Copyright keenesentinel
The N.H. Executive Council approved a $2 million expenditure Wednesday to help feed 74,000 Granite Staters whose SNAP benefits stand to be disrupted starting Saturday if the government shutdown continues. N.H. Food Bank will use the money to deploy additional mobile food pantries statewide for those in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly called Food Stamps. The program for people of lower income normally receives $12.6 million in monthly federal funding in New Hampshire, so the state contract is a temporary stopgap that won’t begin to replace all the lost benefits. Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill noted that the $2 million expenditure will cover roughly 16 percent of the SNAP benefits in the state. “The families in New Hampshire that are most in need will have less funds to buy groceries and have to travel greater distances to get food,” said Liot Hill, D-Lebanon, whose district takes in much of the Monadnock Region. “This is extremely disruptive and quite honestly cruel. “I will vote in favor of the contract today because something is better than nothing, but this is a Band-Aid, not a solution, for hungry families, and New Hampshire taxpayers are paying the price.” Funding for SNAP and many other federal programs and workers lapsed because Congress failed to pass appropriation bills by Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year. U.S. Senate Democrats have refused to provide Republicans the 60 votes they need to end the shutdown without an agreement to restore health care funding that was cut by the GOP. Both parties blame each other for the impasse. At Wednesday’s Executive Council meeting in Concord, Gov. Kelly Ayotte said state and charitable actions to feed people stand in contrast to the inaction on Capitol Hill. “Washington needs to get their act together because there are people who need food and we’re going to put feeding people over the, you know, gridlock and the talking and the rhetoric because that’s what we’re seeing in Washington,” the Republican governor said. On Tuesday, more than two dozen states, not including New Hampshire, sued the Trump administration over its refusal to allow SNAP to use reserve funds to temporarily cover program costs. An estimated one in nine Granite Staters experience food insecurity, meaning not having access to sufficient food or food of adequate quality, according to the N.H. Food Bank. The N.H. Department of Health and Human Services says on its website that SNAP eligibility depends on household size, income, expenses and resources, and that people can apply online at nheasy.nh.gov or can get an application in the mail by calling 603-271-9700. The program provides financial assistance for the purchase of food items such as milk and other dairy products; meat, fish, poultry, eggs and beans; cereals, rice, pasta and other grain products. Other items that can be purchased with SNAP assistance include any ingredient used for baking or cooking; fruits and vegetables; cold deli foods for home consumption; ice and water for human consumption; infant formula; some special dietetic or diabetic food and “natural” or “organic” food items; and garden seeds and plants for growing food at home. The department announced on Oct. 21 that it had secured funding from the USDA to continue funding the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children until at least Nov. 7. That program covers about 13,000 people in New Hampshire.
