More than 337,000 recession-battered people applied for San Diego County social services in the past year, often overwhelming workers at a dozen beleaguered Family Resource Centers.

With county supervisors poised to adopt a budget for the next 12 months that will see about 320 job cuts in Health and Human Services, the man overseeing the agency says things aren’t going to get any better for at least a couple of years.

“We will have fewer staff, fewer programs and longer waits for our services,” director Nick Macchione said.

The program cuts include alcohol, drug and domestic violence services, as well as the elimination of a program intended to steer at-risk juveniles from becoming criminals.

Even with those cuts, Macchione’s department will still have a $1.8 billion budget and more than 5,000 workers. The budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year beginning July 1 is actually slightly larger than for the previous year, a result of shifting amounts from the state and federal governments that provide most of the money.

The county’s front door for people in need of food stamps, cash assistance or help with medical care are the Family Resource Centers.

Despite a host of recent measures that county officials say should speed relief, it can take weeks, a month or more to process applications, in part the result of stringent anti-fraud measures county supervisors have implemented.

On a recent afternoon, the Escondido resource center at 620 E. Valley Parkway was teeming with people as a steady stream of unemployed men and women, many with small children in tow, shuffled in and out. On a busy day, workers say more than 700 people may come through its doors.

Lost papers

One man trying to resolve claim issues at the Escondido office was Sayed Jawady, 25, an Afghan who came to the U.S. 18 months ago after working as an interpreter for the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

Jawady was recently laid off from his job as a troop language and cultural trainer, and has struggled to provide for his wife and young son.

“When I turned my papers in, they kept getting lost,” he said. “I had to turn them in four times.”

Jawady said he has spent several full days at the office, waiting to see a social worker, only to be told he would have to come back the next day.

“It’s hard to get any benefits,” he said. “It’s a long, long process.”

On the coast, Oceanside’s Wayne Jones, 44, an ironworker and single father of two, applied for food stamps at that city’s Family Resource Center earlier this year. He lost his job in December, and after exhausting what little money he had, Jones applied for food stamps and cash assistance in February. He was turned down.

“It was terrible,” he said. “I brought in everything they told me to and talked to a counselor, and two days later was told I had to bring in more copies.”

Several weeks later, the U.S. Army veteran got a letter saying his application had been denied.

“I thought it was pretty shabby,” he said. “I had two kids and was out of money and almost out of food. It’s been very stressful.”

But in May, Jones inexplicably got a letter saying his application had been approved.

“I hadn’t done anything,” he said. “As far as I knew, my case was closed. But I wasn’t about to question it. At least I could get some food.”

More than 174,000 county residents were receiving food stamps as of March, including 51,712 in North County.

Choke points

Despite its 10 percent unemployment rate, San Diego County lags major metropolitan areas in food stamp usage, the result of an understaffed, unfriendly and cumbersome system, according to government and advocacy reports.

The latest government report finding fault with the county’s food stamp program came from the state Department of Social and Health Services.

In a March letter, the department said it found not all applicants were advised of their rights. It also said timely processing fell below state standards and that people were being unnecessarily required to show multiple forms of identification before applications were processed.

The state review, which was conducted last year during visits to two resource centers, also found that seven of 23 applications were incorrectly denied —- roughly 1 in 3.

In an effort to ease the workload and reduce errors, the county budget calls for adding 53 workers to the Family Resource Center operations. It also has issued a point-by-point response to the cited errors and outlined a host of corrective actions.

At the Center on Policy Initiatives in San Diego, a nonprofit worker advocacy group, analyst Jason Everitt is finishing a study he says will show the county falls far short of getting all the grants it could, money that could ease the pressure on Family Resource Centers.

While the county isn’t doing enough to go after “alternative revenue streams,” Everitt said, it also sends a more subtle message to public assistance applicants through its stringent anti-fraud measures.

“The intake process for county social services criminalizes poverty,” Everitt said last week. “Applicants are subject to fingerprinting, home inspections that fall just shy of interrogations, and a purposefully onerous application process that often takes more than a month.

“While the Board of Supervisors is proud of the small uptick in food stamp participation, they ignore the fact that we haven’t had this many hungry, unemployed and homeless San Diegans since the Great Depression. Even a small bucket will catch more water in a thunderstorm.”

Everitt is among many advocates who argue that the county’s reserve, which exceeds $700 million, should be used to improve social services.

“This Board of Supervisors believes that … stockpiling reserves is more important than comprehensive fire protection, and that fraud prevention is more important than hunger prevention,” he said.

Other worries

The county budget also includes a $7.2 million reduction in substance abuse services and a $5.2 million cut in child welfare programs.

While acknowledging that the impending budget cuts outlined for his agency will be painful, Macchione said he worries more about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed elimination of an array of state programs.

“Our cuts pale in comparison to what the governor wants to do,” he said. “For us, it (proposed state cuts) would mean about 79,000 children and adults would receive no public assistance.”

The governor’s recommendations include eliminating the state welfare program, cutting $532 million from the state Medicaid program and ending a $53.4 million drug treatment program.

“We’re talking about the safety net,” Macchione said of the state proposals. “If you squeeze one end, it just creates another problem on the other.”

Meanwhile, a worker in the Escondido Family Resource Center said more help is sorely needed.

“We can’t do the job the way we’re supposed to,” she said, speaking on the condition that her name not be used because she isn’t authorized to talk about county policies. “A lot of us work 10 hours a day and still can’t get enough done. We are really underserving the community.”

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