WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Social service providers this week are rallying opposition to the third effort in 12 months by the Trump administration to make cuts to the federal food stamp program.
Drake Turner, food security advocacy manager at the South Burlington, Vt.-based nonprofit advocacy group Hunger Free Vermont, on Tuesday was preparing to post materials online in an effort to protect the program, known nationally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Known in Vermont as 3SquaresVT, it provides food assistance to about 67,000 Vermonters and 74,000 Granite Staters, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“It’s frustrating to see so many proposals coming out of the White House,” Turner said in a phone interview.
The latest proposed rule change by the USDA would affect the way the food program takes utility costs into account when determining people’s eligibility for assistance, Turner said. It would have a negative impact in Vermont, which takes into account the high costs of heating when calculating people’s food benefits, she said.
If the proposal goes into effect, it would reduce benefits for 68% of the state’s 3Squares recipients for an average loss of $82 per month per family, Turner said. It would hit seniors and people with disabilities especially hard, with 80% of people in those groups seeing a reduction in their food benefits, she said.
The USDA explains the proposal as a way of trying to address inequality between states in a description of the rule available online at regulations.gov.
Because the way utility costs are currently factored into benefits varies by state, “similarly situated households living a few miles apart could have significantly different benefit amounts,” the rule description says.
Catherine Wisniewski, the nutrition and wellness director for Senior Solutions, the Springfield, Vt.-based agency that supports older adults in Windham and Windsor counties, said that this is yet another way of “trying to reduce what the less fortunate are getting.”
In addition to addressing hunger, Wisniewski said the program helps to address the problem of malnutrition by getting healthier foods to recipients.
People in Vermont “can’t grow a garden year-round,” Wisniewski said.
Taking utility costs, especially winter heating expenses, into account when determining who qualifies for 3Squares helps to prevent people from having to decide whether to eat or heat their homes, she said.
Last Friday was the deadline for comments on another rule change from the USDA that would change the way people qualify for SNAP.
Officials at the Vermont Agency of Education oppose that proposal because they say the cuts would affect thousands of children in Vermont and make it difficult if not impossible for the schools that have begun offering free meals to all students — an initiative known as universal meals — to do so in the future.
Under the proposed change, the Vermont Department for Children and Families estimates that 4,619 children would no longer be eligible for 3Squares.
In addition, in comments filed with the USDA, Rosie Krueger, the Agency of Education’s state director of child nutrition programs, said that she expects that because some of these children are school-aged the fact that they no longer qualify for free school meals will make it more difficult for schools to meet the requirements of the community eligibility provision, a federal program that supports universal school meals.
Fifty-six schools in Vermont currently participate in the program. Officials have estimated that more than 20 would no longer qualify and several others would see an increase in the cost to local communities in order to keep the program going.
Schools that provide universal free meals, which in the Upper Valley includes the Waits River Valley School in East Corinth, have seen benefits such as increased student readiness to learn, reduced financial stress on families and improvements in the schools’ social climate, according to a recent study by researchers at the University of Vermont.
Universal meals also eliminate the need for schools to collect applications with students’ families’ income information and means that school administrators no longer need to act as bill collectors when families that do not qualify for free meals have balances on their accounts.
“When they’re in that position of having to collect bills … (it) really strains the relationship between the school and the family,” Krueger said in a phone interview.
If the proposed rule goes into effect, Krueger said she would expect to begin to see an impact in Vermont in 2021.
The first of the Trump administration’s recent efforts to make cuts to SNAP would have increased work requirements for people without dependents, who are of working age and don’t qualify for an exemption, Turner said. The USDA described it as “consistent with the Administration’s focus on fostering self-sufficiency.”
That proposal is still in the review stage. Once the USDA submits a final rule, Turner, of Hunger Free Vermont, said she expects there will be legal challenges to it.
Even though it can be tiring to be continually fending off proposed cuts to food assistance, Turner said, it’s “important we stand up every single time.”
Comments on the rule relating to how the food assistance program takes utility costs into account are due by Dec. 2.
More information is available online at hungerfreevt.org/protect3squaresvt.
Valley News Staff Writer Nora Doyle-Burr can be reached at ndoyleburr@ vnews.com or 603-727-3213.
Correct ion
Drake Turner of Hunger Free Vermont said a USDA proposed rule change would increase a work requirement for some recipients of food assistance. In Vermont, 56 schools currently participate in a community eligibility provision program. An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed Turner’s description to another person and misstated the number of schools now participating.
