Debra Robillard, a former broadcast journalist who worked in radio and television news for a decade, was homeless in Vancouver for about a year. She spent last winter sleeping on church floors thanks to the local Winter Hospitality Overflow shelter effort, and she’s just managed to rent her own apartment. Meanwhile, Robillard has been feeding herself thanks partially to a state food benefit for low-income people — a program called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, generally known as food stamps.
But Robillard’s food benefit was slashed roughly in half for November and December. That’s because of a change in federal law, according to the state Department of Social and Health Services, and it is already affecting as many as 200,000 of the 600,000 SNAP recipients in Washington state. In Clark County, DSHS estimates, 12,700 households are affected.
When Robillard went to the state DSHS office at Tower Mall in Vancouver the other day, she said, she learned that her monthly benefit for November and December will be $83. She said that her benefit used to be approximately $200 a month until federal budget cuts took hold a year ago, when they went down to $170. She was notified about this latest cut in a form letter in October, but missed just how deep it was going to be, she said.
“I figured maybe $20 or $30. I’m almost used to that. But I ended up with about half of what I had before,” she said.
Tied to utility assistance
According to a state information sheet, the cut is temporary and affects only those SNAP recipients who pay utilities as part of their rent or mortgage. “If you are paying for heating or cooling separately, your food assistance won’t be cut,” it says.
But it was up to SNAP recipients who pay their own utility bills separately to call the state and say so — and perhaps prove it.
Robillard’s utilities are folded into the rent for her new apartment. Before last month, she wasn’t paying any rent or utilities at all. Either way, she’s part of the affected group.
“Today I’m going to go look for a food bank,” she said. “I guess I’m going to be doing food boxes for the next couple of months.”
The good news for Washington SNAP recipients is, the reduction is temporary and will be reversed in late January 2015 with supplemental payments that restore the previous status quo. “We will get you back to where you were by making two deposits to your EBT card in January,” the state’s explainer says.
Federal cutbacks
What’s it all about? According to The Associated Press, this hiccup in benefits was triggered by the federal 2014 Farm Bill and its attempt to close a food stamp program loophole nicknamed “heat and eat.” That allows families that get a minimal amount of federal heating assistance — it used to be $1 a year — to maximize their food aid. Some states had been shelling out that minimum amount of heating assistance so their SNAP recipients could get as much food as possible.
Congress, interested in trimming the $80 billion food stamps program, tried to curtail “heat and eat” by raising the minimum amount of heating assistance required to $20 per year, according to the AP. But a dozen governors, including Washington’s Jay Inslee, responded by committing to meet that new minimum — drawing on other federal funds, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program — so SNAP recipients won’t go hungrier than they already are.
“These families have already suffered from significant reductions in the help they receive,” Inslee said in an announcement.
But if there’s no permanent reduction in benefits, why are Robillard and as many as 200,000 Washingtonians in all experiencing this temporary cut right now?
Because of technology, apparently. The governor’s office has said a backlog in reprogramming computers should be cleared up in January, according to AP.
“Changing the DSHS computer system takes time. The system won’t be ready to implement … until January 2015. Some households will get a cut in November and December,” a nonprofit legal clinic, Columbia Legal Services, explained to its clients in a statement this fall.
