Hunger is increasing rapidly in Oneida County since federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits did not go out as usual this month, Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente Jr said Thursday, Nov. 6 during a hastily called press conference.
County offices in Utica and Rome were flooded with SNAP recipients seeking emergency assistance earlier in the week, Picente said.
“In just the two days, counting yesterday and today, over 900 people, pushing 1,000 (came). I’m sure you passed the lines coming in this building,” Picente told the assembled journalists.
And the press conference began about three-and-a-half hours before the offices closed for the day.
The county has extended its office hours both in Utica and Rome to 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays to accommodate SNAP recipients.
“These same 900 will be back next week because all we’re providing them is a week (of food) at a time, at best,” Picente predicted.
About SNAP benefits
SNAP benefits would normally appear on recipients’ benefits cards between Nov. 1 and Nov. 9. But this month, they have not gone out because of the federal government shutdown.
Two federal judges have ordered the administration to send out benefits using emergency funds. The United States Department of Agriculture has said it will comply using its $4.65 billion contingency fund by sending out partial payments for the program that costs $8 billion a month.
There has been no word, though, on how long it will take for those payments to reach beneficiaries with many media outlets reporting that it could take weeks or even months.
New York Attorney General Letitia James released a statement on Nov. 6, shortly after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration must send full November Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to states by Nov.7.
“A judge in Rhode Island just stopped the federal government from starving millions of Americans,” James said in a statement. “I am relieved that people will get the food they need, but it is outrageous that it took a lawsuit to make the federal government feed its own people.”
In the meantime, the county is handing out what emergency assistance it can to SNAP recipients in the form of vouchers good at stores with an agreement with the county, most notably including Price Chopper.
“We are at a crossroads,” Picente warned. “This is going to get worse if the federal government does not do what is right and open the government back up. People are hungry. People need food. This is a really dire time.”
But the vouchers are pennies on the dollar to the value of SNAP benefits. About 37,000 county residents receive SNAP benefits worth about $7 million a month, Picente said.
“There is no way this government can do this,” he said. “There is no way to envision when or how we can even come close to that … But we are doing what we can in the interim to make sure people are eating.”
And another crisis could be coming. The federal Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps low-income residents with utility bills in cold weather, will start late this year because of the shutdown.
So the county will also offer emergency assistance to HEAP households who are low on heating fuel or who have gotten a disconnect notice, said Maryellen Chainey, assistant director of income maintenance.
Where to get help in the county
For people who need more help getting food than the county can provide, the county’s OC CARES app and the United Way Mohawk Valley’s 211 service have lists of food pantries in Oneida County, Picente said.
And Picente said he’s received many inquiries from county residents on how they can help. He told them to donate money or food to local food pantries and soup kitchens. The Community Foundation of Herkimer & Oneida Counties also has a Helpful Harvest Fund that disburses donations to nonprofits that feed people, he said.
And there’s be a drop off for food donations at Union Station during the Oneida County Public Market this Saturday, he said.
When SNAP recipients come to the county for help, workers have to evaluate their situation, including income, and determine how much help they can receive in the short term. The process is easier for families than for individuals, who face a higher eligibility criteria, Colleen Fahy-Box, commissioner of the Department of Family and Community Services, said.
Generally, the county provides enough help for seven to 14 days, she said.
But an individual might only qualify for $6 a day or two people for $8, compared to the hundreds of dollars they might receive each month from SNAP, she said.
Further impacts
The harm isn’t just to the county residents who might go hungry or to the county, which will not get reimbursed for the assistance it provides, Picente said. No SNAP benefits means $7 million a month that’s not going into the local economy, he said.
“That impacts farmers; that impacts businesses; that impacts other aspects of the economy,” he said. “If people in Congress and the White House don’t care about people eating and everything else, which I find hard to believe they wouldn’t, this economy is going to suffer.”
He encouraged the politicians in Washington to get to work on ending the shutdown.
“You’re not supposed to go hungry in this country,” Picente said. “You’re not supposed to go without shelter in this country. That’s my spiel.”
He wondered what federal politicians would say to the people waiting in line in the county office building. But they don’t see those people and they don’t have to face them.
That, he said, is up to the county.
For the people waiting in those lines, it’s not about politics, Picente added.
“They just care,” he said, “where their next meal’s going to come from.”
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Picente on SNAP benefits disruption during shutdown: ‘People are hungry, people need food’
Reporting by Amy Neff Roth, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
