From Behind Enemy Lines – Food Scarcity

Chris wants me to write about something else, but I just don’t have the words for it right now. I’ll get there… eventually. For the moment, SNAP and other food benefits seem to be the topic of the week, so I’m going to go with that.

So there are a lot of people doing a lot of things right now. There’s “rage bait” folks out filling carts with junk and claiming it’s with EBT. There are assholes who are scamming the system by making fraudulent claims. And then there’s honest, hard working people (and/or those who are disabled or otherwise unable to work) legitimately trying to make ends meet getting caught in the SNAP shut down, who are actually going to suffer. This last category is the only one that I actually care about.

Different states have different rules for SNAP. To my knowledge, all states have work requirements for eligibility. There are also new rules for ABAWD, or Able Bodied Adults Without Dependents, who are those between 18 and 54 who otherwise have no reason not to work. The ABAWD requirements do not apply to those who are not able bodied, or those who have children under 14. For the most part, I don’t have any issues with those rules, as written, with the sole exception of pregnant women. Pregnant women are considered “disabled” for ABAWD and work requirements for SNAP. This means that a woman who keeps herself continually pregnant is fully exempt from having to work in any way. Before anyone gets on my case, WIC takes care of pregnant and breastfeeding women, so they do not need a special exemption for this. IMO, of course.

The name SNAP means “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.” The program, at its beginning, was meant to provide supplemental food for those who were working but not able to make ends meet. I know I’ve been there (though I’ve never been on SNAP). The important words here are “supplemental” (meaning “…provided in addition to what is already present or available to complete or enhance it.” – Oxford English Dictionary) and “assistance” (meaning, “…the provision of money, resources, or information to help someone.” – ibid). As most of us know, SNAP and the other helper programs were meant to be a hand up, not a hand out. They weren’t meant to be lived on, but instead were meant to help you get on your feet after something bad happened (death of a spouse or supporting guardian, loss of job/career, military families, etc.). That’s not what is happening now.

There are families who have been on SNAP and other benefit programs for generations. The reasons start out honest enough, with people being in low paying jobs and being unable to move or find better work, and going on from there. These generational problems are systemic. The current means of helping people doesn’t actually help them. It traps them.

At one point, I was a single mother. I left an abusive wusband, stayed in a women’s shelter until I could get to court, and eventually was given low income housing in a gated community and welfare to pay my bills. I had gone from being the breadwinner, when my wusband was staying at home with the kid, to being stuck at home for an undefined amount of time. I tried several times to get work. I WANTED to get work. I despised being on the dole. The problem was, the cheapest childcare I could get cost more than I would earn (as in, in its entirety… childcare was very expensive where I was living). I couldn’t get help paying for childcare, because a) if I could work, I obviously didn’t need help anymore and b) if I was at work, my wusband could take the kid. The fact that abuse was part of the pattern and an ongoing issue between us didn’t seem to matter. This is a social “help” trap. There’s no way to escape it without outside help, help which my father thankfully provided, at great cost I might add.

In order to fix the food problem, we have to fix a whole lot of stuff. First and foremost, we need to take food assistance out of the hands of the Feds. As I always say, everything the Feds touch turns to shit. The answer is to keep them from touching it. If we must, do it at the state level, but preferably we move it to county level. Making it a neighborhood problem changes the dynamics entirely. The people receiving help are not nameless, faceless people living in a random city in a random state. They’re YOUR neighbors. You can see if they’re cheating, and if they are, it affects YOU directly, not some government program in DC. Those who aren’t cheating, who I continue to believe are the majority, can get the help they actually need. That means they can get access to lower cost child care until they’re able to pay for it themselves, or education if that’s what it takes, or jobs with flexible hours to let them work around a spouse’s work hours or around kids going to school. The moment you cut the Feds out of the cycle, I believe it gets better.

And then there’s education. Chris suggested that people who want to be on SNAP should have to take classes. And while I sympathize with that, I really do, I also know that there are WAY too  many ways that could go wrong. Again, everything the government touches turns to shit. So now we have to make a new admin group to oversee education of SNAP recipients. We have to have a whole committee of people to decide what they should learn, and what their “learning style” is. We have to hire teachers, and probably principals or other admin to watch over the teachers, and and and… No.

At a local level, you let people know… If you get SNAP this year, we would like to contract future-you to teach budgeting to the next batch of SNAP recipients. We’ll work around your work schedules, but what you have to teach about living inexpensively, “making do” and the lot, is invaluable. This is what you “pay” to be on SNAP. You pay it forward. And what does this do for folks who are on SNAP? It gives them a reason to get off. It gives them a reason to learn the skills of budgeting, cooking, and making do. And it gives them a sense of pride knowing they can help someone else going through what they went through. Frankly, there’s not enough of people helping people these days. The Feds took it over and we all stopped caring about each other.

Know what I said on Facebook the other day? I said I doubted that 50% of the country was on SNAP. That meant more than 50% of us were NOT on SNAP. If each one of us adopted a family or two, and helped them along during the shutdown, what would happen? Well, we’d quickly figure out that we don’t need the Feds to be involved… So now every time someone whines to me about how my side isn’t helping the poor people, I just ask them, “What have YOU done to help someone?”

Because you know what? I reached out to several friends over the past week. I don’t have a lot of money. Hell, by the standards on paper, we’re dirt poor. But I have food, and I know how to make a penny scream for mercy. I let my friends know that if things got bad and they didn’t have food, to reach out. My family wouldn’t let them go hungry. We might not have money for anything else, because we’re paying our own bills, but we’d make sure no one starved.

I walk my talk. If someone out there wants to whine to me, they can do it AFTER they put their own money where their mouth is. I refuse to listen to anyone who is able-bodied and upright who isn’t helping out someone right now. I don’t want to hear about how the Feds should do it, or that’s why they pay taxes. They’re upset because people are suffering… so here’s the thing, right now, right this very second, each of us has the ability to actually cause change. We can help ONE family. Maybe two, if we’re doing okay in today’s economy. That personal thing, that makes it real. It makes it in your face. It makes it so you have to SEE the squalor of a truly poor household. You might have to learn to budget, too, or learn how to make the equivalent of freezer scraping soup, in order to help your friends. So if you’re not doing that, helping someone you know is worthy and deserving, someone who is working their ass off and not able to make that leap to self-sustainability… well, I don’t have anything to say to you.

There. That’s what I have to say today. Help other people. Just do it. Adopt a family. Offer someone a job if you can. Help someone write a resume. Teach someone how to cook soup and use leftovers. Can some of your excess tomatoes and gift them to the family down the road who are skinny as rails. Teach other folks how to bake bread. I don’t care what… but DO. Just do.