Sheila Joost, a clerk with the Department of Human Services, which administers the food stamp program, works at the Warwick office.

The Providence Journal Kathy Borchers

PROVIDENCE — The men and women who appear at Chantelle Gonzalez’s desk wear anxious expressions and carry armfuls of documents. They arrive with their heads bent, their tones apologetic.

There is the father who doesn’t want to see his daughter drop out of college, the young man who has been sleeping on couches because he fell short on his rent, and the mechanical engineer who was saving a little money in hopes of purchasing a home when he was handed a pink slip.

Each of their stories is different, but much the same. Lost jobs, dried up unemployment — all leading to empty wallets at the grocery store and eventually to Chantelle Gonzalez, a food stamp outreach worker for the University of Rhode Island’s Feinstein Center for a Hunger-Free America. Gonzalez, along with a team of outreach workers, help those in need navigate the sometimes complicated process of applying for the federal nutrition program.

A growing number of their clients are Rhode Island’s newly poor. People who have not asked for help before, but struggle in this economy to put food in their cupboards.

Driven by the dramatic unemployment rate, their numbers are rising. Since early 2008, upwards of 20,000 Rhode Islanders have joined the food-stamp program, with 3,700 signing up in March alone. Well over half of them had never before applied for assistance, statistics show.

The state Department of Human Services estimates that enrollment passed a major milestone in April: the 100,000 mark, with almost 1 in 10 Rhode Islanders now participating.

Rob Martinez, a mechanical engineer, will soon be one of them. Single and in his 30s, Martinez was a college-educated worker with plans for his future until the day he was laid off in March. With unemployment money not yet flowing into his account and his small savings dwindling, Martinez said he wasn’t sure where to turn, which is how he wound up seated across from Gonzalez on Thursday.

“I’m embarrassed,” he said. “It’s a last-ditch effort, being here.”

“There’s still a stigma that food stamps are for poor people,” Gonzalez said after the appointment. “But right now, with the economy the way it is, it’s everyone that needs help.”

The State of Rhode Island, along with the federal government, has worked to make it easier for the recently poor to receive food stamps (now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP). Passage of the federal stimulus package led to major changes in the system, including a boost in benefits ranging from $2 to $24 a month.

As of April 1, the state added its own modifications. They include fewer financial barriers ––a family of four making less than $40,792 may now be eligible –– simpler application forms for the elderly, increased telephone interviews for applicants, the hiring of nine new case workers and the elimination of the asset-test, which made it hard for those with any savings to qualify.

It is a significant change for a program that for years claimed one of the lowest participation rates nationally of eligible residents.

An additional $947,000 in federal stimulus money has been earmarked for Rhode Island’s food-stamp program. Donalda Carlson, administrator of child and family support services at DHS, said the state is finalizing plans to use the money to update the phone system and hire greeters and “in-house educators” at the DHS offices. A spokeswoman for Governor Carcieri projects most of the changes should be in place in the coming months.

But anti-poverty advocates say it is not enough to address a growing need. The most recent state data — now three years old — concluded that 35 percent of eligible Rhode Islanders were not enrolled in SNAP.

While the state has added nine new case workers to the 46 employed, only 3 are now on the job. The rest won’t arrive until later this month. None of the newcomers has yet been trained. (To meet demand, anti-poverty advocate Henry Shelton of the George Wiley Center has said the state must add 40 case workers.)

In the meantime, it can take weeks for applicants to receive their electronic benefit transfer card, loaded and ready for use at most markets, much like a credit card.

The DHS says it processes about half of its cases within two weeks, though acknowledges it fails to complete about 15 percent within the 30-day deadline set by the federal government.

Carlson defends the delays, saying that many are due to the applicants’ failure to produce necessary documents. But the department is overburdened, she admits. Most caseworkers carry a client load of 1,000 or more and regularly work weekends to dig out from mountains of paperwork.

Rhode Island Legal Services has stepped in to help with the most severely delayed cases. The agency’s Mary Curtin said phone calls to DHS usually get individual applications moving forward.

Stimulus funds may also help eliminate that backlog, though only if used prudently, said Kathleen Gorman, director of the URI Feinstein Center. Gorman is not convinced that updating phone lines and hiring greeters is the most effective use of stimulus money. “I think there should be more of a discussion around what needs to be done or what could be done with that money,” she said.

At the same time, Gorman estimates there are thousands of other Rhode Islanders who don’t know they qualify for the program or feel uncomfortable seeking assistance. That’s where the center’s Food Stamp Outreach Project comes in. Financed with federal and state money, the group trains students such as Chantelle Gonzalez to help with the application process, or just to convince people it is OK to ask for help.

It was a chance trip for a job interview that brought Ernest Bediako to the NetWORKri center in Providence, where Gonzalez was holding a food stamp sign-up session Thursday.

Bediako, 56, had used up the unemployment benefits he received after losing his factory job. But because his wife still works in food services at a local school, the Providence father of three assumed the family wouldn’t qualify.

“I just wish I could pay the bills, and the rent and utilities. I’m behind,” an apologetic Bediako told Gonzalez.

Admitting it was time to ask for help was hard, too.

Not only were the Bediakos eligible, they qualified for expedited benefits, the sped-up process reserved for those with the greatest need.

“Most people are just like that, they wait to come in until they’re on the edge and about to explode,” Gonzalez said later.

The URI Feinstein Center said it is constantly looking for ways to reach people before they’ve reached the breaking point, particularly groups such as the elderly and single men who might not realize they can enroll.

“When our hotline phone number was in the paper a few weeks ago, in 24 hours we got 100 phone calls,” said Gorman. “…There are a lot more people now who are saying, ‘I never would have imagined I’d be in this situation, but here I am.’ ”

For more information about the SNAP program, visit the Feinstein Center Web site — www.uri.edu/endhunger — or call its food stamp hotline at (866) 306-0270. Information is also available at the DHS Web site — http://www.dhs.state.ri.us/dhs/adults/fsadult.htm

cneedham@projo.com