Beginning Friday, across-the-board cuts to the federal food stamp program will mean a reduction in benefits for millions across the country and here in the city, and there could be even more cuts on the way. NY1′s Jon Weinstein filed the following report.
Jackie Williams receives federal food assistance of $ 200 a month, assistance she says she needs while being treated for breast cancer. But starting Friday, she’ll receive $ 11 less. That means fewer meals and lower-quality food.
“I need help, and now, the help is getting less and less and less, and that hurts,” she said.
The help is from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The program was expanded in the 2009 stimulus bill during the recession, but that extra funding expires effective November 1. That means a family of four will lose $ 36 a month.
“One-point-eight million people here in New York City alone are going to get less food to fill their grocery baskets,” said Joel Berg of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.
Louis Vavrina and Maajidah Newbold will each lose $ 132 per year.
“It means probably more pasta, more rice, less meat,” Vavrina said.
Newbold: Rely on fasting. I’m going to rely on meditation.
Q: Are you going to be fasting because you don’t have enough money?
Newbold: Right, exactly, because I don’t have enough money and I choose not to commit crimes, kill or steal.
The organizers of the food pantry at the Father’s Heart Ministries in the East Village said that a by product of these SNAP cuts will be an increase in the number of people they’re serving.
“It’s going to be a bigger burden for us to carry,” said Marian Hutchins, chief operating officer of The Father’s Heart Ministries. “We’re already bursting at the seams.”
It could get worse, Congress is currently debating a new Farm Bill, and advocates say that both the Senate and House versions include billions in cuts to SNAP. The two sides are now going through difficult negotiations.
“It is possible to avoid more cuts to the program by just killing the current Farm Bill and going back to the drawing board, and that’s a real possibility,” Berg said.
It’s a possibility that Jackie Williams is praying for.
“I’m dying here,” she said. “It’s like, ‘How am I going to do it?’”
It’s a question millions across the country want answered.
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