A downward spiral . . . .

Store To Door does not have an FNS# to process EBT card Food Support benefits.  Without an FNS #, we must use a manual voucher process to accept EBT card payments.  The manual voucher process does not allow us to accept the cash benefit on the EBT card.  Hennepin Couny, for a reason no one seems to know, loads the majority of the Food Support benefit as cash on the card of Hennepin County residents (of any age) eligible for Food Support. (This course of action does increase the opportunity for the recipient to fraudulently use the benefit for ineligible items but no one seems to care about this at the State or County level). Hennepin County homebound elderly residents wanting to use their EBT card to pay for groceries shopped and delivered by Store To Door cannot do so (and often, the benefit goes unused).  
In this time of declining resources and conflicting demands, we're working to alert the Hennepin County financial eligibility workers of this problem and will encourage them to clarify it with elderly applicants.  Current recipients can change the benefit from cash to food with a call to their social worker, we are told.