The Future of SNAP? Improving Nutrition Policy to Ensure Health and Food Equity
A Workshop for Academics, Policymakers and Community Representatives
Friday May 29th, 2015
Alumni House, Toll Room
Berkeley, CA, 94704
Our interdisciplinary workshop will summarize evidence and research findings on SNAP, identify challenges of current delivery approaches and address recommended actions relevant for the future of SNAP. It will involve panel discussions, including leading researchers from UC Berkeley and other universities, representatives from respected NGOs in the field, representatives from federal and state agencies, and practitioners.
PROGRAM
8:00 Check-in and breakfast
8:20-8:30 Welcome comments, Hilary Hoynes
8:30-9:15 Framing Panel Discussion
Barbara Laraia, Professor, UC Berkeley “Poverty, Nutrition and Health”
Hilary Hoynes, Professor, UC Berkeley “SNAP as fundamental income support program”
Karla Vasquez, Health Coach, Groceryships, and Director of Programs, With Love LA Market & Cafe
9:15-10:30 Panel I: “How Can SNAP Improve Nutrition and Health?”
Moderator: Barbara Laraia, Professor, UC Berkeley (TBC)
Academic: Hilary Seligman, Professor, University of California San Francisco
Policy: Andy Risenberg, Team Leader, USDA Western Region
Community: Jim Weill, President, Food Research and Action Center
10:30-10:45 Break
10:45-12:15 Panel II: Creating an Equitable SNAP System: Access, Operations, and Experimentation
Moderator: Pat Crawford, Senior Director of Research, UC ANR Nutrition Policy Institute
Policy: Rich Lucas, Deputy Administrator for Policy Support at USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS)
Policy: Alexis Fernández, Director of Legislation and CalFresh Team Lead, California Food Policy Advocates
Community: Oran Hesterman, President, Fair Food Network and Martin Bourque, Executive Director, Berkeley Ecology Center
12:15-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:45 Panel III: Recent Challenges and Developments and SNAP as Income Supplementation
Moderator: Hilary Hoynes, Professor, University of California Berkeley
Academic: Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Professor, Northwestern University
Policy: Dottie Rosenbaum, Senior Fellow, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities
Community: Elizabeth Gomez, Outreach Programs Manager, Alameda County Community Food Bank
2:45 Introduction to Break Out Groups: Maria Echaveste, Professor, University of California Berkeley
2:45-3:30 Break Out Groups
3:30-4:30 Discussion of new directions for SNAP Policy to ensure health and food equity
Moderator/Facilitator: Maria Echaveste, Professor, University of California Berkeley
4:30 Refreshments and Poster Session of Graduate Student Research
6:00 Adjourn
SPEAKERS AND PANELISTS
Martin Bourque, Executive Director, Ecology Center, Berkeley CA
Since 2000, Martin has led the Ecology Center, a community-based organization incorporated on Earth Day in 1970. Under Martin’s leadership, the Ecology Center has become a high impact engine for change. Martin has spearheaded innovative efforts such as creating a farmers’ market industry group, pioneering electronic food stamp access and incentives at farmers’ markets, and passing the nation’s first Soda Tax. Martin’s previous experience includes working as the Sustainable Agriculture Program Director for the Food First Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First). At Food First he helped build the international organic farming movement in the US, Caribbean, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Martin edited Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance: Transforming Food Production in Cuba, a compilation of Cuban authors on organic farming; and co-founded Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR) to reduce the worst pesticides in California through public education and regulatory reform. Martin served as the National Director of Training for ALTERTEC Guatemala where he organized and promoted farmer-led sustainable agriculture and helped develop a national Guatemalan organic certification program, MayaCert. Martin has served on the Community Food and Justice Coalition Advisory Committee, The Grassroots Recycling Network Board and the Alameda County Source Reduction and Recycling Board (StopWaste). Martin earned a Master of Arts in Latin American Studies and Environmental Policy from UC Berkeley, and a B.A. in Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior from UC San Diego.
Pat Crawford, Senior Director of Research, UC ANR Nutrition Policy Institute.
Pat Crawford is the Senior Director of Research at the Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) at the University of California, Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Prior to coming to NPI, she co-founded and directed the Center for Weight and Health at the University of California at Berkeley for 15 years. She is a Cooperative Extension Nutrition Specialist, as well as an Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. Dr. Crawford led the 10-year longitudinal NHLBI Growth & Health Study, an epidemiologic study on the development of obesity in African American girls and FitWIC, the five state obesity prevention initiative in WIC. She is currently leading studies evaluating a wide variety of state and national nutrition programs and policies. Dr. Crawford served on the California Legislative Task Force on Diabetes and Obesity and is an expert advisor for the Let’s Get Healthy California Task Force. She chaired the Institute of Medicine’s Workshop on Food Insecurity and Obesity and served on the IOM’s Committee on WIC Research, the Committee on Accelerating Progress on Obesity Prevention, and the IOM’s Standing Committee on Childhood Obesity Prevention.
Maria Echaveste, Professor of Law, UC Berkeley
Maria Echaveste is the Policy and Program Development Director at the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy. Maria Echaveste joined University of California’s Berkeley School of Law as a Lecturer after co-founding a strategic and policy consulting group, serving as a senior White House and U.S. Department of Labor official. From 1998 to 2001, she served as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. Among her responsibilities in this role was overseeing issues relating to Mexico and Latin America. She has worked as a community leader and corporate attorney. She is also a Senior Fellow with the Law School’s Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity. Ms Echaveste is also a non-resident fellow of the Center for American Progress working on issues such as immigration, civil rights, education and Latin America.. She continues to provide strategic and policy advice to a variety of corporate, non-profit and union clients through her consulting firm, NVG, LLC.
Alexis Fernández, Director of Legislation and CalFresh Team Lead, California Food Policy Advocates
Ms. Fernández leads the development and coordination of CFPA’s annual legislative agenda. In addition, as the CalFresh team lead, Alexis’ work focuses on developing and implementing policies aimed at improving CalFresh access and participation. She received her Master of Social Work with an emphasis on management and planning from UC Berkeley and a BA in Ethnic Studies from UC San Diego. She began with CFPA as a graduate student intern in 2009 and joined the staff in 2010.
Elizabeth Gomez, Outreach Programs Manager, Alameda County Community Food Bank, Oakland, CA
Elizabeth Gomez has developed a comprehensive CalFresh outreach program that now serves as a model for Food Banks across the state. Working with a team of 12 outreach associates and Alameda County Social Services, the program now includes a call center, enrollment clinics, CalFresh trainings and an extensive multimedia CalFresh campaign. She has over 18 years’ experience working directly with low-income communities to improve their health and well-being. She has designed and developed outreach programs to increase access to healthy food for Alameda County’s low-income populations; including outreach for CalFresh, Summer Lunch, School Meals, Food Helpline and other food assistance programs.
Dr. Oran Hesterman, Director, Fair Food Network
With more than 35 years of experience as a scientist, farmer, philanthropist, businessman, educator, and passionate advocate, Oran B. Hesterman is a national leader in sustainable agriculture and food systems and is a respected partner for policymakers, philanthropic leaders, and advocates nationwide. He currently serves as president and CEO of Fair Food Network, a national nonprofit pioneering multi-win solutions that increase access to healthy food in our most underserved communities, support farmers, and stimulate economic activity. Before launching Fair Food Network, Hesterman led the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Integrated Farming Systems and Food & Society programs, during which time he seeded the local food systems movement with more than $200 million in investments. Prior to his work in philanthropy and nonprofits, Hesterman researched and taught forage and cropping systems management and sustainable agriculture at Michigan State University.
Hilary Hoynes, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, UC Berkeley
Hilary Hoynes is a Professor of Public Policy and Economics and holds the Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities. She is the co-editor of the leading journal in economics, American Economic Review. Hoynes received her undergraduate degree from Colby College and her PhD from Stanford University. Hoynes is an economist and specializes in the study of poverty, inequality, and the impacts of government tax and transfer programs on low income families. Current projects include evaluating the impact of the Great Recession across demographic groups, examining the impact of Head Start on cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes, examining the impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit on infant health, and estimating impacts of U.S. food and nutrition programs on labor supply, health and human capital accumulation. In addition to her faculty appointment, Hoynes has research affiliations at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the UC Davis Center for Poverty Research and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. She sits on the Advisory Board of the Standord Institute for Economic Policy Research and previously has sat on the National Advisory Committee of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program and the Advisory Committee for the National Science Foundation, Directorate for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. Prior to joining the Goldman School she was a Professor of Economics at UC Davis.
Barbara Laraia, Professor, UC Berkeley School of Public Health
Barbara Laraia is an Associate Professor for Public Health Nutrition and Community Health & Human Development at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Dr. Laraia is a public health nutrition investigator with a special interest in the relationships between food policy, the food environment and health. She has expertise in qualitative methods, program evaluation, community-based research and nutritional epidemiology. Her research focuses on household food security status and neighborhood effects on diet, weight, perinatal outcomes, and other maternal child health issues, especially among vulnerable populations. Her current projects include: measurement issues of the food and physical activity environments; influences of the food environment on diet and weight among postpartum women; understanding the role that tiendas (Latino grocery stores) play in diet quality among Latinos.
Rich Lucas, Deputy Administrator for Policy Support at USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS)
Richard Lucas is the Deputy Administrator for Policy Support at USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). In that capacity, he is responsible for research and analysis that informs policymaking for, and management of, the Federal nutrition assistance programs. These programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the school meals programs, and the WIC program, are currently budgeted at over $100 billion annually and serving 1 in 4 Americans in the course of a year. Rich’s team in the FNS Office of Policy Support includes professionals from a wide range of disciplines, including economists, statisticians, program evaluators, sociologists, nutritionists, and others. They work closely with policymakers and program officials to find answers to critical questions to make nutrition assistance programs more effective, estimate cost and participation impacts of legislative, budgetary and regulatory changes, evaluate the impacts of programs and program components on food security, diet quality, and other outcomes, analyze extant data to better target strategies and track performance, and demonstrate and test potential program improvements. Rich has worked at FNS since 1994. He holds degrees from Brown University and Stanford University, and lives in Bethesda, Maryland with his wife and children.
Andy Riesenberg, Team Leader, USDA Western Region
Andy Riesenberg is the Food Security and Obesity Prevention Team Leader for the Food and Nutrition Service, Western Region, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known as CalFresh in California. He oversees the Region’s work in SNAP-Ed, SNAP Outreach, Farmers Markets, and Healthy Retail. He joined FNS in 2012 and led the development of the Western Region’s SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework, a set of 51 outcomes for low-income nutrition education and obesity prevention programs. He is passionate about the role of government in reducing health and economic inequities. Previously, he was on the management team of RDA, an Oakland-based consulting firm focused on social justice, mental health and food security for county health and human services agencies. He has over a decade of experience in public health program management, health communication, and evaluation, and completed a Presidential Management Fellowship at the CDC in Atlanta. He received his Masters from the Harvard School of Public Health and his bachelors from Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Dottie Rosenbaum, Senior Fellow, Center for Budget and Policy Priorities
Dottie Rosenbaum is a Senior Fellow who joined the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities in 2000.Her work focuses primarily on federal and state issues in SNAP as well as issues that involve the coordination of food stamps and other state-administered health and income security programs, such as Medicaid, TANF, and child care. In addition, Rosenbaum has expertise on the federal budget and budget process. Before joining the Center, Rosenbaum was a budget analyst at the Congressional Budget Office for six years. She projected federal spending and provided Congress with cost estimates for a variety of programs including: SNAP, Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, Child Nutrition, and Elementary and Secondary Education. She has a Masters degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Diane Schanzenbach, Professor, Northwestern University
Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach is an associate professor in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University, a faculty fellow in the Institute for Policy Research, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is also a research consultant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. She studies policies aimed at improving the lives of children in poverty, including education, health, and income support policies. Her recent work has focused on tracing the impact of major public policies such as the Food Stamp Program and early childhood education on children’s long-term outcomes. Her research has received financial support from the US Department of Agriculture, the US Department of Education, the Spencer Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Smith-Richardson Foundation, and has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics,American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Public Economics, among other outlets.
Dr. Hilary Seligman, Professor, University of California San Francisco
Hilary Seligman, MD, MAS is Associate Professor in Residence at the University of California San Francisco with a primary appointment in the Division of General Internal Medicine and a secondary appointment in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. She is also Core Faculty for UCSF’s Center for Vulnerable Populations at San Francisco General Hospital, the city’s public hospital. As a general internist, Dr. Seligman treats outpatients and inpatients at San Francisco General Hospital. As a researcher, Dr. Seligman’s work focuses on the intersection between food insecurity in the US and health, particularly the prevention and management of chronic disease. Food insecurity refers to going hungry, or being at risk of going hungry, because of the inability to afford food. As one of the nation’s foremost experts on the health implications of food insecurity, Dr. Seligman uses a combination of community-based, clinic-based, and epidemiologic studies to understand the tight connections between food insecurity and ill health, and to develop and test interventions designed to improve health by increasing food access and affordability. Her research has appeared in New England Journal of Medicine, Health Affairs, Archives of Internal Medicine, and Journal of Nutrition, among others. She regularly speaks about the public health implications of food insecurity to local, regional, and national audiences. Her policy and advocacy expertise focus on federal nutrition programs (such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as Food Stamps), food affordability and access, and income-related drivers of food choice. Dr. Seligman also serves on the Board of Directors for California Food Policy Advocates and the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. She serves on the Food Security Task Force for the City and County of San Francisco.
Karla Vasquez, Health Coach, Groceryships, and Director of Programs, With Love LA Market & Café
Karla Vasquez is the Director of Programs at With Love LA Market & Café, a social-enterprise serving the residents of Southwest Los Angeles, with a vision to provide access to healthier food, boost job opportunities, and use profits to reinvest in the community. In addition to her work at With Love LA, Karla is a health coach for Groceryships, where she leads an educational support group in low-income communities in Los Angeles, in order to improve long-term health and wellness and enhancing access to healthy, unprocessed food. Her previous food justice advocacy work has focused on urban agriculture, community organizing, farmer’s market operation and Market Match. She received her BA in Journalism from Biola University.
Jim Weill, President, Food Research and Action Center
Jim Weill has been President of the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) since February 1998. Jim has devoted his entire professional career to reducing hunger and poverty, protecting the legal rights of children and poor people, and expanding economic security, income and nutrition support programs and health insurance coverage. Prior to joining FRAC, he was at the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) as Program Director and General Counsel. He led CDF’s efforts in 1985 that produced the first major expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, oversaw CDF’s Medicaid expansion, child care, and child support enforcement reform efforts, and was a key leader of the campaign to pass the Children’s Health Insurance Program in 1997. Before CDF, Mr. Weill was Deputy Director and Director of Federal Litigation at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago. He litigated major law reform and class action cases in the federal court of appeals and Supreme Court on Social Security, Medicaid, AFDC, SNAP/Food Stamps and other public benefits issues, and the rights of children born out of wedlock. Mr. Weill is chair of the board of directors of the Alliance for Justice Action Council and is a member of the boards of OMB Watch and the National Center for Youth Law. He serves on the advisory council to the National League of Cities Institute for Youth, Education and Families. He has served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the UNICEF Executive Board.
