Food stamp use spreads to more affluent areas

With manicured streetscapes of shade trees and flowers, and closely guarded deed restrictions, Westchase looks like a place giving handouts rather than a place where some people are getting them.

But this recession has hit hard at all socioeconomic levels. Food stamp recipients include the skilled tradesman and the professional next door.

In ZIP code 33626, centered on Westchase - median income nearly $80,000 - applications for food stamps surged 168 percent from January through March, compared with the same period last year. Figures show 166 households sought food stamps, up from 62 in the first three months of last year.

There are few visible signs of financial trouble in Westchase, and the number of people applying is lower than most neighborhoods. But the increase shows how stereotypes about food stamps are falling away.

In Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas and Manatee counties, the number of households applying for food stamps is up 75 percent in the first three months of 2009. The number of approved households is up 43 percent.

On a recent weekday, Heather Golden, 30, was waiting to use a computer at the Tampa Bay Workforce Alliance, a government jobs agency where many people scour employment listings. A resident of Tampa's Forest Hills neighborhood, Golden has worked as a medical assistant and a waitress and is now receiving food stamps.

"You want to work for what you've got," said Golden, who has been out of work five months and seen her fiance's subcontracting business dry up with the real estate crash. "You don't want to lay down."

The Tribune analyzed food stamp applications and approvals in the four counties by ZIP code. Not surprisingly, given the recession, applications are soaring everywhere.

From January through March, 46,067 households in Hillsborough applied for food stamps, up 72 percent from the same period last year. Manatee County saw its applications soar 92 percent; Pinellas County's rose 76 percent; and Pasco's 75 percent.

Some of the biggest growth in food stamp applications is in relatively affluent ZIP codes.

Tough all around

Technology may be helping diminish the stigma of food stamps and encouraging more people to apply. Food stamps come in the form of a plastic card that is swiped through a reader, just like credit cards. Stores that accept them often display the letters "EBT," for Electronic Benefit Transfer.

In the 34685 ZIP code in Palm Harbor, 100 households filed for food stamps this year, compared with 36 last year - a jump of 177 percent. The median household income for the Pinellas County community was nearly $77,900 in 2007, according to the research firm Nielsen Trade Dimensions. Pinellas' median income was $43,591.

The number of households applying for food stamps surged 144 percent in the 34639 ZIP code of Land O' Lakes, where median household income was $58,238. There, 363 households applied for food stamps from January through March, compared with 149 last year. Pasco's median income was $42,912.

Six-figure salaries to stamps

Across the Bay area, unemployed professionals who mingle at job networking events speak of friends who once made six-figure salaries. These friends now are seeking welfare payments - formally known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families - or food stamps.

Many new food stamp applicants also come from the battered construction industry.

In Riverview, Don Bowers was working recently on the foundation of a home in the Panther Trace subdivision, lucky to have a job but still feeling the pinch. He will earn about $40,000 this year. Not long ago he was making $75,000 a year.

"That's a house payment," he said, speaking of the difference.

His family applied for food stamps, but he was turned down - the Florida Department of Children and Families is rejecting a greater share of food stamp applications than it did last year. Only 63 percent were approved in Hillsborough from January through March among the 46,067 households seeking assistance, according to DCF statistics. During the same three months last year, the approval rate was 78 percent.

Bowers said his new car was to blame for his denial. The state doesn't take vehicles into account when determining eligibility for food stamps, said DCF's Denise Hicks. It does have limits on how much a person can make and own and still qualify.

Wolfe's Produce Market in Riverview is one of many businesses taking food stamps for the first time. Statewide, the number of retailers applying to accept food stamps is up by a third in the first five months of this year, compared with the same period last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The department approves retailers in the program.

"We started getting one person, then two people a week, then 10 people a week," said Jeff Wolfe, owner of Wolfe's Produce. "As we waited to get approval to accept them, we started seeing 15 a week."

Golden is looking forward to a time when she won't need food stamps. But it looks far away when former employers - her references - are going out of business.

She and her fiance used to make more than $50,000 combined and lived comfortably. Now, her car insurance has lapsed and she has stopped driving.

"I'm just learning how to take the bus."

Getting food stamps

- Apply in person or online

For a list of offices and other help: 1-866-762-2237

Online: www.myflorida.com/accessflorida

- Amount of benefit

Maximum is $200 a month for an individual, $150 for each additional person; $1,202 for a household of eight

- To qualify

Income guidelines: Gross monthly income at or below $1,127 for an individual, excluding certain deductions for shelter and utility costs, child care and other expenses. For each additional person in a household, add $390 to the limit. A family of two can earn up to $1,517, a family of three up to $1,907.

Assets: A household may have up to $2,000 in "countable" assets, liquid assets such as cash and some other assets such as non-homesteaded real estate. The limit increases to $3,000 for a household with a person 60 or older or someone with a disability. Excluded from the limit are a home, vehicle, household goods, a burial plot and cash value of a life insurance policy.

- What you can buy

List includes breads and cereals; fruits and vegetables; meats, fish and poultry; dairy products; and seed and plants for growing food.