to best understand the challenges posed by hunger in different parts of our state, the WFSC would hold two of its four quarterly meetings on the road. In June, 2009, the steering committee drove north and visited with Hope for the Hungry, a hunger coalition in the Rhinelander/Minocqua area.

On November 2, 2009, the Consortium took the second of its road trip meetings to Milwaukee County.  The agenda included:

Minutes for the meeting can be found here.
Handouts:

After the meeting, the WFSC steering committee and other Consortium members visited three Milwaukee-area agencies dedicated to helping those in need.

Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center

The first stop was at Hunger Task Force’s ACCESS Project within the Marcia P. Coggs Center, located at 12th and Vliet in downtown Milwaukee. The Coggs Center is where Milwaukee County residents apply for FoodShare, Badger Care Plus and Core, as well as other federal benefit programs. Hunger Task Force has been a presence there since January of 2009, and has played a major role in helping those applying for FoodShare in Milwaukee become advocates for themselves. At the ACCESS Project, Hunger Task Force has computers and phone banks, and assists clients with the FoodShare application process, including over-the-phone interviews.  Clients can get help in English, Spanish, or Hmong.

Maureen Fitzgerald, who runs the ACCESS Project, gave a tour. She explained that Hunger Task Force has been concerned about rights violations when it comes to accessibility and receiving one’s FoodShare benefits, especially as demand for the program increased. With the introduction of the BadgerCare Plus Core plan-- the state’s medical insurance plan for childless and single adults-- FoodShare applications began to come in record amounts.  Hunger Task Force found that, on average, those who had applied to and qualified for FoodShare often had to wait 3 months before receiving their benefits. Federal law mandates that benefits are to be received within 30 days for non-expedited cases. Expedited cases – for those with zero income or who are homeless – are to take, at most, 7 days.

Clients were also experiencing long wait times on the phone – sometimes up to 2 hours – to hear from someone about their case. Hunger Task Force began collecting data about on how long clients waited on hold to hear about the status of their applications and asked clients about how they were being treated over the phone. Their efforts paid off – calls made from Hunger Task Force’s phone bank were significantly shorter than those made from an outside line. “Because ESC [the primary number most clients need to call] has the extensions for our phones at the Coggs Center we find clients wait right now, on average, 20-30 minutes,” reports Maureen.

While there, members of the Consortium witnessed clients sitting one-on-one with an advocate or using the self-service scanning area to send in employment verification and other needed documents to their case workers. Many clients appeared tired, but those who left the ACCESS Project’s area often came out further ahead than those who were not fortunate enough to find the place.

“We now average approximately 1100 clients a month,” Maureen estimates. According to Hunger Task Force, 126,000 have applied for FoodShare since May 2009 in Milwaukee County alone.

Thanks to Maureen for her cheerful and informative tour – and thanks for the hard work she and her colleagues do on behalf of all those waiting for FoodShare. 

Friedens Food Pantry

Next, the Consortium steering committe and guests toured the Friedens Food Pantry, located in the basement of the Coggs Center. This pantry originated out of services offered by the now-defunct Friedens church. The congregation no longer meets, but the social services they provided continue in the form of the pantry. The pantry is open to those referred by a county worker, which means those who come to the Coggs center to apply for benefits such as FoodShare can get something to take home with them after their appointment. Friedens subsists on contributions from individuals, Hunger Task Force, and Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin. The pantry serves around 1000 households per month.

According to Friendens director, David Johnson, the pantry had seen a marked increase in use over 2009, serving

211 at Impact, Inc

The last stop on the tour was to visit the 211 call center. Southeastern Wisconsin’s 211 services are run by Impact, Inc. from a quiet, orderly office in West Allis, just outside Milwaukee city limits. The 211 calls are taken from around the area by a team of highly trained community resource specialists who direct clients towards resources close to home.  Impact, Inc. also offers counseling for alcohol and drug abuse.

While there, Consortium members watched specialists handle inquiries about swine flu, emergency food assistance, and other pressing needs . Calls were answered in a timely and courteous fashion. Community resource specialists who took the calls spoke calmly and kindly over the phones – the office atmosphere was not at all loud, as one might expect at an agency that takes in emergency assistance calls! The agency serves Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Walworth, Washington, Kenosha and Racine counties, and the eastern half of Wisconsin after 5pm.

Since the Consortium’s visit, the good work at Impact, Inc. has been awarded a grant for $25,000 from Walmart Corporation.  According to the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal, the grant will be used to hire new community resource specialists and redesign how 211 at Impact operates so it may better serve those whose call. 211 at Impact, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and receives funding from the State of Wisconsin and the United Way of Greater Milwaukee.

Conclusions

Preventing hunger in the Milwaukee area gets complicated by the urgent and high volume of assistance needed for families and individuals to meet the most basic of needs. However, not only are there groups dedicated to helping out in the interim, but also fighting for needed, long-term change. Milwaukee benefits from its diverse and active population reaching out and supporting each other. During the trip, the Consortium heard about the worst of the problems and witnessed the best of the fixes that prevented more from falling through the cracks.

Images from friedenspantry.org and impactinc.org.

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Support for this site has been made possible by the Lutheran Office for Public Policy in Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Council of Churches, and the Wisconsin Community Action Program Association.