On April 22, New York State announced the distribution of $20 million in federal funding to help struggling New Yorkers with multi-generational households avoid food insecurity. Administered through the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, the assistance through the Pandemic Emergency Assistance Fund will provide households with both a child and an older adult with a one-time payment to help cover food expenses.
“The COVID-19 pandemic continues to disproportionately impact those New Yorkers who were struggling even before the public health emergency began,” OTDA Commissioner Daniel W. Tietz said. “This one-time benefit will bring welcome relief to older adults with children or teens living in their household as our state collectively recovers from the economic tumult of the past two years.”
OTDA will issue one-time payments to those households enrolled in Public Assistance or SNAP that have both an adult on the case who is 55 or older and a child who is 17 or under, where both the child and adult are in receipt of these benefits. Households will get $730 for each eligible older adult in the household.
OTDA will issue these payments directly to the household’s Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) account, with approximately 26,300 households expected to receive this assistance. Eligible households will receive written notification from OTDA informing them of the total amount of benefits they will receive.
The Pandemic Emergency Assistance Fund was created as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 with the intention to assist needy families impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Per federal guidelines, the funding must be used for issuing non-recurring, short-term benefits to impacted households with children to deal with a specific short-term situation or need.
Earlier this year, OTDA provided roughly $18.2 million to provide one-time payments of $140 to all families enrolled in Public Assistance or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program with a child under the age of three-years-old to assist with the cost of diapers. The funding assisted more than 130,000 children throughout the state.
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