New York City’s top welfare official offered an unusually candid assessment of shortcomings in social services yesterday, vividly describing offices where caseworkers are overwhelmed by paperwork, hindered by antiquated computers and not given adequate training.
Furthermore, the official, Verna Eggleston, acknowledged that the need for food and nutrition assistance is growing in the city — so much so that some of her own employees are receiving food from charities between paychecks.
Ms. Eggleston, commissioner of the Human Resources Administration, which has about 16,000 employees and an annual budget of $7 billion, made her remarks in testimony before Councilman Bill de Blasio of Brooklyn at a hearing to discuss hunger in the city.
The United States Department of Agriculture reported last week that the prevalence of “food insecurity” — a federal term for hunger — in New York State rose to an average of 10.4 percent in 2003-5 from 9.4 percent in 2000-2, though the level is still lower than the 11.9 percent reported in 1996-98.
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