About 1.4 million Ohioans will likely lose food assistance starting Saturday from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, due to the ongoing federal government shutdown.
Gov. Mike DeWine announced Thursday afternoon that Ohio will provide up to $25 million in relief aid, but says the money is not a substitute for SNAP.
Meanwhile, Central Ohio nonprofit groups are scrambling to prepare for the increased need.
Michael Corey is executive director of the Human Service Chamber of Franklin County, which advocates for health and human service nonprofits in and around Columbus.
Matthew Rand: Let's start with the big picture. What are you hearing from the different groups you work with in this moment?
Michael Corey: Everyone is trying to gird up embrace for something that hasn't happened before in American history. And that is a lot of people going to food pantries in search of food. We've dealt with waves of people in need of food before. Certainly, we had a recent example of that in March and April of 2020. This is going to be something different and larger and more substantial and this is a self-inflicted problem.
Matthew Rand: If SNAP support does end up stopping this weekend, can you give us a sense of what the immediate impact is going to be for local families?
Michael Corey: A lot of people will not have ready access to food and having the liberty to go to the store and chopper food themselves. SNAP is a brilliant, simple program that has been effective for decades. And taking that away will mean that people will have to look elsewhere: food pantries and places that are serving meals and just the benevolence of their neighbors try to navigate this. And the food pantry system is where we encourage everyone to go. That is where local officials are encouraging people to go. You can use a website called FreshTrak to find the opportunities nearest to you. But everyone's bracing for a lot of people fast, which is not something that our system has the food or the resources or the volunteers for at this moment.
Matthew Rand: Well, I know a lot of local food pantries, other support groups, they've been stretched thin for a while now. So how much additional strain do you see this putting on them if these SNAP dollars stop flowing?
Michael Corey: It's hard to quantify. The data point that I've seen is that for every meal that a food pantry provides, SNAP provides nine. So, this surge will not be sustainable unless there is other action to buttress the food pantry system, to support the food pantry system, the food bank system. Our job is to be helpful, but here's the thing, the surge of demand won't just be for the food pantries, the whole sector is going to experience a surge of demand starting probably early next week.
Matthew Rand: That speaks to my next question. Stepping back a bit, what does this situation reveal about the long-term vulnerabilities, you know, of the social safety net and what changes would you like to see either at the state or the federal level?
Michael Corey: In terms of vulnerabilities, it's hard to deduce too much from this because we've never just decided through an action that we're not going to provide SNAP or food stamps to 42 million people across the United States all at once. I think we are going to see just how creative and resilient not just our food pantry system, but our community is going to be in problem solving and helping people, because we're not going to be OK with people being hungry. In terms of what we want to see, we want government to reopen. And we want the social safety net to be funded, not defunded.
Let's not forget, in July, this government cut SNAP and cut Medicaid. Those are pieces that are under unique duress already. This is just a wholesale, unique challenge to it. We think there is an opportunity for Congress to go back and say, "You know, we made a mistake. We see now how valuable this is. We see the ROI that this has. We see the impact that has on people's lives in every single county in this state. Let's change the law that we passed in July. Let's not defund SNAP. Let's not defund Medicaid. That's what we want to see." But first, we have to get government up and running again so that SNAP dollars can keep flowing.
