FYI: Hoping to reach the 800,000 needy New Yorkers that don’t currently receive food stamps, the city and state welfare agencies joined Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum in City Hall this morning to announce an outreach program that will help eligible families fill out a new simplified food stamp application. And the best of all? Financially troubled French media giant Vivendi is picking up the project’s whole tab: $575,000. It’s part of a new trend of public officials–in this case Gotbaum–soliciting private funding to pay for government work, as Alyssa Katz reported in January’s City Limits magazine. [2/20/03]
