Yes, There Is A Free Lunch!

To compute Food stamp eligibility for a household with a person who is over the age of 60 or who has been declared fully disabled by Social Security, the Veterans Administration, welfare, or Medicaid:

School Lunch, School Breakfast, and Summer Food Service Programs

Anyone with children in school and with income below the 130 percent of the poverty level (see Table 1) -- regardless of disability or assets -- is eligible for free meals at school for their children. Actually paid childcare and babysitting costs are deducted from gross income before it is compared to the eligibility level. Children from families with incomes below the amounts 185 percent of the poverty level (see Table 5) are eligible for reduced-price meals.

Apply at the children's school office -- not the welfare office -- for the School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. Bring the same items required for food stamps. While you're there, or at least before school lets out for the summer, ask about the sites and application procedures for the Summer Food Service Program.

Women's, Infants' and Children's (WIC) Program

WIC provides a broad menu of services for women and their young children: health counseling and screening; immunizations; some well-child, pregnancy, and post-partum care; and referrals and information. WIC also offers vouchers, redeemable at community grocery stores, for the purchase of specialty food products -- typically milk, formula, baby food, pasta, cereal, and peanut butter. The value of the vouchers depends on family size.

Eligible persons are pregnant, postpartum, and nursing women and families with at least one child under the age of 5. At least one person in the family must be "at health or nutritional risk." Being HIV-positive qualifies as "at risk," and applicants need not be disabled.

To be eligible financially, your gross total family income must be below the 185 percent of poverty (see Table 5). No deductions are allowed, but there is no limit on the amount of assets you may have.

Apply at the maternal and child health division of your county or city health department -- not at the welfare office. Bring the same items required for food stamps. Because of funding shortages, applicants in some areas may be placed on a waiting list or turned away.

Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP)

For those old enough to remember, this is the widely publicized "free cheese" program begun at the height of the Reagan recession in the early 1980s. The program provides free bags of groceries, and yes, it still includes cheese, as well as other "surplus" food items like pasta, beans, canned goods, dried milk, and the like, plus industry donations.

Recipients must already be on welfare, SSI, food stamps, or Medicaid. They need not be disabled or raising children, and there is no assets test.

Food parcels are distributed through community food banks, churches, and other not-for-profit agencies. To find out who handles distribution in your area, ask the food stamp staff at your local welfare office. Then call the community distributing agency to find out when and where to apply and to pick up your food parcels. To apply, bring photo identification and proof -- letters, forms, ID card -- that you are currently receiving welfare, SSI, food stamps, or Medicaid.

Child and Adult Care Food Program;
Charitable Institutions Program;
Soup Kitchen/Food Bank Program

This grab bag of programs provides free food to not-for-profit agencies that run group homes provide food or meals are provided, pantry food parcel distribution programs, homebound meal delivery programs, and meals service for those in daycare/respite programs. In some cases, agencies can receive administrative and even limited financial support, and it is the not-for-profit, charitable status of the applicant agency, rather than the financial or disability status of individual clients, that determines eligibility for benefits.

The programs are run through state-level food distribution offices. To locate the state offices handling them (separate offices in all but the smallest states), contact the AIDS Nutrition Services Alliance, 1400 Eye Street NW, Suite 1220, Washington, D.C. 20005; (202) 289-5650, e-mail ANSAoffice@aol.com. This organization can provide local agencies (but not individuals) with names, addresses, and telephone numbers of state food program agencies, and it also offers other valuable services to community groups. :

Author of the AIDS Benefits Handbook (Yale University Press), Thomas P. McCormack has many years' experience as a benefits expert and advocate, particularly for people with HIV/AIDS. He now works with the Title II Community AIDS National Network and is a frequent contributor to Body Positive.