Citizen-centric disaster benefits system puts Louisiana residents in the fast lane.

Key points covered

• Mobile satellites provide Internet access to remote Disaster Food Stamp centers.
• “We wanted a clean, automated system that was user-friendly and that people could easily manage.”
  — Kristy Nichols, secretary, Department of Social Services, Louisiana
• DSS employees will be able to swipe pre-registered applicants’ drivers’ licenses and automatically populate their applications.

Excerpt

Louisiana is no stranger to natural disasters. In September 2008, Hurricane Gustav tore through the state, wreaking havoc. The fear of mass flooding and an already fragile infrastructure weren't the only challenges Gustav threw at Louisiana when it swept through the state. The storm also forced the state's Department of Social Services (DSS) to take a hard look at the way it distributed benefits through its federally funded Disaster Food Stamps program, which provides money for groceries to eligible households that have lost income or suffered damage in a disaster.

After Gustav, more than 2 million people applied for Disaster Food Stamps, converging at the 60 locations the state set up to take their applications. These applications came on top of Louisiana's nearly 1 million people in the regular food stamp program.

At the Disaster Food Stamp centers, people stood in line for hours, waiting to talk with DSS employees, complete paperwork and present income verification. Then the applicants faced a second wait. DSS shipped their paperwork to a data processing center, where employees entered the information, and the computer system determined eligibility. Next, the system transmitted data on eligible households in batches to JPMorgan Chase, which uploaded the benefits to individuals' electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards. Only then - three or four days after they filled out their applications - could residents start using their cards to buy food.

While citizens made do for several days without disaster benefits, DSS wrestled with technology challenges. Due to the huge number of applications it needed to process, the computer system crashed several times, further slowing the benefits process. The overwhelming volume also caused the system to commit occasional errors, such as issuing too much money to some EBT cards, or issuing duplicate benefits to about 22,000 people.