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County staff says hotel-motel model failing as SNAP work rules close 132 cases
Summary
Greene County staff reported 64 rooms housing 96 clients, instances of double-bunking and out-of-county placements; the county closed 132 SNAP cases this month after new work-rule enforcement and will seek additional staff and program changes.
Kyra, a county services staff member, told the County Services Committee that Greene County is short on shelter capacity and that the hotel-motel placement approach is no longer meeting needs. "We have 64 rooms with 96 clients," Kyra said, noting families have been split across hotels and that staff have seen a family of 14 and an elderly woman who lay unattended for about 13 hours.
Kyra said the county began enforcing the new able-bodied-adult-without-dependents (ABAWD) work rules tied to SNAP benefits this month. "Once you are not engaged in work activities for three months, the cases will be closed officially," she said, and reported that 132 SNAP cases were closed in the first month of enforcement. Kyra added the county's SNAP caseload is 3,411 people and emphasized the workloads on county staff: "Eva has taken 21,736 calls" since January.
The committee pressed on two themes: whether many hotel placements are for nonresidents and what alternatives exist. One legislator said residents seem to be "rotating through" the Hudson Valley looking for shelter space; Kyra replied the county is following Greene County rules but that many younger adults travel between counties, while families noted in the report are largely from Greene County. Committee members asked whether a 24-hour supervised shelter would have prevented the unattended medical incident; Kyra said the key difference is continuous supervision, which the hotel model does not provide.
Committee members raised potential short-term responses, including assigning able-bodied clients to work on county grounds; Kyra said some clients already help with groundskeeping at local facilities. She concluded by asking the committee to consider budget requests for more staff to manage the caseload.
The committee did not adopt a formal policy change during the meeting; Kyra said she will ask for additional staff in the upcoming budget cycle and suggested that a shelter model with 24-hour supervision would address some safety and service-delivery gaps.
Ending: The county will include staffing requests in the budget process and return with specifics; no new shelter contract or formal vote on a shelter model was recorded in the transcript.
